Call me a curmudgeon, but I detest slide presentations. Ugh, even typing that gave me the heeby-jeebies. I've sat through too many demos during which some absolute bore read to me as if we were in preschool circle time. Not to mention the blue, marbleized buttons and millions of bullet points. Oh, the bullet points.

When Keynote was introduced in January of 2003, my feelings were mixed. On one hand, Apple is a stylish company that makes thoughtful, easy to use software. On the other hand, this was presentation software. How good could it be? The answer is "pretty darn good," and even better now with the latest version of Keynote.

When you first launch the demo version of iWork, you're greeted with an invitation to try or buy the software. This splash screen is much more attractive in '09 than it was in '08, and that change is indicative of nearly every aspect of Keynote '09: It's very beautiful.

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Plainview is a full-screen browser based on WebKit specifically for presentations or situations where seeing browser chrome is undesirable. (I don't know, maybe you're making a presentation about oil.)

It's wonderfully simple: Starting the software shows the Plainview start page. Enter a search term, or press command+L and you're off. Plainview has a set of key combinations to help during your presentation, and you can control-click anywhere to bring up a contextual menu. It can even import your Safari bookmarks.

Saft can do this, I know, but if you don't like InputManager hacks, then Plainview is for you.

[Via Swissmiss.]

When you think Apple applications you think iLife, Final Cut, Motion, iChat, OS X. Those are the biggies, right? But what about poor little iWork? Well, it looks like iWork, Keynote in particular, is getting some love from the blogosphere. Tim Bray, XML geek and all around cool computer guy, penned a love letter to Keynote the other day. He declared that is it Apple's best app. Daring Fireball agrees that it is good, but probably not the best app Apple offers, while Theocacao lists some of the things that makes Keynote so gosh darned fun to use (anyone ever say that about PowerPoint?).

I must admit that I haven't used Keynote all that much, since I don't find myself giving many presentations (if you would like me to give a presentation just contact me. I'm lonely, and I have a MacBook!). The few times I have found myself whipping something together in Keynote I have been impressed with how such little effort by me resulted in such a great looking presentation.

So, dear TUAWers, any Keynote lovers out there? Let us know in the comments what you like about Keynote, and what Apple should fix in the next version (which I bet will be announced at Macworld '07).

Get your frequent flier miles ready boys and girls, cuz IDG has just announced the event highlights for the Macworld 07 (of course, if you're a lucky SF resident, you can probably hang onto those miles). Key speakers include Kevin Smith (yea, the), as well as the New York Times' own David Pogue. Of course, Mr. J's keynote has been confirmed again, and let's not forget it should shape up to be quite the event considering IDG added a second hall.

Personally, I'm with reader boom bam boom bam bam's comment: I think we should turn Steve's 'Boom!' into a drinking game.

We all know that his Steveness is a master showman. His patented Reality Distortion Field often gets people to take out their wallets before he has even uncovered whatever product he is showing off. That is why it should come as no surprise that his 1984 keynote, introducing the Macintosh, made this top ten list of presentations. Martin Luther King Jr also made the list, so Steve isn't in bad company.

Dear TUAW'ers, I thought it would be fun to ask you what your favorite Stevenote was. I have to pick the 2006 MWSF Stevenote, since that was the first one that I saw in person. How about you?

[via iFlipFlop]