Sandy McMurray is a long-time technology journalist whose work has appeared in Time, the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Sun, Report on Business, Profit, and other sources. Between 1995 - 2002, Sandy wrote a weekly column about technology for the Toronto Sun, and served as Technology Editor for five Sun Media newspapers. He has been publishing on the Web since 1996. Contact:readme@mac.com
The mood on the show floor here at Macworld Expo is very positive. It's nice to attend a show where the exhibitors are upbeat and sincerely excited about the stuff they're selling.
There's an interesting mix of big name hardware and software vendors, audio and video companies, and smaller, start-up and shareware vendors. The big growth this year seems to be in products related to the iPod. The accessories market is booming.
Today's quarterly report from Apple provided the first hard evidence of the so-called "halo effect" -- the idea that iPod sales will help to increase sales of Mac computers.
For what it's worth, the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle are #1 and #8 respectively this evening on Blogdex, "the most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community."
The big headlines from today's Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld will come from small products that represent a big strategic shift for Apple.
iPod shuffle ($99, $149) targets the market for low-priced digital music players that use flash memory.
Mac mini ($499, $599) targets the low end of the PC market.
Time for me to eat crow: I was wrong. I didn't think Apple would enter either of these markets. These releases challenge the company's tradition of releasing premium products at premium prices, and should help bring many more people to the Mac platform.
I'll have more on the keynote announcements shortly.
Scott Rosenberg has a nice little rant about "iPod fascism" in his blog on Salon.
"As far as I can tell -- and I freely admit that I'm no OSX expert, so if I'm wrong, correct me! -- there is no simple way to get that music off her iPod and onto her Mac."
If you use the iPod as a hard drive, without using iTunes, it's no problem to move music from one computer to another. However, if you try to copy the iPod's music library (created by iTunes), it doesn't work.
The root of Scott's problem is not the iPod. It's DRM. And the root of the that problem is a fundamental disagreement over what rights consumers obtain when we pay for music.
In The Rumor Game, John Gruber explains how Apple can be hurt when rumor sites publish information provided by "reliable sources."
The “it’s too expensive!” peanut gallery reaction when the Mini debuted last year was partly fueled by the low-cost expectations set by Think Secret’s rumor. I’ve been thinking the same thing could happen again — what if Apple’s plan for next week is to release a cool new “headless” Mac with decent specs, but at a price of, say, $699 or $799? If it had remained a secret, it might have been hailed immediately as a terrific new low-cost Mac. Or what if it is G5-based, but costs $999? If Apple unveils something at those prices Tuesday, the immediate reaction will be that it was “supposed” to have cost $499.
According to this BBC story, Californian Thomas Slattery is seeking damages from Apple because songs he purchased from the iTunes Store can only be played on an iPod.
"Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," the lawsuit said.
Unlawfully? I doubt it. By that logic, gamers who bought Ratchet & Clank can sue Sony for "forcing" them to buy a PS2.
The big headlines from today's Steve Jobs keynote at 
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