Just a quick note, while I’m working on a longer blog post about my Macworld 2012 adventures, of the news breaking in the Mac environs of Mountain Lion, the next iteration of OS X.
I first saw it mentioned in a dramatic blog entry of John Gruber here (http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion).
At first I thought he was pulling his readership’s leg by the one on one nature of the preview he received with Phil Schiller and other senior Apple officials.
Then I saw the GigaOM blog entry here (http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion) supporting it.
What intrigued me was a hoped-for inclusion, beefing up Airplay, one of my favourite Apple developments especially for users of AppleTV.
Here’s the part I’m referring to:
For presenters with access to a data projector with an HDMI input, it means now also bringing along your AppleTV to your presentations, and not having to have your Macbook tethered by VGA or DVI to the “guest” cable in the lecture room or equivalent, which are invariably too short. And it takes care of sound cable too, given HDMI carries audio and video.
It also means you have your iPad or iPhone as a backup or ancillary device, able to quickly switch to show a movie or slide and thus move away from the linearity that plagues so many contemporary presentations.
It remains to be seen how Airplay and the AppleTV will work with Keynote in its Presenter modality (the presenter sees on his or her Mac both current slide and the next build or slide), but I can’t imagine Apple has not thought this important feature through in order to maximise this Mountain Lion feature.
Long anticipated and finally here it seems.
Les Posen's Presentation Magic 
And, gee, wouldn’t it be lovely if we had a new version of Keynote to go with it? Sigh. Pardon me while I go play with the “Anvil” effect some more…
You’re right. I was about to update the blog with the suggestion that Keynote will need some sort of update for Airplay compatibility as well as User Interface additions. But I suspect it will be a point update, not “the big one” we’ve all been waiting for. My sense is it truly is cooked, but developments within Apple put it on the backburner while for instance iBooksAuthor took centre stage, and now iPad 3 and perhaps an enhanced Keynote for iPad.
It’s so near I can almost smell it, so patience is now required in even greater doses. Yes, back to the Anvil, or is that nose to the grindstone.
And if any developers are reading and you have your hands on Mountain Lion, can you confirm one way or the other if my concerns about Presenter Mode and Airplay are valid? All the official Apple website shots show Keynote on the Desktop in mirror, not Presenter, mode. All the more reason, if this is the case, to purchase Doceri, so you can see your Mac in Presenter mode when it mirrors to AppleTV.