I am at MacWorld this year both to see the show floor as well as attend the MacIT Administrator sessions. The show started like this for me:
I flew in to SFO the same morning as the Keynote so it was somewhat of a crap shoot whether I would be able to make it to MacWorld in time. The line was so ridiculously long when I arrived that when they opened the doors to let people in for the keynote and I dutifully marched forward it became clear that by the time I got to the doors the speech might be over. In fact what happened is that I made it inside the building but they wouldn’t let anymore people into the auditorium.
The line for Macworld went around and around the huge city block that is Moscone West. It was nuts. I actually made it on time – 8:45 AM – but as I suspected the line would be huge this year and it was. It was well after 9 AM before they started letting people in and they stopped before I even made it around half the block.
The line kept going and going.
And it kept going around the corner and up to the next street and it just kept going. I’m not sure how many people actually got let in but I heard it was about 5,000.
Trying to get internet access is also extremely difficult, it’s not that it’s not available but that there are 40,000 other people like me all within a few hundred feet of each other sucking down all the available bandwidth. And ‘yes’ absolutely everyone I can see has an iPhone so that means AT&T’s EDGE network is saturated too.
I’ll be in soon enought and get to see what all the fuss is about.
MacBook Air – This was the big announcement from Apple. A new laptop that is about as thick as an iPhone but still has a 13-inch display like a MacBook but under 3 pounds. Less than 1 inch thick (0.8 inches), and the touch pad works like an iPhone/iTouch display. You can zoom, rotate, do all kinds of things with the trackpad with no need for additional keystrokes. You pretty much have to see one of these in person to appreciate just how stylish it is. I’ve seen some very nice looking small laptops but this really is way way beyond what any other manufacture has introduced so far.
Apple TV Take 2 – Price reduced to $229 and it connects directly to iTunes Store without the need for an additional computer. Upgraded specs too.
iPhone/iTouch – New software which adds several new features.
Time Capsule – Neat wireless connected hard drive that backs up all the computers in your home, apartment, RV, whatever. Apple claims this is a “server class” hard drive and not a consumer drive (I’ll be the judge of that).
When you add in the massive hardware improvements already announced last week to the Mac Pro, Xserve, and MacBook Pro this is an incredible line up of product introductions, both hardware and software, for a single company. Along with this there are new products out from Microsoft, Adobe, and many others so this is going to be a really really big show.
I’ll have more later. I have some pictures from the show but I’m writing this at 9 PM and I need to get some sleep as I got up at 3:30 AM Tuesday morning to make my flight.
And last but not least the two trailers that held all of the stuff used for Steve Job’s keynote. That’s all the stuff one man needs to make a speech. Nuts.
