| Keynote '08: Use all that Power for Good, not Evil, my son! | | Date Created: 08 Aug, 2007, 09:48 AM |
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With the release of a much anticipated update to Keynote, first released in 2003, Keynote users have in their hands a very powerful piece of presentation software.
Those of us who've stayed with Keynote since version one, despite its severe limitations and feature set compared to the then corporate and educational standard, Powerpoint, have watched as Apple has eeked out version updates, each upgrade allowing a small number of improvements, bug fixes and feature increases to appear.
For myself, it meant finding ways to work around Keynote's limitations, and emphasise its positive properties, in particular its text abilities and visual clarity. And of course, what went unspoken until after the presentation: that it didn't use all those very familiar Powerpoint backgrounds and fonts which cause brain numbness the third day into a conference (or is that the third hour?)
While I haven't yet got my hands on Keynote 08, Apple's website has offered users some insights into some of its new features, including new timings and point-to-point on-slide animations (as above).
I am also intrigued by the new export functions, in particular the use of iTunes to make Keynote presentations widely available as podcasts, something I wrote about in this blog some months back here. In Keynote 3 and less, one had to share Keynote files as either converted Powerpoints, thus losing some of Keynote's more outstanding attributes in "dumbing down" to Powerpoint's lame transitions, or one exported to Quicktime. This kept all the effects as well as any embedded movies, but the resultant files were HUGE, and hardly useful for sharing, especially on-line.
But I have one fear, and I hope it can be avoided with a little education. Do you remember the early days of the Mac Plus, Pagemaker, and the LaserWriter? Do you recall what people did with those wonderful downloadable Postscript fonts Adobe pioneered?
We had single pages filled with a dozen fonts!
Because it made it more legible?
No! Because it could be done! In time, professional designers and publishers educated the masses tacitly, and we've moved away from throwing every font onto a page, to a more discerning appreciation of typography and page layout.
Unfortunately, to judge by many of the Powerpoints I see, we have some ways to go before users understand they need to become audience-centric, not technology-centric, and think carefully about how they get their message across, whether it's in the boardroom, lecture theatre or classroom.
Now that Keynote has been imbued with much desired features, let's hope that users proceed cautiously, keeping audiences in mind. Powerpoint 12 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac incorporate new versions of Powerpoint which contain many whistles and bells. And soon enough, we'll see their use in a continuing appalling fashion, as long as books on Powerpoint as well as conferences focus on the technology, and not the message delivery.
The same can now be said for Keynote. Please have fun with all its new features, as I intend to, taking some of my old presentations and juicing them up to see what's under the hood of '08.
But with such power comes even greater responsibility. Please, once you've got some practice with Keynote 08, remind yourself of why you're using it, and who its competition really is: the dominance of Powerpoint for Windows.
You don't need to do too much with Keynote for your audience to detect you know how to present well, especially if they're an audience familiar with Powerpoint. Just go steady with the new features and think wisely about how the new features will impact your audience. More features means greater choice and more opportunities to either screw up, or hit the mark without compromise.
When I get my hands on Keynote 08, I'll report further on this topic. It's going to be a very exciting time in presentationland in the next few months. |
You can download a free 30 day trial of iWork 08 (469MB - but a fast download from the Apple servers for me) here.
Hopefully, like other editions of iWork, you'll be able to go online before the thirty days are up and purchase a serial number.
Brian Peat of KeynoteUser group, has offered a rundown on the major features - please head over and take a look here.
I have a major presentation on Fear of Flying to do next week for QANTAS Pilots so looking forward to rejigging my Montreal presentation with Keynote 08! My guess is that none of them will have seen Keynote in action - ever. |
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