MacWorld is over for another year, and I left underwhelmed.
This show has been my annual pilgrimage for everything Apple for as long as I can remember. This year it took a turn that, honestly, should not have surprised me, but still stung a little. The event has shifted heavily toward iOS accessories and small independent vendors, and the result felt less like the industry gathering it once was and more like a well-organized flea market for tech enthusiasts.
The first sign came when I arrived Thursday and found that neither Moscone North nor South were being used. That is the first time in recent memory that MacWorld did not command both sides of the convention center. Moscone North and South were occupied by Photonics West, a laser industry trade show. I only found that out when I got home and looked it up. As I was walking toward the wrong building, someone spotted my badge and redirected me to Moscone West, which I did not even know existed. It is a fine building, but it is noticeably smaller. The entire show floor was roughly half the footprint of a normal MacWorld year.
With Apple having pulled out of the show several years ago, the major players have followed. No Adobe. No Microsoft. HP was there with a large booth, but it was focused entirely on printers. What remained was a sea of iPhone and iPad accessories: cases, extended batteries, wireless charging solutions, and assorted gadgets for your iOS life. The iWorld name change made complete sense once you were on the floor.
There were some highlights worth mentioning. Topaz Labs was on site, and if you use Photoshop and have not explored their filter plug-ins, you are missing out. They make genuinely impressive tools. But moments like that were scattered across a show floor I walked completely in about ninety minutes, including stopping to talk to vendors and making a few purchases.
What was missing, and what I kept coming back to, was any meaningful representation of the Mac itself. My iPhone and iPad are central to how I work every day, but the Mac is still the foundation of any serious computing setup. It had almost no presence at this show.
For a $25 entry fee, the value simply was not there. I am not sure I will be back next year.
Apple does not need to announce anything at MacWorld. They have their own events for that now. But the show helped build the culture and community that put Apple where it is today. A little presence, a little acknowledgment of that history, would go a long way.
Just my two cents.
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