Hypercritical
WWDC keynote bingo
As established earlier, I won't be at WWDC this year, but I'm definitely looking forward to the keynote. I have high hopes for the first demonstration of Leopard and the new hardware announcements—assuming there are any, that is. Of course, guessing what Steve will reveal is half the fun. In that spirit, I present the first annual WWDC Keynote Bingo card.
(Twenty randomized versions of the bingo card are also available.)
You can see a JPEG image of the card below, but it's really meant to be printed. The black and white PDF version linked in bold above is the best bet if you don't have a color printer. [Update: Travis Kroh has created an interactive versionof the card that's playable on the web.]
The game is simple. During the WWDC keynote, mark each square when the event or announcement describe within it occurs. If you get five in a row in any direction, you win. Now I know this isn't exactly an exciting game of bingo since everyone has the same card, but there are some nuances here.
Part of the game is figuring out when something in a square actually happens. At the end of this post are descriptions of each square, explaining the conditions under which they may be marked, but there's still some skill involved. For example, Jobs is not likely to come right out and say that Quartz 2D Extremeis enabled in Leopard, but he may hint at it or use marketing-speak to say the same thing. Your job is to catch this—and to be correct, of course. It's all under the honor system. Please do not sully the sacred ritual of the Steve Jobs keynote by cheating!
The other feature of the game is for WWDC keynote attendees only. If you are going to the keynote, print out the bingo card and play along live. The first person in the audience to win the game is expected to yell “BINGO!” loud enough so that the rest of us schleps can hear it when we watch the keynote webcast video later. If we can't actually hear you, it's also acceptable if Steve Jobs hears you on stage and gives you The Glare.
So there you have it. If you know someone who will be at the WWDC keynote but who does not read this blog, send him or her a link to this post or the PDF itself. Although I can't be a WWDC in person, I at least want to be there in spirit, in the form of a veritable sea of bingo cards in the keynote audience. (Hey, I can dream.) Oh, and if no one wins, well, there's always next year.
Bingo card created by John McCoy
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Universal Adobe or MS Office demo - Any demonstration of a Universal binary build of any Adobe product or any part of Microsoft Office. I'll accept something less than a full-blown demo (e.g., just some screenshots or a marketing spiel) if you need this square to win, but it has to be delivered by an Adobe or Microsoft representative.
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“Boom” - When Steve Jobs says the word “boom” while demonstrating something.
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Virtualization in Leopard - Any virtualization features built into Leopard. This includes the ability to run any other foreign OS within Leopard, including earlier versions of Mac OS.
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New video iPod - Any new iPod that can play video, including storage bumps of existing video iPods.
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Mac Pro - An Intel-based replacement for the Power Mac G5, even if it's not actually named “Mac Pro.” This applies to all the other squares with “Mac Pro” in them. It's just a placeholder name for the Power Mac G5 replacement.
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New iPod Nano - Any new iPod Nano product, including storage bumps of the existing models.
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Mac Pro Quad - A Mac Pro model with four cores (in any number of physical chips).
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Mac Pro model <= $1,499 - At least one Mac Pro model with a base price of less than or equal to $1,499.
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Optional dual GPUs in Mac Pro - The availability of dual GPUs from Apple in the Mac Pro, either BTO or standard, in a single slot or two slots.
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“Otomatic” - When Steve Jobs says any derivative of the word “automatic”, which he pronounces in his own odd way with ah “oh” sound at the start of the word. (Sadly, no square for “jagwire” this year.)
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“New” Finder in Leopard - A substantially altered Finder in Leopard. The quotes around “new” are there to indicate my pessimism that it'll actually be all that new. But if Jobs calls it “new” or presents it as a big change, you can mark this square.
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New case for Mac Pro - A Mac Pro case that is different than the current Power Mac G5's case. Moved or altered ports don't count, but any other external change to the case does.
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More than two internal hard drives in Mac Pro - At least one Mac Pro model that can hold more than two internal hard drives.
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Movie rental service - An Apple-owned download service that rents (not sells, sorry) feature-length movies.
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iPhone - Any new non-desktop/laptop Apple hardware product that can make phone calls. (VoIP counts.)
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Mac Pro model >= $3,499 - At least one Mac Pro model with a base price of greater than or equal to $3,499.
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New Mac Book Pro - Any new Mac Book Pro model, including speed or storage bumps.
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“One more thing…” - When Steve Jobs says there's “one more thing.” A slide containing the phrase is also acceptable, even if Jobs does not actually say it.
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New desktop Mac (not Mac Pro) - A new desktop Mac product that is not a Mac Pro. (New iMacs count.)
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New kernel in Leopard - Anything described as a significant change to the Mac OS X kernel. For Jobs to mention it in the keynote at all, it's probably significant, but tweaks do not count. Use your judgement.
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Resolution Independent UI in Leopard - Basically, the "User Interface Resolution" feature of the Quartz Debug application as a supported feature of Leopard.
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iPods with cameras - Any iPod with a camera in it or attached to it.
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Quartz 2D Extreme enabled in Leopard - The drawing acceleration featuredeveloped for Tiger, but disabled by default, turned on by default in Leopard. A re-branding or update of the Q2DE technology is also acceptable.
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New file system in Leopard - A file system not previously shipped by Apple in Mac OS X, but included in Leopard. It doesn't have to be the default, nor does it have to be entirely Apple-created.
Good luck!
Update: Alert readers have noted that Charles Arthur (who is now at the Guardian) did this last year, and MacUser UK did it a month later. I hadn't seen either of those before, but it doesn't surprise me that the idea is not original. (I'll leave it to the Guardian and MacUser UK to argue about lead times and who was really “first.”) Apple-addled minds think alike, it seems.
This article originally appeared at Ars Technica. It is reproduced here with permission.