Keynote coverage!

I’ve ventured forth from the radiation-shielded areas to where the Internet connection is to provide our coverage of the Macworld keynote, which we know is vitial to the Mac community!

The keynote, of course. Not our coverage.

Steve takes the stage!

101 Apple retail stores around the world. A million visitors a week. Seven of those actually BUY stuff! It’s incredible. An apparently the London store is really nice. I dunno. The facade looks a little gaudy to me. Too Louis XIV.

iMac – the Wall Street Journal reviewer called it the “most elegant computer I’ve ever used.” The Detroit free press said “it’s the most incredible computer.” Swank said some nice things about it but sadly he can’t repeat any of them.

Mac OS X. Tiger. On schedule to ship it in the first half of this year. Let’s talk about Spotlight. NO! Let’s NOT talk about Spotlight! All you need to know is the other applications designed to do what it does SUCK! SUCK, DO YOU HEAR ME! SPOTLIGHT IS YOUR NEW GOD! BOW DOWN BEFORE ITS SEARCH CAPABILITIES! LOVE IT! FEAR IT!

He didn’t really say it like that, but I’m sure that’s what he meant.

You know what I love, I love how every keynote, people applaud eye candy. Ooh, shiny! Me applaud!

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just bitter because I’m stuck here bathed in the high-intensity radiation at the center of our galaxy and they’re all there sitting in their cushy chairs, getting t-shirts and CDs and stuff.

[sigh]

QuickTime. Steve demonstrates the high quality of QuickTime 7 by showing a movie featuring Apple’s elite ninja strike force. That’s is soooo elitist. Just flaunting up on the screen like that for everyone. Oooh, look at me, I’ve got an elite ninja strike force. Oh, you don’t have one? Oh, you simply must get one.

Pff.

Moving on, Dashboard widgets. Steve has a lot of fun with the widgets. Maybe a little too much fun. It’s kind of weird. Does every widget need a joke? I don’t know. I’m just asking the question.

I don’t remember there being a joke for all the Konfabulator widgets.

Is it me, or is he just punkin’ us?

iChat will now allow up to four video conferencing partners. And if one of them is Danika Cleary… duuuuude…

And for the ladies… Phil Schiller. So everyone’s a winner.

Steve: 2005 IS GOING TO BE THE YEAR OF HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO!

Hmm.

I was really kind of hoping it would be the year of rich, creamy butter, but…

Whatever.

High-definition video. That’s nice.

Here comes a major, major, MAJOR upgrade to iLife! For starters, there’s…

Hey, was that Al Gore in the audience?

And was he chewing gum?

What’s up with that? Did he bring enough for everyone?

Steve’s showing new iPhoto books that are available. I… don’t see a raunchy porn format. Hmm. That’s disappointing.

iMovie now edits high-definition video. Because, as you know, this is THE YEAR OF HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO!

Not rich, creamy butter.

Hmm.

Just think about the buzz they would have if they announced iMovie now came with rich, creamy butter.

But I don’t make those decisions.

Obviously.

Steve introduces the President of Sony, Kunitake Ando who’s talking about how Apple and Sony compete, but are working together on making 2005 THE YEAR OF HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO!

And, is it just me, or does Ando-san have it goin’ on, much the way Steve does? He even took his own “Oh, one more thing…” Could it be that Sony has developed its own reality distortion field?

Or maybe the radiation is finally taking effect.

Whoop. Yep. Just checked my little monitor. Too many rads.

Steve brings back John Mayer to demonstrate GarageBand 2. Sadly, guys like John Mayer are not going to be coming over to your house to make your cheesy GarageBand songs sound better.

iWork! “Building the replacement to Apple Works.”

Wait, “Building”? Jeez, they don’t have it done yet? How dead does a product have to be before you think, “Darrrr, maybe I should build a replacement.”?

Well, it includes Keynote 2 and Pages, a new word processor demoed by none other than the lovely Phil Schiller. Phil will be performing the demo with several costume changes, and don’t miss his stunning conclusion where he balances twenty china cups on his head while spinning plates on sticks with both hands!

He really is amazing.

OK, here we go! The Mac Mini! Yes! Finally! A cheap Mac that ships without a monitor, keyboard or mouse!

I have no idea why I’m excited about that because I have absolutely no use for one of these. But it’s still kind of cool.

Um, assuming you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. And you like them. And they work. And the monitor doesn’t take twenty minutes to warm up now and the keyboard doesn’t have Cheez-It dust gumming up all the keys and the mouse doesn’t jump all over the screen.

Whoa. Apple sold over 4.5 million iPods for the holiday quarter. 500% growth.

I actually don’t have a snarky remark to make about that.

Man, this radiation must be really heavy.

I should probably get back into the lead-lined lounge.

But first, one more thing…

The iPod Shuffle.

Um.

It’s a tiny, inexpensive iPod that just randomly plays your songs.

Hmm. I dunno.

I have a lot of crappy songs.

Well.

OK, I gotta run as my flesh is starting to peel off of me. Things are going well here, though. We hope to be back soon.

Until then, enjoy THE YEAR OF HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO! HUZZAH!