Jobs inspires the faithful

by David Plotnikoff
Mercury News
January 7, 2003

Yes, he wore a black turtleneck and faded blue jeans.

No, I don't know if it's the black turtleneck he's worn for so many previous State of the Mac addresses.

Now that we've covered the important issues of the day, let's look at some less obvious questions about Steve Jobs' annual Macworld keynote at Moscone Center in San Francisco Tuesday.

Such as: Why would tens of thousands of graphic designers, hip-hop deejays, schoolteachers, artists, Webmasters and other members of the creative class get up at an unnatural predawn hour and stand in quarter-mile lines to cheer a two-hour speech that will be easily available on the Web?

We do it because Steve Jobs is the supreme defender of the Macintosh faith, someone who led Apple Computer back from the brink of extinction just four years ago. And we do it because his annual keynote is the closest thing the computing industry has to a rock 'n' roll happening. The security and well-being of the free world will not hinge on these product announcements, but by pure showmanship, we are made to care. We are made to feel history is being made here.

But is it worth the hassle? It's a valid question when swimming in a great caffeinated sea of Macolyte humanity surging toward the doors of the hangar-sized auditorium. And then, suddenly you go from daylight to darkness and you're filing in as hymn-like Joni Mitchell songs play softly and you remember: This is all about aesthetics.

Every image, every note, every word is perfect and laden with meaning. The message to every 16-year-old skatepunk blogger who cut school to be here is: "You are part of a special class of people -- people who make things. You are a part of something bigger than yourself."

This time around, there was no strident Microsoft-bashing, no obsession with business conditions and sales forecasts, no hyperdefensive spin about market share. It was all about the cool stuff, and Jobs had something cool for each of the Mac's three core constituencies: educators, creative professionals and creative consumers. There is a pleasing unity, a continuum to the Mac community that really stood out this year. Jobs spent a good deal of time demo-ing high-end professional audio and video editing software. But he easily spent twice as much time demo-ing audio and video editing tools for mere mortals.

There are probably only a few thousand people around the country who could get all hot and bothered over a "professional quality edge-wipe," cross dissolves and one-click white-balance correction. Tuesday morning it sounded as if they were all in one room.

The most genuine emotion out of Jobs' two-hour marathon of product demos was when he implored, "You can make this stuff. You can make things that are better than what you get out of Hollywood."

That remains to be seen. But for those two hours, in the company of a faithful mob, it certainly did appear as if we mere mortals had been handed the tools of the digital gods. It's all about image and illusion -- and demo after demo Jobs was the magician who did the trick, made us gasp, and then, with a grin, explained how he did it.

There's something genuinely amazing about the celebrated Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field: The man drives -- he does his own demos. Which is not unlike trusting Donald Rumsfeld to fly an F-16. His craft -- and this precisely choreographed keynote must have taken months and months to perfect -- is not unlike that of a veteran salesman hawking Ginsu knives at a county fair.

But there was substance behind the demos. And as we mere mortals shuffled back out into the daylight to a hopped-up version of the old Louis Armstrong hit "What a Wonderful World," perhaps we hoped a little of that flash and magic had rubbed off.

David Plotnikoff writes about the wired life for the Mercury News. Contact him at plotnikoff@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5867.