2008 MUG / Apple highlights

Mike, Tracy, Dick, and Alex attended MWSF 2008, where Apple introduced the MacBook Air - "the worlds thinnest notebook". Apple also announced iTunes movie rentals and an update to AppleTV, in an attempt to stay ahead of Microsoft on the road to the digital living room.

Due to Apple's stock runup in 2007, it suffered greatly as the market and economy continued to absorb the bad news of the housing and credit crises. From a high of $200 near Macworld Expo 2008, the stock sank as low as $90 during the October market collapse.

Apple introduced the iPhone 3G (twice the speed at half the price) one year after the first iPhone hit the streets. Demand was much higher for the iPhone 3G due to its worldwide release - Apple has sold over 10 million iPhone 3Gs and is poised to become the best selling smartphone in the world by years' end. News on the Mac side suffred somewhat this year as Apple continued to focus on the iPhone product line - an October Apple event introduced new laptops.

The ASACMUG web site was redesigned to account for the closure of the ASACMUG clubhouse at Yahoo! Groups. A new clubhouse forum was setup on a dedicated server but the only ones who signed up were Alex and a few crickets. If you want to hear more about ASACMUG and other LA-area Mac events, please attend the Expo get-togethers.

ASACMUG members buying Apple products:

• iPod Touch - Alex

Alex
Vice President Emeritus

The Meeting

As usual, we will be having our regular lunch/dinner get-togethers at Macworld. The lunch meetings will occur during show hours and dinner schedules will be arranged during lunch that day.

The meeting times are

* January 6, 2009 between 12:30-12:45pm (early bird meeting - optional)
* January 7, 2009 between 12:30-12:45pm
* January 8, 2009 between 12:30-12:45pm
* January 9, 2009 between 12:30-12:45pm (optional)

If you get lost, give ASACMUG a call:
Alex Morando seven-one-four--four-eight-eight--fifty-four-ninety-three
Mike Quan three-one-zero--four-six-three-twenty-seven-oh-eight

To avoid confusion in the past with the ASCII-rendered location of the meeting place, we now have a NEW meeting place, on the NorthEast corner closer to the conference ballrooms. The picture is attached below; the meeting location is marked with a yellow circle and will be moved inside (opposite the doors and windows) in the event of rain. For reference, the OLD meeting location is noted by a black circle.