Bye Bye MacWorld

I covered my first MacWorld eight years ago. Today, I covered my last. At least I think I did. Mac lovers around the globe have been in mourning since Apple announced that I will not participate in the annual convention after this year. They also let it be known a few weeks ago that their showman, Steve Jobs, wouldn’t be delivering the keynote for their swan song. If that wasn’t enough, Jobs said the day before the start of the convention that he is indeed ill as everyone had suspected. Needless to say, this MacWorld was a bummer.
Phil Schiller, a VP of Marketing at Apple, stepped in for Jobs to deliver the keynote address. Phil is no stranger to MacWorld keynotes. I think he has made some sort of appearance at just about every MacWorld that I have covered. He’s usually pretty funny. Today, not so much.

The program lasted about 90 minutes. 90 painfully boring minutes. With nothing really new and exciting to announce in the way of products, Phil went over the many new upgrades to the company’s software like iLife and iWork. Phil is definitely no Steve Jobs. Even the crowd wasn’t its usual self. Apple nerds have near orgasmic experiences, belting out gasps and oooohs when Steve would reveal a new product. Hell, all he had to do was show up and they would go nuts. Today, it was mostly silent.

He did announce a new 17” MacBook Pro laptop which has the option of a non-glare screen. Many people have whined about the glossy glass screen that they have on the 12 and 15 inch MacBooks. I guess Apple heard the complaint. The only caveat is it comes with a price. You want non-glare, shell over 50 bucks.
The most notable thing of the day was the announcement iTunes going DRM free. Digital rights managed music on iTunes will soon be a thing of the past. I wish I really knew what that meant. I think it is something to do with music sharing. Anyway, that was the big news of the day. I wish it was easier to photograph something like that.
The show was capped off with a performance by Tony Bennett. He emerged on a moving stage that was so far from where the press was sitting you pretty much needed a high power telescope to see him. He, of course, sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to close keynote and end the Apple’s run at MacWorld.

An Apple A Day, Or At Least Every Few Months

I don’t know what my problem is. I am always way too early for assignments. For the second day in a row I left the house before the sun was up. I guess I was a little nervous that there would be a huge media mob at the Apple event. The press check-in was scheduled to open at 9:30 so I figured I would get there an hour early. Why? I don’t know. There was about 5 of us there when I arrived. I could have slept for another half hour.

I’m covering an Apple product launch at their HQ in Cupertino, California. Steve Jobs is announcing a new line of revamped MacBooks, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. If anyone wants to buy me one of these new laptops, I think it would be a good gift. Just throwing it out there.

This is my first trip to the Apple mother ship. Looks like a fun place to work. The Apple folks are always really friendly. They even remember my name. That’s cool. The company is obviously doing well, the special product announcements are happening more often.
The new laptops are really nice looking and have some nice new features. The glass trackpad that is similar to the touch screen on an iPhone is pretty sweet. I always feel a little weird at the Apple events when I bust out my Dell laptop to file my pictures. I get nervous, like someone might scold me or something. So far that hasn’t happened. Maybe next time I will bring my iPod to balance things out.
Jobs still looks skinny. Not that I really expected him to be much different since the last time I saw him about a month ago. Maybe he is normal. Maybe he isn’t. Who knows. He did poke fun at himself again by showing a slide with his healthy blood pressure in response to a recent report that he had suffered a heart attack. I don’t know if it is fair to say he is dying because he is skinny. I used to be pretty skinny, now I’m not. I wasn’t dying when I was skinny. So, people change. My weight has changed so much in the past 10 years that one of those TSA guys at the airport in Minneapolis didn’t think I was the person on my driver’s license. He did a few double takes, pulled out that stupid little blue flashlight thing and then said, “that doesn’t look like you.” It’s an old picture, what can I say. California recycles your picture for years.

I’m Looking forward to Macworld in January and more new cool stuff from Apple. Maybe by then I will be skinny again. Steve, any diet tips would be much appreciated.

Another Sad Day For Journalism

With newspapers across the U.S. laying off staff almost daily, there has been a big push lately by these struggling papers to have readers send in stories and photos to balance out their coverage. For the papers, it’s great. They get FREE content, like all those cute cat and dog photos that I see on S.F. Chronicle’s website. Its not news, but people love that stuff. It generates hits and advertisers like that. But what about when so-called “citizen journalists” send in stories? People with no real training or understanding of ethics in journalism are providing opinion based commentary to sway a story in the favor of their cause or just flat out lying about the facts.
I was appalled to read yesterday that a “report” on CNN’s contributor based iReport.com website was claiming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a “major heart attack” and was being rushed to a hospital. This seemingly grave news was leaked and sent Apple’s stock into a tailspin, falling close to 10 percent within minutes of the “rumor” before recovering to end the session down to a one year low.

Are you kidding me? It makes me sick that a “story” (or in this case a fairy tale) on a website that is geared towards Joe six pack wannabe reporters and faux-tographers would be given credibility and be allowed to sway the stock market. Why was this story allowed to become fact before it was found to be untrue? It makes no sense that facts weren’t checked before this rumor was leaked into the financial world. Stories like this need to be investigated and fact checked before being leaked. It is insanely irresponsible for any credible news agency to reveal such a rumor based on some random person on a website like iReport.com. Journalism is hurting and stuff like this does nothing to help our cause.

To think that shareholders of Apple stock took a financial hit yesterday because someone thought it would be funny to play a little joke or to get ahead in a short sale of Apple stock while under the guise of a “reporter.” Hopefully, the person that did this will be held accountable for their actions and made an example of so people don’t pull stunts like this in the future.

If people want to snap photos of car crashes and whatever else they stumble upon while going about their daily lives, great. Photographers and reporters can't be everywhere. Sometimes people luck out with a nice frame on their point and shoot. But there is no place in the world of journalism for people who set up a situation so it appears to be news. It disgusts me that contributors of this nature are associated with professional journalism by calling them “citizen journalists.” Can I be a citizen pilot the next time I fly to New York? How about citizen doctor? I'm sure I can do a triple bypass operation, no problem.

Let’s be real here, these people aren’t journalists and shouldn’t be labeled as such. It is really killing the already struggling credibility of journalism.

The Skinny on the New iPods

Fresh off of the political conventions, I am back to work in my town. Apple is having one of their special events where Steve Jobs announces the latest Apple gadgets. Today’s event is at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a small theatre. Usually, the Apple events, such as Macworld and the WWDC are held in huge halls that fill up with a couple of thousand people. This invite only event will be much smaller with about 300 in attendance.

After sitting outside for about 2 hours with Bob Galbraith from Reuters, we were let into the building a half an hour before the event was going to start. As usual, there is tons of media and we all do our best to cram into a pretty tight space. Some photographers, who I will not name, bring just about every piece of camera equipment known to man in a giant roller and occupy enough space for three people. Despite having a huge piece of property, I am still being hit with their monopod(s).
The show, dubbed “Let’s Rock” starts at 10am. When Jobs came out on stage and you immediately notice how thin he is. He looks gaunt and weak. I’m not going to go as far as Bloomberg News and issue an obit, but he does not look well. Jobs did poke fun at the prematurely released obit by saying that "reports of his death are greatly exaggerated." The picture below is of two frames I have shot of Jobs. The image on the left is from today’s event. The one on the right is from 2005. What a huge difference. His wedding ring appears to dangle on his finger. I’m sure the health questions will be popping up in the coming weeks. An iTunes update was Job’s first announcement followed by a new version of the iPod Nano. New size and colors are being offered along with a new feature that allows you to shake the music player to activate the song shuffle. I hope you can turn that off or else the runners of the world are going to have a messed up string of partial songs. The iPod Touch also had a makeover. New prices and additional memory were some of the latest things to be announced. A man holding a small video camera behind let out an orgasmic gasp followed by a “yes!’ when Jobs described the new “Genius” feature that allows you to hit a button and create a playlist based on the genre of song that is playing. I wonder who he works for. Jack Johnson played a few songs to end the program. Such a laid back dude. I was surprised to hear Jobs say that Jack Johnson has sold more music on iTunes than any other artist. I still don’t believe it. Good for him.
Reporters and guests were now led to a room where they could play with the latest gadgets. Tables were set up with dozens of the new iPods. Jobs and Jack Johnson came by and left after a few minutes. Pretty cool products, just wish the Touch had more memory.