When Steve Jobs gave his Macworld Expo keynote earlier this month, which turned out to be the launch of the iPhone, I wasn't there. (Along with much of the technology-covering media world, I was in Las Vegas at CES.) So I did what I usually do these days when I miss an event of note: I caught up with it on YouTube.
And then--as I usually do whenever I'm on YouTube--I began to waste vast amounts of time browsing around and watching other clips. Other Steve Jobs keynote clips, in this case. Young Steve, older Steve, dressed-up Steve, humble dressed-down Steve, hype-y Steve, and the current model--the guy in the glasses, beard, black shirt, and jeans who reigns as the planet's uncontested Grand Master of the Product Demo.
And then I decided that it was worth collecting some of the clips and my thoughts about them into a blog posting. Which you're reading now.
A few notes on what follows:
It doesn't include everything I could find. Just stuff that I found particularly interesting for one reason or another. So don't ask me why I failed to include the intro of the second-generation iPod Shuffle or the third-generation iMac.
There's a lot I couldn't find. Jobs was demonstrating Apple products in public as early as 1976--and I first started seeing him do so in the early 1980s at Boston Computer Society meetings. But the first couple of decades of his public appearances aren't very well documented. (At least if "well documented" is synonymous with "available on YouTube"--and these days, it probably is.) I couldn't find any clips of the Apple II-era Jobs. Nor any of the launch of the NeXT (I filled in this void with a couple of non-keynote clips). And I couldn't find any good YouTube footage of at least one recent notable keynote--the one at which Jobs announced Apple's transition to Intel processors.
I'll make some effort to judge whether the product lived up to the product introduction. The famous Steve Jobs reality distortion field got its name more than a quarter-century ago, and it's at work, to greater or lesser degrees, in all these clips. So I include a Reality Distortion Factor for each one. A rating of "low" meaning means Jobs didn't oversell the product; a rating of "high" (or higher!) means that he did. (Looking over all the clips, I'm struck by the fact that some launches of products that did turn out to be big deals were relatively subdued.)
So return with me now to an Apple shareholders' meeting back in 1983, when the company was known for the fabulously successful Apple II and the terribly disappointing Lisa--and Steve Jobs was a well-known young computer tycoon, but not the icon that he would become...
1983: Cupertino
Products announced: The original Mac
Reality distortion factor: low
More of a sermon than a demo, this is the earliest Jobs video I can find on YouTube...and one of the best. Exuding pride, Jobs unveils the Mac an an antidote to "an IBM-dominated and -controlled future." The system did absolutely nothing to stop the IBM onslaught, but it had an impact on technology that was profound--so Jobs's claims, in retrospect, were restrained, if anything. Includes a showing of the legendary "1984" commercial.
Mid 1980s: NeXT Computer offices
Product discussed: Original NeXT machine
Reality distortion factor: medium
I wish I had a video of the 1988 Boston Computer Society meeting I went to at which Steve Jobs demoed the first product of his second computer company, NeXT: The event filled Symphony Hall and remains the most memorable demo I've ever seen of any technology product. But I don't Nor do I have any other footage of Jobs showing off the first NeXT system. So here's some footage (fascinating in its own way) from an old TV documentary in which Jobs and other NeXT employees talk out their plans. NeXT failed to make a dent in the universe, but it was a pretty neat machine, and one that was remarkably ahead of its time.
1992: Unknown TV studio
Product demoed: NeXTStep Release 3
Reality distortion factor: low
A crummy copy of a snippet of Jobs (in white shirt and necktie--he was trying to appeal to a buttoned-down crowd) demoing the third version of NeXT's operating system, which became the foundation of Apple's OS X. (You can see that in certain features, such as the Dock.) Note that e-mail and related concepts such as attachments and networking were exotic enough back then that Jobs felt the need to explain and show them. Note also that in 1992, WordPerfect was exciting. And one last thought: It's odd to see a Jobs demo with no hooting, hollering, applauding audience.
1997: Macworld Expo Boston
Product announced: Microsft Office 98 for the Mac
Reality distortion factor: nonexistent
After returning to Apple, a vest-wearing Jobs gives one of his most historic speeches, with a defense of the company's relevance (still needed at the time) and the announcement, booed by the crowd, of an alliance with Microsoft. But no real product announcements other than a new version of Microsoft Office. Trivia: I was sitting in an office about 500 yards from where this took place, but didn't bother to go--I wasn't sure if Apple was still relevant.
1998: Cupertino
Product announced: original iMac
Reality distortion factor: medium
Cool product, expansive claims, adoring audience--this may have been the first Jobs keynote as we know them today. Jobs (jacket, no tie) introduces the iMac, the first significant new product after his return. He says that a 15" screen is as big as a consumer could ever want, and that 32MB is a lot of memory. Funny in retrospect. But it's impressive to see him talking about the importance of networking and digital photography at a time when no Windows-based home PCs came with networking and very, very few consumers owned a digital camera.
1998: Macworld Expo New York
Product announced: None, in this clip
Reality distortion factor: postmodern
Dueling Jobses! Noah Wyle, who isn't Steve Jobs but who played him on TV, dons the black shirt and jeans to address the Macworld throngs. Eventually, the real McCoy shows up and critiques his work.
1999: Cupertino
Product announced: OS 9
Reality distortion factor: pretty high
Jobs, in jacket and collarless shirt, shows OS 9, the final iteration of the original Mac OS, with features both forgotten (voice passwords) and enduring (the Keychain). He waxes rhapsodic over it despite the fact that it will soon be rendered obsolete. Note the guest appearance by Apple exec Phil Schiller playing Jim Fowler to Jobs's Marlin Perkins, as he would at many keynotes to come.
More from the OS 9 demo:
1999: Macworld Expo New York
Product announced: original iBook, AirPort
Reality distortion factor: high
Stubbly beard, glasses, black shirt, jeans-in this keynote, Steve has achieved maximum Jobbishness. But the product in question-the original iBook-has got to be one of the ugliest, most ungainly ones ever released by Apple.
Later in the demo, the notion of wireless networking is so arcane that Jobs feels the need to elevate Phil Schiller above the stage to prove his notebook isn't connected to Steve's machine via wires.
2000: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Product announced: OS X
Reality distortion factor: surprisingly measured
A stubble-less Jobs announces the all-new Mac OS, describes it as "Linux-like," and explains its 12-month rollout. In this case, the OS--and the fact that Apple managed to switch its user base to an entirely new, extremely good OS--turned out to be more exciting and enjoyable than the launch itself.
More OS X:
Same keynote--Jobs, who has been maintaining that he's only Apple's interim CEO, says he's back to stay. (And isn't everything that's happened to Apple since utterly unimaginable if he hadn't?)
2000: Macworld Expo New York
Product announced: G4 Cube
Reality distortion factor: off the chart
Jobs touts the wonders of the Power Mac G4 Cube, which was hailed as a landmark machine (I'm afraid I drank the Kool-Aid) but went on to fizzle almost immediately.
2001: Cupertino
Product announced: original iPod
Reality distortion factor: remarkably low, in retrospect
In front of a surprisingly small audience in a nondescript setting--Jobs--who looks like a hip professor--explains why Apple has decided to make a music product. (You know the rest.) I'm not sure why the audience isn't stomping and cheering as most Jobs audiences are wont to do, but I like it--it makes the demo more impressive. I also wonder whether even Steve Jobs, on his most optimistic of days, would have guessed that the iPod would turn out to be what it's been.
2002: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Product announced: G4 iMac
Reality distortion factor: medium
Jobs talks about the second-generation, "desklamp" iMac, which kind of turned out to be a blip between the bulbous original iMac and the current model--but a neat one.
2003: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Products announced: 17-inch PowerBook, 12-inch PowerBook
Reality distortion field: medium
Jobs says that Apple wants more than 50 percent of its sales to come from laptops within a few years (a goal which the company went on to realize, incidentally). Then he announces the 17-inch PowerBook--and the mere idea of a notebook that huge prompts gasps. (Funny to think that such a machine sounded bizarre so recently). This was back when most of Apple's big product announcements involved computers--and it's interesting to note that the current 17-inch MacBook Pro is practically the same system as this PowerBook, with vastly different innards and some minor cosmetic differences.
Here's the rest of the 17-inch PowerBook intro and a "one more thing"--a 12-inch PowerBook. (Which was not the "really, really tiny" machine that Jobs describes it as, but was still pretty neat, and smaller than any current Mac portable--I wish Apple still made an Intel-based iteration of it.)
And here's the rest of the 12-inch intro, then mention of a video presentation (but no video--it was snipped out), and then the famous Yao Ming/Mini-Me commercial. (Side note upon hearing Jeff Goldblum's voiceover again: At some point in the intervening years, Apple stopped using voiceovers in its commercials--and now the old ads that did have narration feel like something out of the distant past.)
2005: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Product announced: original iPod shuffle
Reality distortion factor: fairly high
Jobs explains, in somewhat clinical, emotionless fashion, that Apple has decided to try and steal market share from existing flash players, and that it'll do it with the cheap, tiny, display-less iPod Shuffle. He says it's great and unbelievable and gets the audience to gasp and applaud at...its USB connector. The Shuffle was a product that was mostly compromise, and even Jobs's showmanship can't mask that entirely.
2005: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Product announced: Mac Mini
Reality distortion factor: medium
Jobs tells the world about the cheap, tiny Mac, and while he doesn't contend that it's a breakthrough, he does manage to get the audience to applaud a cost-cutting measure (the fact that the machine doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse).
2005: San Francisco
Product announced: iPod Nano
Reality distortion factor: medium-high
Jobs at his most Willy Wonka-ish. He explains that the iPod Mini, the most successful MP3 player in history, is going away. Then he introduces the Nano, a replacement which is almost all about cool industrial design (an amazingly thin profile) rather than new functionality and calls it the biggest breakthrough since the original iPod. At least it's held up better than the first Shuffle...
2006: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Product announced: MacBook Pro
Reality distortion field: high
There's something about processors that does something to Jobs's hype glands. He describes the MacBook Pro has having dual processors (most computer manufacturers would simply say it has one dual-core processor). And he says it runs 4-5 times faster than the G4-based PowerBook (our sister publication Macworld's benchmarks reveal a more complicated story).
2006: San Francisco
Product announced: "iTV" (later named Apple TV)
Reality distortion field: low
In an unusual move--for Apple--Jobs previews the company's streaming-media box before it has a name or ship date. He says that it has "probably the most gorgeous graphics you've ever seen on a TV set" but makes no lofty claims for the product's importance. Surprisingly, he has to cue the audience to applaud ("Whaddaya think-you like it?").
2007: Macworld Expo San Francisco
Products announced: Apple TV, iPhone
Reality distortion factor: yet to be determined
The most recent Jobs keynote was product demo raised to the art of kabuki. Recap of sales successes. Demo of reasonably interesting but not earthshaking product (Apple TV--a demo of an earthshaking product wouldn't involve Jobs forcing himself to chuckle at a Zoolander clip). Then a pregnant pause (interestingly, this time without the artifice of "just one more thing"--I wonder if Jobs has decided the phrase has become trite?).
And then the real stuff.
The iPhone demo is certainly Jobs at his most polished--and grandiose, since he sells the new product as being as big a breakthrough as the Mac or the iPod. You could poke holes in some of claims pretty quickly (his explanation of why the iPhone has no physical keyboard doesn't make much sense, and he seems to be saying that it's astonishing that Google Maps will finally be available on a phone...when in fact there are darn good phone versions of that application already). But the iPhone is basically all UI, and the UI is cool indeed.
Whether the phone will live up to the keynote or not, I dunno. (Prediction: Whether or not Apple become a major manufacturer of handsets, the iPhone's touch interface will be hugely influential, and this demo will be remembered for introducing it.)
Here's the whole event, chopped up into little YouTube-friendly pieces:
And that brings us up to date, though it seems like it's a fairly safe bet that one or more Apple events to reveal new Macs and new details on the "Leopard" upgrade to OS X are in the offing. I'm sure I'll be blogging about those when they happen. Meanwhile, if you're aware of the whereabouts of any videos of significant Jobs demos that I missed--especially early ones--lemme know...
