Expo’s Best of Show Picks Lack Inspiration

Macworld announced its 10 Best of Show picks for 2009 Wednesday afternoon, reinforcing the uninspired pall Apple’s looming withdrawal has cast over this year’s entire event.

From the hundreds of thousands of feet of floorspace taken up by Conference exhibitors at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, Macworld editors’ only significant hardware find was the Windows Home Media Server from HP.

My purpose here is not to pick apart each official choice, or even to come up with my personal alternative Best of Show picks – though give me another couple of days to walk the Expo floor and I might. I aim only to point out that when your top hardware pick at a trade show dedicated to Apple and Macintosh-oriented computing is a device that requires a Windows-based PC for initial installation, it’s cause for a little existential self-reflection.

Macworld did ferret out one item at the show that looks quite promising in my view – a Bluetooth Web Cam from ecamm network. To be available by spring 2009 at an MSRP of $150, the ecamm BT-1 streams 640×480 H.264 video and 48 kHz AAC stereo audio from up to 30 feet away from a paired Mac.

Your Mac has a built-in web cam you say? Well, with the BT-1 and its mini flexible tripod, you get the freedom to adjust the position, pan, and tilt of your web cam imagery. It’s also mountable on any standard camera tripod to give you further flexibility in filming. You and the editors of Macworld seem to have forgotten that old slogan Apple rode to the success from which it now abandons the Macworld Conference and Expo:

DON'T MISS
Macworld Expo Changes Name, Opens 2012 Registration

Think Different.

1 comment »