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Critique the keynote speech

Doctor Q

Doctor Q

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Original poster
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
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Los Angeles
What did you think of Steve Jobs' keynote presentation? I'm not talking about the products he announced, just how his "show" was, whether the demos made their points, if the presenters and guests were good choices, etc.

For example, I liked John Mayer's appearance, but it wasn't quite as much fun as watching Steve call Paris on his iSight last time.

And do you think that Steve convinced us, as he usually does, that he was telling us about the coolest stuff on the planet?
 
Here are some little mistakes I think I spotted:

(1) In the MS Excel demo, the "shrink to fit" option made the graph fit on one page, but left the document with two pages, so you'd get a 2nd (blank) page if you printed it.

(2) At Virginia Tech, they were installing cards without wearing wrist straps for grounding, setting a bad example.

(3) Did Steve fail to say the name of the "1984" ad creator who stood up? If so, was that a mistake?

Did anyone spot any other glitches, trivial or otherwise?
 
The only real uncomfortable part of the speech was the lady from Microsoft announcing Office 2004. I think that she was just nervous, I know that I would be.

Steve is very charasmatic. His performance was impressive, seemed to be at ease and confidant. The numbers that he gave were impressive. "The Mac OS X transformation is over, we have arrived."

I also liked the John Mayer appearance, he added musical expertise. He seemed to be a natural.

Steve was superb as usual! :cool:
 
Originally posted by Doctor Q
Here are some little mistakes I think I spotted:

(1) In the MS Excel demo, the "shrink to fit" option made the graph fit on one page, but left the document with two pages, so you'd get a 2nd (blank) page if you printed it.
Click to expand...

I think that the reason the page on the side turned dark was to show that the pages were shrinking to fit one page, width-wise.

And yes, Roz Ho was very uncomfortable. Was it Ho or Ha?!
 
I always find Steve Jobs very interesting to listen to you... he makes you feel that owning a Mac is something special.

My friends came to watch the keynote with me at the Apple store (one wants to switch) and he really enjoyed the keynote. He felt that Jobs really made him feel that he could be so creative and whatnot just by using the new iLife software.
 
Originally posted by bobindashadows
I think that the reason the page on the side turned dark was to show that the pages were shrinking to fit one page, width-wise.

And yes, Roz Ho was very uncomfortable. Was it Ho or Ha?!
Click to expand...
I would be uncomfortable too if I worked for M$ and Steve Jobs just told an audience of thousands of people, "Microsoft is copying us again--it feels great!"

The only 'glitch', if you can call it that, that I noticed was John Mayer's guitar almost falling off when the strap came off! He caught it luckily.

One funny thing I noticed, which I'm sure everyone did...you could've heard a pin drop when steve announced the price of the new iPod mini. Silence :)
 
Originally posted by MattG
One funny thing I noticed, which I'm sure everyone did...you could've heard a pin drop when steve announced the price of the new iPod mini. Silence :)
Click to expand...
Yes, that's gotta be it. It was a minor glitch. He meant to say $2.49!
 
Originally posted by Doctor Q
Yes, that's gotta be it. It was a minor glitch. He meant to say $2.49!
Click to expand...
The blurb on the iPod mini on the Macworld website is kind of funny. Starts out with:

I'm withholding final judgment until I hold one in my hand, but at first blush, the iPod mini hints that much of Apple was on lunch break when the "Power Mac G4 Cube: Lessons Learned" memo circulated.
 
I thought Steve was a little low-energy. Not nearly as excited as he usually appears to be at these types of events. Maybe it was because he knew that everyone in the room was expecting a $99 (or $149) iPod announcement, but that his 'big finish' was a $249 iPod.

Also, I was listening to the stream through headphones, and he seemed to be clearing his throat about every 30 seconds. Not good when you're wearing a body mic. Perhaps he has a bit of a cold (would explain the low energy).

I thought he *did* mention the name of the 1984 ad guy. Don't remember for sure.
 
Actually, I thought the John Mayer bit was a little uncomfortable. He had a tendency to jump in and say things that were unscripted and Steve, control freak that he is, looked really uncomfortable waiting for Mayer to shut up so he could get on with the show.

Mayer made good points and probably helped sell interest in Garage Band (I refuse to spell this without a space--what's the point?), but you could tell that Steve was freaking out whenever they weren't precisely on message.

Also, the camera angle wasn't right for me to be sure about this, but I thought I saw iPhoto slow down and scale pictures in a slower, jerkier motion the very last time Steve did it. He seemed to hastily change the subject.

And Steve was definitely rushing it. There were a lot of slides that he skipped in a hurry.
 
Being my usual compulsive self about reporting the facts, I watched parts of the keynote again just to find out the answer.

The answer: I was wrong. Steve Jobs introduced Lee Clow (who was creative director at Chiat/Day) as the creator of the "1984" ad. Mea culpa.

But I spotted a new mistake: Steve Jobs used the word widespreadly when talking about the 1984 ad's great reputation! I don't think that word is in the dictionary.
 
I caught another one. I might forgive him for "Jag-wire", since there are a few ways to pronounce the word "Jaguar", but he also said "Feb-you-ary" instead of "Feb-roo-ary" for "February". Yeah, I know, a lot of people make that mistake.
 
I'm looking for anything interesting about "the show", but I found another nitpick: Steve tells the great news about the Pepsi promotion. Then he's thirsty so he takes a sip of.... water! Maybe he's still mad at John Sculley?
 
I believe the first r in February is supposed to be silent. I swear I have never, in my 28 years of life, ever heard someone say something as preposterous as FEB roo ayr ee.
 
I realize there might be a little skirmish over the February thing, so I looked it up.

The Sherlock dictionary only lists a pronunciation that uses both r's.

However my home dictionary, a New Riverside University Dictionary, gives both pronunciations. It lists the double-r pronunciation first, but also lists the silent first r pronunciation.

I guess it's a dialect thing. And as we all know, don't get me started on dialects. ;)
 
I could also see that Steve was uncomfortable when John Mayer started talking, but John only added to how great Garage Band is and I think it was nice that they brought him out. It was definitely not something that I was expecting.

As for the February thing, the only person who I've heard say it Feb roo ary is my fourth grade teacher, who basically threatened to kill anyone if they said it with the silent R.
 
Originally posted by Doctor Q
Here are some little mistakes I think I spotted:

(1) In the MS Excel demo, the "shrink to fit" option made the graph fit on one page, but left the document with two pages, so you'd get a 2nd (blank) page if you printed it.

(2) At Virginia Tech, they were installing cards without wearing wrist straps for grounding, setting a bad example.

(3) Did Steve fail to say the name of the "1984" ad creator who stood up? If so, was that a mistake?

Did anyone spot any other glitches, trivial or otherwise?
Click to expand...

(2) You don't need a static strap if you discharge yourself by touch the case prior.
In the 6 yrs I've worked on PC's and a few Mac's I've never used one.

(3) He did call him by name.


I have feeling the iPod mini wasn't meant to come out now. Reason being it seems like it was almost a price matching the new Rio 4GB player that just came out today as well. I believe in 6 months or less a new iPod mini will debut if not two iPod mini's to make it 3 in the product lineup instead of just 1. I also feel pricing will probably drop by $50 atleast by then.

2GB = $150
4GB = $199
6GB = $249

or something close to that in about 6 months or so.
 
Originally posted by Doctor Q
I'm looking for anything interesting about "the show", but I found another nitpick: Steve tells the great news about the Pepsi promotion. Then he's thirsty so he takes a sip of.... water! Maybe he's still mad at John Sculley?
Click to expand...

To me SJ looked sick or is just coming off a flu bug. He really didn't act like he wanted to be there.

The MS team looked like goof troop and you could tell they were scared of getting booed. But having the new MS Office at the keynote make me wonder if that was just filler or something? Because I really didn't want to hear about MS products as I only wanted to hear about Apple products and hardware.

Notice he did not point out the new Xserves use the new IBM 90nm processors. Even the G5 Xserve doesn't even meant this. You have to actually download the tech pdf file to get this info.

It's almost like Apple is trying to hide it. So much so it's no wonder most Intel and AMD sites think it sucks because it's the old 130nm processors in the new G5 Xserves. When they found out it was new 90nm most of them shut their traps because NO ONE in the PC world has new 90nm processor. Looks like the G5 PM's will be hitting a new first yet again.
 
After just watching the Keynote again, I see that there isn't any less reaction when he talks about other parts of the ipod mini. An akward silence would have been very appropriate.
 
Another goof: They forgot to have Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) come out to promote the iPod Mini!
 
Originally posted by Flowbee
Also, I was listening to the stream through headphones, and he seemed to be clearing his throat about every 30 seconds. Not good when you're wearing a body mic. Perhaps he has a bit of a cold (would explain the low energy).
Click to expand...

Actually, I started noticed this continual throat clearing a couple of years ago at the Worldwide Developers Conference and then, at MacWorld. He usually seems to manage it by slugging from bottled water every few minutes. Maybe he can't pay for decent healthcare with rides in his Gulfstream??;)

cheerz!
 
Originally posted by Awimoway
I believe the first r in February is supposed to be silent. I swear I have never, in my 28 years of life, ever heard someone say something as preposterous as FEB roo ayr ee.
Click to expand...

Both pronunciations are valid (if for no other reason than people understand them both) and are included in dictionaries.

Growing up in Kentucky, I only heard feb-yoo-ary used by uneducated relatives and feb-broo-ary by educated relatives, so I have a bias toward the latter.

Lie-bary vs. lie-brary is similar.

On the other hand, nook-u-lar vs. nu-kle-ar is something that will always evoke a negative response from me ... the Thief-in-Chief occupying the Oval Office had better avoid nuclear-oriented discussions around me ...
 
Originally posted by ITR 81
(2) You don't need a static strap if you discharge yourself
Click to expand...

VA Tech must be a great place to work ... peoplel usually give me grief when I discharge myself at work ...

:D
 
I was a bit underwhelmed at the whole keynote. The sysadmin in me knows the G5 Xserve is truly a BIG DEAL, but I tend to look for something to wow the consumer in me - and the $249 mini iPod certainly doesn't fit that bill (if I didn't have an iPod, I know I'd just cough up the extra dough and get 10-15 more gigs with the real McCoy). I'm wondering if perhaps they saw how the "Year of the Powerbook" ended up biting them in the, er, neck, so they didn't want to set themselves up for some potentially embarrassing situation this year.

I also agree that Jobs seemed uncomfortable with Mayer's impromptu talking, which is too bad since John made good points that are more likely to sell GarageBand to musicians than anything Steve said. I did like the impromptu wisecrack about the new ad slogan "it'll keep your teenagers locked in their rooms forever". :D
 
This was the first time I saw Steve Jobs speaking in public and I thought he was extremely good at it. I was impressed by how relaxed he seemed and most of the presentation went really well, especially the demos.

I felt a bit sorry for the MicroSoft woman, Roz, because her task was hard. Her presentation style was low key and soporific and I thought she over-used the somewhat loaded "innovation" word.

I liked the iPhoto "cube" transition (as did the audience) and in general, the application seems much faster than before. Having said that, I thought it took just a little too long to rotate a photo - it didn't seem that much faster than on my Wallstreet G3 233MHz Powerbook :rolleyes:

With the iPod, at one point I thought he wasn't even going to announce mini Ipods because I thought he used the word "final" when talking about the new 15GB. I'm not sure. Could have been a deliberate attempt to get more of a reaction for the mini Ipod announcement or maybe I just misheard.

Oh, and I wish he hadn't made the comment about wiping out the competition for hard disk MP3 player market. Competition is the buyer's friend.
 
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