Report Macworld Expo SF '00 Day1

 

Hands-On Report: Macworld Expo San Francisco 2000 -- Day 1

By Roderick Martin
January 5, 2000

While not a stranger to conventions and expos, this is my first MacWorld Expo. From the comments and inside jokes, I could tell that these Expos have a lot of history and I missed the "beleaguered" years of despair and the past two years of rising hope and expectation, but hope to give everyone a first-timers view of the 2000 MacWorld Expo. I've heard that 300,000 are expected to attend this year, which is just shocking. The thought of over a quarter-million Mac users and lovers in the same place seems unbelievable to me, coming from a city of 120,000 whose only Mac exposure is a smallish Apple dealer and Sears.

Tuesday I attended the MacWorld Pre-Show Rally, hosted by various Macintosh personalities, whose job was to get the 2000-or-so attendees pumped for the coming show. There were a lot of laughs, some groans, and a "reserved" excitement from the crowd. Perhaps the excitement of Apple's rebirth, now almost two years old, is waning. Perhaps the need to be "overzealous" in our excitement during the dark years at Apple isn't as necessary anymore as we become more calm, relaxed and confident in Apple's resurgence. Perhaps we were all just tired. Time will tell.

David Pogue was on-hand, and apparently has been known to entertain the attendees with a song. Of what I have no idea, for he was unable to sing for us and instead performed a magic trick involving a rope, scissors, and a knot, representing Apple's history, really bad Apple blunders, and the press's reluctance to forget such blunders.

The Expo will have its share of musical celebrities this year as well. Thomas Dolby Robertson (yes, THAT "She Blinded Me With Science" Thomas Dolby), founder of Beatnik, Inc. will give a keynote on "The Art and Science of Sonification", which will explore the next wave in Internet expression, sound. On Thursday, Smashmouth will perform here at the Expo and Soul Coughing on Friday. Quite an experience to look forward to!

Bob LeVitus really got the crowd going with various observations, questions for the audience, and polls. He asked who in attendance was using some form of broadband Internet access. Nearly 50% raised their hands, up from 20% at the last MacWorld Expo six months ago.

When asked who liked round mice, only ten people responded favorably. Bob then played the game "What's Steve Going to Say Tomorrow?" and had us vote on what rumors had the most probability to be announced at Steve's
keynote Wednesday. Here are the rough responses....

80% - New PowerBook
70% - Mac OS 9.0.1 (or 9.1)
7% - QuickTime 4.1
6% - New (better) keyboard and mouse
5% - Multiprocessor G4's
5% - Mac OS X Consumer announcement of some kind
1% - iBook DVD

After that came Bob's 1999 Apple Report Card with the usual good news/bad news...

Apple's Stock Performance - A++
Apple's 1999 Products (iBook, G4, OS9, 22" Cinema Display, Airport, iMac DV) - A++
Technical Support - D
Documentation - D
Apple Store - B
New User Interface (Brushed metal QT4 and Sherlock) - F
Apple's User Friendliness as a company - B
Steve Jobs as iCEO - A++ (although how he can give Steve an A++ when reports are he had everything to do with the Brushed metal interfaces confuses me)

The rally finished with a couple more speakers and then it was off to some full-day seminars.

I've been told this will be a great experience. I've also been told on several occasions that my wallet will become much lighter over the next few days. Time will tell. I can't wait. This should be fun.

______________________

Roderick Martin, web site consultant and Mac fan, has been using Macs on and off since 1987 and became a Mac owner in 1996 when he changed careers from television promotion and marketing to web site development. His web development company, Network 23 uses Macs every day to enhance the Internet surfer's experience. Rod left 70-degree weather in Illinois to attend MacWorld Expo in San Francisco where it is 50 degrees and much less flat.

Copyright © 2000 by Bill Fox
All rights reserved--no use permitted without attribution.

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