Experiences at the Keynote
After my posts from the keynote line, I did my best to just enjoy the experience and not feel obligated to take pictures. However, I did take some pictures, and I will show some of those here.
After waiting on the second level of Moscone West for an hour or two, they sent us up another set of elevators, trying to prevent us from running. Before Tuesday, to discourage people from heading to the third floor, they have both escalators going down. It would actually be hilarious to see someone trying to get up there, with a security guard looking down from the top. Anyway, that last escalator ride felt like the longest escalator ride of my life, and I mentioned out loud that it was “the most significant escalator ride of my life.” After we reached the third floor, they couldn’t contain us any longer. It became a running game to see who could get to the best seats first.
There was something extremely surreal about seeing the keynote room for the first time. I paired up with my new Asian friend who I mentioned earlier, Edwin Tan, and we both found some reasonable seats somewhat close to the front. The reason we paired up was so that he could hold our two reasonable seats while I scouted ahead and looked for some better ones. It worked.
Some official keynote people were holding VIP signs to mark the VIP section in the front, and I noticed that VIPs would quickly flash their badge to get let in. I casually flashed my measly Platinum badge in the same way, and they bought it. I had successfully sneaked into the VIP section. There were a couple vacant seats about 18 rows back, so I signaled Edwin to come with me and we both got the seats. After we sat down, I took some pictures, which was difficult in the large dark room.
Our view was very nice.
He was nice enough to take a picture of me, which was also difficult from the tight seating. Our stumbling probably upset the journalists who were sitting next to us.
The music before the keynote consisted mostly of Coldplay, which I believe is a favorite of Steve. The last song before the keynote started was Feist’s 1234, made famous by the latest iPod nano commercial. It might have been the anticipation, but I would swear the music got louder and louder leading up to the keynote. As the song fades out, the lights dim, and everyone is silent with anticipation. The Reality Distortion Field™ is in full effect before Steve even takes the stage.
After the new ad finishes playing, Steve takes the stage. I’m so distracted by his presence that I forgot to do the Keynote Bingo. I didn’t really care either. The online video doesn’t do justice to the applause he gets. I won’t describe everything he said, because you can see most of that in the streaming video on Apple’s website. Here are some pictures anyway…
Steve made a couple mistakes, such as stating Time Machine as a new feature in Tiger and naming a percentage incorrectly. He handled the Flickr problem well.
One of the things you won’t see in the video is the audience response to when he announced that the iPod touch Software Update would cost $20. There was a distinct sound of discontent in the audience, and I might have even heard a “no” or a “boo”. Apple cleverly silenced this in the video.
Another observation I made from the keynote is the resolution and quality of the graphics on Steve’s slides. Clearly, he has required full quality images for everything; absolutely nothing is pixelated. The vector graphics look really nice, and the quality can’t be captured by any digital camera.
Randy Newman’s performance was both controversial and wonderful. When Steve first told who was performing, I remember wondering who the guy was. It was when Randy Newman was performing his first song about America that I realized he was the singer of You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story. To the delight of my inner child, he performed that song next. It was so great that I decided to use my live footage in my music video for Mr. Chovanes.
I’ve already made a post about my encounter with Steve Jobs. All I can add is that he looks a lot older and skinnier in person.
Outside the keynote room, I encountered David Pogue by the giant Apple banners, recording some footage for a story on CNBC.
He accidentally looked at me during one of his takes, and had to do it all over again. I managed to take a snapshot the moment he looked at me, and his face is priceless.
Once he was done with his video, I went up to him and shook his hand. I told him how much I enjoyed his iPhone musical, which he appreciated. Apple was also giving away large MacBook Air posters for everyone that attended the keynote, so I grabbed one before heading down the escalators. Once you go down the escalators, they don’t let you back up.
Edwin and I headed over to Moscone South, which was already being flooded by thousands of Apple fans. Even more interesting was that there is no tunnel connecting the West and South Halls, like there is between the North and South Halls. This means that there are thousands of people all crossing the busy San Francisco streets at once. I’m surprised nobody got hurt.
At the Apple booth, they were already giving demos of the MacBook Air, and you could check one out for yourself if you could get through the mass of people. They had about five suspended in the “air” on wires, and my first thought was that they sacrificed ten MacBook Airs to drill holes in them and hang them on wire. How appalling.
I spent the rest of the day checking out the expo and playing with the technology. It was a geek’s dream; the kind of thing the average person can’t appreciate.
One of the nice extras for the Platinum Pass was free meals all week. For each day of the week, I had a $15 coupon for anything served in the many food places at Moscone. It was enough to buy a large sandwich, chips, and a drink.
While I was there, I purchased a spare battery for my MacBook Pro from FastMac. They have had a special battery for a while that supposedly has more capacity than Apple’s battery for a lower price, but it had not yet been available for my computer. I have been waiting for them to release it for my computer, and I was finally able to get one at the expo. They even had a discount because it was at Macworld, and it is still unavailable on their website. I really enjoy having two batteries now.
That’s all for Tuesday. I’ll follow up with everything from the rest of the week.
Next: Wednesday Conferences and Presentations
About Me
Hi, I'm Neil! I'm passionate about building delightful products at scale, creating music, and performing in theatre and comedy shows.
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