Jan 11 2009
Macworld 2009
No Steves. Yes plural, my buddy Woz wasn’t there either. No new mini, no new OS, nor no new revolutionary product. But it was still Macworld for me… Awesome!
Years ago I tried to see Steve the-legend Jobs, live, at the Keynote.
I stood online, for what seemed like forever, to be at the freaken keynote address—the biggest day of the Macworld year! I got up way early, waited for hours, and then when the line moved, it moved slowly.
Finally, you could see the doorway, the promised land, the bright white light, this was it, Rockstar Steve Jobs on stage, and I was going to be there live!
The room was brighter than I’ve seen it in pictures and there were tons of seat and we would be able to get way up front! Curiously, there was big screens on the stage… Where I watched a live feed of Steve Jobs keynote address—I could have done that from home! Regular people don’t get to go to that event and see Steve live, that’s reserved for prince’s, celebrities, and deities…
I did manage to meet my hero Woz, (now my buddy—I have pictures!) Steve Wozniak, last year! Very exciting!
Highlights from this year:
- MacSpeech Dictate
- iLife and iWork updates look incredible! Including a facial recognition component in iPhoto. I’m even considering using Keynote instead of the new PowerPoint.
- Some secret equipment for work… (that’s why it’s called a secret!)
- I attended a conference on the direction of education and technology and the challenges in the 21st century. Very interesting—Change that you can believe in?
- Able to speak with the Microsoft people about Office 2008.
- Received a personal demo on iLife, iPhoto, and Keynote.
Thanks to http://alysonstrother.wordpress.com/
Talked to people from Apple about the decision not to come to Macworld in the future. They weren’t able to give any good answers that weren’t easily refutable. They know it’s a mistake too. What is the cost to just have a booth with some representation? This is different than other Steve Jobs decisions that people have questioned. Yes, Steve has made some world changing CHANGES, that have worked very well! He’s also made some mistakes in the past… Refusing to open up the company to clones almost killed the company. One could argue, that if Bill Gates wasn’t under government pressure with unfair illegal monopolistic practices, he wouldn’t have bailed out Apple. Now, Bill Gates was and he did. A mistake by Bill gates… Opening the door to the future of Mac and the new revolution, iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, etc.
We have the Internet to broadcast to the world!
We have stores all over the world and a huge following!
We don’t need to come here to have the broad appeal…
This decision affects the base, the loyalists, the Mac ideologues, takes the air right-out if you will! Like having a church—there’s a building, there are people, but no one preaching from the lectern…
Maybe, Steve envisions it will be like church on TV. There are plenty of successful TV Churches… I don’t attend.
—iChef Retail
Other Voices******************************
Apple introduces iLife ‘09 at Macworld Expo by Dave Caolo on Jan 6th 2009
Earlier today at Macworld Expo, Phill Schiller announced that availability of iLife ‘09. Not a huge surprise, as a few of us guessed we’d see an iLife update today, but it does offer some cool new features.
As you may have guessed, Macworld is a rather large event with lots to see and do. With so much under one roof (well, two roofs actually — if you count the North and South halls) it’s sometimes difficult for us to show you everything in great detail.
