Best thing I can say about MacWorld: Boston’s a nice town to visit. I’m writing this in the shadow of an 1867 statue dedicated to “the relief of human suffering by the inhaling of ether”, so you know these guys know how to party.
MacWorld Boston is the red-headed stepchild compared to San Francisco (and increasingly the Worldwide Developer Conference), so most of the value of the conference came from meetings I had set up beforehand. Aside from that, the show floor was so sparse that I could walk it in 15 minutes, and I had finished everything I wanted to do on the floor by the end of day one. Day two I bought a few gizmos (an earclip flashlight, just because, and a BTI replacement battery for my laptop). Day three I didn’t even bother showing up, although I spent most of it in the Starbucks next door to the Hynes Center.
The good things I can say: all card-carrying geeks should make plans to see Andy Ihnatko speak sometime before they die. He’s a showman as well as a writer; what else can you say about a man who makes a robe out of discarded iPod banners for part of his presentation? His talk was fairly varied, but some high points included his two-cent heads up display (mirror reverse a PDF print preview, print to paper and place on car dashboard), and an amusing discussion of why the switch to Intel shouldn’t matter for most users.
I also enjoyed Ben Waldie’s talk on Automator; the crowd ranged from developers to complete newbies, and he seemed to make it interesting for all attendees. I’m looking forward to catching up with him at the Philadelphia AppleScript MUG at some point.
The real disappointment was the show floor. I really don’t have a strong enough need for high-volume DVD burners that I need to compare four vendors. There are really just so many iPod accessories that need to exist, but apparently some companies haven’t gotten that memo. And while I’m as crazy as the next person (here, anyway) about the newest bags I can use to shlep around my laptop, the biggest innovation I saw was the use of lavender ballistic nylon instead of Model T Black.
One group I will be keeping an eye on are the AppleSpecialists, a consortium of independent Apple resellers who are banding together to compete more effectively against the Apple stores. More than once I heard vendors expressing interest because it’s difficult at times to deal with the monolithic Apple corporate structure to get retail space. One of the members is MacUpgrades in my hometown, and I’ve been impressed enough with those guys for years to give high marks to the rest of the bunch.
Verdict: I’m glad I came, but the best parts of the trip were thanks to some of the people here. The show, not so much. Better to make plans for MWSF; I’ll be in Italy for the 2006 edition, but January, 2007 should be an eventful time to make my next appearance.