So last week was MacWorld Expo 2009 which is a major event for any mac/apple fan. This year was particularly big as Adobe had pulled their booth on the expo floor and Apple announced it was the last year they were going to be there. I was hoping to do my writeup sooner/in the middle of MacWorld like I did last year but it didn't come together. Needless to say, here's a quick summary of some of the good stuff (and pictures.)
Like last year I went multiple days to the expo, it always helps to spread it out. Unfortunately I never managed to get a full day (from opening to closing) in this year, I kept sleeping in. However I did go Tuesday thru Friday. Let's start off with the Apple announcements. iTunes is DRM free which is nice and as a result I shall consider going back to it for my music purchases. As expected, the 17" MacBook Pro finally got upgraded to the new unibody case design and also with the controversial non-removable battery. The big items were the new iLife '09 and iWork '09. At first reactions were "*sigh* oh boy..." however the biggest and best update comes in probably one of the most important apps of iLife: iPhoto.
Faces and Places are fantastic additions and I honestly can't wait to use them. For once I actually WANT to use iPhoto. I've always wanted geo-tagging and while none of my cameras support it (as of present) I still like that it will be there. The facial recognition part looks very promising, however I must note that when we tinkered with it at the Apple booth it didn't prove quite as accurate as we'd hoped. Now I need to add the disclaimer that we were attempting to tag a child's face. That actually brings up the issue that with kids you very well might have to end up tagging them a few times, age 5, age 8, so on. However the training/learning system seemed to work very well and it corrected quickly. Looking forward to it.
As for iWork, didn't tinker with it but the new graphical improvements with 3D graphs I'm sure got some accountants a bit wet. Keynote is always my choice for presentations, and the new layout looks even better.
Now onto the independent developers, the core of what makes MacWorld awesome. As with many people this is where I spend 90% of my time at the expo, not at the Apple booth. Given I've been making a point to get myself equipped with cameras and delve into that creative area I spent a deal of time at both the Canon booth and Nikon booth. Now given I'm partial to Canon (and already own a few) naturally I had my preference to the EOS 50D. I didn't get much time with the Nikon SLR's namely because I found out an interesting tidbit: my comparison was the Canon 50D and the Nikon D90, which the Nikon rep informed me the Nikon D90 is not in the same category as the Canon, I'd have to go with the D300 for a comparable camera. Well that also makes the Nikon $500 more for just the body. That and I also could barely manage to talk to anyone. Canon it is.
That said, I also took a look at advanced point and shoot cameras. The big three which I read a lot about are the Canon G10 (G9 too), Nikon P6000, and the Panasonic DMC-LX3. All of them are around $400 and all are great cameras. Panasonic wasn't at MacWorld so I can't comment on it but as for the other two, they were both very impressive. I'd be happy with either, but again I'm partial to Canon.
We can't forget Axiotron who made waves last year with the Modbook, where they basically hacked a white MacBook into a tablet mac (slate, no keyboard.) At the expo this year they announced the ModBook Pro (pictured left) which was based on the MacBook Pro. Rather than save some of the original case they came up with an entirely new case for it and damn it looks impressive. The screen also responds not only to the pen input but regular touch input. Unfortunately only two prototypes were on display (in cases) and nothing to play with. Shall be looking forward to it when it drops in June.
Other cool stuff, Brain Toniq was there handing out samples. Kinda the "smart" alternative to Red Bull, however it's got a huge price tag which may continue to keep me off energy drinks. Right around there was Joby with the every famous Gorillapod. Fantastic little portable, bendy, can attach to anything tripod. I could have really used one when I was in New York (just the week before.) I picked up one on show special and it proved itself useful immediately.
KB covers also had really nice keyboard skins especially the ones with application keymaps on it. Not hugely useful experienced users but in the case of education would be hugely useful to students.
Speaking of teaching another company who had a tiny town booth was LanSchool. What they did is basically what NetOp and Apple Remote Desktop already do however it was designed with teachers in mind rather that IT admins. The major perk is that it runs across both mac and windows clients together. Yes please!
Also in tiny town was Squirrel, which I unfortunately kinda skimmed over but upon revisiting it online looks to be a really great personal budget and finance management software. Worth a looksee. Oh, you're probably wondering, "What the hell is tiny town?!" Apologies. Tiny town are the smallest of small booths (if you can call them that) at MacWorld. They are the tiny, four sided kiosk sorta setups and a company will rent out just one side (a quarter) of one. For these companies paying for the expo has a huge impact on their budget but can prove a great turnaround. Some really great stuff evolves from tiny town.
Moving along... Got to check out Audio Engine's speakers and find out some about them. Pretty nice sounding systems, however still kinda pricey given they are still considered "consumer" products. My biggest qualms about them is that one speaker holds all the amplifier bits and that you still only have a minijack input. (According to the diagrams at least.
Something else intersting was MicroVision had a booth in the north hall and they were showing off their laser-based pico projector, codenamed ShowWX (pictured above.) Out of all the pico projectors I've seen on various tech blogs, this one looked the most impressive. Again I don't really know how useful these things would really be, but you bet there's a market for it and they're excited about it.
Finally I got a nice chat with Will Shipley who makes Delicious Library 2 which is a great cataloging application. I was a bit on the fence about it however after seeing it I plan on using it. It very elegantly and simply keeps track of all the stuff you own, where it is, who you've lent it out to, so on. Found out that most major barcode scanners will just work with the software, another major plus for it. For someone like me who's probably going to move a few more times in the next 2 years and still has stuff in storage, keeping track of it all has proven to be hard. Delicious Library would solve that problem.
MacWorld this year was also a good deal of meeting up with friends and such. I ran into several people (several from UCSC) at the expo and such. Got to check out a Lynda.com post-expo party on tuesday night. Of course we can't forget Thursday. I went to the expo for a bit with Pablo, San, and Will, then had to go work, and then met up with them again for late night fun at The Cafe. Was a good night (plus you can't beat two beers for $4.)
Well that's all for this year's MacWorld. As usual more tech bits will come as things happen. For the (mostly) full photoset of the expo, see the album here. (via Facebook)