Macworld San Francisco 2006 Notes

More People

It was slightly larger than last year: more exhibitors, more attendees. A lot less empty space around the edges.

Less Buzz

The show felt a little more subdued this year. Although Intel Macs are a big deal, we've all been expecting them sometime this year so it was less of a shock.

Ads for Intel Macs were visible here and there around the neighborhood, but where Apple was really focusing their advertising was on the iPod brand. The Powell Street BART station was covered with iPod advertisements, as were most of the newspaper kiosks around the area.

Inspiring in your life

Smart gift of Christmas for people lucky living.

3NOD introduces one of best design Portable Mini Speaker System—GN-768. It works with any mobile phone in the car, at home, in the office. Also use it with I-Pod for perfect listening enjoyment.

I'm really ashamed that I found this ad so amusing. Somebody had enough confidence in their English skills to write their own ad copy, and I'm crass enough to mock it? I'm a very bad man.

But here's a little free advice to anyone doing business internationally: find a native speaker of your target language to review all your ad copy. At the least, spend a few bucks and hire an hour's service from a translator.

Delicious Library

Chatted with a Delicious Library guy at the Apple Design Awards booth. "I want to share my library list over the net so other folks can see the books on my shelf." "We know, it's one of the most requested features. It's coming."

Cool.

Panic

Saw some Panic guys at the Apple Design Awards booth, but they didn't appear to have any show specials. So when it's time to buy Transit, just get it off the web.

Intuit

The Intuit booth was packed, it was hard to see the product demos, but from what we saw, it looks decent, and does not appear riddled with advertisements.

Maybe Intuit has lost some of that arrogance that ruined Quicken with ads, and then infected TurboTax with copy protection. I could see myself giving them a chance again and buying their software.

In about 5 more years.

Apple Booth

The Apple booth was huge again, occupying the middle quarter of the floor, with vast swaths of open land and a thickly padded carpet to ease your tired feet. (I actually saw one booth staffer from a neighboring company sneaking over just to stand in the Apple booth to give her feet a little break.)

Still no spreadsheet for iWork.

G5 Bling

It's a tiny circuit board that you insert behind the grill of your G5 tower. It spells out "G5" in LEDs that change color.

O'Reilly

David Pogue was leading a talk, I didn't get a chance to stick around to listen.

I spotted both of Wil Wheaton's most excellent books on display.

Dantz

I stopped by the Dantz booth because I've been thinking about upgrading my ancient Mac OS 9-era copy of Retrospect. It works with Tiger, the upgrade cost is reasonable, and I haven't backed up my PowerBook in months.

The Small Booths

I always say the most interesting stuff at the show is in the small booths off to the side. This year, I saw many of the same folks from last year. Stopped by the Nisus booth to ask about ruby/furigana and vertical writing support (not yet). Saw a collection of beautiful Japanese cases for iPods.

More iPod Cases

A corner of the show floor had several cars, all touting iPod support. Somebody was clacking away on a keyboard in one driver's seat. There was even a booth bunny.

By the way, the best booth bunny was at the guba.com booth. I don't really know what guba.com is, it has something to do with downloading or iTunes or video or something. But the booth bunny had the greatest piercings, so I took the flyer. Yes I'm that shallow.

Best of Show

Best product seen at the show was a wall-mount iPod dock. It works with USB and dock connector iPods. It has speakers built in. It has a subwoofer. And it has a toilet paper hanger. iPod in the potty.

Other Random Shots

	If this programming hobby doesn't pay off, I could always try the medical support field.
	The movers and the shakers of the industry were all around. You never know when the person behind you might be the one responsible for your favorite piece of Mac software.
	$2.50 for a bottle of juice?
	A G4 tower painted to be a "Necronomicon Mac". I think I'd rather have a PowerBook bound in human skin.
	Now that's old school. From back in the day. A WingZ bag!
	Organ Donor.
	Hippies use side door
	Inflatable booths? Kiddie birthday party jumper?
	Thanks for attending. See you next year!
	I'm exhausted. Time for dinner.