Greetings from MacWorld SF 2006
One of the perks of working for a cool Mac company is an inside peek at the big Mac conferences. I’m in San Francisco right now, holed up in a surprisingly nice hotel room, recovering from my first day at a Mac tradeshow. God, what a circus. I’ll have pictures later. The WiFi connection here at the hotel is convenient, but quite slow.
The big story (as always) is Steve Jobs’ keynote address, in which he unveiled the first Macs with Intel processors—the new iMac and the unfortunately named MacBook Pro (I was gunning for “Performa Portable”). The MagnaSafe feature (this mixed-caps thing is getting old) is very clever. Basically, the power adapter is plugged in magnetically, meaning that when your girlfriend trips over the power cord it simply unplugs, rather than pulling the computer with it and damaging the connector. Cool.
Here’s some inside info: it sounds as though the Intel Macs will have dual booting capability, meaning folks will be able have Windows and Mac on the same machine. That this is possible doesn’t come as a shock, but it sounds like Apple will support this out of the box. After all, Apple is a hardware company, remember?
Being here in San Francisco, I got to play with the new machines, and let me tell you: they’re fast! They’re also hot. My friend Les said that late in the day, he could feel a heat cloud surrounding the new PowerMacTopIntelBookPro. This, of course, will be a boon in my “vintage” electric-heat apartment, where I’ll be able to heat my home while checking my e-mail.
The weird thing about being in San Francisco for MacWorld is how disconnected I felt to the exciting announcements. Indulgences to see the Blessed Steve and his Keynote are an extra expense, so I spent this morning in a hotel room, playing Mario Kart and watching the text-only version of MacRumors like everybody else.
Once inside the Expo, the craziness took off and I completely forgot about new Intel developments and just started talking to people about Panic stuff. I wandered around a bit and saw some truly awful Mac products (I won’t name names). In general, it’s been a very interesting cultural experience, if a little surreal.
I realize that writing about a Mac conference on my blog is the height of geekiness, but ironically, being here for the whole thing and taking it all in has made me feel much less geeky by comparison.