The time of the year when expectations for new Apple products and services reaches a fever pitch. This year it’s especially intense because expectations seem to be so high following a very long time between drinks. The drinks in this case being Apple’s entry into a new product field where, as it has on memorable occasions in the last ten years, allegedly mature technology domains are ripe for disruption – only they don’t know it yet.

Recently, the “pundocracy” have been alleging that with Tim Cook at the helm, Apple’s streak of innovations have come to an end. The Samsung range of cellphones, especially the S4 has been cited as an exemplar of Apple being left in the innovation dustbin. Mooted devices such as an iWatch and AppleTV – not the current box, but a real screen device – have not realised, and this has only added to the frustration of Apple watchers and investors.

So this Monday (Tuesday in Australia), many will be observing Apple’s offerings, some superficially so, eager to get their hands on newly announced products and services. A heady proportion will be announced for release that day or week, others for later in the year, since this is after all a developers’ conference for the purpose of showing new software with plenty of lead time for a developers to release their wares in September or October.

But there will be a group who will look beyond the products on show, at those Apple crew and guests making their demos and announcements. They’ll be looking not at what Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and maybe Jony Ive announce, but at how they make their announcements.

Since 2003, Apple has used its keynotes to secretly demonstrate new software for those who looked closely enough. Starting that year, when Steve Jobs spoke of being a beta tester for Keynote, Apple’s presentation software which was designed to take on Microsoft’s Powerpoint, Apple has shown advanced editions of Keynote as the tool to show new official products. Powerpoint itself had been Microsoft’s first software purchase (apart from the initial Desk Operating System from Seattle Computer Products for use in IBM PCs), intended for the Mac Plus/SE to make black and white overhead slides – foils – using new Laserwriters. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 a five year deal was struck with Bill Gates to have MS Office for the Mac continue in production, with Internet Explorer becoming the de facto web browser for the Macintosh.

It’s not surprising then that the same year Keynote was released, Apple’s own browser was released too, in the form of Safari. And it was ten years ago, at the same Macworld at Moscone where Monday’s keynote will be held, that Apple introduced 17″ and 12″ Powerbooks. And it was there that Apple told all those who would listen that a post-PC world was on the horizon, with predictions that laptops would soon outsell desktops, much like tablets will soon outsell laptops, leaving desktops to do the truck-like heavy lifting, such as scientific number crunching, animation rendering and the like.

In the ten years since Keynote 1.0 was released, Apple has added new software to rival Office, such as Numbers (Excel) and Pages (Word), and brought those same OS X apps to the iPad in iOS form. The introduction of iCloud was meant to provide synchronisation between the platforms in the same way one can with Evernote, and it’s hoped that WWDC on Monday brings major improvements and developments in cloud computing from Apple.

There have also been incremental updates to Keynote along the way, bringing it from a functional but anaemic software which was hardly a match feature-wise for Powerpoint 2003, to an outstanding platform for helping transform a presenter’s implicit knowledge into a format to help transfer that knowledge to others.

Powerpoint 2010/11 has transformed itself too and on superficial inspection looks a lot like Keynote. Power users can make it do great things, but for a ten year veteran of Keynote like myself who coaches others in presentation skills across both platforms, Powerpoint for all its features remains clunky and Keynote easy on the eye and the hand.

That said, Apple has treated Keynote with seeming disdain, last updating it with any significant feature improvement in 2009. I have it on reasonable authority that in the time since that last official update, Apple was preparing to release a significant update, but pulled back at the last minute. Keen observers of Apple’s keynotes, such as WWDC, will occasionally report feeling as if there was a glitch or oversight in the narrative, as if there was a last moment change. Perhaps because a product didn’t meet quality standards or deals weren’t signed in time.

In the case of Keynote, Apple’s unexpected success with the iPad, and then the development of iBooks, has seen resources thrown at iWork for the iPad, much as we have heard stories of the OS X team being diluted to provide crew for iOS 7, which many commentators have asserted needs an “urgent” facelift.

Thus, keen eyes will be observing this week to see if Apple either hints at an iWork update via new features on display in Keynote (to tell Apple’s story of new services and products), or perhaps a section devoted directly to iWork updates, perhaps with the inclusion of a new software to the suite.

Why an update to Keynote feature set urgently needed

In the fours and a half years since Keynote’s last sprucing up, much has occurred in the world of presenting, leaving aside Powerpoint’s updates.

We have new platforms such as Prezi, an effort to move away from the linearity of the standard slide show paradigm.

We have online services such as Slideshare, and Presentate. And we also have iPad based iOS apps for specialist analysis, such as performed by Asymco’s Horace Dediu in the form of the free Perspective app.

But in the years after 2009, there has been another disruptive technology introduced which I fear Apple has neglected, worth billions, which it can now be a part of… and that is MOOCs, or Massive Online Open Courses which are seeing colleges and universities scrambling to adapt to, including developing their own. Apple provides a conduit for courses too, using its iTunes U app and services.

There is also a massive swing to online continuing education within industries, professions and vocations, where the old linearity and style of Powerpoint simply won’t cut it anymore.

That style, which I personally have always thought was incredibly overused and abusive of students in tertiary settings, much less business meetings (you know, all text and pixelated images), will simply not cut it for either MOOCs or Continuing Education.

Those online trainings, where individuals work through a series of modules at their own pace – but which need to be passed at a certain level of competence before moving to the next – require high levels of quality multimedia production to maintain viewer engagement. There is a great deal of competition for attention on both the screen and in their pockets via smartphone distractions.

I’ve already seen one business-oriented training course, for which I used Keynote to create the visuals, change midstream from a “stand and deliver” live course, to an online course, with minimal changes to the Keynote files, since they weren’t the usual Powerpoint in the first place.

You can see some demos at the site, http://workmindset.com, and the voiceover is my work as well (yeah, multi-talented, huh?).

Here’s where an opportunity exists for Apple to become disruptive in another game, one worth billions. To do what I did with the online learning program, I had to go outside Keynote’s limitations, something its users have learnt to do since version 1.0.

I had to use two screenshot apps, Voila for stills and Screenflow for movies, as well as third parties for images and movies requiring payment of royalties. I also incorporated animated backgrounds featuring professional looping Quicktime movies to bring some “energy” onto certain slides, as well as themes from third parties which better suited my purposes than Keynote’s default themes.

I had to be inventive with callouts, where certain areas of the slide were highlighted and other areas backgrounded since there is no laser pointer to show the way (ugh!). And I had to use Screenflow to record quite complex builds where I needed exquisite timing of visuals and sounds which Keynote could not provide with sufficient precision, showing in glaring spotlight its major deficiency with respect to a timeline. We see these in all manner of Apple software from Garageband, through iMovie, onto Motion and Final Cut X.

The last two also incorporate third party modules to enhance their capabilities and the reader is referred to Noise Industries‘ FxFactory for examples which could find their way into a Keynote Pro should it adopt such a modular system. While it’s nice to see a supporting ecosystem of themes, images and movies for Keynote, none so far add to the workflow the way FxFactory and its ilk bring extra competencies to Final Cut X or Motion. Indeed, some have remarked to me that a Keynote Pro would see a merging of the simplicity and ease of use of Keynote with the professional capabilities of Motion.

I want to make a reference to two more third party applications and resources which I am exploiting more often, especially to improve upon Keynote’s text and graphic effects. The first is an application from Synium, called Animationist which allows wonderful moving and changing text, exported as masked Quicktime movies. Only in version 1, the sooner Apple buys this and brings it into Keynote the better. When you download the demo, note its ease of use of a timeline. Here’s a YouTube video to tempt you with:

The second is a bespoke service from India which I discovered via a Google search when I was under time pressure and needed some ready-made visuals, rather than creating them from scratch. It’s an Indian company called Chillibreeze, and their Keynote service is called Muezart. I found them delightful people to do business with. I needed a way to show change over time, moving from low level abilities to high.

Here’s the “tachometer” effect I ended up with ($4.99), for the launch of the workmindset.com program last week (wait until the very end to see all the components in the tachometer I purchased):

In Conclusion:

So come Monday, there will be a legion of Keynote users who will once more look past the content of the keynote (although we will no doubt be very interested in what’s on show) to look at the process of Keynote.

Will we see at long last an update and will we hear of new products and services Apple will be releasing to disrupt yet another billion dollar marketplace ripe for the picking?

“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” ~ Business Week, October 12, 2004

I went back to what I wrote about the iPad after its announcement at an Apple keynote in January 2010, and then in the days before its release. It makes for edifying reading given the tech punditry who got it so, so wrong, as evidenced by Asymco’s Horace Dediu here.

Blog entry of March 21, 2010:

How I know the iPad will be a success – unusual sources of evidence: potential users

Snippet:

“The second thing: There is one game displayed where what looks like a jigsaw where pieces of yellow cheese are assembled into a one piece, about 21secs into the video. Here’s a stillshot:

When I first saw this clip, I was reminded of a widely-used IQ test, known as the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), which contains a series of tests, some timed, which measures both verbal and non-verbal aspects of intelligence.

The equipment comes in a box and is several thousand dollars. Several of the tests use jigsaw-like elements asking the child to assemble the elements into a gestalt. At first, the child is told what the final assembly looks like. More challenging elements see the child merely told to assemble the pieces without knowledge what it is.

There are also small individual squares (3″ x 3″) containing elements of an illustrated story for which there is one best way to place them in order. The child starts with just two pictures and it’s very easy to place them in linear order of occurrence. The stories get more complicated and take longer as the child progresses.

As I was showing the Redfish video a second time, I asked the audience to consider how the WISC could be almost entirely performed on the iPad, together with a stopwatch function which could then automatically time and enter scores without the manual being needed for norming the results. There is one block test that requires small blocks to be laid out according to an illustration that may not be doable on the iPad, but if imagination is allowed to reign, the next generation of children could be tested with a WISC specifically designed to be performed on the iPad with a new block test normed for a new generation. Readers should bear in mind that psychologists don’t simply gathers scores, but also look keenly at how the child goes about the task, how he or she deals with frustration or failure or success, things that aren’t normed but important clinical indicators nonetheless.”

But all this is a digression for certain interested readers, away from the point I wish to make in that this was a natural small experiment into the appeal of the iPad for certain groups: one with concerns about adapting new technologies who understood my enthusiasm for the iPad and where I think it fits in professionally; and the second of course were the young boys who ignored their DVD which had so occupied them to stare gobsmacked at the iPad Redfish video. You could almost see them aching to get their hands on one, and play the same game, one of many Redfish will be releasing for educational purposes.

I have every confidence their excitement is the tip of the iceberg, and naysayers will be looking very glum in a year’s time for their shallow prognostications.”

UPDATE: The huge publishing house, Pearson, with whom Apple has done deals for textbooks on the iPad, (see here), has the rights to the WISC and the Adult version, the WAIS. I am now beta testing these tests which utilise two iPad 4′s which through bluetooth allow the clinician to see what the test subject is doing. Pearson “got it” when others didn’t.

Blog entry of March 25, 2010:

Thinking about the iPad in a professional psychology practice – in response to a fifteen year old’s dissing of it as useless

Snippet:

“So here are my thoughts, without yet getting my hands on it, as to how I might use the iPad in a professional psychology setting, as well as (as an addendum to be added to once I actually see how Keynote works) how to use it as a Presentation tool.

1. Intake: Patients waiting to meet me can fill in questionnaires or biographical information (much of it radio buttons or tick boxes) or using the built in or outrigger keyboard. In the future, a pend device for handwriting might become available.

2. Billing: As of now, many patients make direct payment using their internet banking or via PayPal if using credit cards. Just like iccpay.com, I imagine we’ll see similar instant credit card payment systems evolve for the iPad.

3. Patient database management, using an evolved form of Bento or a specific Numbers template which is easily transferred back to the Macbook Pro.

4. Showing educational movies, either on the iPad itself or via a USB or wireless connection to a TV or data projector.

5. Testing: I can see a number of specialist psychological testing outfits developing normed tests for use with children and adults on the iPad.

6. Distractor for children: Sometimes, a child in a session needs to be kept occupied when parents are the subject of interview, and the iPad with its games will be great for this. The last thing I want to give them is my Macbook Pro.

7. Information to read about their disorder or malady, which can then be printed out at will. Yes, it can be done on the Macbook Pro, but it’s always hooked up to monitors, backup drives and my iPhone and isn’t moveable during a session. Much easier simply to give a patient the iPad to read.

8. Make audio recording of the session. I record all sessions (patients remember about 10% of a sessions content) and from the iPad the AAC or mp3 file is emailed to them. Again, it can be done on the Macbook Pro using an external microphone like a Blue Snowball.

9. Specialised measuring tools, such as biofeedback devices like the emWave I now use to monitor heart rate variability, useful in stress management and arousal modulation. If patients get their own iPads with the software (possibly in development now), practise the techniques I’ve taught, and theit data can hopefully be transferred to my main database for comparisons and expose improvements over time.

10. A miniature whiteboard using Keynote to highlight ideas and demonstrate concepts.

These are just a few ideas thrown together without too much effort. Once the ball is rolling and the first of a new generation of apps of released, no doubt surprising us with their look, feel and innovation, the ball will start rolling and the penny dropping. For myself, I can see workshops ahead for using the iPad in professional health consulting, and hopefully hooking up with developers with a psychology interest to create new apps.”

Current Status: My accuracy record for all these predictions, before even getting my hands on the iPad:

100%

I am particularly proud of #9, the emWave heart rate monitoring device. After Macworld 2009, I visited the developers of this program in Santa Cruz, and implored them to develop for the iPhone, instead of their dinky portable device. They refused, citing exhorbitant development costs. I told them flat out they were wrong, the iPhone will surge in sales as more developers came on board, and if they didn’t develop, someone else would.

In March this year, the emWave for iPad and iPhone was released, known as Inner Balance (review coming soon). The US Navy, in an effort to increase mental toughness and reduce PTSD in its corps, is experimenting with the iPad and such a system.

#10 was achieved through another app I am a beta tester for, Doceri. It has now been taken up by UPenn for a 1000 seats its lecture theatres.

Blog entry for March 28, 2010:

While the 3 year old will yelp with delight when they discover the iPad’s games, the 80 year old will quietly say, “I get it. This is what computing’s about.”

Snippet:

“Seated at the same dinner table last Friday were students who entered the course after I had completed my studies, and whom I’ve met at other functions organised by this very social graduate group. One, Winston, works for a very large car manufacturing company whose world headquarters are in Detroit, and was in receipt of bailout money in recent months. The company has been part of the Australian manufacturing sector since the 1940s, and their vehicles remain very popular with Australians.

Somehow, the discussion moved to the iPad, perhaps after I had excused myself from the table to answer my iPhone, and Winston suggested on my return he was interested in getting an iPhone too. I suggested he wait a little while, perhaps June or July, when a new model might become available, and from there a discussion took place about the iPhone’s place in business now that Microsoft Exchange could work with it. It was a quick skip to speculation about the iPad.

Winston put me on the spot to pronounce why the iPad was a better choice than a netbook, which in Australia would be half the price and pack more features, such as a camera, “real” keyboard, iPhone tethering, and the full Microsoft Office suite.

My response was to suggest that the iPad should better be considered not as a computer in the common use of the term, i.e. a notebook or desktop device, but as a knowledge management tool in its own right, and rattled off the sort of apps it would inherit from the iPhone as well as those likely be designed to take advantage of its speed and screen size.

I suggested to Winston that the iPad would have limited initial appeal to computer wonks who wanted merely a smaller form factor for Windows-based computing. It would fail their needs. But I then suggested that there would be huge numbers of ordinary people with very limited knowledge of computer innards and workings – that is, the vast bulk of the Australian population – for whom the iPad would elicit the spontaneous remark:

So this is what computing should be!

No menu bars, no operating system to fiddle with, instant on and ready to use at the simple touch of one button, yet also have powerful business applications such as iWork and Bento and Evernote should this group of users work its way up the skill and learning curve.

When Winston said he had elderly parents who had never touched a computer but had expressed interest in what their use might bring to their lives, I asked him in all honesty which he would buy them: A $400 netbook running Windows Xp (then add the cost of Microsoft Office 2007) or a $650 iPad plus the $50 for iWork + Bento?

The picture of 75 year old mum and dad sitting on their couch wrestling with a netbook with its tiny keyboard and poor resolution screen was enough to observe Winston momentarily pause in his tracks to reconsider his options. Yes, for him, with his background in engineering, a netbook was a no-brainer. A good match for the problems he wished to solve.”

Current Status: Totally nailed it!

Blog entry for March 31, 2010

Where to go to find people using iPads this weekend? In all sorts of interesting places!

Snippet:

We’re just a few days away from the iPad falling into users’ hands, in time for Spring Break, Easter, and Passover.

So where might you go and find iPads if you weren’t lucky enough to order one for yourself? Well, as the video below shows, a whole variety of places, perhaps even at the White House Passover seder hosted by Barak and Steve himself!

Enjoy!

I altered the video’s outline to be less “ripped”, made it tumble rather than pop out of the book, and gave it a landing “splash” using the Anvil build (can you work out how I did that?) What do you prefer – the original, or this modification?

I thought as a reward I would post a video of the “Shaking Book” effect as I call it, which I discussed in the podcast. I start most of my workshops, no matter the subject, with it. It follows my first slide which is usually just the title of the presentation du jour. The point is to inform the audience that no matter what they may learn on the day, I’m hoping they walk out happy they attended, and this is indeed what I actually say.

But the other unspoken message of showing the shaking book slide, right up front, is several-fold:

1. This will not be your usual dull, disengaging Powerpoint.

2. Even if you’re an old hand at presenting, and have attended lots of such trainings, you ain’t seen nothing yet = raising expectations (Contrary to Barry Schwart’z message)

3. Stamps my authority as an expert Keynote user since the effect is not one you can merely select but must create yourself, thus displaying a depth of knowledge of what Keynote can accomplish.

So, here’s the video, and beneath it, the Keynote slide and the Inspector so you can go figure out how it was done.

Now, there is a little more to this video than first meets the eye. Go back and have a second look. Note that the video seems to come between the open pages of the book, not from behind. Your mission, Mr. Phelps, is to figure out how that was achieved.

And here’s the Inspector (click to enlarge):

There is a little more to it in terms of what all these elements in the Inspector achieve but I’m sure you can figure out some of the magic for yourself!

PS. I will not be returning to Macworld 2013 next February. Perhaps in 2014 depending on the direction Macworld heads.

You can hear and the podcast and note links to items mentioned here: http://5by5.tv/mpu/111

The podcast is more than 90 mins and I hope you enjoy. Feedback and questions welcomed. You’ll hear us occasionally walk over each other and me do more than my customary “ums and “ahs” due to the nature of Skype audio (I’m in Australia and they’re in the US on the west and east coast).

Well, perhaps someone at Apple was listening! Because for the first time, Apple wil be using its AppleTV service to live stream the October 23 Special event. It won’t be at 5am local time in Australia, but 4am… Ah, decisions, decisions!

Here is a photo of my LG monitor display showing the announcement, and Other Events going back to June 2011. Let’s hope this becomes a permanent arrangement. That “hobby” of Apple’s is sure starting to take on new life!

Square offered a small hardware device which plugged into your iPhone headphone jack and communicated with its own app so you could accept credit card payments. The Square card reader “swiped” the card, and the money would soon enough be transferred to your nominated bank account.

The video still excites many of my colleagues even though it was made several years ago, and it’s yet to be made available in Australia. It’s been reported that Square has since enjoyed an investment from VISA after initial warnings of “security issues” from Verifone, a maker of card readers More recently, Square has expanded its wares to purposely include iPad-expanded abilities for point-of-sale businesses.

There has been talk of Square coming to Australia, where many psychologists use those old bank-leased card readers, which usually means you also need to have a landline, or a more expensive 3G model. Some like to use it because one bank has arrangements with Australia’s Medicare national medical health scheme, allowing payments to be made directly into the psychologist’s nominated account.

But for the many solo psychologists who work in multiple locations, these solutions are not particularly cost-effective, since one pays a monthly fee for the lease, as well as a percentage per transaction, a 30c fee, and other ancillary set-ups fees.

It’s essentially a monopoly situation, which I have rejected in my own practice.

For those who want to pay me by credit card, they receive ahead of their appointment, advice that credit card payments can be made via PayPal, with a surcharge of $5 to cover the fees I am charged (a little under 3%). This keeps the banks in their place.

The other electronic alternative (cash is certainly accepted; cheques are a dying monetary exchange system in Australia) is direct debit, where the patient can make an online payment from their bank account. Neither they nor I receive any costs for this transaction. For that reason, I have the apps of the most popular banks installed on my iPad, so patients can either pay at the end of the session using my iPad, or pay at home or their office. Many now use their own iPhone during the session to make their payment. Once they use my bank details, websites usually keep me as a preferred payee and those details don’t need to be entered a second time.

The case for an iPhone or iPad enabled payment system is a no-brainer. One wonders, what with the Samsung vs Apple trial currently under way, if Apple ever thought its iDevices would be used this way. After all, even in its own Apple Stores it formerly used Windows CE-based portable card scanning devices.

These were replaced, perhaps with a big sigh of relief, with iPod touch units and an EasyPay system, as its called. At left, is an Apple Store employee in Perth, Western Australia using one when I visited in June 2012.

The units incorporate both a card reader and a bar scan reader and after taking your money, a receipt will be emailed to your nominated address. If you’ve purchased before, your details will quickly come up from the server and speed up the process.

More so, you can now use an EasyPay app on your own iPhone to make your purchase without even sighting an Apple Store employee!

Apple’s modded iPod Touch showing the bard card reader in action, purchasing an AppleTV remote

Apple EasyPay app at work in the Apple Store

Returning momentarily to Square, some have mooted it might make an excellent acquisition for Apple, as reported in the New York Times recently, above.

What makes the NYT report incorrect is its report that the Square service is “a unique electronic payment service through iPhones and iPads”.

There are several competitors, not all of whom use a card reader. One is ICCPay, which I also mention in my IT workshops, below (Shame on the NYT for not doing its homework).

The app needs to be used with a gateway linked to banks, and for some people these extra steps may prove to be a hurdle.

With the next iPhone not very far away, others have suggested Apple has its own plans for an iPhone based payment system, using Near Field Communications (NFC). With iOS6 coming with a coupon and ticket app called Passbook, it may also be the case that Apple will later allow iPhones to act as credit card terminals, perhaps utilising technologies from its Apple Store EasyPay setup.

While all this is in the not-to-distant future, Australian and US iDevice owners have another system just coming onto the market from PayPal, called PayPal Here. Below, the US website announcing its availability.

The Australian PayPal site shows a “Notify me when it’s ready” sign but some time back when it was first mooted coming to Australia, I applied to go on PayPal’s waiting list. This was back in April. In recent weeks, I was notified things were on the move. Last week , apparently in preparation, my PayPal account was suspended, pending receipt of documents pertaining to security questions, including if I was at all politically connected to anyone in the public eye. Seriously. I had to fax or email documents containing my photo ID and birthdate, as well as documents showing my name and current address, such as a utility bill. I used my US Passport business VISA for the former.

This was accepted eventually, and I was in business, even though the small triangular card reader was yet to arrive. The free app was available to be used however. Doing this has drawbacks, though.

1. Entering card data manually, with a purchaser’s finger signature and three digit CVV, attracts a higher % commission (about 3%), and

2. It takes 21 days to clear into your PayPal account, plus a few more after that to go into your nominated bank account.

Fortunately, my card reader arrived by courier yesterday, after being notified by PayPal Australia to expect it in 3-5 business days. It actually came just a day or two after that email, with its courier tracking details.

Here’s what the container box looks like:

The box includes an adhesive label you can place at your business entrance

Here’s the physical unite – it measures in imperial terms, 1.5″ x 1.5″ x 2″ approx

Here are a number of shots I took with my iPhone showing the boxing of the unit. This might not quite match the unboxing of a new Mac, but still….

It’s nicely done, complete with the adhesive label to place on your front door, and PayPal’s local support number. I haven’t tried to reach support yet, but would think that anyone trying to compare various payment systems ought to incorporate a comparison of support parameters, such as time spent waiting, quality of answers, followup, etc.

Using the unit requires you to download the free PayPal Here app from the App store. It is set for the iPhone, but will happily expand to 2x appearance on the iPad without much pixelation.

There can be a problem with iPhones with cases which make full insertion of the card reader difficult which I have already discovered with certain cables.

The card reader, unlike the Square unit, contains a triangular cover which partially rotates and “grabs” the iPhone preventing the unit from swivelling. Again, with a thick iPhone case, this feature just gets in the way. I have  swivelled the unit, and held it for a successful card swipe, but clearly if one is to use it frequently, it might require the temporary removal of the case.

The app., by the way, allows you to practise swiping without incurring fees, and as a way to test the functionality of the card reader.

Let’s now go look at the app itself, which has a number of interesting features.

The first is the “Open for Business” screen, above,  which connects you to PayPal to show balances, as as well the means to input items and information about your business.

There are a variety of settings, above, where you can list your inventory and give each item a sale price, and keep a running total of items being purchased. It night be useful for a bar or restaurant,  for instance, collecting table orders.

Each item can have its own amount and description, above, quite useful for those working garage sales or fleamarket transactions.

The app also includes a handy calculator, above,  to keep a running total going…

The app also includes the option, above, of putting in your business information, including either your mapped place of business and/or your correspondence address, as in a post box.

There is also the opportunity to track sales figures, both past and pending, above.

Items sold may include not just physical goods, but services too which can be itemised. There is also for goods, an area to display a picture of the item next to its description and cost. The picture can be imported from the Photo app, as you can see, below.

The option to take a picture on the fly could turn out to be very useful in some circumstances. There also exists the option, like Apple’s EasyPay system, of emailing a receipt to the purchaser. Handy to develop a marketing list of email addresses…

There are some questions that remain however.

Will the card reader work with all cards, and what of worn cards? How well will it work with the next iPhone, if rumours of its headphone jack heading south to the bottom of the unit prove to be true? And what is its future should Apple release its own credit card system in the near future?

The beauty of the PayPal system is the small size and thus portability of the reader, the data safety via encryption offered standard by PayPal, the well thought out version 1 of its app, and the public’s general awareness of the PayPal brand.

It’s also relatively easy to use and navigate through the various app screens, and the costs are very good when compared to what’s already out there. While it’s currently limited to VISA and Mastercard credit and debit cards, the lack of AMEX and Discover might be a concern for some. Mind you, I can’t recall the last time a patient tried to pay for a session with AMEX.

I’ll  update this blog entry once I start to make some “sales” with the unit, and report back on its actual usefulness.

Dear Sir/Madam,

After many years of observing your publication in operation and as it attempts to make the transition to a digital news flow, may I offer the following reasons why some of your syndicated, featured, or freelance writers, be they journalists or bloggers or members of the kommentariat at large, may cause you to shift their fields of interest. Or:

Ten ways you know your tech journalists should be switched from covering Apple Inc. to say, Microsoft or RIM:

1. They refer to any success Apple enjoys as being due to its legions of “iSheep”, “fanbois” or cult believers who will indiscriminantly buy anything Apple due to Apple’s vast marketing budget and prowess. They will perhaps give a very brief mention to design and production qualities, but keep the focus on slavish followers.

2. They damn Apple for not having the courage to enter the enterprise market and compete head to head with Microsoft, thus revealing they haven’t seen or heard Steve Jobs’ metaphors of trucks and cars, and a post-PC world, nor do they understand the term “flight to the bottom”.

3. They rabbit on about “market share” and how low is Apple’s with respect to the desktop OS, while conveniently ignoring Apple’s quarterly profits, growth and customer satisfaction surveys. Oh, and its market share with respect to the iOS-powered devices.

4. They hold up examples of failed Apple products as to why Apple might fail with its next rumoured product… “remember the Pippin, the Newton, The Cube? See, Apple doesn’t get it right always….”

5. They admonish Apple for releasing or spreading rumours there will be a product “soon” but one which Steve Jobs said Apple would never do. This is used  as an example of Apple’s lack of trustworthiness, but bald-faced lying. iPod Video 5th gen., anyone?

6. They report on how worried Apple should be because they really believe RIM is about to turn the corner and blow the tech world out of the water with the next Blackberry with its new OS. Or Microsoft will do it with Windows 8, or Nokia will… you get the picture.

7. They do “exclusive” product review “showdowns” between vapourware products no one has been able to put side by side e.g. “Who will win? We compare Microsoft’s Surface RT versus Apple’s iPad 7 inch.”

8. In predicting Apple’s future, they can’t help themselves from referring to Microsoft “saving” Apple from oblivion at the time of Steve Jobs’ return in 1997, with an investment of $150 million in non-voting stock, thus perpetuating demonstrably untrue folklore.

9. They include current quotes from Steve Wozniak about contemporary Apple issues like design, functionality or competitiveness, things he would be best to leave alone for oh…  the past 20 years, and the next 20 to come.

10. They continually present you with articles about Apple which are lists of ten things Apple could do differently, should be doing, are not doing, are doing worse than anyone else, etc., etc. And they spread all ten over 5 pages to demonstrate how they are truly clickwhores, which badly reflects on your publication.

These are my ten. Dear Reader, I’m sure I’ve missed a few… can you assist with your own, and assist Dear Editor out of this dilemma?

I hadn’t stepped more than a metre or so into the store when I was welcomed by an Apple employee, to whom I said I’m just looking, and proceeded to track down the new Retina display Macbook Pro.

I’m a year off updating my April 2011 Macbook Pro 15″, having just given it a big speed boost by removing the standard 500GB hard drive (albeit the 7200RPM model), and replacing it with an OWC 120GB solid state drive. I didn’t stop there, removing the optical drive, placing it in an OWC USB-powered case, and using an OWC datadoubler cage to place a 750GB Seagate momentum hard drive. The SSD contains my operating system and applications, while the Seagate has my documents and other files, as well as used as a scratch disk. How fast is the system now? Well, Microsoft Word now opens with one bounce, as does iPhoto with 3500 pictures.

More importantly it shuts down and boots up much more quickly, and I’m estimating the Macbook’s battery endurance has also increased significantly.

It will do fine for another year.

Equally important, it gives Keynote – my presentation application which I discuss frequently on this blog – a speed boost too, and it has a snappier feel to it when I’m in the process of creating new presentations.

Which all brings me to discuss the future of Keynote and its brethren apps which make up the iWork suite, which has not seen a significant update for more than three years. Meanwhile, Powerpoint for Macs and Windows have seen major version updates, Prezi is growing in popularity, and iWork apps for the iPad have seen several significant improvements, bringing them closer to the capabilities of the desktop versions.

Keynote users, which we can guess are growing in number to judge by the sales figures Apple publishes on the App store (it’s currently in the top three of paid apps), are asking the following questions, mystified by Apple’s seeming neglect of their favourite app.:

1. Is an update – or more plainly – a significant version improvement due some time this decade?

2. Will it have the same look and feel as the current version, or will Apple switch it to its “professional look”, seen in apps such as Final Cut X, Motion, Aperture, etc.

3. Will Keynote fully utilise Airplay in Mountain Lion such that in either Presentation or Mirror mode, a true wireless data projector connection may be made, either with the latest wifi-equipped projector, or via connecting AppleTV to an HDMI equipped setup

4. Will Keynote instead be dumbed down so as to provide greater compatibility with the iPad version?

5. If not, what new features will Keynote emphasize? Clearly, new transitions or build styles will come along, but is this sufficient to sustain interest in Keynote or are new useability features to be the name of the game in 2012?

6. Will Keynote make it easier for third party developers to come to the party, not just with new themes, but this time with new transitions and builds?

So what new features are the most desired and have any recent official Apple keynotes given a hint of Apple’s thinking about presentations?

After using Keynote for almost a decade, when it was almost featureless when compared to Powerpoint 2003, experienced users have developed their own workarounds for the application’s deficiencies, even if they must do so with clenched teeth.

The lack of a useful timeline remains for me the most glaring need to be fixed. Currently, rather complex slideshows, which Keynote begs to do due to its cinematic capabilities, are hobbled. The go-around is to create Quicktime movies of complex single slides, perhaps using iMovie, Motion or Final Cut to manage exact timings and mixtures of images, video, and sound.

Grouping images into a single image file is still troublesome, as Apple has yet to find a way to name each group on the one slide with its own name, rather than a generic, “Group”. Moving these groups forward or back with respect to each slide item, something novice users are unaware of, is part of elevating presentations to another level. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it taken advantage of in scientific presentations featuring Powerpoint. In Keynote currently, it’s particularly kludgy, and Powerpoint for Mac has a 3D view which Apple could think about improving upon. Using layers within a presentation slide raises presentations from ho-hum to something special.

The most recently observed Apple keynotes haven’t shown any easily detectable new features. For the next section, I’ll refer to the WWDC 2012 keynote of June 11 where new Macbooks were shown together with previews of Mountain Lion and iOS 6.

There were a couple of very neat effects displayed which can be reproduced using the existing feature set, but which require several steps rather than built-in effect generators. Let’s start early in the WWDC when CEO Tim Cook is describing how many more countries are will soon be able to access Apple’s App store.

If you download the video via the iTunes podcast feature, you’ll see a world map at 05:50 where Cook has several new countries “fly” in, overlaying in a different shade of blue those countries new to the app store service. I was able to reproduce this on one slide using the move and scale build in feature, but to do it over 30 countries is a pain.

It means utilising the shape feature to outline, then “cut” the country, use the Adjust image to shift the shade of blue, place the image off the slide, then create and combined “move and scale” to slide the new image in and over the country. Lots of work but quite an effective visual. Here’s Greenland (circled) flying in:

The hope we have is that the next Apple will make such efforts much less intensive, requiring much less mousing about. It’s easier of course if the map is built of separate country images, but the cut method I refer to is how I used the display above as a proof of concept that the fly in effect can be achieved in the current Keynote.

The next feature I want to highlight is just that - highlighting. While the map sequence shows elements flying onto the slide, an important feature of contemporary presenting is doing away with those awful laser pointers so favoured by those who won’t put the effort into preparing both their stories and slides ahead of time, preferring to appear “spontaneous” while wiggling green or red lights in dizzying circles.

When I visited Apple’s Keynote team in Pittsburgh a few years ago, I made it a special point to discuss the need for the team to understand the importance of “call outs”, ways of highlighting elements on the slide. This could be a set of cells in a Numbers spreadsheet, or an element of a photograph, or a line of text from a scholarly publication – something you want to stand out from the rest of the slide elements as something requiring the audience’s attention which you speak to, but by enlarging it or shadowing it or somehow calling it out, you still allow the audience to see where it belongs on the slide. This adds to your authenticity by showing the source of the quote, rather than merely typing it onto a slide.

Take a look at the slide (below) I created to get the idea visually:

Notice a few things: I have enlarged the main graphic which is taken from a PDF of a journal article I am discussing with the live audience. It’s intentionally pixelated and thus hard to read, because I don’t want the audience to race ahead and read it. It’s purposely difficult because within a moment of its appearance I am overlaying a much clearer image of the paragraph I am going to read to the audience.

What, you say, read a slide?

As I tell Presentation Magic audiences, the only time I read a slide is when it is a direct quote from a source I am displaying – never my own words on a constructed slide unless it’s a single word or phrase, but never sentences.

Remember – once you display a slide with words on it, your audience will read it whether you ask them to or not… so any time you put words on a slide it’s because you want them to read the words in preference to listening to you or because they read while you say the say words. Vision and sound work together to make it more memorable.

In the slide above there are two effects: As the main page appears, it immediately goes to pixelated form while the paragraph leaps off the page (notice the shadow effect) to grab attention. And as I read the slide, I say “and here’s the main point I want to make with this slide” and use the red shadowed box to highlight the sentences in the highlighted paragraph. This double handling take some effort to create on the slide, but in the presentation it runs seamlessly and produces an engaging sequence. It shows your audience you’ve really put some thought and effort into it for your audience’s erudition.

As much I tried to show the Pittsburgh-based Keynote team the importance of callouts, I reinforced this a few years ago at a Macworld Presentation Magic workshop when two senior members (one a new hire specialising in interface design) of the Keynote team attended my training. I didn’t announce their presence to the other attendees, as I wanted them to sit in as regular attendees. During the workshop, I spent considerable time discussing callouts, why I think they’re important in contemporary presenting, and some of the techniques I use to create various call out effects. I know the Keynote team members were very interested in what I did, and went away thinking about how to create these effects as part of the Keynote app attributes, rather than create them using a multitude of keystrokes and mousing about.

I am pleased to say, if I may judge from the WWDC keynote, that at least the concept of the call out has made its way into Apple’s keynotes. I have no idea if we’re watching a new Keynote which makes callouts easy to create, or the current one using the same or similar techniques I am using. Let’s take a look at these features from the WWDC:

Discussing the screen resolution of the new Macbook Pro, Apple Senior VP Marketing Phil Schiller uses a magnifying callout to highlight the resolution improvements in Apple default apps, such as Mail.

This is not the first time this call out has been used, but it’s certainly the largest. Nor is it a built-in shape; the annulus is a 3D graphic selected to emulate a magnifying glass without the handle. Apple included such a glass with Keynote 1.0 as part of a selection of bundled clip art, not to be confused with the chintzy art included with Powerpoint (until the most recent Powerpoint for the Mac, when Microsoft included high res photo images.) I learnt it was Steve Jobs who stopped the inclusion of clip art.

Later, in the keynote, Apple SVP software engineering, Craig Frederighi, demoes various new features of upcoming Mountain Lion, due in a few weeks.

Notice below how he calls out a feature of new Safari, leaving unneeded areas greyed out compared to where he wants the audience to look:

This call out is repeated several times, as more features are displayed. This is easily done by transiting over several slides and seeming to animate the move simply by going from one slide to the next. This sequence occurs at 54:30. Here’s what the next slide highlighting the same feature set looks like:

If you go to the keynote to see the sequence, you’ll see it’s a rather plain slide to slide transition.

I’ve taken another section of his talk which features a pulldown, and I’ve shown how to animatedly highlight various sections. Can you guess (below) how I did it?

Craig shows us a few more call out variations, which furthers my belief that if we are watching the new Keynote in action there will be a new call out feature in the next Inspector – watch:

This is the area of his presentation where Craig is demoing the iCloud sharing of Safari tabs across platforms, from Mac to iPhone to iPad. Alongside the URL entry area is a sharing and icloud icon. In the next illustration below, the call out of the icloud icon begins:

I’ve circled the cloud icon beginning its enlargement, part of the call out sequence, which concludes below:

While it may be a variation of the magnifying glass previously demoed, the former was not animated, so I’m tempted to think this is a build effect, which of course one could do now with the available feature set. But I’d like to be optimistic in thinking the Keynote team have really thought more deeply about the importance of call outs to give it a place in the next Inspector.

(Funny aside: Craig demoes a car racing game to show AirPlay in action in Mountain Lion. From his previous keynote appearances, he has developed quite a following it seems for his lush abundance of hair. Note in the highlighted picture below his racing nickname – click to enlarge:)

More evidence is available when Apple SVP for iOS, Scott Forstall demoes iOS 6.

We start with Scott and two images of iPhones. Note I’ve captured Scott looking down at his confidence or vanity monitor, a presentation skill he has yet to master (at least compared to the much missed S. Jobs).

Next, out pops a callout of an area of interest featuring Facebook. No grayed out areas, but an enlargement which pops. Again, one can do this with current build styles, but I’d like to think one could outline an area, and a build option would give you choices as to how it would be called out:

Now, another sequence to show this same call out style in action:

This is Scott demoing the new “Do Not Disturb” feature. Notice how the effect is to float the panel above the iPhone. Apple loves 3D!

This series of call outs in this year’s WWDC really highlights the feature, so if I may connect all the dots mentioned so far in this blog entry, I remain hopeful Keynote is about to be refreshed, perhaps soon after Mountain Lion is released in a few weeks.

There is more information to consider however, not all of it good.

Early in his demoing of the new Retina Macbook, Phil Schiller mentions how the system apps have been updated to take advantage of the extra pixels, such as Mail, Address Book and so on.

He then goes on to show how a select group of Apple’s “professional” apps have also been updated, and we see Aperture and Final Cut X. We even hear that Adobe apps are due to be updated for the Retina display too, as well as Autodesk.

Adobe Photoshop on the Retina Macbook

Autodesk on the Retina Macbook

But where is the mention of Apple’s other “professional” apps, like iWork?

Let’s not give up hope however. When I went to the Apple store in Chadstone I opened up Keynote on the Retina Macbook. I took a picture with my iPhone of the Theme Chooser, and I’ve overlayed it on Keynote on my current Macbook Pro. You’ll need to take my word that Keynote on the retina Macbook is quite observedly pixelated, much like an iPhone app which is blown up 2x on the iPad is pixelated (Click on the image below to enlarge it):

In conclusion, I wonder how long Apple can live with itself allowing Keynote to look so… impoverished and uncinematic on its premier Mac. Let’s hope not for long, especially if Retina display iMacs and other Macbooks are allegedly not far away.

UPDATE: I’ll be in the USA (New York City) and Canada (Toronto) in late August/early July of you’d like to set up a Presentation Magic training day or seminar. Email me at les(at)lesposen.com or tweet @lesposen