Apple built Keynote because Steve Jobs hates PowerPoint

As noted in the comments of the article, Jobs was a big fan of Concurrence which was developed on the NeXT platform by Lighthouse Design.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_Design" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_Design</a><p>Wikipedia also says that's what he used: <i>Prior to using Keynote, Jobs had used Concurrence, from Lighthouse Design, a similar product which ran on the NeXTSTEP and OpenStep platforms</i><p>Jobs spoke highly of Lighthouse design during the 1997 WWDC video that was circulating around recently. Keynote was inspired by Concurrence. People noticed the similarities right away: <a href="http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=218463&#38;postcount=33" rel="nofollow">http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=218463&#38;postco...</a>

Everybody hates PowerPoint, and every version is worse than the previous one. For example, n PPT 97 you could adjust shapes but in '2000 and later versions they line up "automatically", meaning that when you move one it gets off the grid and it's subsequently impossible to realign it by hand.<p>But there is a good competitor to PowerPoint in MS Office: Visio. Visio is a great, powerful, professional piece of software, feature-rich and not that hard to learn.<p>According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visio" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visio</a> Visio first shipped in 1992; but it doesn't say if there ever was a Mac version. Was there?

Keynote would be absolutely amazing if it allowed for one thing: graphic/pdf objects to be anchored inline with text. With this, latex rendered formula could be included in a far easier manner.<p>Most CS academics use macs at this point, and I'm sure engineers would find it invaluable as well. Apple has been ignoring its more technical users and focussing on the the masses for a while now. It's rather disappointing.

Forget Keynote, the video reminded me of how influential the PowerBook G4 has been. "Sex" is right - the MB Pro on my desk still shares the same basic design as its predecessor from 10 years ago. It has become timeless, like the original ThinkPad design.

"Apple built Keynote because <i>everyone</i> hates PowerPoint."

From what I know Steve used to do his NeXT presentations in Lighthouse Design's Concurrence, and he continued to use an OpenStep machine well into his return to Apple.

"PowerPoint is by far the worst app in the Microsoft Office suite"<p>Really? I nominate MS Word for that title. Maybe we should hold a poll :)

This is a good example of what happens when a driven person finds a problem that, in his opinion, needs fixing. In this case Steve Jobs, who's famous for his keynotes, speeches etc., found that existing solutions do not suit his needs and, what's more important from the business perspective, there's a bunch of people who feel the same. So, as a brilliant entrepreneur, he made the Keynote happen.

I don't think powerpoint is all that bad.<p>It's people who don't know how to present is what makes it look bad. Especially when they fill the screen with every single word they say.

Keynote's one minor-but-annoying limitation is that you can't change default parameters globally for animations.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU</a><p>The second video in the original posters link, the Titanium Powerbook unveiling, Jobs had a lot of spunk compared to the most recent unveilings.

Ok, Concurrence, but the name "Keynote" certainly is suggestive.

Is that Comic Sans?