Macworld 2009 Expo show floor summary

So many freaking rabbits!

There were bunny ears everywhere.  At first I only saw women wearing them- “oh, somebody must be handing out bunny ears,” I thought.  But then I started seeing men wearing them.  I got suspicious.  Instead of simply asking a bunny-wearing attendee where he/she got them, I decided to go high tech and whip out my MacBook.  Connected to the internet through my blazing fast iPhone connection I quickly searched and found that the Peachpit booth was the source of the bunny ears.  If you wear them you get entered in a 1 out of 200 chance to win an iPhone.  Sweet!

There were a few vendors that were giving out free stuff, but usually just by raffle.  The most interesting give-away that I saw was from Pinger, while they showed off their iPhone application, “Pinger Phone”.  They were handing out cookies, and it looked like they actually had a small oven making them as we spoke (though I can’t say the one I had tasted fresh).  When I got thirsty I headed over to the Brain Toniq booth (more accurately it was just a stand).  They were handing out their Brain Toniq drink which is supposedly “fuel for the cranium” but has no caffeine – I didn’t know such a thing was possible!  I tried some, felt no effect, and then headed back for another.  Still nothing.  Maybe it was because I was sick?  At least it tastes good.

Overall, here is my rating of the whole experience:

Walking around the show floor: 7/10
The show floor was great and interesting and all, but it didn’t really inspire me at all as a Mac user.  It was more of a fairgrounds type event where you see all the cool little things that people have made but you would probably never really buy.  Everybody was trying to sell me software that started at $50 or more – and that’s after the Macworld Expo event discount.  I want to be inspired and get excited about things – not shell out money.

Vendor displays: 10/10
I was VERY impressed with everybody’s presentation.  Axiotron had a great booth to show off their ModBooks.  iSkin had a great setup, maybe the best of all the many MANY case/protection booths.  iSkin also had a thick product catalog that was so sweet looking that I thought it couldn’t be free.  I hope it was, though, because I took one.  Griffin had a two story booth, Apple’s booth was just enourmous and… Acura had a race car there (?).

Nerdy-ness: 4/10
Most of the people there weren’t Mac nerds or even very techie.  They were mostly just marketing people selling their products.  That’s fine, but I would have liked a little more tech savvy people there.  When I walked up to a digital storage solutions booth I asked if they had NAS boxes, and they were like “huh?  NAS?” Ugh… Nevermind.  I’m sure there are a lot of techy people there, but the whole event seemed geared towards the less nerdy crowd.

Software: 6/10
All of the software that was available was cool, but nothing that really blew my socks off.  DJ software that was integrated with the multi-touch trackpad on the new Unibody MacBooks, drawing tools, security solutions, educational software – just new versions of products we already have or don’t need.  The coolest software functionality that I saw was during the keynote and are in iMovie and iPhoto.

Hardware: 7/10
The hardware that was on display was also very standard – external drive solutions, iPhone and iPod cases, cameras, printers, headphones, etc… but I felt that the standard for hardware was a little bit higher than the standard for the software.  Even though there were a million different iPhone and iPod accessory booths there, the acessories were still cool.  Axiotron’s Modbook is, of course, amazing, and there were some pretty cool gadgets lying around among the various other vendors.

My overall impression: 6/10
It was fun, but not very exciting.  I had a good time, but it could have easily been better.   There were too many vendors that were there with the same products – especially iPhone/iPod/MacBook cases – and no, I don’t want to buy your software on the spot because of your sales pitch.

I’m glad that I didn’t come to San Francisco JUST for Macworld and that I had a friend I was visiting.  I’d go again provided there was promise of some more exciting stuff.  For the price it’s not a bad experience, but add in a flight ticket and it easily surpasses what I would call a good deal.  I’m glad I got in free.