| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
The Macworld expo follows on the heels of the musician-focused NAMM show, so we were not surprised to hear a few guitars wailing in the Moscone Center this week. Eventide is one of the companies that stuck around California to show off its latest gear, the H9 Harmonizer Stompbox and its companion app for iOS devices.
There are always a few solar charging products at the Macworld expo, and the 2013 show was no exception. Some of the companies have come and gone, but Goal Zero has continued to expand its charging products. MacNN stopped by the company's booth to check out the new Switch 8 kit and Sherpa 50 portable charging systems.
Photography is always a popular theme at the Macworld Expo, where Hyper brought its CameraMator wireless viewfinder for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. MacNN has taken a closer look at the Kickstarter-funded device, which enables users to preview snapshots or trigger the shutter from an iOS or Android device.
IDG World Expo rebranded the Macworld expo using the 'iWorld' label for 2012, an appropriate change as the event continues to evolve. MacNN attended the event to check out the latest products in the Mac and iOS ecosystems, and to see how the event organizers and exhibitors have adapted to Apple's absence.
iPhone products took center stage at Macworld Expo 2010, but the category has taken a back seat to iPad accessories for the latest show. Nonetheless, plenty of companies are still making cases and other interesting gear for Apple's smartphone. MacNN took a closer look at many of the latest products that were on display this week in San Francisco.
It is not quite grilling season in most of the country, but iDevices is already showing off its iGrill system for iOS devices. MacNN stopped by the company's Macworld Expo booth to check out the impressive system, which helps to eliminate the need to constantly run outside and manually check meat temperatures for the perfect doneness.
The 2011 Macworld Expo brought a modest increase in exhibitor numbers since the 2010 show, but many people were waiting to see the crowd sizes before gauging the show's success. The lobby of Moscone West was packed with attendees waiting to get in on Thursday morning, making for a show that became more and more crowded through the week. By Saturday morning, it became difficult to wade through the packed halls. MacNN put together a gallery of images from some of the interesting sights at the expo.
Audiophiles currently have the ability to obtain a wide variety of high-end gear, but connecting components to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch leaves users limited to the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) built into the iOS device. High Resolution Technologies recently introduced a new product, the iStreamer, that boasts a higher quality DAC. MacNN stopped by HRT's booth at Macworld Expo and listened to a demo with the new setup.
Despite the Mac-focused origins of Macworld Expo, the event is now dominated by companies promoting accessories for iOS devices. MacNN stopped by many of the booths offering the latest iPad cases and other accessories for Apple's popular tablet. Hand-strap cases are a popular item, while extreme users can even pick up a jacket with an integrated case.
Solar Components has finally begun shipping its latest solar charger, which was demonstrated this week at Macworld Expo. MacNN checked out the Joos Orange, a slab-shaped device that combines solar cells with an integrated battery. The general design reminded us of Solio's offerings, but with a bigger battery that is claimed to charge a dead iPad up to 65 percent.
Among the hundreds of Macworld Expo exhibitors, a handful of companies are showing off gear designed for musicians. MacNN previewed Focusrite's VRM box, a small accessory that replicates the sound from reference monitors in professional studios. The system helps to avoid problems that arise when users attempt to mix tracks through headphones, which naturally present a different sound than reference monitors or other types of speakers.
Until recently, cellphone cameras were essentially worthless for taking pictures that could be viewed on anything but other cellphones. Now, however, most smartphone companies have continued to push the resolution and improve optics quality. Massachusets-based startup Youbiq has introduced a new accessory, the Gymbl, that aims to improve casual photography with the iPhone 4. MacNN took a closer look at the system, which is on display this week at the Macworld Expo.
MacNN has previewed Optoma's Neo-i iPod/iPhone dock, which also doubles as a projector. The system, which was announced in November and brought to CES, integrates a pico projector that allows users to play videos or pictures from docked devices. Like many other small projectors, the Neo-i's picture became slightly washed out when viewed under the bright lights at the Macworld Expo.
Ten One's Fling game controller is one of the interesting iPad accessories that is being previewed this week at the Macworld Expo. Like the company's Pogo stylus, the Fling replicates a finger touch on the iPad's capacitive touchscreen. The accessory attempts to overcome the lack of feedback when using the virtual joysticks on many iOS games.
Macworld Expo has served as the launch venue for a variety of new iOS apps, including a new utility, Jammit, that aims to help musicians learn how to play popular songs. MacNN took a closer look at the upcoming title, which quickly surpassed our meager expectations for a "play along" app designed for music education.
Vogel's, a company best known for its TV wall mounts, has introduced a universal mount system for iPads. MacNN had a chance to take a closer look at the range of iPad accessories, which stood out from the typical docks and cases that were touted by a number of other companies this week at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
Media registration for the 2011 Macworld conference, set to take place from January 26 until the 29th, is now open. The annual event, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, will offer previews and demonstrations of the latest Apple-related products, including hardware, software, accessories, and services. Other planned events include a Mobile Apps Showcase and an Indie Spotlight, allowing developers to showcase their latest software titles. To qualify for a media badge, the applicant must submit a link to both a masthead and article that clearly displays their name. Additional registration information and application forms can be found on the Macworld website.
Neat has launched NeatWorks for Mac 3.0 (site not updated) at IDG's 2010 Macworld Expo. The scanning software provides a system for digital filing that allows users to import and organize receipts, business cards, and documents. Users can create expense reports and keep records of vendors, dates, totals and sales tax. Supported scanners include the company's NeatDesk and NeatReceipts (portable) devices, along with HP and Canon scanners.
Day two of IDG's 2010 Macworld Expo continued to bring large crowds, in spite of the impact from Apple's absence. Exhibits and events are limited to Moscone Center's North Hall, rather than extending across the street to the South Hall, yet the crowds were heavy again in day two.
The first day of IDG's 2010 Macworld Expo has attracted large crowds, despite the absence of Apple. Although the exhibits and events only filled the Moscone Center's North Hall, rather than extending across the street to the South Hall, the attendees still arrived in droves.
IDG World Expo has announced that the upcoming Macworld Expo 2010 is scheduled to take place February 9th through the 13th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, marking a shift from the historical early-January timing. The company also chose to adjust the schedule to include Saturday, a move that could remove scheduling conflicts for the group of potential attendees that are busy working Monday through Friday.
The effort to put on Macworld 2010 may have taken a hit today, as an editorial claims that the vast majority of iPod- and iPhone-related companies in contact with iLounge are looking to move to the Consumer Electronics Show instead. The move would be a serious blow not only to Macworld, but to organizer IDG and other vendors dependent on traffic.
The man behind "Bring Back Steve Jobs" flyers at last week's Macworld Expo says the stunt was not meant as a slam against Apple. Gleb Budman and his colleagues were told by Apple representatives to stop handing out flyers to Expo attendees lined up for Apple's keynote on Tuesday morning. Budman says the message was meant as a "compliment" to Steve Jobs -- and a plea for Apple to reverse its decision to abandon the Expo after this year.
While rumors of Apple's appearance at CES 2010 continue to swirl, a new report says that the Consumer Electronics Association has confirmed plans to host a Apple-centric area at next year's annual electronics show. Despite a second report that echoed echoed Apple's move from Macworld Expo to CES, Apple has still not commented on whether it plans to participate, according to CNET News.com.
Apple may be looking to exhibit at next year's Consumer Electronics Show, a report claims. Citing second-hand sources within Apple, the story suggests that while the company has decided to pull out of future Macworlds, it is already laying plans for CES, which is hosted in Las Vegas every January and populated by over 2,700 hardware and software companies, including a number of PC builders and key rivals, such as Microsoft. CES 2009 is currently ongoing.
REAL Software, the producer of the REALbasic development platform, has announced plans to release updated server software in February. REAL Server 2009 is said to have been overhauled with an event-based asynchronous architecture, and now uses Multi-Version Concurrency Control, which is said to improve both concurrency and scalability. The latter aspect has been improved throughout the program, in theory allowing over 10,000 concurrent connections.
Only one real story came out of yesterday's keynote speech by Phil Schiller, write analysts with Needham & Co. Despite the announcement of new versions of iLife and iWork, as well as a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro, the most important revelation is said to be the switch to DRM-free music and variable pricing at iTunes. Even this may have minimal impact, Needham suggests.
Apple has posted an official video of today's Macworld 2009 keynote event, hosted by senior marketing VP Phil Schiller. During the keynote Schiller announced several new products, including a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro, the iLife '09 home suite, and the iWork '09 office suite. Schiller also exposed changes to DRM and pricing at iTunes. Update: Apple also posted a video talking about the battery technology used in the 17-inch Unibody MacBook Pro and the marketing video touting its battery life, battery lifespan, and other "green" features.
Using Macworld as a jumping point, Microsoft has announced two new pieces of Mac software. The first is the Document Collaboration Companion, a Cocoa-based tool which should simplify uploading and downloading to Office Live Workspaces as well as SharePoint-based collaboration utilities. Users will be able to check documents in and out, cache them offline, and access services such as a Document Library plus the SharePoint and Office Live Workspaces. A private beta is expected to become available in February, followed by a final release later this year.
In concluding its Macworld 2009 keynote, Apple has confirmed a switch to a variable pricing model for iTunes music, where previously the company charged a flat 99 cents per track. Beginning in April the company will offer three tiers of pricing: 69 cents, 99 cents and finally $1.29, with a greater proportion of tracks falling under the bottom tier than the top; all tracks aged less than six years should remain at 99 cents. The scheme is said to be attributable to flexibility demands from record companies.
Complementing its iLife '09 debut, Apple has announced iWork '09, an upgraded productivity suite. The suite's presentation app, Keynote '09, has been enhanced with a new Magic Move feature, which lets users pick the start- and endpoints of objects, and in turn generate transitions automatically; some new transitions include text types such as swings and shimmering, and chart types like slides and rotations. New themes have been added, and users can now manage Keynote presentations from an iPhone or iPod touch. The Keynote Remote app is selling for 99 cents at the App Store.
In opening up its Macworld 2009 keynote, Apple today revealed iLife '09, an update to its core application package for Macs. Changes to the suite begin with iPhoto '09, whose new Faces feature lets users sort images by the people. After running face detection, the app lets users assign names to each of the people involved, and sort photo collections accordingly. Places, meanwhile, now lets users filter photos through geotagging, and can pull information directly from cameras such as Nikon's Coolpix series or that of the iPhone. Smart albums can be generated to include particular people and locations.
In brief: MacTech has announced that the next release of its Archive DVD collection is now available and can be ordered online. The DVD is a collection of MacTech history from its beginnings in 1984. Macworld attendees and fans of the popular virtualization software VMware Fusion can attend a meet and greet party hosted by the Fusion team. The party is located only minutes from the Moscone Center and will include free appetizers and bumper stickers. Meanwhile, Location Based Technologies, Inc. has reported over 10,000 PocketFinder application downloads for the Apple iPhone and Google Android Smartphone.
A software developer has, intentionally or not, fueled speculation that Tuesday's Apple keynote speech will see the announcement of an updated Mac mini. In promoting v4.6 of its namesake digital asset management (DAM) system, it describes "new Mac mini hardware" as being supported, with the option of bundling the two products together in a server bundle. In operating as a server, the otherwise unidentified Mini would be equipped with 1TB of storage.
Despite the rumors of an iPhone "nano" and a tablet sized iPod touch, Apple is more likely to use the Macworld expo to announce updated versions of several existing products, according to a variety of sources. Analysts' forecasts have focused on a new line of iMacs and a refreshed 17-inch MacBook Pro utilizing aluminum unibody construction. The company could also be prepared to launch a new Mac mini and Apple TV, along with the latest versions of Time Capsule and iWork.
We have some early photos from the Moscone Center in San Francisco and some early setup photos from the Apple Booth, courtesy of our friends at setteB.IT.
Despite Apple's pullout of future Macworld Expo's and swirling rumors about update products, IDG Expo is hoping that the annual event will continue in some way and is looking to the community to help it continue and shape future events. Acknowledging that the even will look different in a post-Apple era, IDG is turning to the loyal Apple fan base for direction on the annual event and announced that this year's Expo will include a Town Hall Meeting that will focus on the future of the annual event. According to the press release, the event "will be open to all attendees interested in helping to shape Macworld in 2010 and beyond.
Apple today announced that it will no longer exhibit at the Macworld Expo after the January 2009 event. Not only is the company pulling its presence from the show floor, but also from the keynote address. Many of the attendees that paid nearly $2000 for keynote priority seating may be disappointed to find out that Steve Jobs will not be giving the final keynote address. The senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Philip Schiller, will speak to the crowd instead.
Software-giant Adobe will not have a booth on the show floor of the upcoming Macworld Expo 2009, according to Macworld. The company has not dismissed the whole gathering, but has chosen to dedicated its resources to demonstration and education sessions. "Adobe has decided to shift its focus at the Macworld trade show this year," a company statement said. Representatives will be on-hand for a full day of demos, mid-way through the week of presentations.
DriveSavers unveiled an iPhone recovery service at Macworld Expo in January, offering users the opportunity to save essential data from a malfunctioning iPhone that was not backed up. The service is able to recover pictures and critical data, once all other possible recovery alternatives have been exhausted. DriveSavers advertises a five to seven day turnaround for the recovery service, and costs anywhere from $500 to $1400, depending on the quality of the recovery.
MacSpeech today announced that its three-stage rollout of MacSpeech Dictate has begun, saying that pre-orders have shipped to iListen Founding Customers. MacSpeech's next objective is to ship crossgrades from customers who pre-ordered the product at MacWorld Expo, and then finally to various retail stores and resellers. In addition, MacSpeech also said that the application is available for pre-order from MacMall for customers in the US. MacSpeech Dictate is available for $200, featuring a choice of headsets.
Organizers of the Macworld Expo have posted numerous videos of special sessions held at the conference. Featured videos include Microsoft Office 2008, Digital Photography Safari, and iPhone Super-Session. Other videos are categorized under Mac OS X, Applications, Photography, Design, iPod, and Technology. Various videos include Best of Leopard OS X Hints, Mac OS X Features You Don't Use but Should, Real World Mac Troubleshooting, and Running Your Mac Clean and Mean.
A series of new RAID and related storage solutions debuted at last week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. First up, the CalDigit card is 100% hardware RAID that frees up your computer's processor. The card has a dedicated Intel processor, and 256MB of built-in cache memory. Utilizing the PCI-e expansion slots in the latest MacPro or PC machines has level 5 speeds of 330MB/s externally (with the New HDElement - 4 bay external drive enclosure, with RAID 0.1.5,6 and JBOD connected through external mini-sas) and internally 4 drive speeds of 247MB/S, internal and external drives scale up to 16TB capacity. The CalDigit RAID card is priced at $550.
Newer Technology (NewerTech) today unveiled its new NewerTech iPhone Accessory Line consisting of six devices, and promised to showcase the accessories at Macworld Expo in San Francisco later this month. NewerTech's new iPhone accessories include its iPhone Speaker Dock & Hands-Free Mic ($35, shown at right), Hands-Free Mic & Earbuds ($20), iPhone Mic Extender Cable ($15), Bass Response Earbuds ($20), iPhone Headphone Jack Adapter ($8), and its iPhone and iPod Auto Charger ($13).
Axiotron has begun shipping its Modbook tablet Mac, a modified MacBook with a built-in Wacom digitized pen-sensitive liquid crystal display. The only Mac-based tablet on the market won the Best of Show award at Macworld Expo 2007 after debuting at the event. The Modbook features a 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Inkwell handwriting recognition software, a 24x DVD combo or 8x DVD SuperDrive, GPS support, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Modbooks start at $2,300 and include a 1-year warranty.
Those going to the upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco can expect a much larger show this year, with nearly 50,000 registered attendees, and over 450 vendors are making a presence at the show. Paul Kent, Vice President of the Macworld Expo, told MacNN today that the 2008 event will dwarf previous years, with an estimated 25-percent increase in floor traffic, and an18-percent increase in vendor attendance. As of today, MacWorld Expo will feature 453 vendors, 48 of which are new and taking up residence in the year-old Developer's Pavilion.
The organizers of next month's Macworld Conference and Expo have announced a number of new and returning exhibits, which they say coincide with larger-than-average bookings. IDG World Expo notes that while it is only the South Hall of Moscone Center that sells out on a regular basis, the West Hall has just sold out for the first time in Macworld's history. Among the exhibits at the expanded expo will be a Podcast Studio, featuring live broadcasts from popular Mac-themed shows, though no particular names have been mentioned.
Pleasant Software today promised to unveil new versions of both Ubercaster and ShowMacster at Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco early next year. The first in a series of planned Ubercaster 1.5 sneak peeks is already available via the company's blog, and Pleasant Software is already scheduled to attend Macworld Expo 2008 from January 15-18 with shows and software products at booth no. S-1338.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will once again deliver the opening keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo to kick off this year's gathering of Apple-oriented fans and companies. Each year Jobs has historically used the keynote address as a stage for introducing new products and/or services, and this year analysts say the company could debut a new Apple-branded ultra-portable subnotebook.
