Eagle-eyed observer tips Keynote 5 on the way

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 11 September 2008 10:05

Business IT - Technology

Some people watching Steve Jobs' "Let's Rock" presentation were concentrating on his health, most were keen for details of the new iPods, but a few were more concerned with how the material was being put on the big screen. Is a new version of Keynote on the way?

Keynote is Apple's answer to Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software and in many ways is far superior. PowerPoint 2007 utterly failed to copy any of Keynote's "cinema quality" transitions let alone any of the other features, which disappointed many PowerPoint fans.

But none of that matters to Keynote users, already quite joyously using the best presentation software. What matters to those users is what Keynote will offer next!

Keynote's history is quite interesting, and worth repeating briefly for those who don't know it. Prior to Keynote's release, most Apple users had little choice but to put up with PowerPoint. But that wasn't good enough for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who set the company's programmers the task of building him a better presentation tool.

Jobs wanted it for his keynote presentations at Macworld Expo and similar events, which is where the name comes from.

He then had the good sense to turn it into a commercially available program and make it part of the iWork suite along with the Pages wordprocessor and more recently the Numbers spreadsheet. A demo version of iWork comes with new Macs, and a full licence costs just $A99.

So back to the claims of forthcoming Keynote features, which the program's fans always keenly await! They come from Melbourne-based psychologist, podcaster, folk dancer and presentation expert Les Posen kept an eye on the screen during the iPod announcement.

So what did he spot? See page two.