Macworld: Gadgets, lawsuits, and Microsoft's micro-presentation

When you attend a show like Macworld, it's very unlike the CES experience because there is a different focus. Despite the Apple name change, and the firm's gaining ground in the consumer electronics market, the Macworld Conference itself is still very much about software — innovative, creative application solutions for office, home and play. This is what one sees most on the show floor at Moscone Center, lean and hungry developers vying shoulder-to-shoulder with established software giants for the Mac consumer's dollar. Then, of course, come the hardware peripherals and the "accessories" for Apple products, from Mac hardware "modding" (see picture) to protective cases for your iPods, to designer bags to carry them all. There's tech books, there's food, there's even a place to get a massage. "Gadgets", as we've come to understand them, are fewer in number here than at a trade show like CES (unless of course you think an external hot-swappable 4-disk mini-RAID unit counts as a "gadget" — I might). But with diligence, one does run across the occasional gem.

However, with all the news late yesterday and much of today being dominated by Cisco's lawsuit against Apple over trademark infringement, I spent my morning yesterday asking the Mac faithful their collective take on the whole business. There were people stopping by the Mac user groups tables and other public areas only too happy to talk with me. Most of those I spoke to, however, barely suppressed a yawn over the story. To them, lawsuits come and go; it seems to come with Apple's territory (remember "Rendezvous" that later had to become "Bonjour?"). While many were willing to concede a legal point or two to Cisco, I sensed no general hostility toward the company. But would anything blow up in Steve Jobs' face? Probably not, opined most. There would be some more legal posturing and press releases, then the back-room dealing would begin anew, papers would be signed, some money might change hands, and it all quietly goes away. If Steve ends up renaming the thing, he'll make everybody think that was his idea all along, another example of the Jobs Reality Distortion Field.

One gadget that might come in handy for iPhone users is the NuPower Video+, a portable 2 x 4 3/8-in external battery pack to boost/recharge an iPod on the fly, offering up to 80 hours of music or 16 hours of video on a single charge. (But would you want/need to lug that around all day??) For those who can't wait for the iPhone, and want to connect their current iPod with their Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone, Lenntek's wireless "Hookup" line of products are available, starting at just $69. You can be rocking out on your iPod and Hookup automatically pauses the music when a call comes in. It's a self-powered transmitter, so no extra batteries are required.

Not quite "gadgets", but more than "accessories," were the plethora of competing portable stereo systems built specifically (and literally) around the iPod. Although the sizes and shapes varied, the form factors (with only one or two exceptions) were all roughly the same — stylish, small table-top boxes with dual speakers surrounding a slot between them, where the iPod is placed.

I witnessed what was supposed to be a "sneak preview" of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X. I think it lasted all of 15 minutes — that's about as much code as Microsoft seems to have written, and the company admits there are a lot of placeholders for feature icons and other imagery. However, Microsoft insists that (1) there will be feature parity with Office 2007 for Windows, coming out later this month, and (2) they hope to ship by the end of this year. All they could actually demo, however, was Word; Excel, et al, were not available in any form worth seeing, apparently. But first impressions suggest that Word 2008 will take leaps into territory traditionally dominated by page-layout applications. Many of the views, templates, functions and tools would be very familiar to users of Adobe InDesign or Quark XPress. Text can be placed into separate boxes on the page, and the boxes "linked" so that the text flows from one to the other. Image placement is drag-and-drop. One new tool is something they call the "Loupe," after a jeweler's magnifier. Select this tool and simply click on the page and drag up and down to resize the view. A separate, but integrated, little program called "My Day" is a glorified to-do and appointment list — but one that syncs with Entourage, whether it's running or not. There is a visual styles bar that runs across the top, between the page view and the toolbar, that is very intuitive and customizable, similar to the "ribbon" feature in Office '07.

The entire time, the presenter kept repeating the mantras "very Mac-like", "fully integrates with the Mac experience", or "lets you work the way you want to." I think he was trying to say "we really, really listen to our Mac customers." But it's way too early to tell, right now, whether or not corporate America, Redmond's most important user base, will embrace Office 07/08. What if all they really need is a solid word processor for corporate communications, but now their primary vendor wants to turn around and give them "Quark lite" instead?

— Thomas A. Olson 

Thomas Olson, the Publishing Systems Administrator for Consumer Reports' Editorial, Design, Production and Pre-Press groups, has been a Mac enthusiast since 1984.

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