While some Apple-watchers may have been impressed and gratified to see Steve Jobs' NAB keynote last week, apparently that sentiment was largely absent among NAB executives and members. Faithful viewer Allen Denette was kind enough to tell us to look up last Thursday's issue of "Communications Daily," which was less than kind to Uncle Steve's Travelling Quicktime Show. NAB'ers were evidently not expecting a half-hour commercial for Apple's digital video architecture.

We can't print all of the exact details here, because CD is apparently pretty rabid about going after people who even excerpt their publication. (Not too surprising, given that a one-year subscription is over $3000. Yikes.) But we don't think they could object to us quoting individual words used in their article. For instance, there's "upset." And there's also "surprised." Not to mention "unusual," and "mistake." And just to flirt with danger, we'll even quote one phrase: "won't happen again." Now, it's obvious that the NAB's opinion matters, especially if Apple's really serious about trying to position Quicktime as the tool for the transition to digital video in the industry. But just to put things into perspective, we should mention that NAB'ers were also mortified to see Steve show up in his customary casual attire, instead of a suit and tie. (Gasp! Blue jeans! The horror! The horror!) That should give you an idea of the type of people he was trying to sell to-- which means it's going to be a tough sell, given Apple's "corporate culture."

Indeed, just what are we to make of the fact that the Jobs' keynote itself was webcast using Microsoft's NetShow, instead of Quicktime 3? And no, it's not someone's preference that kept Quicktime 3 out the running, since apparently Quicktime doesn't include any capability for real-time broadcasts yet, which would probably be a feature pretty darn high on the list of "requested features" if Quicktime's ever going to be a standard in the digital broadcasting age. Quicktime's going to have to change quite a lot in order to be suitable for the broadcasters, and to be fair, Jobs admits that-- but it's going to have to be one hell of a product in order to get the NAB to forget about the perceived spectacle of last week's keynote.