David Flynn15 January 2008, 10:14 PM
12 outbreaks of whooping and cheering, 52 rounds of applause and one very telling silence were the soundscape of Steve Jobs keynote.
Steve Jobs' keynotes always have a unique soundscape. For starters, unlike most keynote addresses from Microsoft, Intel and co, there's no announcement or introduction - no deep disembodied spiel of "Ladies and gentlemen, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple, Mr Steve Jobs!"
The lights dim, the music softens as the crowd starts to whistle, and then Job saunters onto the stage to being his annual January sermon from the Macworld mount.
During his 65 minute address (we discounted the time taken by his walk-on and musical guests), we tallied 52 bursts of applause and a further 12 milder outbreaks of cheers and whoops of laughter. All up, that represents an appreciative audience response almost once every minute - a high strike rate which might be bested only by an Amway pep rally, a Tony Robins self-help seminar or the Sunday service at a Pentecostal church.
The biggest response was of course for the MacBook Air, especially the wondrous 'multi-touch' touchpad which uses a series of iPhone-like gestures to move windows and manipulate photos. That one almost brought the house down.
Oddly enough, the next biggest roar was reserved for the announcement that the iTunes Movie Rental scheme would offer HD movies with Dolby 5.1 sound.
Third to break the sound barrier was the news that the souped-up software for the impressive Apple TV 2.0 would be made available free of charge to owners of the original Apple TV.
But not all software upgrades won over the crowd. While the many enhancements in the new iPhone 1.1.3 firmware come free, the equivalent updater for the iPod Touch will cost US$20 (A$25).
 The silent touch: no applause for the news that Apple will charge users to put back into the iPod Touch the features that it originally took out |
This is despite the fact that many of the 'new' features that Jobs touted - such as Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes - were already built into in the iPhone codebase on which the Touch was built, and then deliberately removed in order to help separate the devices and 'upsell' US customers to the iPhone.
That Apple would charge customers for putting back what it first took away (after all, the Touch's other new tricks are free for iPhone owners) was met with a brief but noticeable silence from the crowd. To this writer, it even appeared to briefly throw Jobs off his pace, as he seemed ready for a repeat of the applause that greeted the just-announced free iPhone upgrade.
As the keynote entered its last minutes we also heard many hopeful whispers of "Just one more thing" from the seats around us, as media and Joe Public alike prepared themselves for the Jobs' traditional finale that this time around, and for what we're told is the first time at a San Francisco keynote, did not arrive.
David Flynn is attending Macworld 2008 at San Francisco as a guest of Apple
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