The first day of the show was different this year. Instead of letting the crowd gather in front of the red doors at the bottom of the escalators, Apple and Moscone Security personnel did not allow anyone on the escalators. The crowd grew in the lobby until the Steve Jobs keynote ended. I was in that crowd that slowly made its way down to the show floor. I immediately went to the Apple Booth and watched the iPod Shuffle and iWork presentations. Apple presentations are slick, scripted, but totally devoid of spontenaiety.

The two big hardware products at the show were the $99 iPod Shuffle and Mac mini.

The iMac mini is really small - even the power supply brick (shown at right) is not as intrusive as it was in the G4 Cube. This will sell well to those on a tight budget, those who want to use their existing peripherals, and those who want a secondary Mac. I'm certainly going to get one this year.

One wall had scores of iPod shuffles. What is not apparent at first is the amount of detail Apple engineered into this very small iPod - the end-cap does not use friction or plastic bumps to hold it in place. Rather, there is an elaborate ball-and-spring mechanism to make sure that the endcap does not come loose for a long time after purchase. They also put foam under the buttons to give the device a smooth feel.

However, a lot of people cringed at the marketing message - it implied that the shuffle feature was an Apple invention and the only cool thing about the iPod Shuffle.

"Steve Jobs will keep doing the Cube until he gets it right" - Bob Levitus, MWSF 2005

Here we see former ScreenSavers host Kevin Rose filming reports from the show floor. Kevin is a great guy with a lousy employer. G4TechTV has been going downhill, geek-wise, ever since they got rid of Leo Laporte.

Here's a picture of the two companies selling iPods. I wonder if HP will be selling the entire iPod product line, because they certainly aren't "inventing" anything else. Printers. How passe.

Adam Engst makes his usual yearly appearance at the User Group Lounge. He made an interesting point - Apple has a competitive advantage with the Mac mini since the shipping packaging and costs are much less than other Macs - in the same volume as a single iMac G5, you can ship maybe 15 Mac minis.

Here's a crowd waiting to check their email, surf the web, or watch porn at the Apple Internet Cafe.

The guys manning the iMac Bag booth are an interesting bunch - before they entered the Mac bag business, they were making blimps and airships for the government and research institutions. Check them out at ilugger.com.
Here is the crowd being wowed by iWork Pages - the new word processing program with an incredible sense of style. I just hope that the content will match the style.

Note the lack of any presentation on the Mac mini. In fact, very little printed material was avaialble in the Apple Booth. Just when we have taken for granted the chance to swipe Apple swag, Apple goes bare bones on us.

Well, I thought this one came out funny :-)

The official ASACMUG photo. (L to R) Tracy, Kevin, Mike, John Sorbek, Alex. We do this every year, and it's always worth the time and money.

Kevin's back after a four-year hiatus!

After 20 years, Macworld Expo is still going strong. See you in 2006!