MWSF 2004

MWSF 2004 Report

BY CHRIS BASTIAN

Mar | Apr 2004
Issue No.15

If you’re going to San Francisco… be sure to bring an umbrella, because it’s a fair bet that sometime during each day you’re there, it’ll rain. That being the case, it’s still a welcome destination, especially come January when the annual pilgrimage to Macworld Expo occurs. This is the third straight year I’ve attended, and it’s always great to have a chance to scout the latest gadgets, fill my shopping list, make contacts for upcoming MetroMac meetings, and reconnect with old friends in the Mac community (some going back more than a decade…scary)

The Keynote
The progress of a Mac World Expo keynote is generally as finely choreographed as a kabuki dance. Before daylight, the faithful begin to line up in the cold and dark for choice seats in the theatre; by the 9:30 AM start, the space is almost always full. At the appointed hour, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and impresario strides on stage alone in his collarless shirt and jeans to thunderous applause. He spends a few minutes highlighting the greatness of the past year with statistics of installed items or products sold, discusses some hot new third-party products with one or two demos by visitors, then dives into the meat of the two hour session, showing off the latest Apple products, upgrades or features, usually doing the demos himself to show how easy it all is. There’s almost always “one more thing” to wow the crowd. He sums up, everyone applauds, and the crowd, energized, floods out the door and into the Expo area to play with or gaze on the latest toys and gadgets.

This year’s keynote, with one exception, largely kept to the script. The 20th anniversary (Jan 24th) of the Mac was celebrated with a witty remake of the classis “1984” commercial (foretelling what was to come later in the show); Steve was boisterous about the growth of OS X installed Macs (“The transition is officially over”, even though the installed base was listed at only 40% (hard to believe there are that many OS 9 or older systems still alive and kicking); a new Final Cut Express was give a brief spotlight (in prior years this might have been a featured item, but too much else in the software realm lay in store). Microsoft, despite the hits it took last year with Safari and Keynote, gamely joined up to preview Office 2004; the success of the greatness of the G5 was highlighted by an announcement that Virginia Tech had created the world's third fastest computer (at a fraction of the price) by jury-rigging 1100 dual processor units together; and new Xserve and XSERVE RAID boxes were announced.

The day’s feature presentations were for the new “iLife 4 suite” and the evoluton of the iPods. iLife, Apple suite of digital hub tools (branded as “MS Office for the rest of your life, has been given a royal going-over and (with one exception) a price tag. iTunes is pretty much the same, (remains free for Mac and Windows users) but the companion iTunes Music Store continues to grow with new titles (currently a half-million available; new playlist options, Billboard rating charts, audio books, gift certificates and a new (why did they bother?) AOL interface. The net result is 30 million songs sold, making Apple the #1 provider of “legal” music downloads.

Upgrades were also announced for iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. The biggest feature, at least to my non-professional ears, is that iPhoto 4 now can manage up to 25,000 images with noticeable delay (I, like many people, somehow never get around to editing down the photos I take); iDVD and iMovie now have additional themes, editing features and menu and labeling options, but until they can handle large MPEG-2 files, I for one will have to look elsewhere. The new kid on the iLife block, which wins my annual “I don’t have a use for it, but boy is that neat” award is GarageBand, a music development and recording program which allows anyone with an electronic keyboard (also conveniently available from Apple) or a pluggable instrument, create their own compositions with a huge variety of instruments (pianos, drums, bass viola, even background vocals); merge tracks add special effects and dump the whole thing out to (surprise, surprise) iTunes and (surprise, surprise) the iPod. I have no musical skill whatsoever but even I would enjoy poking around with this to see what came out.

The iLife mélange is now being sold for $49; a fair bargain for iDVD and GarageBand alone; the audience didn’t seem to mind that iPhoto and iMovie would no longer be freebees.

Wrapping up the program (and exposing the only moment of dissonance) was the iPod review (over 2 million sold and the rollout of the new 15 gig model) and the introduction of the “iPod mini.” Kudos for Apple for aggressively going after the PC-based mp3 player market, but the $249 price tag for the new 4 gig minis (only $50 less than the 15 gig model) is way too high, and the silence of the crowd (and subsequent discussion I had with attendees) suggests that I’m not alone in this assessment.

The Expo
Regrettably, I never attended a San Francisco Macworld Expo in its glorious heyday, when reportedly every nook and cranny of the Moscone Center was full. Recent shows, while certainly bigger than anything we saw in NYC, have been shrinking in size year by year. The San Francisco show has been built into two separate spaces: north (generally Apple and the established exhibitors) and south (generally the up and comers and specialty exhibits like games and programming). This year’s show had the south hall almost half empty, and enough extra space in the north hall that they probably could have squeezed everybody in. Economic conditions? Apple’s ebbing and flowing fortunes? Shifts away from trade shows as companies’ referred marketing strategies? I don’t know, but it would be nice to think that this is a reversible trend. Web sites and Apple Store displays just don’t compare to seeing the goodies spread before you to hold, test drive, and most important, ask questions about.

Two years ago, 3-D graphics were a big seller at Macworld. Last year, everyone was selling digital photography add-ons. This time, building on the keynote, it was “all iPods, all the time”. In addition to the color-coded minis, there were extra battery packs for your iPod; carrying cases for your iPod; car stereo interfaces for your iPod; external speakers for your iPod (apparently now the core of some people’s stereo systems). There was even an iPod “team photo” of attendees carrying their music on the floor.

Fortunately, the use of a Mac as an actual computer hasn’t been totally lost in the iPod avalanche. Adobe (but not Corel) was promoting its upgraded line of graphics products, while Microsoft was offering sneak peeks at promising new Office Suite, with the most interesting booth display on the floor a history chart of Microsoft Mac products accompanied by working examples on a pristine collection of historic Macs. New stuff on the floor also included XtremeMac’s “Recipe Manager” software, (a really hot database program coming from a company known for peripherals, cables and other hardware), and You Software’s new line of utilities (if you want to break into showbiz, they may be looking for another dress-up mascot in Boston…).

Finally, tchotchkas are back! At last year’s show, goodies were few and far between. I don’t know if it’s a sign of a healthier economy or a change in marketing strategies, but this year’s show had a host of enticements to bring people into the booths. In addition to candy bowls and popcorn stands (and the traditional Apple booth posters), there were mousepads, Mardi Gras jewelry, squeezy 8-balls, and inflatable noisemakers.

The Future
It seems fairly clear now that Macworld has left New York behind, and this summer’s show will be in Boston. It also seems fairly clear that whatever opens there is going to be smaller (Apple has made it clear they won’t be there) and less like a traditional Macworld than anything we’ve seen so far. Is it worth the time and sense to attend? I’ll be there if for no other reason than I have relatives to visit, but I’m at a loss as to whether I’d recommend it to anyone else. But, will I be back in San Francisco next year? You can count on it.