My son and I visited the Apple store in downtown San Francisco last night. It's showing some wear and tear from the heavy traffic, the highest grossing $$ per sq ft of any retail outlet in the USA. (If you convert the measurement to square meters, it's still the most.)
We were there primarily to see the Mac Air notebook computer. It looks thinner in reallife than in photos. So thin, it feels like a cardboard cutout. Most remarkable to me is the lack of connectors -- and that got me thinking that the Air might be unpopular. When traveling, I want to minimize the about of stuff I haul along in my single carry-on luggage. The Air sacrifices too much for a portable PC, as it would require me to also pack a DVD, USB port, extra cables, etc.
My son gloated over all the PC-only games not available for the Mac, tho he was impressed by the black monolith printer/scanner from Samsung.
But enough of Apple...
Last night's social event was atop the hotel, but I had to leave after an hour. My voice was starting to go from having to talk so loud over the din of 200 other people talking so loud over the dim of 200 other.... Nevertheless, I got in some interesting conversations.
There was the editor who wondered if it made sense to expose his kids early to programming and CAD modeling. You know, while it may be true that "kids love technology" -- as one Autodesk presenter put it -- it's not going to be any different than for anything else. Some kids will do well in programming and CAD modeling, and most won't. Expose the kids to these concepts, but accept it when they show no interest, or no talent.
2009 -- Not Yet
For the folks back home, you may well have learned about Autodesk's 2009 line of software before us. That's because almost nothing new was presented to us on Day 1 -- mainly broad overviews of
-- climate change
-- globalization
-- urbanization and infrastructure boom
-- etc
Meanwhile, on the sidewalk outside the conference hotel, my son was arguing with a Greenpeacer over climate change. Is it real? Or is it just a fad marketed by scientists clamoring for rich funding from billionaire leftwingers whose real motive is to turn democracies into socialist states by imposing irrational fear on an unthinking population? You decide.
Meanwhile back inside the conference hotel, today is Day 2, and Autodesk is teasingly unveiling to us some of the new features, which you can read about in their press releases.
My son gloated over all the PC-only games not available for the Mac
Yeah, I totally get that.
Apart from Bootcamp. And VMWare. And, er, Parallels.
Yes, indeedy. No Windows-only software titles on Macs these days.
Posted by: EWI | Feb 14, 2008 at 04:40 PM