I’m writing this at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, waiting for my connection back to West Palm Beach, and finally have a moment to reflect about all I have seen and heard (what hearing remains after experiencing Cheap Trick on Tuesday night–not that I’m complaining, mind you…).
This was such a significant event, and so appropriate for being Apple’s 30th anniversary as a living, thriving company. Apple is no longer a computer company. Read that phrase again. Apple is no longer a computer company. Oh, they will likely continue to design and manufacture the best desktop and laptop personal computers in the galaxy for a long time to come, but the change in focus is as clear as the change in the corporate moniker: it’s Apple Inc. now. Apple is a high-tech Silicon Valley maker of an wide variety of personal, consumer electronics devices, and now, mobile devices.
Over the last few years with the introduction and phenomenal success of its portable music player, the iPod, Apple has spawned a cottage industry of makers of iPod accessories, both here and abroad, creating jobs and opportunities for many. I saw an amazing array of peripherals, from the really useful to the craziest, wackiest, over-the-top stuff you can (or maybe can’t) imagine.
Looking forward another year or so, what kind of new peripherals will eager entrepreneurs come up with for the AppleTV and the iPhone (or whatever the lawyers eventually agree on)? I look forward to finding out.
Back to the show, as Guy and others have reported, I worked as a combination pack mule, security guard, and human barricade as Guy and Tim did a bunch of video interviews. The focus was on the smaller company, those folks who make the products that a lot of us maybe haven’t heard about. The richness and variety of products and services from these companies is truly mind boggling. The Macintosh platform has nothing to worry about, thanks to the dedicated true believers out there who are putting together some of the finest software packages and accessories you can imagine.
At the same time, it was great to see some of the older companies, still out there fighting the good fight. Multi Ad Creator is a venerable product that has for years been the anchor behind many newspapers and other print media outlets. Then, as now, it’s the quickest way to create ads for print. Broderbund’s PrintShop was ported to the Mac platform by MacKiev, who provides fine support. This is another neat program for the less-than-creative among us (a category into which I include myself) to put together a wide variety of printed pieces using their excellent templates and clip media. It’s real easy to use, too. Netopia, makers of remote connectivity software Timbuktu was out there. Goodness, I have been using their software and hardware products since the mid 1980s! It was also good to see another venerable product, MacDraft. I began using it in 1985 on my office’s first Mac Plus.
The party on Wednesday night was another memorable event–seeing some of the top writers in the Apple (among them some of my Mac-heroes) arena play some pretty acceptable rock and roll and some blues thrown in for good measure.
So, to close, I want to thank Tim Robertson for bringing me “into the fold”, and for the great words of encouragement from the rest of the MyMac.com writing team. I look forward more than ever to Macworld 2008!
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