Macworld: What was missing from the keynote

As this is the first Steve Jobs Keynote I've ever attended where the Apple CEO never mentioned a computer, perhaps it was, indeed, appropriate when he announced that "Apple Computer, Inc." would now be simply "Apple, Inc."

The two-plus hours of the keynote were devoted almost entirely to Apple TV and the iPhone. Early on, Jobs mentioned the 2 billion songs sold on iTunes, the 50 million TV shows sold/downloaded since that service began, and the addition of Paramount as a movie partner.

And of course, no Keynote would be complete without a few digs at every Mac user's favorite "competitor," including a large pie chart showing Zune's barely visible market share, a quote from Microsoft's Jim Allchin that said if he weren't working there, he'd buy a Mac, and the latest "I'm a Mac" ad showing the poor PC wearing nothing but a surgical gown, as he fearfully awaited his upgrade to Windows Vista and all the "major surgery" to his inner workings that would surely ensue.

All that took ten minutes, tops.

But other than the claim that "half the Macs we sold last year, in every supply chain, were sold to switchers [from PCs]", no mention was made of computers, or any improvements to any existing Apple products, be it hardware or software:

• No new chips for any computers
• No updates or upgrades to Apple applications/suites, such as iLife, iWork, Aperture, or Final Cut
• No new desktop displays
• And nothing at all about OS X "Leopard — and isn't that supposed to be released relatively soon, now?

It was as though Apple's other products just didn't exist. There was certainly nothing new on the show floor in that regard, either. All the floor demos were for the iPhone and Apple TV. I can understand why Steve was really elated over his newest products, but at least he could have given the crowd of Mac faithful a sense of when he will talk about those other things, and not just leave us all hanging.

And of course, with all the hype surrounding Apple's partnership with Cingular, there was no mention of "net neutrality" at any time during the presentation...in case anyone was wondering.

— Thomas A. Olson 

Thomas Olson, the Publishing Systems Administrator for Consumer Reports' Editorial, Design, Production and Pre-Press groups, has been a Mac enthusiast since 1984.

—Marc Perton