This article was published on February 1, 2010

Video: Steve Jobs Giving Less than Steller Keynote Presentation in 2001


Video: Steve Jobs Giving Less than Steller Keynote Presentation in 2001

Steve Jobs typically gives a nearly flawless presentation, in fact most people are hard pressed to remember any mistakes he’s made in the past several years.

But surely there must have been some flops that have slipped through the reality distortion field, and sure enough this video turned up of the MacWorld Tokyo 2001 Keynote speech at Makuhari Messe convention center.

Not sure if it was due to jetlag, or perhaps lack of preparation, or maybe he was extremely uncomfortable with his attire for that afternoon, but this keynote speech is far less smooth than any of the other keynote speeches.

The full keynote is embedded as a playlist below. Apple fans can expect some nostalgia as Steve presents OSX, Powerbook, and iTunes among others.

Some highlights to watch for:

  • Attire for the keynote, full suit and tie, a big departure from the black turtleneck and jeans that we’ve come to recognize.
  • A somewhat embarrassing choice of words, presumably an attempt to make the speech easier to understand for Japanese the word sexy was abbreviated to just sex. At one part Steve says, “Well what about the Sex? For the Sex it is 1 inch thick, and weighs 5.3 pounds.” He’s of course talking about the new Powerbook,  but you knew that right?
  • One of the most technical presentations that I’ve seen Steve give, covering the internal architecture of OSX.
  • Overall probably the least smooth Keynote presentation.  Some mishaps in the demos and explanations with lots of ‘ums’ when thinking of which features to show.

Bringing up the topic of MacWorld in Tokyo, it’s too bad the last Tokyo MacWorld Expo was held a few years back. I for one would like to attend a MacWorld expo in Tokyo and meet up with the Mac and iPhone developer community as well as Apple’s userbase in Japan.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with