Replies

I've finished watching the Apple keynote now. It was an interesting contrast to the Bill Gates keynote at CES a couple of days ago. The CES audience sometimes had to be told when to applaud. At the Apple event, it was all spontaneous.

Microsoft's vision of future technology was violent, bombastic and overwhelming to the senses. Gates demonstrated things like bedrooms with walls literally covered with giant computer screens instead of wallpaper, and kitchen countertops with giant recipes for focaccia projected on the surface.

In comparison, Apple's presentation showed technology that was practical, easy-to-use, tasteful, compelling and affordable. I can't wait to get an iPhone for internet features like portable web browsing. And the iPhone will be wide-open for third party developers to add OS X software like Dashboard widgets and Cocoa applications.

There were some unusual things about Apple's show today. For the first time ever at MacWorld, no new Macs were introduced. Nor was an update given for the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Ordinarily, those omissions would be disappointments. But the iPhone was so incredible, those things were not missed.