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Ho-hum, I couldn't resist watching a re-run of the Macworld keynote in the background. I think El Steve wasn't too impressive – particularly towards the end.
Of course he was still better than the people from Microsoft, who made their product announcement sound as exciting as an aircraft security announcement. Which may have been caused by their content as well. Even more features, simply click the new button in the bottom right corner
s, new toolbars, breaking Mac UI Guidelines… when do they get the clue?.
Keynotes tend to be scary affairs – particularly if you've just got a new product like I got my iPod for christmas. From that point of view, I must say that I am quite pleased with the keynote's results: Nothing particularly exciting.
The little iPods look like a good idea for the people who don't want store big amounts of music or spend big amounts of money... ahem, $250 is still quite a lot and the bang per buck isn't too good when compared to the 15GB model. Still, many people will have sufficiently small music collections and like the smaller size I suppose. In addition: Colour seems to be back at Apple. If the iPod ads were a hint, the little iPods make this real. What I really like about the little iPod, is the whell-cum-button design, btw. Too bad they don't have it in the large one.
The iLife upgrade doesn't look too exciting – although iPhoto may finally be mature enough to be usable. I used iMovie for the first time ever this christmas and was very impressed with its ease of use, but I can't say too much about that.
What triggered my gag-reflex, though, was GarageBand. Not only does its welded-together name destroy the illusion that Apple got the clue by baptising applications like 'Address Book', 'System Preferences' or 'Activity Monitor' with proper two word names, but I also fear that it'll mean we'll have to endure a lot of homemade muzak and Dire Straits soundalikes in the near future.
And wtf screwed their brains when they came up with yet another window style that is ugly beyond repair? I simply don't get it.
I'd still be interested in knowing how good those digital instruments really sound. One of the main reasons I stopped looking into proper keyboards is that you have to fork out quite a lot of money to get a decent sound.
Finally, the iPod 1984 ad was a nice idea, there's something called XGrid around and upgrades to AppleWorks (will they ever come or has it been sacrifices to Microsoft?) or Safari were absent. As was a visionary 20th Mac anniversary product.
And that was that.