The Macworld Expo is being held this week in San Francisco. Being a relatively new Mac owner, I thought I would check out the event in person (having seen it on the local TV news many of the past 20 years!).
After watching a streaming media webcast of Steve Jobs’ keynote (convinced more than ever that he is almost singularly responsible for driving Apple’s recent successes), I headed up to the city around noon. Parking was a minor hassle, but not bad at all.
The exhibition area at the Moscone Center was fairly large and all the major Mac vendors were there; hardware and software companies were both well represented. There were multiple book vendors there as well as the major printer companies. Of course, Apple had tons of their equipment on display; I sure wouldn’t mind powering the house network with one of the G5 1U rack servers! There were also some vendors I didn’t expect to see, such as the Guitar Center. The floor was busy, but not really overcrowded. I even got cell (sprint) reception, something that surprised me given the location!
Highlights for me included getting a chance to see the new Nikon film and slide scanner; the new model had been expected for the past few months. It’s much smaller than I expected and should be shipping by February. At the PhotoshopUsers magazine booth I got to see a photoshop mini-tutorial though I’m not sure the atmosphere of the expo floor is conducive to effective learning.
Another highlight was finally finding a case I liked for my iPod. There’s no substitute for seeing so many different products in one location to help in making a choice. All in all, it was worth the time and money to see, in person, so many products that I’ve only read about and seen on the web and in magazines.
In related news, the Microsoft minister of information continued to claim that there are no bugs in his company’s software; see the photo below for proof:
