So one very interesting thing happened relating to my Macworld Expo follow-up piece: Namely, a few industry folks picked it up and regarded it with scorn.
Some reasonably had a problem with my attendance numbers, one of which was based on my apparently faulty memory and the other based on pre-registration figures that turned out to be higher than actual attendance. I’ve posted an update that explains and corrects these figures.
Unfortunately, that’s it. Other than accusing me of being angry, which a somewhat subjective issue of tone because I was aiming for insouciance, nobody seems willing to talk about the issues, namely
(1) Macworld’s vendor quality and quantity were awful compared to previous years;
(2) IDG seems to be acting like everything is fine.
To be clear, I’m not saying vendors are bad—the more, the merrier, after all—just that a company selling a little iOS app isn’t in the same league as Adobe, Brother, Canon, etc.
Maybe I need to be more fervent in expressing my desire that the Macworld Expo return to its former glory, or at least something approaching usefulness. I’m not sure how that can happen, but I’m fairly confident that the present course its on heads for the rocks.
Your Mac Life broadcaster Shawn King thinks old-timers like me should erase the memory of what was a damn good show and look at Macworld with the dewey-eyed wonder of a Macworld newbie because the good times, they ain’t a-comin’ back.
I think he’s right about this latter point, but it’s asking too much to forget what was. Could you go back to using a PowerMac 7600 running Mac OS 8 after tooling about with the latest i7-based iMac running Mac OS X 10.6? Those Power Macs had their merits, but let’s not kid ourselves: You be better off buying a PC running Windows 7, and I say that as a guy that hates Windows with the white-hot zeal of a convert.
What’s notable now, outside of anyone in the Mac universe caring what I think or reading what I write, is that few of the Mac punditry have expressed a similar opinion. I’ve not seen many glowing reviews of the show—how many iPad cases can you thrill to, after all—but did no one have the same reaction as me? I guess not, but I’ll be stunned if there’s a MacWorld Expo around in 5 years.