Macworld Thoughts

Thoughts on Macworld

I would have liked to spend more time at Macworld this year, but things just not work out correctly. Originally, I was supposed to be at CES on Monday through Wednesday that week, but I got sick before the show and did not go. I thought I was feeling better so I arrived at Macworld all ready to go on Thursday, and spent a very long day seeing almost the entire show. Unfortunately, that kicked me in the butt and I was back sick again on Friday.

That is AppleTV above, a non-OSX product from the company formally known as Apple Computer, Inc. I am NOT putting in a picture of the iPhone, because frankly, I am sick of it already!

Most people I have talked to said it was a good show. For me, I am not so sure. I cannot tell you the number of people I heard complain about Apple not having anything new to buy and take home. I wondered about that too. Where were the usual updates to iLife and iWork? Or maybe a new keyboard, mouse, or a new computer or two? No new laptops, no new mini, and even the long awaited AppleTV was not read to take home. I was also surprised to learn that the AppleTV was not OS-X based. I could not help but wonder why? If the phone is OS-X based, why not continue that trend here? I also wondered if we will now see less new Macintosh products now that the company is called Apple, Inc rather than Apple Computer, Inc? Is this the beginning of a trend away from Macintosh?

I did manage to walk the entire show, well, almost. I noted that also missing from the floor was anything new and exciting from all those great companies. That is not to say that there is not anything new, but for the majority of the show, what I saw was updates and improvements to old products and devices. There I was at Macworld with a pocket full of money, and I went home with nothing. THAT was disappointing. Usually I can find a few things I just must have.

But I did see some things I liked. Already covered in one of Guy &Tim’s video blogs from the show floor, Other World Computing’s ModBook (MyMac Macworld Expo Video – 2 – ModBook) which takes a standard, off the shelf MacBook and turns it into a tablet computer. This was very cool, but since covered, I will not add to it.

A surprise for me was to see H&R Block back on the floor with a Macintosh solution again. As many may recall, I tried the switch to H&R Block in 2005 for my 2004 taxes after feeling that the Intuit solution had too many major problems and bugs. While H&R Block’ s TaxCut was a great product, and I encouraged people to consider switching, it seems that H&R decided to simply drop the product the following year (TaxCut Abandons Macintosh ) and gave users no way back to Intuit’s TurboTax. What that meant for many was the following year one had to hand enter all their data from the previous year into TurboTax (basically doing their taxes twice) so that TurboTax was ready to do their 2005 taxes in 2006. So, the big question is, can we trust H&R Block to stick around this time? I for one would be very weary of a switch again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I think they could solve this problem by including a small utility in their product that saves the file in Intuit’s TurboTax format. At least that way, if they do decide to leave the market again, users have a backup plan. I do not expect to see this happen any time soon. They do know the format however, as TaxCut easily imports data from TurboTax. Strangely, TurboTax pretends that TaxCut does not exist and refuses to add import support for Tax Cut users. Not sure why though. If you want people to switch, making it easy would be key I would think. Maybe Intuit does not care? The only comment I got from Intuit on that was that some features never make the product due to time. This was one year they should make the time.

Speaking of taxes and Intuit, they have new versions of TurboTax (2007) for 2006 taxes, which we do in 2007, thus the name, as well as a new Quicken for 2007. I had the pleasure of being a beta tester on both of these products, and I was pleased to see that both are quite solid this year. Intuit listened to user’s feedback last year on their new tax interview interface, and many improvements have been made on this year’s product. And Quicken 2007 is one of the best releases I have used in a long time. Perhaps a review of these will be on these pages soon.

One of my favorite products was again at Macworld, but this time, it seems, under new ownership. Squeezebox, a device I have reviewed in the past (Squeezebox by Slim Devices ) was back again, but this time, besides newer versions, they were in Logitech’s booth. Seems in October of 2006, Logitech bought Slim Devices, the makers or Squeeze Box, Slim Server, and other cool products. Lets just hope Logitech does not mess up a good thing here, as the person they had in the booth did not even know how the device worked and they did not even have it connect it to an outside network. When I demoed it do three people, he just stood there looking amazed. Come on Logitech, if you buy something, at least learn how it works!

The company Mophie had one of the coolest booths on the floor, looking like something still under construction. Inside the booth they had a machine that can create physical models of ideas drawn up on a computer. They held a contest allowing people to submit sketches of design ideas that worked with Apple products, and then let Macworld attendees vote on the best. These best were then fed into the machine to build a physical prototype. Mophie held a 4 day event, where, at the end, they created, packaged, and designed the winning idea. More can be read about it here: Mophie Press Release and the winning designed can be seen here: Illuminator. It was a very cool idea and there were some cool product ideas there too. I wonder who owns all the ideas now?

LaCie was on hand with a lot of updated products, including some very cool network storage devices, and hard disk solutions with multiple interfaces. Always out to make their products a bit more fun, the LacCie hub (see above) was both silly and cool. The hub allows USB devices to be plugged in, and as they turn on, a differently colored light appears on the ball. Plugged into this hub were a gooseneck lamp, a fan, and a number of other USB devices. Silly, but very fun. Just not sure how it would sit on the desk!

Although my search for the greatest carrying case of all time has (mostly) ended, Crumpler Cases had a very cool array of bags and carrying cases to show, and I must say they looked like they could be contenders for the top bag spot. Especially, since not to be seen on the show floor they year was long time favorite bag maker Timbuk2. In fact, Timbuk2 has been quiet now for two years in a row. Last year, although on the floor, they did not want to talk to us and kept blowing off appointments. This year, they were missing all together, which is very strange for a local San Francisco company. Rumor has it that have a new president and marketing person and it seems to be showing (or should I say, not showing!) But I always thought they were dedicated to the Macintosh community, and to see them missing was disappointing and also sends a strong message to Mac users. Maybe being the giveaway bag at the Ted conference has gone to their head? Will we see them again? I hope so, but even their website is missing any reference to Macintosh bags. Well, maybe Crumpler Cases can fill that hole, because they had some very cool messenger bags. Look for a review of these in the near future.

Paralles for the Mac was showing a very cool updated version for Intel based Macintosh. This product is so solid and strong now, I am ready to update my PowerBook to a new Macbook Pro. Two of the coolest new features of the latest release of Paralles are the ability to drag and drop files between OS-X’s and Window’s windows, and the ability now to have Window’s applications open in their own window right in the Mac OS-X desktop. No longer are the Window’s windows limited to running just inside the single emulated OS window. OK, all these ‘window’ words may be confusing, but check out this product if you have any need to run Linux, XP, or even Vista on your Intel based MacBook, and believe that rebooting with bootcamp is just not the way to go.

Lastly of interest to me at Macworld, was ADS showing off two very cool products for the Mac. The first was VideoXpress (http://www.adstech.com), a device to take all your old analog video media, such as video tapes or DVDs, and convert them to DV video format. This means you can now play your videotapes right into Final Cut or iMovie, and put them onto DVDs or use them on your computer. And the device goes both ways (A to D and D to A), so just in case you want to make an analog video from a digital source, this will do it too. It also supports and converts between NTSC, PAL, and SECAM video formats. If all you need to digitize is music, they were showing InstantMusic for Mac. This takes analog or digital (SPDIF) audio in, and converts it to USB for capture on the Mac. A copy of Roxio’s CD Spin Doctor® is included, which helps eliminate pops and scratch noises from records, and hiss from tapes. Also look for a review of these devices in the near future. Had I gone back the next day, this is probably something I would have bought.

Well, that is it for me from Macworld this year. Look for some reviews on these and other cool products in the near future. Cheers.

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