MacWorld 2005 Thoughts
A few random thoughts on this year’s MacWorld before I go to bed:
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I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else say this so far, but for me the most amazing moment in the keynote had nothing to do with the product annoucements. Rather, it was the sight of Sony President Kunitake Ando on stage and evidently feeling the effects of the famous reality distortion field. This was incredible stuff—like witnessing an episode right out of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Sony is arguably Apple’s only credible threat in the digital music arena (disclaimer: my opinion and mine alone), and here’s Jobs (who clearly genuinely admires the company) charming the pants off their president, touting common goals in promoting HD video, and generally making the guy feel like a rock star. In a word: wow.
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Working the Tiger demo area at the Apple booth was a lot more fun than I expected. I was scheduled to work right after the keynote emptied out, and the sudden influx of eager people reminded me of the scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley where Jobs and Woz are mobbed by geeks while demoing the Apple II. I enthusiastically talked about Spotlight, Safari RSS, Automator, Mail, and other new features for about three hours nonstop, until my throat was so parched I could barely speak.
It can be hard being a Mac enthusiast who works for Apple. Often the day-to-day grind of keeping your bug queue under control and generally “seeing how the sausage is made” can slowly drain your enthusiasm for the product. Fortunately, getting out and talking to actual end users, and seeing their enthusiasm for the result of all that hard work, always reminds me why I’m in this business.
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One of the best things about conferences is the opportunity to hang out with people, and this year’s show was no exception. I particularly enjoyed finally meeting the ever affable Eric Case, as well as his friends Willo, Ryan (of wiPod fame), and Skylar. I also got give restaurant recommendations to Jochen Wolters and catch up with Courtney Patubo, Allen Hutchison, and Lucien Dupont. I finished this evening at the 43 Folders meetup, where I got to meet Jasmeet, tell Danny O’Brien how much I love NTK, and get my own commemorative hipster PDA from Merlin Mann himself. Hooray for socializing!
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Update: One thing I almost forgot to mention is that I had lunch with Scott Knaster a little while ago, and at that time he explained to me how he thought Apple could make a flash-based iPod compelling (he later wrote the idea up on his weblog). At the time I thought his ideas were interesting, but I had no idea he was on the right track as much as he was. Good thinking, Scott!
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I just realized that, in all the excitement, I completely forgot to eat dinner tonight. It’s been a long time since that happened!
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The “IBM Office” shirt I got from Panic is my new favorite article of clothing. I can’t believe the attention to detail that Cabel puts into Panic’s swag. The shirt even has an embroidered label that actually says “Panic.” I’d be willing to bet that Panic could be pretty successful supplementing their software income with clothing sales if they ever decided to!
- I’ve got some photos up on Flickr. I think “Girl with iPod Shuffle” is one of the best photos I’ve ever posted, if I do say so myself.