Keynote: Apple Presentation Software Rumors

[mstecker]

Keynote = Concurrence from the NeXT?

I'm an old-time NeXT-er, and from what I saw of Keynote during the ... um ... Keynote, it looks suspiciously like a fantastic application that used to be available for the NeXT called Concurrence - made by Lighthouse Deisgn.

Lighthouse was eventually bought by Sun, and their code scuttled after an abortive attempt to port everything to Java. Still, I know that Steve used Concurrence at NeXT and loved it. I wouldn't be suprised at all if they re-hired some of the old lighthouse people to redo it.

If you take a look at OmniGraffle, it is clearly a rewrite of Diagram! (also from Lighthouse Deisgn) for the NeXT. In fact, it even reads NeXT .diagram files. Does anyone have a copy of Keynote yet? Can someone tells me if it knows how to import ".concur" files? This would be both a dead giveaway and a cool feature.

Anyone else who knows Concurrence able to comment?

 

[JBracy]

re: Keynote

I did some presentations with Apple a few months ago (when I worked for Quark) I wondered then why everyone was running PowerPoint Test Drive on their Macs instead of the full version. I'm now guessing that they created the presentation in a beta of Keynote and because others (such as me) would be using the same machine had to run it from PP.

 

[praetorian_x]

telling, isn't it: Most rumor sites talk about what they got *right*. Macrumors is talking about the one thing it got wrong...

I guess when you phullie-ownz everyone else, you can be humble.

 

[Furious Tiger]

Re: Keynote = Concurrence from the NeXT?

Originally posted by mstecker
I'm an old-time NeXT-er, and from what I saw of Keynote during the ... um ... Keynote, it looks suspiciously like a fantastic application that used to be available for the NeXT called Concurrence - made by Lighthouse Deisgn.

Lighthouse was eventually bought by Sun, and their code scuttled after an abortive attempt to port everything to Java. Still, I know that Steve used Concurrence at NeXT and loved it. I wouldn't be suprised at all if they re-hired some of the old lighthouse people to redo it.

If you take a look at OmniGraffle, it is clearly a rewrite of Diagram! (also from Lighthouse Deisgn) for the NeXT. In fact, it even reads NeXT .diagram files. Does anyone have a copy of Keynote yet? Can someone tells me if it knows how to import ".concur" files? This would be both a dead giveaway and a cool feature.

Anyone else who knows Concurrence able to comment?

You can still download them: http://lighthouse.ithinksw.com/
I remember it, but can't remember if it interacted like Keynote, I was very young (i am 33). Enjoy if you still have a NeXT Box.

 

[Codemonkey]

iWork?

Ya, now that I type it it sounds cutesy.... but what if they do for office apps like they're doing for iLife? Release them piecemeal to see how they weather (essentially betas), then once they've got a stable base bundle them together into an iWork suite.

Based upon what we just saw with iLife, this could be how they venture deeper into the corporate IT coffers?

[edit] Heck, this would be a good way to get soho businesses on the Apple bandwagon as well.[/edit]

 

[chicagdan]

To me, Keynote was the best announcement of the day by Jobs. PowerPoint has been systematically ruining my life for the past four years, taking what was once a fun and lucrative speechwriting career and turning into technology slavery. I've dreamed of the day someone would have the balls to challenge this wretched piece of software.

I wonder why everyone keeps asking about a new office suite when Apple is doing something much smarter -- filling market niches one by one. Maybe the whole point is that no one should have to buy a full office suite if they don't use all the components.

Two days and counting until I uninstall PowerPoint from my iMac forever.

 

[Codemonkey]

Originally posted by chicagdan

[snip]
I wonder why everyone keeps asking about a new office suite when Apple is doing something much smarter -- filling market niches one by one. Maybe the whole point is that no one should have to buy a full office suite if they don't use all the components.
[snip]

Uh.... actually, you _can_ buy the Office components one by one. You technically don't have to buy the Office X suite...

Of course, the individual apps are grossly overpriced, and together costs about as much as a small car, but still...

Love the slavery comment!

 

[granex]

Concurrence

I also thought that the screen shots looked a lot like Concurrence for the NeXT, which I used for a number of years. PowerPoint does somethings better, but the thing that I hate about Microsoft products is how poorly they interact with other non MS programs.

I used to do all of my graphics in postscript on the NeXT and then be able to move things around with no problems. Concurrence could show anything I made on the NeXT simply because of the system software.

The layout of Keynote definitely looks similar. It wouldn't be too hard to mimic the functionality using the Cocoa frameworks.

 

[Apple][Forever]

Not to mention some of the other stuff on that list... looks like the "new iBook at SF" rumor was sorta true (12" PB), and FireWire 800 (of course, that was more of a given than a rumor, but still.)

CONGRATULATIONS to Arn and MacRumors for being right on the money!

Here were MY predictions from Dec. 16th:

Oh, and an iMac speed bump and elimination of the 15" LCD model.

$100 price cuts on PowerMacs.

iMovie, iTunes, iSync updates.

No Bluetooth, portables were just updated and I believe Apple is barely making the $999 price point on iBook.

No 970s, too early.

No new devices or updates to the iPod.

Clarification of OS 9 plans (Officially Dead as of end of 2003 would be my guess.)

and that's why I don't run a rumor site.

 

[OSeXy!]

(scratching head) Very strange...

I gave a lecture at my old architecture school about 6 weeks ago and as I was setting up my PowerBook, the school's AV technician looked at my screen and said, "thank god we Mac Users won't have to slum it on PowerPoint much longer!". I asked him what he meant - a new version of iPhoto perhaps? He told me I'd find out exactly what he meant on January 7th! I didn't think that much more about it, but now I'm thinking: "Hmm... Where the hell did he get his info?"

Ps. Hats off to the MacRumors team for their pre-MW insights and to Blakespot again for his real-time coverage! So much more concise and informative than, e.g. MOSR's! MacRumors is the real thing.

 

[tpavell]

Eventually...

Since Apple can't win by putting out cheaper or faster hardware, they'll beat MS by putting out cheaper but better software. Turn the tables so to speak. iLife completed the goal of winning over the home user, Keynote is just the beginning of winning over business users. In time, corporate thinking will turn around. After enough positive press reviews and ROI reports, it will be undeniable that paying a few more dollars for hardware, while saving on software and gaining productivity, will win out. It will take time, but I predict we'll see some major company switch to Apple and Apple will make sure everyone hears about it. Hasn't publisher O'Reilly already made some mention about switching to X-serve?

 

[cryptochrome]

Let's hope an Apple Office suite includes a full relational database app. The one thing missing from MS Office v.X is Access - and surely Apple could do a better job than that (and make it useful for external SQL DBs and XML-based data as well as native file-based DBs).

Let's face it - spreadsheets just don't cut it, especially with long fields and duplicate field entries. And for the record, the first thing they'd want to include is an editing interface much like the one used in Address Book - compact but extremely flexible.

 

[tpavell]

Apple database

They could buyout Filemaker. Filemaker was a Claris product not long ago. And it's already cross platform and I think considered superior to Access.

 

[edenwaith]

AW7 or AppleOffice

This recent MW Expo certainly was a killer. One of the best in the past few years!

I was hoping for some word on an update on AppleWorks, but Keynote looks like a step in the proper direction. Now we can only speculate whether Apple will be redoing the entire office suite a piece at a time, or if they will come out with a new version of AppleWorks.

AppleWorks does about 99% of what I want to do, but there are two features I'd like to see.
- Better MS Word to AW conversion. Generally it does a pretty good job, but it can't translate pictures, and sometimes AW doesn't always see a .doc file as a MS Word file and run the translator.
- Save spreadsheets in HTML format. Very useful for converting a spreadsheet of grades to HTML and post them on the web.

But, if Keynote does stomp all over PowerPoint, then we might have something great to expect from Apple in the coming year. An updated, Apple-branded office suite would be...sweet. Especially with Apple's ability to push a little further and even spend time at rethinking things, office software by them would be nothing short from amazing.

My only critcism would be pricing. AppleWorks currently sells for $80 ($40 for education). That is a great deal compared to MS Office. Keynote alone costs $99. If Apple made an office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, and perhaps one or two other things such as a database or painting program, then I'd certainly buy it. One program I'd love to see improved is a painting program. Photoshop is great at what its meant to do, but it also has its limitations and costs A LOT. When I used to use PCs, my image program of choice was Paint Shop Pro. It did most of what I needed, had decent drawing tools, and didn't cost too much.

But I think there is still some development going on for AW. I've seen job postings on Apple's web site for AW Engineers. Considering AW 6.2.4 came out sometime in 2001, SOMETHING needs to be updated.


Now, does anyone have a clue if new Apple software such as Safari and Keynote absolutely NEED 10.2, or was it written to first check the OS version and close the program if they didn't have Jaguar yet?

Now what Apple needs to do is make a Mac and PC version of AW and charge at a lower price. $100 is great, $200 is border line, but above that, and I think they won't make tons of sales.

Who knows what lengths Apple goes to stop info being leaked out. They sued some guy/company when some info was released too early. But, hey, they aren't Hitler or Stalin who had thousands (if not millions) of people killed for whatever reason. In a German Culture class I took several years ago, supposedly 5000 people died after a bomb went off that injured Hitler, but did not succeed in killing him.

 

[edenwaith]

Re: Eventually...

Originally posted by tpavell
Since Apple can't win by putting out cheaper or faster hardware, they'll beat MS by putting out cheaper but better software. Turn the tables so to speak. iLife completed the goal of winning over the home user, Keynote is just the beginning of winning over business users. In time, corporate thinking will turn around. After enough positive press reviews and ROI reports, it will be undeniable that paying a few more dollars for hardware, while saving on software and gaining productivity, will win out. It will take time, but I predict we'll see some major company switch to Apple and Apple will make sure everyone hears about it.

Excellent point. It might take a tital wave of press releases to infultrate the minds of the general business world, but if Apple receives enough positive press, then a few wide thinkers might start making some other decisions.

Some people complain about the necessary time to 'retrain' people on how to use a different OS. There still aren't that many differences between Windows and Mac OS, in my eyes. I would say it might take a few hours to find what they are looking for. But if the standard icons for the software they use most often (office suite apps, let's say), they just need to click on them, and away they go!

Also I believe that Apple turning more into a software company is a good move. It costs just a few dollars for the documentation, box and CD to distribute, so most of the money they get is a profit. Whereas with hardware, there is a much larger overhead on the cost of the parts and assembly and checking that things work OK. Look at two computer companies: Oracle and Microsoft. What do they sell? Software, and have been quite successful in the process. What about hardware makers? Many of them have been going down the tubes since the various companies were trying to out-compete each other, and so pretty much everyone lost out (except for Dell on the PC world).

 

[Codemonkey]

I know it's waaay out there but...

What with all this talk about turning Apple into a more vialbe software company... I wonder if this might mean that if they actually need to rely on Marklar that they'll still have a rock solid base of other software (server, IT, corporate, soho, consumer) to keep on steaming along...

Heh. Sorry for the Marklar comment, not like it's been beaten to death or anything...

 

[QuiteSure]

Apple, Tread Lightly

I would be very surprised to see Apple take on MS Word and MS Excel. Those are two superb and deeply entrenched apps. I've been using both of these apps since 1988 and I cannot conceive of Apple overtaking them.

Face it: Word and Excel are kind of boring, but necessary. I don't see why Apple would want to compete in that arena.

That said, if Apple does decide to do its own high level office suite, I would certainly take a very close look.

 

[Doctor Q]

Apple should not compete with Word and Excel because (1) it's too hard to play catch up with such entrenched applications; (2) getting businesspeople to switch from a "standard" would be a hard sell, even if Apple created cheaper and technically superior products; (3) Apple needs to support some Microsoft products just to keep Microsoft happily in the Mac market. Keep your friends close, and your (potential) enemies closer!

QuickTime competing with Windows Media? Keynote competing with Powerpoint? Final Cut Express competing with Premiere? You bet! Apple is a multimedia specialist.

FileMaker competing with Access. Well, maybe.

AppleWorks Extreme competing with Word and Excel? No Thanks.

 

[jobberwacky]

Re: Keynote = Concurrence from the NeXT?

Originally posted by mstecker
I'm an old-time NeXT-er, and from what I saw of Keynote during the ... um ... Keynote, it looks suspiciously like a fantastic application that used to be available for the NeXT called Concurrence - made by Lighthouse Deisgn.

Maybe some ex-NeXTers did have an influence. However, Keynote also has clear similiarities to AppleWorks. AW comes with a template collection for presentations and you can integrate tables (but you can't make graphics from them).

If a NeXTstep app influenced Keynote it's more likely to be Chartsmith. Actually, the makers of Chartsmith, http://www.blacksmith.com/, might be fairly pissed about Keynote. They only introduced an OSX version of Chartsmith about half a year ago.

 

[iSmell]

Re: Powerpoint vs. Keynote

Originally posted by G4scott

Besides, the whole open-source thing is well worth it. Allowing other developers to put their best ideas into it will make this a wonderful product.

I couldn't find anything specific about this on the website, but I think the file format is an open standard and the program is not open source. This is an important, distinction. Other developers won't be able to mess with with Keynote itself, but they will be able to mess with/create Keynote files.

 

[iJon]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
How does Apple develop such products without the story leaking out? Do they behead squealers or make them use Windoze?

Personally I think we will be seeing less and less leaks. Steve does not take leaks seriously. Apple made an example of that other guy and they are tearing the s*** out of him and his life is a living hell right now. I know I wouldn't leak if i worked for apple now, not worth it at all.

iJon

 

[-hh]

I like "iWork"

Originally posted by Doctor Q
Apple should not compete with Word and Excel because (1) it's too hard to play catch up with such entrenched applications; (2) getting businesspeople to switch from a "standard" would be a hard sell, even if Apple created cheaper and technically superior products; (3) Apple needs to support some Microsoft products just to keep Microsoft happily in the Mac market. Keep your friends close, and your (potential) enemies closer!

True, but we all know that its only a matter of time until Microsoft hurts Apple again by dangling yet another old unupdated version of MacOffice, etc.

It is the huge number of businesses out there who are absolutely pissed off at Microsoft's current licencing policies, particularly how its extorting large gobs of money out of them that is the opportunity, and that's the reason that Apple should go after MS-Office MindShare.

Microsoft has made themselves too expensive for businesses to be happy in paying the bill.

Industry is already in a "Switch" campaign to an affordable (no annual fee) MS-Office compatible, Open Standards product, and currently, that's Linux.

Apple seems to be slowly lining up the pieces to do this as well ... let's just hope that they're not too slow!


-hh

 

[MrMacMan]

Arn like you needed anoter topic saying your right, again?
We get it you are 99.99999% right all the time, we get it.

We really didn't need to know you were right, the fact is:
MacRumors are always correct intill proved otherwise.

 

[robodweeb]

Re: Apple database

Originally posted by tpavell
They could buyout Filemaker. Filemaker was a Claris product not long ago.

Both Claris and Filemaker, Inc. are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Apple ... so Apple already owns Filemaker.

I would love to see tight integration between Keynote and Filemaker Pro ... without necessarily having to learn XML ... and I don't think it's too far off ...

cheerz!

 

[TMay]

Keynote is 80% of a page layout program

Screw presentations. This will be a terrific application to create photo albums that I print!

Even though I have both Pagemaker and Indesign, this looks like what an entry level page layout program should be.

Quartz rulz...