Experience
Jan 8 to Jan 14 2001
Experience
Jan 8 to Jan 14 2001
A 5-hour wait at the Vancouver Airport does not help your mood, no matter how excited you are about going to your first Mac World Expo and first visit to San Francisco. The airline, in all their power, decided to cancel our 8:30 flight and put us on the 6 AM. Becky and I had enough trouble falling asleep let alone having to get up at 4:30 AM.
An uneventful flight into SFA Monday afternoon, just the way I like them. Interesting thing. The airport uses a double runway system and another plane came in on approach and landed at the same time as us. Very strange watching a plane that close beside you. We took an airport shuttle to the Renoir Hotel; along the way we saw the football stadium and travelled under the two level bridge highway that collapsed during the last big one. An iMovie ad on the side of a building hinted at our reason for this trip.
The Renoir Hotel looked better in the ads, every thing always does. Not that it was bad. We were comfortable and they served great breakfast. The building is about 100 years old and we had a room on the 7th floor with a good view. Unfortunately for us it was located about 2 blocks into a seedy section which we discovered on our afternoon walk to the Moscone Convention centre, located 5 blocks from our hotel, to pick up our Expo passes. We learned to use the bus system to circumnavigate this situation. We could get on a bus across the street from the hotel entrance and coming home we got dropped off right in front of the door. Can't wait till Tomorrow, Keynote and Expo, here we come.
Entrance to Moscone
Tuesday Jan 9th 2001
Start of Macworld Exposition
View from our seats
CEO Steve Jobs Macworld keynote isn't till 9:00 AM and here we are outside Moscone at the end of a very long line up before 7:00 AM. I check out the line to see how long it is, worried about not making it in. We would be so disappointed if we didn't make it. There are rooms with big screens to watch the keynote; we don't want to settle for this. The hall holds 5500 people. I notice that across the street even the press must line up and there are a bunch of them already looking to get great seats. At 8:00 AM they let in a huge crowd of us downstairs into the Expo hallway because it might rain. That was nice, now we can access bathrooms and it was kind of chilly outside too. When they finally open the big doors at 8:45 everyone is running like a stampede or Beatles rock concert to get the best seats. Hundreds of us were running up sets of stairs. They had arranged the line up outside into a kind of snake inside the hallway, running us back and forth two by two. When the doors opened and everyone started moving a lot of peoples that where once behind us now was in front. We held hands, moved quickly, scooted and passed people on the outside. We did all right, over to the left about 5 rows behind the Press Section in the Big Hall. The Hall holds a lot of people but about one third is devoted to Press and Apple people so we were glad to make it in.
Steve hits the stage
Jobs shows off Mac OS X
Steve came out on time to major applause and got right to it talking about the new Macintosh operating system called OS X and performing a Demo. He introduced iTunes, a MP3 player, CD player and ripper free to download. He announced faster G4 towers up to 733 MHz all with CD burners and nVidia 3D cards (that is a big deal). A really cool thing is the Superdrive that only comes with the 733 MHz. It can burn not only your standard CD's but also DVD's that can be played in any consumer DVD player. A program called iDVD can be used to take your pictures, QuickTime movies and iMovies and make them into a navigable DVD. The software is very easy to use and comes with professionally designed themes and drag-and-drop simplicity. Just when we thought it was over, as Steve likes to say "and one more thing" he unveils the all new one inch thick Titanium PowerBook G4! Wow, this thing is gorgeous and comes with a 15.2-inch wide screen.
We knew it was coming!
Titanium G4 powerbook.....WOW
The Exhibits
This place is HUGE! WOW! 500+ exhibits spanning 300,000 square feet of show floor. There are two halls, both underground. The larger one houses the Apple booth prominently in the centre. Surrounding it is a couple of hundred booths. Everything from A to Z. All the Booths are colorful hoping to stand out. That's difficult with so many booths. The ones that have massive signs over them do help a little but there are lots of those also. Most of the ones I stopped at and asked questions had very knowledgeable people.
Apple exhibits take up center area of main hall
Rows of Titanium's
The small Hall probably had one hundred booths. Not as many important or big players would be found here, they preferred to be near Apple's booth. The Gaming companies all were here grouped together. I did purchased two games; Sin Gold and Star Trek Voyager-Elite Force. There was an interesting section that was a long row of very small booths, each mostly with only one person manning it. They were made up of small companies and even individuals, showing off their wares. They all had very specialised, educational or scientific programs to show off.
Vito checks out Ti book and admires a nice G4 and 22 inch Flat Panel set-up
Practically every booth had stuff to give away or contests to enter. It was easy to enter contests. Some you could give a business card to. Most had a scanner type deal. You would hand them your Pass and they would swipe it through a card reader and you were automatically entered. Your Pass has a strip on it like a Visa card with your name address and e-mail on it. Of course this means they may send you ads with that info.
Rows of G4 733's and a Titanium on a stick
The give-away stuff at the booths was anything from papers on their product to little toys, key rings, flashlights, bags, buttons, posters, Pass holders, pens,.... We loaded up and took something back to the hotel every day. To see just the "Exhibits Only" costs $25 US. We wanted to also go to the workshops. $245 US Includes Macworld/Users Conference Sessions, Keynote Address, MacBeginnings Sessions and Exhibits.
Cool Monitor, Nice Fish tank
Steve checks out show floor
The Seminars
Of the 4 Expo days, 3 had seminars. You could make it to 3 per day except on Friday; there were only 2. At any given time, there were ten "user" workshops (those are what we went to) and another five at the "pro" level (wanted to go but cost way too much). So many seminars each day that there were times you wish you could have been cloned. There would be two seminars you wanted to go to at the same time and you would have to make a choice.
Macworld Staff chat
Here are all the Conference Sessions we saw, we only went to the 3D Animation session together.
Vito:
Becky:
iBooks on a stick
Vito really enjoyed:
Vision Thing Live!
Six Macworld magazine editors and writers poking fun at Apple and otherThings. It was a laugh riot. Dave Pogue and Andy Inhatko were on the panel
Best of the Macworld Mac Secrets
The two authors of Macworld Mac Secrets book spent an hour and 15 minutesgiving out fun tips in an entertaining way. Dave Pogue was one of the speakers.
The Expo Gaming roundup
Very interesting talk with the people that write games. They talked about the future with Mac OS X and how it would effect theme are there future games.
3D Animation
This gentleman put on a most excellent session. Anybody that knew nothing about 3D would come out knowing so much. He used examples he made to teach us from flat to three-dimensional.
Just a small part of the Big Hall
One of the nights after the expo we decide to treat our selves to a movie. Beside the Moscone Convention centre is a monster Sony building called Metreon. http://www.metreon.com/ it houses everything they sell. You check out all of their electronics in one room. Another room was devoted to Sony game consoles. The building also houses a food court, pub and movie theatre. We went and saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in what has got to be the biggest room and screen we have ever sat in. The seats where set in stadium seating and slid forward when you got in them. The screen was over two stories high. $9.00 US for a ticket.
Sushi for dinner, YUM!
Jan 12 2001
San Francisco
On Friday the Expo closed down early at 4 PM instead of 6. We had not explored San Francisco at all and on the walk back towards the hotel we stopped at the famous Cable Cars. We decided to hop on and see where it would take us. The ride cost $2 and we enjoyed the sites and sounds. The ride ended near Fisherman's Wharf. There are street vendors that sell fresh crab and we tried a small one out. Delicious but messy. Crab in restaurant costs about double what we paid here. We walked around checking out some shops. Later we ended up in an Italian restaurant for a late dinner.
To get home we decided to take a cab. Becky figured walking to a hotel we would find one. We the door man to please call us a cab. A gentleman in a suite standing nearby offered us a ride. I said "In what?" He pointed over to a big honking limo. I laughed and asked how much anyway. He replied with $15. I figured it would cost more then $10 to take a cab and said sure, let's go.
The Rock
Jan 13 2001
The Bus Tour
Saturday was our last full day and since we hadn't seen much of San Francisco we decided to take a bus tour. The company picked us up at our hotel and took us to Fisherman's Wharf where they are based. The tour was great, taking four hours. We drove through little Italy and Chinatown. We cruised through the financial district and up to Nob hill. Nob hill is on one of the highest points in down town and you can really see how steep the roads are. We drove through the Haight Asbury district where the hippie movement started. We got out of the bus at the top of what is called Twin Peaks. This is excellent place with a full view of San Francisco. Back on the bus and down to Golden Gate Park, which is very similar in size and shape to Central Park in New York. We walked around and checked out a lake full of birds, A Japan teahouse. And the area where the 1912? Worlds Fair had been. On to Cliff House with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean and Beach. Back on the bus and on to the Presidio. Until 5 years ago this was a military base. There are many houses and barracks here. They say this was the country club of the military because it has a golf course among its amenities. All the top brass set their sites on staying here. Our next stop and outing was at Golden Gate Bridge. Becky and I walked out a little ways onto the bridge and it afforded us great view too. Below the Bridge you can see what's left of an historic fort that once guarded the entrance into San Francisco. After four hours we ended back at the Wharf. We explored the area some more ending up at Pier 39, which is now made up of shops and restaurants.
Golden Gate Bridge
The Streets of San Francisco
Jan 14 2001
Going Home
The next day was made up mostly of plane travel. We had a great time, learned lots from the tour and wished we had more time to explore. Macworld was a hoot! Apple announced that a record of over 93,000 people attended the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, making it the largest gathering of Mac fans in the US ever. We would go back in a minute. But now we couldn't wait to get home and see our girls.
Becky at the Twin peaks View Point
The End
World Expo and Apple® announced that a record of over 93,000 people attended the Macworld Conference & Expo 2001 in San Francisco, making it the largest gathering of Mac® fans in the US ever.
The view from the plane as we left for home
Vito Mori/ March 2001
