Back from Macworld 2010: smaller but still innovative and inspiring

I thought that the absence of Apple from this year’s convention would really dampen the spirits. To some degree, I was right. The convention was held in one hall at the Moscone Center this year—one hall! I started attending about three years ago and the expo used to encompass three halls: Moscone North, South, and West.  If you’ve never been, just imagine days and days of wandering halls of cool, geeky stuff, workshops and classes. Of course, every year you could count on a keynote address by the one and only Steve Jobs regarding the latest and greatest gadget to be released.  This year it was the discussion of Ipad, but no keynote from Mr. Jobs. and a lot fewer exhibitors. Hopefully, Apple will have a change of heart and make its way back to Macworld! (crosses fingers).

Feature Presentations

Some of the higher profile presentations included Q&A with film Director Kevin Smith a.k.a. “Silent Bob“, the man behind movies:  “Chasing Amy“, “Clerks” and “Mallrats“.  It was definitely one of the more entertaining presentations . I don’t think anyone expected to laugh as much as they did. Most of the discussion centered around  his latest film “Cop Out” featuring Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis. He also took questions from the audience with many asking him advice about film making.  I’m still trying to think of the relation between Kevin Smith and Apple Computers, but someone thought he’d be a good addition and to be fair he did speak a little bit about the iPad!

Kevin Smith

Guy Kawasaki and TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Other anticipated events included the 20th anniversary celebration of Photoshop, a keynote address from former Apple marketing guru and co-founder of alltop.com, Guy Kawasaki. He discussed the current innovation and revolution of the tech market showcasing some of the visionaries of Apple software products including: Square’s Jack Dorsey, Bing’s Florian Voss, Boinx Software’s Oliver Breidenbach and HearPlanet’s Steve Echtman.

However, the highlight of the entire convention and expo was the much anticipated discussion of the Ipad, due to be released in June of this year.  Led by Jason Snell, VP & Editorial Director of Mac Publishing, the panel discussed the features, anticipated updates, changes, disappointments and other issues regarding this device.

iPad presentation panel

Contrary to what you may have heard in recent news about the Ipad being the “Kindle Killer”, this panel agreed that the Ipad isn’t meant to take over the Kindle any more than the Kindle is taking over printed books. Rather there will be groups that both devices satisfy needs for.

The same argument was presented in regards to laptops and computers. Would the Ipad take the place of a laptop?  Would the lack of a camera take away from the “functionality” of the Ipad?  Would the Ipad replace or be an addition to  desktop and laptop computers? Almost unanimously, they agreed that if the Ipad was going to “kill” anything, it would possibly be the “netbook killer”.

Although opinions varied, the panel seemed pretty excited about its release, especially with the potential applications and integration with Iphone. All remains to be seen once the product launches this summer.

The Expo

Presentations are one thing, classes are another. The expo is where it’s at. This is where everything and anything is showcased and sold to the tech-happy crowd. Some exhibitors were veterans such as: Graphic Authority, Microsoft, HP and Verbatim. But visibly absent from this year’s expo (besides Apple), were  two veteran Macworld exhibitors:  Nikon and Canon.  However, several smaller companies and a slew of independent developers saturated the expo floor. Here are some of the great things we discovered walking around. This is only a fraction of what was there, but nonetheless interesting First Look product launches with some of the exhibitors winning “Best in Show”.

• CarMD.com –A personal diagnostic tool that provides drivers with a fast and easy-to-use analysis of their car’s health.
• Apparent — showcased Doxie, a smart, modern paper scanner that sends photos and documents straight to web apps like Flickr, and Iphoto.
  
  

  Bulletscan

• Blue Microphones — presented the next generation of their award winning mic- Mikey — compatible with Iphone and Ipod Touch.
  
• Navigon — showcased Mobile Navigator and application that transforms the Iphone into a navigation device.
• Telefingers–a glove that allows you to touch, tap, stroke and scroll on your Iphone or other touch devices. (The one below is a competitor.)
  

  Dots Gloves

  Some of the mobile applications included:  Date Check and IKeysToGo. Date Check allows you to perform a background check on your Iphone before you meet up with someone from a dating website. IkeysToGo allows you to quickly look up keyboard shortcuts on your Iphone for programs such as Iphoto, Photoshop, and Microsoft Word. Others included applications purely for entertainment purposes such as a slingshot game and comic book character creations.

The Rest of the Bunch

ShowWx

You turn your Iphone into a small movie projector. You attach the gadget to the back of the phone and play your movie on the phone to project! Pretty simple and pretty innovative!

Mac Practice

As more and more hospitals and doctor’s offices move towards EMR (electronic medical records), Mac Practice offers a powerful software solution to a health professional’s needs. It even comes with an Iphone application to access records conveniently and securely.

irecord

I thought this was one of the most interesting products that I saw. IrecordPro allows the user to record audio and video directly to the Iphone, Ipod touch, Ipod nano and Ipod Classic without using a computer. It supports full resolution D1 (720×480) video encoding and it can also transcode MPEG2 content to H.264. It also supports WAV & FLAC lossless audio recording.

All in all, despite being a little disappointed with the “shrunken” convention, I was impressed with the amount of people still enthusiastic about Apple related products and the continuing development of software (despite Apple’s absence this year), especially for the Iphone. It is apparent that the trend will continue in the direction of these multitasking devices especially with the upcoming Ipad.

Hopefully next year will bring back more exhibitors and Apple! Until then, happy computing.

Find out more about these applications and products by visiting macworld.com

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