webcast app

I saw the Oct 12 webcast (the URL will go away soon, I supose) some days ago, but only today I got some time to post it. Of course the news of the day is the new Aperture software (and not being a photographer like João Pedro, Rui or Delfim, I can’t value it properly), and the new hardware, powermacs and powerbooks. I’ll write some comments about the last ones later.

Regarding the Oct 12, these where my notes:

• Photoboth: fun app! I liked the detail that the screen goes totally blank when the shutter fires to serve as a flash. It’s the small details, I tell you;
• Frontrow: the iMac’s have and external s-video output. Can you use it with Frontrow? That would allow us to use Frontrow with a normal TV set;
• I liked the U2 iPod ad, nicely done;
• iTMS: the “Just for you” section is an obvious improvement to any online retail store, nowadays. What I found interesting is that the “I already own this” and the “not interested” features are much more visible than the Amazon.co.uk, my usual online retailer. I was telling Rui that it was surprised that Amazon didn’t had this feature first and it was he who pointed out that they had it, in fact. I found it, in light grey on the recommendations page, not very visible to me. Yet, on either of them, I still can ask for stuff that I want but isn’t available on their store;
• the presentation: like previous editions, everything just works. The last time something went wrong that I remembered was the Tiger preview, two years ago in in June, me thinks, when one of the computers Jobs was using started to act up and he switched to a backup. The live iPod demo where nice, also. One question I had at the time, when doing the iPod demos, there was a white border on screen: does it appear in the TV when you are using Video-out? If it does, does it appear in black with the black iPods? :)
• TV shows: bah, not available outside the US yet. What about subtitles? Even the english for the hearing impaired track would be nice;
• Jobs: he seemed tired, more than usual. He made at least some mistakes, calling iMac to the iPod at least on two occasions;
• The bit I liked the most to hear: almost at the end, when Robert Iger, the Disney CEO, was talking (around 58:50): on the subject of digital distributions - “‘it is the future as far as we are concern”’

Overall nice event. I don’t plan to buy a Video iPod, but I think it’s good enough for a first version and it helps kick-start the download video market.

The iMac looks very nice, and if people ask me for a desktop computer to the home, I’ll probably recommend it. The price is good, great value.