For the Love of Geeks

I recently attended MacWorld in San Francisco.  When people would ask me what that was, I would stare at them blankly, and just shake my head… Thanks to the iMac, iPod, and now the iPhone, I get a lot fewer of those types of questions then I did in years past when I attended.

MacWorld is Disneyland for geeks… or at least it always has been.  This year was little disappointing.   Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, met some cool new vendors and got to play with the new MacBook Air.  However. You knew there was a however coming.  This year, they should have renamed the show “iPhoneWorld”.  Now, bear in mind that I am a proud iPhone owner, and my friends are endlessly annoyed by how I can take any topic and swing it around to talking about how great my iPhone is.  The show, though, is supposed to be about MACs.. all macs, not just the iPhone.  I swear there were probably about 70 vendors doing nothing but showcasing iPhone accessories.  Now at first I thought this was great, since I wanted to get a few accessories for my iPhone (have I mentioned how great it is?).  This brings me to my next problem with the show.  No one was selling anything… NO ONE.  On the last day a new booth magically appeared and they were selling a smattering of supplies, but for the majority of the show, no one was selling, only showing.  Everyone of them told me that I could purchase online.  ONLINE!?!?! REALLY?!?!? I am standing 2 feet from the product and you want me to go online, and pay for shipping … WOW!..  it was really really frustrating.

Also odd to me, was the lack of love for the iMac.  In every show I have attended, since the iMac was released, there have always been an area where they showed off the iMac…  not this year..  Other then the iMacs in use by the vendors, there were none to be found.

Now, the MacBook Air is very cool… Let me state that up front.  It feels great, and has a geek cool factor that tops the charts… BUT!! You knew there was a but coming…

$1799.00 for the low end.. are you kidding me ?  There is no optical drive, no expansion whatsoever, no access to the RAM, and the battery is safely locked away from access as well.  HMMM… Mr. Jobs, while I realize you believe that you can ween us off the Optical drives, a concept I am not on board with, you can not possibly imagine that people are going to want to spend as much on a sub-notebook computer as  they will on the MacBook Pro..

This really should have been a computer to compete with the lower priced PC’s on the market.

Anyway, Steve Jobs does not care what I think… Heck, you probably don’t care what I think, but there it is … what I think for all to see.

The last complaint I have is why was the show so small ?  Where have all the vendors gone? COME BACK!  and next year, sell me something.. I bring a WAD of cash with me to MacWorld, and my wife doesn’t come.. you do the math..

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