If you're bored silly with the typical theme backgrounds in Keynote, pop on over to iPresentee's website and check out Keynote Motion Themes 2.0. These themes, which were released today (7/7/08), add five more motion themes to iPresentee's product line.
All of these themes provide moving backgrounds to catch the eyes of your audience. The five themes -- Money, Curtain, Rain, Story, and Exercise Book -- include 14 or more master slide layouts each.
Motion Themes 2.0 is available online for $25, or you can purchase individual motion themes for $10 each. And by the way, the free Keynote Objects icons are still available on the iPresentee site.
Keynote Objects is a package of 100 attractive icon-like objects that can be used not only with Keynote, but also with Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. All of the objects have a transparent background, and are easily resized, rotated, made more or less transparent, or shadowed.
I'm actually going to use several of the objects as icons for a new web site that I'm designing, simply because they offer an attractive and cohesive set of art objects. What will you use your free Keynote Objects for?
Here at TUAW HQ we find ourselves watching Mahalo Daily almost everyday. Mahalo has this new thing they do with conferences and special broadcasts where they trim down the video to 60 seconds. So for the folks that don't wish to sit through the almost 2 hour WWDC keynote can just watch a 60 second clip that shows the main points of the keynote.
Apple has posted video of Steve Jobs' keynote presentation this morning. The video is available via QuickTime, and covers all the announcements of the iPhone 3G, the App Store, MobileMe, and more.
Those are the words that make Mac nerds' hearts flutter. Afterall, the original iMac, Mac OS X and the switch to Intel have all followed that simple phrase.
The Cult of Mac has produced a cool time line graphic depicting a history of products that have been featured as Steve's "one more thing." From the iMac on May 6, 1998 to the MacBook Air this past January, the graph features a decade of announcements. For added fun, you can click any one to watch a video clip.
Well done, Cult of Mac! Here's to hoping for an addition in the very near future.
Today Apple posted the schedule for Apple Camp. Apple Camp is held at Apple retail stores for kids 8-12 to go learn about creative things like: making presentations with Keynote, taking and managing photos with iPhoto, creating music with GarageBand, and making movies with iMovie.
Each sessions lasts about 3 hours and is available at all Apple retail locations. Kids attending will receive a DVD or CD with their creations on it, field guide, t-shirt, and will be able to get other giveaways. Best of all, Apple Camp is free though registration is required.
When Steve Jobs delivers a keynote or other high-profile presentation, Apple typically posts a video of the event on the web and in iTunes (who else remembers when you would stream these things live? Those were the days).
This week they've given these videos an official home in the iTunes Store. The Apple Keynotes Podcast [link] features three videos so far, the MWSF '07 and '08 keynotes plus the March 6th introduction of the iPhone software road map.
Check back on the evening of Monday, June 9th or Tuesday the 10 to see if the WWDC '08 keynote has been made available.
Gizmodo is reporting that "sources close to the 3G launch" have provided confirmation that the iPhone 3G will be announced at the WWDC 2008 Keynote on June 9th. While this does sound a lot like a rumor, other factors such as nonexistent stocks of first-generation iPhones, the flurry of non-US iPhone launch announcements last week, and the all-but-confirmed Steve Jobs keynote all point to something big.
Gizmodo also speculates that European launch dates are scheduled to follow close on the heels of the US announcement, with iPhone 3G availability in Spain at the grand opening of the Telefonica megastore in Madrid on June 18th.
June 9th sounds good to me, since I can buy my wife an iPhone 3G for our 29th anniversary on that day! What's your take on the iPhone 3G rumor du jour? Give it a reality check by taking our poll:
Tip 'o the TUAW Stetson to Sharvil for pointing this out!
While there still hasn't been an official announcement from Apple (as of this writing), Fortune has reported that Steve Jobs will don the black shirt and blue jeans to deliver a keynote address on June 9, kicking off WWDC '08.
It's not a surprise, of course, as Steve typically talks during the show. Also expected is the announcement of a 3G iPhone, as well as plans for international distribution, as rumors have been at their usual pre-event levels for a couple of weeks.
Today, Apple posted an update to the Keynote presentation app (part of iWork '08). This update, version 4.0.3, says that it "addresses performance and stability issues when working with large documents."
You can download this update by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software update) or by downloading the installer package from the Apple support downloads site.
Please note: Users must have Keynote 4.0.2 installed on their computer to install this update.
We've written about KeynotePro before. They make very nice themes for Keynote that you'll be happy to use for your presentation.
This week, they've updated the "Ohm" theme for Keynote '08. It's been completely rebuilt to use shapes and placeholders native to Keynote '08, contains up to 58 master slides (the Pro version) and two palettes.
The Pro version includes 16:9 and 16:10 aspect-optimized versions, and the new OM '08 EP Edition is optimized for the iPod and iPhone. They look just as great on those tiny displays as they do when connected to a projector via video out.
Both versions require Keynote 4.0 or higher, and the Gill Sans and Helvetica Neue font faces. A single license will cost you $24.95US, though discounts are available for bundle orders and those who purchased earlier versions of the theme.
If you're an iWork 08 user, then you may want to run a software update, as Apple has just pushed out updates for all three applications. As ever, there's hugely informative release notes: for Pages 3.0.2 and Numbers 1.0.2 "[t]his update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X" while the Keynote 4.0.2 update "primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations."
On the TUAW Intel testbed here in the UK, the updates weigh in at 32.4MB, 29.3MB and 27.4MB for Keynote, Pages and Numbers respectively.
If you give many presentations on the Mac, chances are you're using Apple's Keynote presentation software. One cool feature in Keynote is the ability to demo something on your Mac without giving away your next slide or notes. When you're in the middle of a presentation, just hit the "h" key on your keyboard. This will hide the entire Keynote application and show your desktop.
When you press the h key, the Keynote icon in the dock will change and include a play button. When you want to resume your presentation, just click the Keynote icon in the dock.
HD is the next best thing to being there, and if you weren't fortunate enough to be in the audience of Steve Job's Macworld 2008 keynote, than this is for you. Apple has just made available a HD stream for your viewing pleasure. The stream is 720p (that's 1280x720, just what the Apple TV supports) and requires a fairly fast machine to watch (Apple says you need a 1.8 GHz or faster G5 at the very least to watch the stream, and at least 256 MB of RAM).
I just watched the first few minutes and it looks great.
Christopher Breen knows a thing or two about iPods, iTunes and the Apple digital media ecosystem. We asked him about the limits of the newly-enabled Apple TV purchases, HD content and the fragile-yet-sexy Macbook Air.