This week's podcast episode (#22) of the iLifeZone features a live taping from Macworld earlier this month, wherein Scott Bourne, Derrick Story, Chris Breen and the "token girl" discussed the fact that January came early this year and none of the cool stuff was ready to be taken home. Here are a few of my observations:
- With a recently deceased Treo to replace, I was hoping that the iPhone would be cool (it was, it so was), priced with in my budget (it wasn't really, and me being the notorious mobile phone destroyer), and ready for sale (it wasn't).
- AppleTV, well, they'll tell you you can order it today, but it isn't shipping until February. And I'm not sure it solves pain most people feel (yet). I realized today if I brought home a $299 item that plugged into the TV and didn't have a game controller (preferably a certain oblong white game controller with a wrist strap) my 11-year-old would be totally confused. Then annoyed.
- The ModBook was fun to play with, but it's not ready until April. And it's basically a bit of a Frankenstein job on a MacBook. And it voids your warranty. If you're looking for sleek Apple design, maybe better to wait for a real iTablet (or is it AppleTablet?) (And you know how hard sleek Apple design is to resist, she says, watching her imaginary iPhone as it twirls in its plexiglass case, safe from harm.)
- Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom from Adobe are cool, and they're free to play with now, but you still don't know quite which aspects of either program you can really bond with emotionally. (OK, I know you can make a pretty good guess. My point is that even Adobe was showing things you really can't buy yet.)
- Even the guy who had the pink plastic compact that holds your iPod on one side and a mirror on the other pointed out that the hinge didn't work quite right in the "prototype" he had at the show. (And given my destructive tendencies noted above, I try to keep my electronic devices and cosmetic-related items in distinctly separate sections of my bag anyway.) It was the perfect silly token girl item though.
Sitting in on the podcast was fun though. Give it a listen here, no waiting.
Categories
Web
Comments (2)
Read More Entries by Colleen Wheeler.
Good point. I can't imagine an iPod accessory vendor thinking they could successfully use the Delayed Gratification model at Macworld of all places.
Can't agree that it was sad, though. I still had a great time and got to listen to some terrific, smart people talk about interesting things. There was plenty of knowledge being shared, even if you left with that wad of cash still burning a whole in your pocket.
Then there are the vendors who just missed out on an opportunity to sell product.
iSkin for example had in the past sold their product in their booth. This year they only had a fancy expensive booth with displays.
Meanwhile, a new comer in the same space as iSkin was selling product to a long line of customers. They couldn't take the money in fast enough.
Griffin was even worse. Most of their products were still in the box locked up in a glass display. What's the point of having a booth if you are not going to let people touch your product? If you only wanted them to see the product packaging, they could do that on the web and not have to bother going to the exhibit floor.
And if you have no interest in iPod accessories, most of the exhibitors showing the same 5 iPod accessories aren't of much interest.
A very sad Macworld.