Saturday scenes and scenery: Macworld magic: #fail

I spent several hours at Macworld on Friday.


This newspaper story doesn't ring true to me. The San Francisco Chronicle contends that Macworld, the annual winter Apple-fest, is just as good as always.

Macworld is physically a much smaller show, with about 235 vendors occupying 28,000 square feet. Last year, in the final year of Apple's participation, there were 419 vendors taking up 75,000 square feet. ...

Kwame Weusi-Puryear, a Palo Alto Web designer, said he believes the absence of Apple frees the show organizers to be more inventive and fun. He said last year's show was not as interesting because Apple was the undisputed draw. While Weusi-Puryear initially thought Apple's pullout was the death of the show, he now sees no reason why it can't keep going for years to come.

"I think it can survive because the fans want it," he said. "Apple will always do their own thing, but the fans need this convention. Macworld is our mecca, so we'll keep coming back."

I was prepared to spend a day at the show, as I have during years since 1985, but stayed only a few hours.


And I don't think the problem was Apple's decision not to offer a keynote and to display at the show.


There were the usual innovators trying to explain why their new inventions were something we all needed.


There were the companies that tried to attract attention with unrelated hype. I never did find out what space girl was hawking, but she was having fun.


This guy demo-ed a brush that "painted" on a screen ...

But mostly I think the show reflected the changes in the computer world. This didn't appear to be a gathering of working stiffs, looking for the next competitive advantage. Perhaps in part this was because we visited in the middle of a work day. But rather it seemed to be folks young and old tinkering around the margins of a world of techno-toys.

This family might as well have been visiting an amusement park.


Lots of attendees seemed to be in my age group.


Maybe the New York Times reader is a genuine break-through, but I doubt it.


I suspect that Mac fans and iPhone users don't need this kind of show anymore. We get all the functions we need, and sometimes more than we ever discover, from the hardware as it comes from the package. We can search out the niche products we might want online or at the App Store.

All photos taken by iPhone. I wanted to see how it would do. In similar circumstances, I would take a real camera in the future.