Macworld 2008 Keynote
Thanks for coming to MacWorld 2008. It costs an arm and a leg to fly these days, so I appreciate that you came to San Francisco today. Let’s get started, we have lots to talk about.
This keynote will be a bit different from previous ones. We are not announcing any new products this time. We already have an awesome line of computers, a great personal operating system, tons of innovative applications from us and third-party developers, the best selling music player in the universe and a phone that reinvented the category. It’s pretty clear that in terms of product development, we are doing quite well. Unfortunately, we’ve slacked off in other areas. We are starting to address some of the problems today.
First of all, We’ve realized that we need to be more open with our technologies and eliminate any roadblocks that lead to lock-in. This is company policy from now on. When talking to Phil and the boys in Cupertino about this, we were kind of surprised at how successful we’ve been over the last decade without a major push in this direction. It’s time to give back, before it’s too late. So, starting today, all the media in the iTunes Store is DRM-free. And we are adopting a “keep-it-for-as-long-as-you-please” Netflix model fo movie rentals. Also, the iPhone is now available for sale without a long-term contract with a telecom carrier. Buy the phone, slip a GSM card in and off you go – same price.
Now let’s talk about the Mac. There’s been several reports of quality degradation in our products, especially MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Lots of them are showing up in our repair facilities with hard drive problems, motherboard problems, memory problems. Starting today, we are ramping up investment to make sure we continue producing the most innovative AND most reliable personal computers in the world. We are also adding more “geniuses” to our bars.
Have you guys ever heard of ThinkSecret.com? Since I came back 10 years ago, I’ve been paranoid about keeping all of our product developments and announcements super secret. We’ve worked hard to suppress rumors, but I now realize this has been somewhat of a bad strategy. This is especially true moving forward. Enough is enough. We are not going to be announcing our plans in advance from now on, but we are also not going to be shutting down fan web sites. And Apple employees are now allowed to blog and become part of the web community at large. The police-state is over. ThinkSecret.com will resume publishing today.
Finally, developers. Developers are important, more important than we’ve realized in the past. Starting today, we are bundling a premium developer program membership with every Mac we sell. And we are making it easy for developers, even the small ones, to promote their software in our stores and our web site. We are also releasing an SDK for the iPhone today. The SDK gives you complete access to anything you might want to build with the iPhone. We are going to give all the Linux mobile OS supporters a run for their money.
Oh, one more thing. Apple is joining the OLPC initiative. It’s time to get serious about education again.