The Apple community was charmed by co-founder Steve Wozniak's presentation at Macworld, writes John Collins
STEVE JOBS may not have turned up at Macworld but his co-founder Steve Wozniak, or Woz as he is know to techies who tend to hold him in far greater esteem than the marketing-savvy Jobs, made an appearance with Axiotron.
The Californian firm makes a line of Macintosh tablet computers called the Modbook and Wozniak is a member of its advisory board. Quite fitting, as Woz is renowned as a hardware geek and developed the Apple I and Apple II personal computers which put Apple on the map and are still held up as trailblazing designs.
A couple of hundred showgoers turned up for the launch of the latest Modbook to hear Wozniak give the sort of naturally enthusiastic and warm presentation that has so endeared him to the Apple community.
The lack of Jobs didn't deter 14-year-old Nick Lensander from queuing from 6.30am the day before the keynote to ensure he was first in the queue.
Lensander, a California resident who contributes to the Mactips podcast, had never been to Macworld before but, given it was Apple's last keynote, he told The Irish Times it was important to be there.
It wasn't until 6pm on Monday that fellow enthusiasts from Canada and Dubai joined him in the queue.
Despite standing out in the San Francisco drizzle for the day, Lensander was pleased that unlike the others in the queue he had been interviewed by Wired. Of course, Lensander didn't need to queue at all - as a podcaster he got media credentials from Apple and could have turned up at 8.00 the next morning and still got a seat. No doubt his parents comfort themselves with the fact that as teen obsessions go, an unhealthy obsession with Apple is not all that bad.
A music-related announcement was the highlight of Phil Schiller's keynote and, as is customary, Apple closed the presentation with a live music performance. This year's star-turn was legendary crooner Tony Bennett with renditions of The Best is Yet to Come and I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Was Apple sending a message to someone with the choice of tunes?
A hardcore of Apple devotees got out of bed to meet at the Apple store in downtown San Francisco at 4am before wandering over to the Moscone Centre to stand in line. Organised by the Macworld Bound blog, it's now something of a Macworld institution.
Quirky events such as this hang in the balance now that Apple is pulling out of Macworld. Conscious of this and, no doubt, the significant money it makes from the show, organisers IDG arranged a public meeting on the Wednesday of the show to canvas opinions on how the event should proceed. Regardless of the opinions expressed, Macworld 2010 is pencilled in for January 4th-8th next.
