So, between my freelance joomla projects through The Peat Group, and my full time job at GlobalAwakening.com (that terrible website by the way, is on the list of things to get completely replaced with a Joomla solution this year) and just managing life…Keynoteuser.com has sat here dormant. I have several press releases that should have run last month which I hope to post later today. Things just get a head of me and then all of a sudden I have 3 or 4 stories that are months late. I have to wonder what the other theme makers think when they see that, yet again, I haven’t posted their stories of new theme releases.

Anyway, all that to say, I haven’t forgotten about this site. I have big plans for it in the future, I just have to find the time to do it. I need to overhaul the site theme (hoping to use a customize theme from the team at RocketTheme) and I have to build a companion Joomla site for the store to get it off my company site (always confuses people when they get sent to a completely different site to make their purchases). The plan is to use a “subscription” type system, so purchases would be treated as a non-expiring “subscription” that you can then log in ANY time in the future and download. They won’t be true subscriptions (because you only ever pay once for each product) but the system is more flexible than a regular shopping cart.

So, I’d like to thank my faithful readers and visitors who I’m sure check the site every so often wondering why there seems to never be anything new around here. Trust me, it bugs me as much as it bugs you (maybe more).

Lastly, I’d like to put a call out to anyone who is a serious Keynote fan who might like to be a part of a team who would maintain the site so I don’t have to. I can’t offer you anything in pay except free themes and the chance to get free review copies of software that’s related to Keynote (as long as you post a review of it). It’s possible if the site grows again and I get more income from it, I can start paying a staff to keep up on it (and I’m thinking of expanding it into iWorkUser.com instead of just Keynoteuser.com).

So there it is. Hopefully the future will be full of new and cool things for this site, I hope those of you who haven’t given up on it will stick around till I get through this low spot.

thanks!

-Brian Peat, Creator of Keynoteuser.com

In the past, you could use a Mini for Keynote, but you had to run a video splitter, or worse, just drive a large monitor or projection screen from the mini with no second preview screen at all. We’ve actually seen custom built Mac Mini mounts that hold a projector AND the mini, but again, everything ran in single screen mode.

That all changes today. The New Mac Mini sports a Mini DVI and a Mini Display Port. On top of that, Apple’s specs page has this to say about it:

• Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on a DVI or VGA display; up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on a dual-link DVI display using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately)

Note the “Extended desktop” support. That means that you can now get the presenter view on a Mac Mini. While it might have been technically possible in the past using a DisplayLink gadget, this is true dual screen support, with an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with up to 256 meg of video ram behind it. That’s way better than any usb driver could manage.

Now conference rooms and churches everywhere can at least save a little money and install a Mac Mini instead of a larger iMac or Mac Pro tower (or a laptop that could easily be swiped). True, it’s not as handy as a MacBook, but again, the Mini is small enough to be built into a system.

The one big drawback to all this is, if you are going to build a mini into your conference room, you’ll have to run a vga or dvi line back to your preview monitor (though there are VGA to Cat-5 adapters that can make this job easier). You’ll also need adapters for BOTH video ports since they’re both minis. Still, it’s good to see Apple really take this little machine to the next level.

Just don’t forget to order the bluetooth keyboard and mouse if you’re building in your mini. We’d hate for you to get it all installed and THEN realize you got the wired versions

Apple’s new Mac Mini

There were some benefits though, namely that ANYTHING you stuck behind a cutout got masked, so you could make fancy frames and stick a movie behind it to mask it. Another benefit was that a photo cutout could have a shadow cast INTO it, rather than out FROM it. This is something I wish Apple would bring back to the current masking system. There’s still no way to make a photo look like it’s sitting in a hole if you simply mask it with a shape.

Still, it was so limited that theme makers had to come up with some creative solutions to get around it. We at Keynoteuser.com created a system where the cutout was built of lots of vertical strips that could be stretched horizontally across a slide and connected so there were no seams. The problem with this was that because the cutouts only stretched horizontally, we had to include strips with varying height cutouts. You chose one and then stuck the end caps on, then slapped in the middle section and stretched it to the desired width. You can see this in action in our Keynote Address and Candy 2 themes (with Candy we even gave the system the name Candy Machine just to be cute).

So, here were are in 2009 with the release of Keynote 09 and its new Object Transitions. Up to this point, you could still use the cutout system in a theme and it worked (even with all its limitations). With the addition of Object Transitions though, the photo cutout system is finally broken. The reason is simple: photo cutouts are objects and ALL objects get built on or off a slide when you use an Object Transition. This means your cutout gets moved off slide as well as your image, making things look REALLY weird. (This also brings up one other draw back: If you stick something on a master slide that you want as a part of the background…you can’t because it will always move on and off the slide too, but this is a topic for another article).

So here we are, at the end of an era. Sure, you could still use a photo cut theme and just stay away from Object Transitions…but where’s the fun in that? No, the photo cutout has finally been put to rest. As a theme maker, I could be sad. But I’m not. All I can say on this “sad day” is, “good bye photo cutout and good riddance. You were a pain to create and had too many limitations.” While it’s a pain to not be able to mask movies or cast shadows onto a photo, it sure makes building themes a heck of a lot easier.

We discussed those things we’re glad to see in the new version, and Les mentioned how it seems that Apple is interested in taking complex tasks and enabling them with the least number of clicks and doing so intuitively. We also talked a bit about those things that still vex us about the app, for example, that Keynote’s slide display is still stuck to the upper left of the editing window. We’ve got these great new motion effects in ’08 and ’09, but moving an object from offslide top or offslide left is a chore. There was a lot of good feedback on clever ways Apple could make some of our features happen while still maintaining the ease of use Keynote is known for.

We had a group of users that regaled us in their tales of using Keynote in areas where one would have thought more multimedia centered apps should reign. However, it’s Keynote’s ease and quality of transitions (and Smart Builds) that make their customers happy. Their corporate presentations have become “Business Theater”!

It was a lively informal chat and it was good to meet other users that share in the excitement about this fantastic app. It was so much fun, that, alas, the hour went by far too quickly. Here’s hoping that Macworld 2010 happens even without Apple and that sessions like the ones Les gave, educating and bringing users together, can continue.

UPDATE: The link has reverted back to iWork ’08. The image above is from earlier today.

Let’s take a look back to those days when we thought Apple’s attendance at Macworld would never end and see how much reality was following us around.

1) Keynote Everywhere
But of course! Just look at this page, it’s got Keynote all OVER it! Righty righty right right.

2) New iWork ’08.2008
Is there a new iWork? Yes. Do YOU know what the version number is? NO. Den shaddup! Roite roite!

3) KeyMote
This is another instance where I was right, but I completely threw myself for a loupe! The KeyMote is actually what Apple’s setting up around the stage to protect Phil Schiller from the angry masses who are bound to try to storm the stage yelling “Free Steve Jobs!”. That’s right, not KeyMOTE, KeyMOAT. If there’s ANY water in the vicinity (vapor in the air counts), then ya gotta believe this one’s true.

4) KeyLife
Hey, look, it’s Steve Jobs lifting a car! Oh, maybe it wasn’t. Oh well, I was just getting around to letting you know that this one was right on like Donkey Kong.

5) AIRNOTE
You know, I was going to say that I was completely wrong on this one. I was fully prepared to just lay down me sword and shield and surrender. Until I realized that I’m holding neither a sword NOR a shield! Since I don’t have the things I would use to confirm that I was wrong, then that alone MUST be incontrovertible proof that this one, too, was spot on!

So what’s coming up tomorrow? I’m glad I asked!

1) Diamonds
Yup, I said Diamonds. You see, you can’t have Keynote in the Cloud without Diamonds. It’s just so very Beetlesque.

2) New Keynote Presenting devices
Many may believe that Apple will be giving details on some form of computer thingy, but WE users of the Notes of Key KNOW that whatever it is, it’s real use will be mainly to display Keynote presentations. Whatever else it MAY do (surf the web, run email software, download music) is just a side effect of building a system powerful enough to do presentations. I’m guessing something kinda smallish and desktopish (called KeyMini) something else kinda biggish (called KeyPro) and something laptopical (called Johanssen… just to keep us on our toes).

3) Fully DRM Free presentations
Oh, sure you THOUGHT the presentations you created were ALREADY DRM free, eh? Well they weren’t. And you don’t need to go back to your — what do you call it? — your Google to figure out they just weren’t!! The GOOD news is that they WILL be. Yeah, Apple worked out some deal with the Presentation International Advancement Association (PIAA) that will mean that you can send any presentation to anyone, anywhere! They won’t be able to play it unless they’ve got the right version of Keynote, but the PIAA is very adamant about this, so it’s not likely to change. Hey, at least they don’t force you to install PowerPoint!!

4) Appleture Science
This is the real reason why Phil Schiller is doing the Keynote. During the part of the Keynote where Steve would normally call Phil on iChat, Phil will call himself through the use of Appleture technology! My sources are unclear on exactly what’s behind Appleture, but they assure me that it’s definitely based on some leading edge iChat technology tied even closer to the Core OS. And, for reasons that befuddle me, cake. I was told there will be cake.

Looks like we’re in for another thrill ride and oh how thrilling it will be! Being the last Macworld Apple attends means they’re going to knock the ball out of the park. And we’ll be there to pick it up and sell it on eBay.

Happy Macworld Day 2009!

Here’s a a list of things that were noticed (with links to downloadable clips that jump right to that section of the presentation… you must be connected to the internet to stream the clips).

Lens Flare build — download movie
It’s like the Comet build in that it zooms across the screen and will likely have the same Right to Left and Left to Right build direction settings.

Points of Light build — download movie
It’s a little like the very end of the Shimmer effect where the white spots pop in just before it’s finished. Remove everything but those white spots, then make the white spots larger, and you get this build. Will likely have a directional component (left, right, up, down) unlike Shimmer.

3D Swoosh build — download movie
This build was used on a 3D chart. It looks like the same sort of action used in the current Swoosh build, only in 3D.

New Flip — download movie
In this build, the text flipped then hung, one after another. While this COULD have direction options, it’d look really strange flipping upward (much like the Fall transition didn’t have a fall UP) or left and right. The options on this one may be limited to by character, by word, by paragraph and by object.

Here’s a couple more that COULD be new, variants of current transitions, or very meticulous presentation creation.

Letter Shift — download movie
You’ll see in this one that certain letters and numbers stay and become a part of the next word or number. This would be great to see as a new build, but it could also be dissolves combined with motion paths.

NEW Old Flip — download movie
This is most likely the current Flip Smart Build with the Scale set to 100%. There’s also a way to recreate this using the regular Flip transition, but you have to use a Shape with the build set to “by Letter”.

Pie Slide — download movie
When analyzing another version of Keynote S, we saw grouped pie slices. Those were indeed “neat” but they could be done by using Preview and some creative cropping. This time, we see pie slices dissolving from nothing and building in to join the other slices. This also might be done with motion paths and cropping out separate slices of a pie chart if it wasn’t for this part.

download movie

Here, you’ve got the final slice from Microsoft moving in. The other slices built in front of the large iPod slice. If these were 2D fakes, the iPod piece would be under Other and Other would be under Sandisk. But, when Microsoft comes in, it’s in front of Sandisk as expected but behind iPod. If Sandisk is two layers over iPod and Microsoft three layers over iPod, Microsoft can’t also be behind iPod. However, since the only part that goes behind iPod is the dark orange shading, this could be two separate masked objects building in together, one in front of Sandisk, the other behind iPod. I’m crossing my fingers that it’s another new feature.

When Steve wants a new transition or build to show off new products during his presentations, we benefit in two ways. One, those features usually end up in a shipping version of iWork somewhere down the road and two, they make sure the cameras get a good shot of the screen during those parts of the presentation so we get a sneak peak at the current state of Keynote S!

While 20 bucks isn’t exactly going to break the bank (unless it’s coming after picking up a MacBook Air with the $999 SSD option), it’s just one more thing that highlights the fact that the Air is really meant to be an ultra thin companion to your current Mac; which, as long as it’s not a Pro, comes with a remote already (which is, incedentally, the same remote that comes with the iPod Universal Dock).

Macworld 2008 – WITH chapters

Chapter 1, Grouped Slices
At the first chapter, you’ll find the following slide. As you can see it shows three slices of a pie chart being pulled out as one unit to display a grouping of smartphones (Palm, Motorola, and Nokia’s marketshare). Since this isn’t something you can do with the current version of Keynote (you cannot select three parts of a pie chart, group them together and pull them out as one unit), we examined the video as closely as we could to see if there was some indication of this being a new graphic effect or just some visual sleight of hand. When showing the slices going from the middle, the transition is a cut, not a movement or an animation, so while this COULD be a cool new feature, it could just as well be the clever use of several image copies of the same pie chart with the unwanted parts masked out.

Chapter 2, Fold Transition
At this point in the video, at the end of the “Second Thing”, you’ll see the iPod touch and the iPhone take a bow. Unlike the “Fall” transition, this transition folds the slide at the middle including a nice shadow on the upper half that falls to the lower half and finally reveals the next slide. It’s used several times in the presentation to change ideas or sections to good effect. Because there currently isn’t a way to convincingly fake this one out with the current version of Keynote, we’re pretty sure what we’re looking at is a new transition. One question that remains is whether or not the feature will include the ability to fold horizontally or upward. (The “Fall” transition only goes in a downward direction)

Chapter 3, Twist Transition
Finally, we have what we’re calling the Twist transition. A logical variation to the current “Flip” transition, this was used as another good way to avoid bulleted lists. When listing several items in the same category graphically, this gives a little more definition to the discrete elements than a “Dissolve” would while being more eye-catching than a “Flip”. Again this is another one that can’t be done in Keynote so we’re sure this one is new as well. Again, the question remains whether or not the options will allow the twist to progress in the opposite direction or twist horizontally.

These aren’t the only places in the presentation where these transitions occur (in fact, the first Twist occurs before the Fold), so watch the whole thing to see how they’re used and if you catch something we didn’t, let us know and we’ll point it out as well. Since Keynote is so impressive graphically already, the changes we’re likely to see during presentations won’t be as drastic as in the past, but we’ll keep looking whenever we get a chance and let you know what we find!

1) Synked presentations!!
Oh, you need go no further than the Apple Discussions to find yards and yards of material about Keynote’s newfound abilities to not run. In some instances, usually revolving around the user gloating mightily to PowerPoint users right before the presentation, Keynote is able to completely shutdown your system when you press the play button! No weak little “oh my, your app has crashed, why don’tcha tell us about it” or a gray screen Kernel Panic. No, this is a full on restructuring of the molecules of Leopardium (which ships with every version of Keynote even if you’re running Tiger… rowr) which causes the insides of your computer to BLINK OUT OF EXISTENCE (which is what causes the crash)!! This one was SO right, I’m grafting on an extra thumb for the three thumbs up.

2) “Al Gore” mode.
There IS an Al Gore mode, but it’s not EXACTLY what my tea leaves divined. The Al Gore mode is actually a teeny tiny bit of a lesser vortex of Steve’s Reality Distortion Field that allows you to deal with the Inherent Inverse Realities of preparing a presentation on Global Warming when using two 30 inch monitors. This one gets the “right, but not in the way I expected” tag.

3) Price Break!
I believe the fact that not a single copy of iWork sold for $199.99 (well, maybe on eBay, but that really doesn’t count) through the Apple Store speaks for itself. Right as Right can be.

4) New LINK options
Except for a few minor details, this one was as on target as some fine Crossbow Training.

5) One more thing…
You know, you just can’t get all of them right EVERY time. Unless you’re me… and you’re making the rules… and you’ve got quite the little imagination going on there. This one is “right until proven even more right”.

You know, when I started this little exercise, I had no idea how wonderfully easy writing predictions are. Who knows, maybe next year, I’ll be a full fledged pundit or analyst… OH or an Analyzing Pundit!! And now without further more stuff, my predictions for Macworld 2008.

1) Keynote Everywhere
Apple will introduce a new initiative dubbed “Keynote Everywhere”. Due to the portable nature of Keynote’s XML format Apple has figured out how to create a KE (that’s Keynote Engine this time, they’re still working on the naming) for all of their products. It will be announced that every hardware product Apple produces will have a “KE” counterpart. For example the Apple TV will become Apple TVKE, the Mac Pro will become Mac Pro-KE and the iPod lineup will add a KeyPodE member. Even the Apple iPod headphones and cables are expected to be KE (that’s Keynote ENABLED this time, keep up…) but rumors are swirling that this may be just the same old cables with a new sticker and a higher price. Thus, KE (umm, which one is… oh nevermind) is poised to become the PlaysForSure of presentation software.
(This will of course not be available on Windows since Windows is not so much a “Where” but more of a “Why”)

2) New iWork ’08.2008
Just because they are just the kind of crazy guys and gals to do this kind of thing, they’re going to re-introduce iWork alongside Office 2008 with the slight renaming to have more numbers after their product name than Microsoft’s. There was word of new features to be included, but a more smug source just said that they’re already so much better than Office, it’s not needed.

3) New Keynote remote – KeyMote
This one may not be announced at the show, but just a short trip to the Dashboard dictionary (or dictionary.com for those Dashboardless) to determine what the KeyMote is… the world’s tiniest Keynote remote control. No larger than 3 specks (that’s 1 fleck), Steve will be using this remote to control his presentation. Due to it’s small size, however, it will be housed within a somewhat larger “clicker” for ease of use. Word is that Apple is still trying to work on the ergonomics of the size, so it may not be ready for release, but, ever the trooper, Steve will use the KeyMote in every upcoming presentation.

4) New iLife integration, KeyLife
Engineers at Apple have been working long hours to bring this amazing app to fruition. Expected to be marketed as “Prozac for your Digital Life”, KeyLife will comb through your iPhoto, iMovie (isn’t the new version GREAT!!), and iTunes libraries and distill your life into a presentation. If it’s complex AlGore-rhythm can’t find enough interesting details that are “boom worthy”, Apple will tap into their vast repository of past Keynote’s and inject some where necessary. This will come free with all new products shipping staring, like, RIGHTNOW!

5) Something in the AIR? SURE there is. AIRNOTE
Ohh, all of those other sites are so so very wrong. With all the giddiness of a Giddy Goon, they’ve completely missed the point of the product. No, it’s not a new hardware device, it’s something much, much cooler… now let me describe it for you.

Using the latest in “Solid AIR”, “LASER”, and “Buzzwordriffic” technology, Apple has designed a device that will present your presentation where no presentation has been presented before… IN THE AIR! No more will you be constrained to boring flat surfaces. Make your presentation POP OUT at your audience with AIRNOTE. Use transitions that spin through the air whipping up gusts of understanding. Use builds SO REAL they’ll be pulling out their money to pay the contractor. And your text animations will come ALIVE and even sign autographs!!

So, you can see that while MacBookAir may be enough for those OTHER people, we’ll be waiting on the AIRNOTE Presentation Player: Live Engagement system from Apple.

Well, there you’ve gone and wasted another perfectly good few minutes or so reading through that-which-they-said-shouldn’t-be-written. But, since we’re a fun loving fly-in-the-face-of-those-things-people-fly-things-in-the-face-of kinda place, we went ahead and done it anyway. Not just because we can, but because we DID!

Happy Macworld Day 2008!

As you’re Cover Flow-ing through, when you get to iWork ’08, you’ll see the blue recycled paper folder that’s now the default folder across the OS. Out of curiosity, I opened it to take a look at the new Keynote icon. As expected, it’s high resolution as well and looks quite nice. However, I found that the text on the sheet at the podium was no longer just a few indistinct lines. I could actually make out a few words, the first being “God”. Well, that’s enough to make ANYONE curious!

Since that sheet is not as large as TextEdit, the text is not as clear, but, using Google as my guide, I typed in the few words I could discern to see if it could find if this is some currently known text. Not only is it known text, I found that I should have known it! See, I download the free songs of the week every week from iTunes. Sure, in many cases, I may not even listen to them until they pop up in my random shuffle and many I may not even like, but I still find it a good free way to discover new music.

Yes, those words on the podium are lyrics and you can probably make out “God, I dreamed there was an angel” in the first line yourself. Googling that shows that the person giving the Q4 2008 report is none other than John Gallagher (and possibly the “Boys”). Even more fun, the reason I have the song is because it was one of the free downloads for Tuesday, January the 9th!

1) When using Command-Shift-4 to take a screenshot, it gives you a numerical readout right next to the icon of the X-Y value of the pixel you’re currently hovering over (hard to get a screenshot of that).

2) Also, if you follow Command-Shift-4 with pressing the space bar (to snap a window), it no longer grabs JUST the Window, it also captures an area bordering the window. This appears to be a result of the new shadows for 10.5 windows. Though it doesn’t capture the background, you will have to do a little more editing of your images if you ONLY want the window (Instant Alpha is great for this, one click cleans it up).

Incidentally, the Grab.app snaps only the window, just as you’d expect.

3) The “Front Row” trick still works just as it did before, but, of course, now it has the “Apple TV” look.

4) Another thing you’ll like is the new voice in Leopard. Called “Alex”, it’s more natural sounding than all of the others AND if you install the Developer Tools, you get access to a nice little app called “Speech Synthesis Example”.

This app allows you to type what you want into the text area and, once you have it like you want it, you can then SAVE that spoken audio to an .aiff file. A great way to add explanatory spoken examples to your presentation.

5) If you like the mirroring look Apple uses for some of the images in their presentations, there’s another cool thing installing the Developer Tools gives you, a Quartz Composer image texture that utilizes a reflection gradient.

Just drop in the image you want, manually change the Y-rotation and you’ve got a mirrored image with the proper perspective! Another click to disable the black background and you can place it over whatever color background you like.

6) The problem with Hebrew/Arabic text posted here appears to be resolved when Keynote ’06 or ’08 is running on Leopard.

You’ve probably read some well written reviews by some highly respected members of the tech community and I’d basically agree with them on all points EXCEPT for the constant droning of complaints about EDGE. It almost seems that, in order to appear “fair and balanced”, a reviewer has to make mention of the dreadfully slow EDGE network. Is it broadband? No. Is it 3G? No. But what it IS is the “internet” wherever you get a connection. No doubt faster is always better, but when I want to look up the review of a DVD or game before I buy it, I’ll wait a minute. Reader reviews of just about any consumer product is less than a minute away. You can get the locations of nearby stores, the phone number and web site OF those stores and directions on how to get there. I’m also not saying that this couldn’t be done on other phones (I’ve done it with a Blackberry Pearl). But, I can say with much certainty that the way it’s integrated on the iPhone means that users are more likely to figure out how to access all this info and will utilize it (a company that wants to do well this Christmas will be setting up an “iPhone” domain fairly soon!). These are things that outweigh the “speed” concerns of the network because even if it takes two minutes to access your information, that still saves you a trip home to your computer which would take MUCH longer.

Also, one other thing that I haven’t heard, but I think needs to be said, this thing gets warm. Not sure if there’s a difference between the 4G and 8G versions (we have the 8G), but you’re likely to feel a warm sensation while using this phone. It’s not “omg! MacBook Pro burn my lap!” warm, but still one of those things that I feel worthy of mentioning (which is why I’m mentioning it). Also, my last phone was a small plastic blackberry that I never noticed any warmth from, so maybe higher end and 3G users are used to this heat.

Some of our questions were answered by other reviews that came out in the remaining time before the iPhone was released, but we wanted to verify with an actual shipping version before we set these down in stone. Here, then, are the answers to the questions we had.

The 30-pin connection

1) USB Camera Connector – NOT SUPPORTED
2) External Mic (Belkin Tune Talk Stereo) – NOT SUPPORTED
3) Video output – NOT SUPPORTED
while we’re on the subject,
FM Remote – NOT SUPPORTED

So it looks like only audio out is currently supported via the dock connector.

Nice to Know’s
4) iPhone “attract” mode – NO
But, this didn’t appear until the iPod with video, so it’s not surprising that this version can’t do this yet.

5) Enhanced museum mode – NO
Again, this wasn’t in the first version of the iPod and was last updated in 2006, so perhaps this is something we may see in the future?

6) What kind of reading interface?
The “reading interface” appears to be via PDF’s and Notes that you enter on the phone. However, you can’t write something on the computer and have it transfer over AND you can’t get those notes off of the iPhone unless you email them to yourself. Same with PDF’s, you can’t just save a PDF to the phone and then open it.

7) Audio circuitry
We’re still waiting for more details on this one. Some sites have speculated about the chipset, but until this is settled, we won’t know what sound generation it’s capable of. What we CAN tell from the ringtoes, though, is that it’s audibly pleasing.

For the Keynoter in all of us

What can the iPhone do with .key files? – NOTHING
Since .key files look like folders to the internet, Mail .zips your .key files when you send them. Well, that .key file can’t be unzipped on the iPhone. Because Office files are flat data, they don’t have this problem. So, f you want to look at your presentation or Pages files on the iPhone, you’ll have to export as an Office format before mailing it.

9) QuickTime files
If your movie has audio and video supported by the iPhone specifications and maybe a chapter track, then you should be fine. However, interactive Keynote exports have more than that and these extra tracks aren’t supported. So, no creation of interactive displays with QuickTime… at least for now. I’ve got MY fingers crossed…

10) Slideshow transitions
The iPhone has these transitions. It defaults to “Dissolve” but also includes Cube, Ripple, Wipe Across and Wipe Down. Clearly a subset of the large number of iPod transitions, but at least Ripple is new and looks as good as it does on your computer.

Seems like most of the above is a “No” but, who knows? Maybe some of it is a “not yet” and, with the ability of the iPhone to be updated I’ll be waiting and checking to see what develops!

The 30-pin connection
All 30-pin connectors SHOULD be made equal, but some devices have not carried forward all the functionality you’d expect. Three things that we would really like to see are:

1) USB Camera Connector
Will the current one be recognized in the same way and store the images locally? As an added bit of coolness, will you be able to preview/rate images on the iPhone as you can’t currently preview with iPods.

2) External Mics
The iPhone has a mic and there’s no HD noise to be concerned about, but if you’ve already got a good quality 30-pin connector solution (some even in stereo) then you won’t want to make that quality step back. It’d be nice to know if there’s a way to delete recordings you don’t want to keep(ala the Visual Voicemail feature).

3) Video output
This has been a question I’ve had since Macworld. In a pinch, when all else has failed, you’re still able to use your iPod to get a presentation across. Current solutions use output from the headphone jack and from the 30-pin connector. I haven’t seen an image of the connector, only of the earbuds. If it connects through the 30-pin connector like the FM Remote, then the headphone port may work as it does currently. The new headphones also include a mic and some control hardware though. So, if that signal is going in through the headphone connection, that may mean the iPod video cable may not work with it.

Nice to Know’s
These are things that rank slightly above curiosities. Those little things that some corner of the iPod world have gotten used to and that they’d like to see continued on the iPhone.

4) iPhone “attract” mode
There’s currently a procedure you can go through to set up a video on the iPod such that when it’s been idle and it’s plugged into AC power, it will automatically begin to display video. I would think this could have been brought over, but maybe it didn’t make it into this first iteration.

5) Enhanced museum mode
The iPod Notes feature has been used by many as a way to set up a “Museum Mode”… a way to create custom or restricted interfaces for special purposes. (You can see how museums are using iPod by visiting the “Guided by iPod” web page) It will be interesting to see if this mode is supported on the iPhone or even if it has been enhanced to take advantage of the iPhone’s special features.

6) What kind of reading interface will it have?
As an extension of the above, the iPod notes currently have a 4k limitation. No one note can be larger than 4k, so any texts longer than that have to be cut up into 4k chunks and hyperlinks placed between them. There are programs that will handle this cut up and hyperlink job for you, but how will these notes be displayed? Will you get a page view with a “page turning” gesture?

7) Audio circuitry
Until the release of the first iPod games, there was really no way to tell that the iPod actually had quite a sophisticated bit of audio generation hardware. I’m wondering if this is the same or if it will be used in any new ways.

For the Keynoter in all of us
Finally, some musings on what we’d LIKE to see but are probably not LIKELY to see. We’ll know in a few days!

What can the iPhone do with .key files?
There has been NO indication that the iPhone will be able to translate and display the content of a Keynote file, but we’re going to try just to see.

9) What can the iPhone do with QuickTime files?
For many people, QuickTime is all about audio and video and that’s it. We, on the other hand, know about Chapters, Sprites, Quartz Compositions and all the other extra media that QuickTime handles well on the Mac. Have any of these made the leap to the iPhone?

10) Slideshow transitions
The iPod currently has transitions that, surprisingly enough, look quite good when displayed on a television. The Page and Cube transitions are especially nice given what we usually see in the iPod interface. With the Core Animation on the iPhone, more is available, will we see it? Better yet, will we be able to combine it with some of the above to create presentations for the iPhone that output to a video monitor?

As you see, this is a fairly esoteric list and that’s the main reason why you probably haven’t read much discussion on these topics. As the time ticks down to 6pm Eastern on Friday night, if you happen to get any answers before we do, come on back and post them for everyone. I’m sure SOME of the answers are bound to raise questions of their own!

So grab your copy of the Keynote Address (via the QT feed or the Podcast. We chose the Podcast as it is much better quality).

Shameless plug: Help support KeynoteUser.com by purchasing our Pro Keynote Themes

And here we go…

29 seconds
For a second or two, we actually get a great shot of Steve’s reference monitors, including smaller monitors underneath the large ones showing the next slide (Keynote for sure doesn’t support this kind of multi-monitor previewing, who knows if it ever will). This is the ONLY view we can remember ever seeing of Steve’s setup.
EDIT: Some of our readers have mentioned that they could be splitting the main signal off to drive the large monitor, and using the standard presenter screen feature with only the next slide displayed to drive the smaller screen.

59 seconds
The intel slide comes up with that cool angled reflection. This could be a new feature, or just the art department getting fancy.

6 min
Steve puts up a slide with a chart that grows up from the bottom. It’s possible to fake this now with a wipe build, but I don’t think
it’s the same thing (it’s not as you’ll see later).

7:29
We see a sort of drop flash build on the 50 million text.

8:03
We see a character twist build on the 1,300,000 movies. This is probably just a Character Flip build that’s already in Keynote, but it still looks cool.

8:29
Here’s where it starts to get really good…several movie covers fly on, float across and fly off. This is the same effect Steve used on some text in his last presentation.

8:51
The number 100 bursts away to reveal the number 250. This could be 2 builds playing off eachother, but that burst is not a build option in the current Keynote.

9:32
The “Market Share” chart builds itself by filling in the pie pieces, something Keynote can’t do. Our guess is that this is the same build as the earlier bar chart used, only it applies differently to a pie.

15:22
And here’s the first sign of what could be path animation in Keynote: the TV show art moves from behind the iMac to next to the Apple TV. While it’s possible to fake this now by masking the portion of the slide to the left of the iMac, these seem to come in from the SAME point on screen and spread to their final locations, something you cannot do now. In fact, the motion you see really does look like they’re following some kind of path as they move along and then bend up or down, changing direction mid stream.

28:34
And here’s another possible path animation…the compass icon moves from its first position to a new position on the slide.

28:48
Our best guess on this next one is that this is a premade animation from Apple, and not a special transition. The 3 icons spin together and a larger version of the phone icon appears last, then he continues to flip through these ending on a different one each time. Almost like the Grid slide transition, but in a cube, and applied as a build not a transition. It’s possible that this is some new build with plays off of another image on the slide.

33:16
Here the stylus explodes using the earlier seen burst build out.

34:47
And here’s another new text build out…the word “software” blows apart with the letters intact, flying off in different directions as they fade out. This is the point where we started to get excited about what could be coming in Keynote 4

35:43
Another directional burst build out using that same burst effect as before.

36:34
We again see the word “software” explode into a bunch of letters spreading out away from the new word.

41:20
Here Steve starts the demo with a special video out on the iPhone. It shows the phone on the projector and then a picture in picture video of him holding the actual iPhone. Our guess is that this is all running through a very expensive video switching and routing system and NOT inside Keynote at that point in the show. If it is running through Keynote, it means some sort of interactivity now works…or more likely, Steve has his own special version.

1:27:08
here a beautiful new flash across transition appears.

1:29:53
And here’s that fly on, float across, fly out effect again, this time with text.

1:42:34
Another chart comes up that again uses a new build that shows the chart bar growing up from the bottom.

1:43:00
here all but one of the bars in the chart disappear. This can be done now by building in a shape that matches the back of the slide and covers the other bars, or by jumping to a second slide where the numbers have been set to zero except for the final bar and the lines and
labels have been turned off. No idea if it’s a feature or if they just use this trick.

1:44:05
Here we have another burst across build out on the word Computer, and then the two other words (Apple and Inc.) move from their first location to a new location on the slide (again, following a motion path?).

Well, there you have it. While it’s possible we missed a few new effects, you can see by the different things happening here that Steve’s definatly not using a stock version of Keynote. Also, Steve has mentioned in the past that he likes to show off new versions of Keynote. Seeing the new animation makes us think we might have to wait until Leopard ships (remember it’s got Core Animation) before we see a new version of Keynote. While it’ll be a drag to possibly have to buy 10.5 in order to use the new features, it sure will take Keynote to a whole new level. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Presentation Style at WWDC

I had the great fortune to attend WWDC this year and am slowly digesting all the information given us. While many of the new features in Leopard have been discussed in detail, I thought I would share a few tips and tricks on presentation style that I picked up at WWDC. Since Powerpoint is used almost exclusively at many of the bioscience conferences I attend, it was refreshing to see Keynote used at every talk during the week. It was also great to see Apple using their own software for the presentations. I’m sure the Keynote team will get lots of great feedback from the other folks at Apple.

Overall Impressions
After the keynote address, the execs at Apple provided a general overview of the new technologies to be explained in more detail later in the week. In terms of presentation style, the talks on Monday were the best with their good use of graphics, minimized use of text and bullet points and minimized use of transitions and builds. The talks Tuesday through Friday were more serious in nature. Generally a product manager gave an overview followed by an engineer who offered more details. Almost all the talks featured a demo of some kind with frequent switching between Keynote and the demo.

All of the talks used the Gradient Black theme to maintain consistency with Steve Job’s keynote. Many of the graphics and charts used a basic color palate of the primary and secondary colors (see the Keynote file at the end of this article). The closest third-party theme that best approaches this look is the Keynote Address theme from KeynoteUser.com (Thanks for the compliment, Dave!). The only exception to the Gradient Black theme was a talk from the folks at Intel. They used a solid light-blue background with white letters with a Powerpointy feel. Come to think of it they may have been using Powerpoint. The Intel talk contained ugly slides, too many bullet points, too specific and too technical. In contrast the folks at Apple clearly spent a great deal of time rehearsing and polishing their talks in the company of presentation experts.

The animations and builds of Keynote 3 paled in comparison to the Core Animation demo. I’m excited to see what developers do with this technology. I paid close attention to the transitions and builds during the week, hoping to see something that would reveal new features in Keynote 4. Unfortunately, the transitions and builds used all seemed to have been done in the current version of Keynote. They exited from Keynote to demo Core Animation, so I have no knowledge of what the next version of Keynote will be like. In term of transitions, I liked the way Bertrand Serlet used the Fall transition as he listed the undesirable underpinnings of Windows (as seen at 27:17 in the keynote movie). Other transitions I saw: Cube, Reflection, Revolving Door, Page Flip, Droplet and Swoosh. The engineers got a kick out of some of the transitions with a slight grin as they advanced the slide.

The new 3D charts in Keynote 3 felt overused in the talks on Monday, but not so much in the other sessions that week (Phil Schiller uses them in the keynote movie around 9:26 and 11:22 and Scott Forstall uses a 3D pie chart around 32:50). I’m not a big fan of 3D charts as they generally don’t convey any additional information. I wonder if they were used as a way of showing off Keynote’s features.

Saying goodbye to my laser pointer
Thinking back on WWDC I don’t recall ever seeing a single laser pointer. Every biology talk or classroom lecture I’ve attended involves a laser pointer in some way. Most people consider them a necessary evil to highlight important features in a slide, but annoy many audiences when a nervous speaker, over-caffeinated, jiggles the dot. The talks at WWDC went smoothly without them. In fact I didn’t notice their absence until afterwards. A carefully crafted presentation using good presentation effects eliminates the need for laser pointers altogether. Here are a few tips for weaning yourself off of them (see the Keynote file for examples).

1. Eliminate clutter

If you find that you need to highlight something, first ask yourself if the rest of the stuff on the slide is necessary. If not, delete it!

2. Describe the graphics and charts in words

If your graphs and charts are well labeled and in large type, use words not visuals to refer to the important data. For example, if the audience can clearly see the “2005″ label, simply say “In the graph you can see how much climate temperature has risen in 2005″. A laser pointer is not needed to point out the obvious.

3. Use builds and highlighting for text

Bullet points highlighting the current item and greying out the others helps the audience to follow along easily. See the Keynote file for a few examples. Also if you must use bullet points, spend time discussing each point. Avoid rushing though a screenful of text.

4. Use shapes to highlight features in a graphic

For those hard to see items in a graphic, use circles, arrows and custom cutouts to highlight particular features instead of relying on a laser pointer. Apple employed these techniques quite often at WWDC (see the Keynote file for examples). The shape cutouts used for highlighting in several talks surprised me. The cutout grayed out the rest of the content on the slide and drew attention to the important element. It achieved a similar result as Mouseposé, except using Keynote.

5. OmniDazzle or Mouseposé

An engineer from Omni demonstrated OmniDazzle at an after party. He had various effects mapped to different keys of his mighty mouse. It’s a pretty sweet app, a great tool for highlighting things on the fly.

The advantage of using a shape cutout instead of OmniDazzle or Mouseposé is that you can set it up ahead of time and don’t have to switch between applications. You have one less thing to worry about failing. The advantage of OmniDazzle or Mouseposé is that you save time in configuring the shape cutout and highlight things on the fly (e.g. in response to questions). Either way, both techniques are big improvements over a laser pointer.

6. Use the built-in Zoom

You can enable the built-in Zoom option found in Universal Access in the System Preference. Speakers used this technique quite often at WWDC to highlight hard to see menu options in Xcode 3 or while discussing sample code. During demos Apple engineer placed the mouse over the region of interest and pressed Command-Option-Equals to zoom in so that the folks at the back of the room could see. Very cool! The great thing about this technique is that it’s built into the OS so there’s no need to purchase additional software.

Take control of your presentation with speech recognition
I had the great fortune to see a demo of the Speech capabilities Friday morning and was completely blown away. Wow, this is one of those technologies I have overlooked. While Core Animation and iChat Theater received much attention from the Keynote community, I think Speech Recognition could be just as big.

The speaker described the current interaction as “point and grunt”. We point with the mouse and computer beeps as an errors occur. Since the 70′s, computers have always had the ability to beep, but today they are capable of much more. Speech is not just limited to folks with disabilities. It opens up a whole new world in the way that we interact.

Speech recognition is most useful for tasks buried in deeply nested menus and for hands-free activities. Will Shipley gave a demo using Delicious Library, his library organization app. Spoken commands are great for when you are organizing your library collection across the room from your Mac. By setting the internal microphone to always listen, you can ask if various books or CDs are in your collection. This way you can make a pile of stuff to scan into Delicious Library later.

As I was watched the demo I realized that Keynote presentations are a great example of a hands-free activity. For the most part, a remote control handles most of the basic functionality I need when giving a talk, such as moving forward and backward through slides. But Spoken Commands would be very useful in cases where I need to carry out a specific task. For example switching to a specific slide requires several key strokes and requires me to be in front of my laptop. Wouldn’t it be great to simply say “switch to slide 5″ from across the room and have Keynote make the switch? Or while editing a Keynote presentation, click an object and say “send to back” to change the position of objects instead of hunting through the menu items?

While Speech has received a major overhaul in Leopard, much of this functionality already exists in Tiger! I’m impressed by how sophisticated this technology has become. During the demo Will Shipley used a microphone headset, but the internal microphone in most PowerBooks is sensitive enough to pick up voices from almost thirty feet away. Since returning home I have used Speech to navigate through through the OS and Keynote. For example, I can switch between slides, pause the slideshow, bring up Safari, navigate through my home page with page up/page down, and return to the presentation all without touching the keyboard, mouse or remote control. Most of the functionality is already built in and through AppleScript you can you can provide the rest.

A few important points:

1. Activate the microphone only while you speak the command

Avoid setting it to listen continuously. Even if you are alone in your office, an unexpected phone call or conversation could be interpreted as spoken commands.

which brings us to

2. Map one of the buttons on the remote to the key for activating listening

While some remotes can be configured to execute various tasks, the number of buttons is limited. Simply pressing a button to activate speech opens up infinite possible commands and tasks.

3. Calibrate the speech recognition when changing rooms

Do this by using the System Preferences > Speech panel. Click the “Calibrate” button and speak the commands in the list. Each room has a different acoustical property which can influence the way sound is interpreted. The calibration process sets more than a hundred variables behind the scenes.

I doubt I will use the speech technology in a super critical presentation like a job talk as that’s just one more thing that can go wrong. But, with some thought and with the correct configuration, I think Speech could be really useful and impress an audience.

Know your audience
While most of the talks at WWDC were excellent, a few were overly technical. One of the talks I attended was supposed to be an introduction to an underutilized technology in Cocoa. However, many of us felt lost in all the detail. The presenter spent quite some time discussing the new changes in Leopard, but these new changes meant little due to unfamiliarity with the current methodology.

Packing too much information in a talk is very easy to do especially in the sciences. Try to keep things simple and know your audience. Everyone has a slightly different background. Provide enough information so that a diverse audience can follow along.

Nervousness
At one of the parties, I chatted with an Apple engineer that was nervous about his upcoming presentation. (This would be his first time speaking in front of an audience). It turns out he did very well. I have a theory that nervousness is a necessary ingredient for a great talk. Or to put it in another way, if you are not nervous before a talk there’s something wrong. Nervousness has a way of pushing people to perform at their best (this is also my theory for skiing/kayaking/biking). There’s two types of fear, the bad kind of fear paralyzes people and prevents them from considering the risks. The good kind of fear causes one to plan more extensively and prepare for possible disaster. If you are worried about your demo freezing up during the Keynote, you spend time rehearsing to be sure it will work and to prepare an alternative in case something goes wrong.

So there are my thoughts on presentation style at WWDC. I had a great time at the conference and am excited about the new technologies coming out next year. I hope you found this useful and gives you some ideas for your own talk.

WWDC Presentation Ideas

-David Astling