There are A LOT of people here, which is good as it gives the show some life and proves that there are plenty of photo geeks with cash out there. As the name suggests everything photographic is here from the big names like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Sony and Epson to some lesser well know brands doing really cool stuff.

Most amusing of all is the preposterous willy waving of camera kit aficionados whose main photographic pursuit, it seems, is to own and show off the most expensive camera equipment. There are some enormous telephoto lenses here all far too long to be used in a location like this, but still if you’ve spent a fortune on a camera lens you may as well show it off.

If you happen to be anywhere near the NEC and are interest in any aspect of photography then it’s well worth the £12 to get in.

1. Pah! It’s all smoke and mirrors they are evil.

2. Pah! They’ve been forced to do it because of that New York Times article.

3. Pah! Well they would say that wouldn’t they?

Few, if any will say:

That’s quite good.

20,000: Visitors over three days.

250: Exhibitors.

3: Press room tantrums regarding free coffee shortage. (not me I hasten to add)

5: Airport lounges.

4: Most bodaciously excellent and rad MacLife people met, @strngwys, @raguilera and @Ohthatflo (protected tweets to keep the riff raff out) @yasodic !!
. Plus that other guy, sorry other guy I forgot your name. My bad.

3: Free beers paid for by Microsoft.

1: Dives visited in the search for an ‘authentic’ San Francisco experience.

4: Sightings of ‘Mac publishing royalty’.

674: Brand new and exciting iPod/iPhone cases seen.

2: “It’s OK I’m a member of the media” moments seen.

32: Cups of coffee drunk each morning (estimate).

73: Number of times I said “I cannot believe how busy it is out there”.

458: Number of times I ended an interview with “So, do you have any iPad thoughts”?

1: Number of times that question was met with a stoney silence and an awkward PR interruption. (Brownie points for anyone who guesses)

2: Weird conversations regarding the sharing out of ‘our’ 99 virgins.

44: Number of virgins I will get as part of the deal.

227: Hands shaken.

2: People who immediately disinfected their hands with alcohol spray afterwards.

1: Throughly rude and selfish journalist in the media room demanding the most ridiculous hoops be jumped through.

1: Number of times I said “SHIT, are you kidding me”? (Hypermac buy Apple chargers and cut the cable off for their external battery pack).

1: Awkward silence after I said “SHIT, are you kidding me”?

345: Number of times someone said “Have you seen the Microsoft Office demo”?

344: Number of times they followed that with “Can you believe they only brought three screenshots”?

2: Times a PR told me something ’super sekret’ in the middle of a packed stand surrounded by people.

3: Press kits on USB memory sticks received.

17: Minutes spent explaining that ‘freelance’ wasn’t a UK Mac magazine.

965: Number of times I had to explain I was from England and it was their accent that was weird not mine.

12: Number of people who said “Ooh, Halifax Nova Scotia”?

12: Number of disappointed and confused people who didn’t realise that there’s more than one Halifax.

0: Number of Apple representatives at Macworld Expo.

9000: Times Apple’s absence came up in conversation.

8999: Number of people who thought Apple absence had actually made much of a negative difference.

1: People thrown out of a Macworld party (not me).

200: Mac journalists exaggerating the story the next day.

73: Number of times I said “All your money is the same colour and size it’s stoopid”!

72: Number of times someone said “If you don’t like our money the terrorists win”.

1: Number of times I was very politely asked to leave the Apple campus and leave Mr Jobs car alone. (not really, i made that up)

2011 January 25 – 29: The date for next years’ Macworld Expo.

A lot of the buzz in the media room surrounds what a pain it is fighting your way on to stands to meet with the PR and CEOs and this can only be a good thing. As Mark Felt is supposed to have said: Follow the money. The same statement is true here. If the numbers backup the ‘feeling’ that this Macworld is indeed very, very busy then maybe the show will be back next year.

Vendors seem to be echoing the sentiment that the ‘community’ is here in force. Crash Plan say they are 5x busier than last year and The Omni Group are indicating that it’s a similar story for them.

Also, Paul Kent told me they came within a couple of hundred of last years’ first day attendance. Official figures yet to be released.

This year they’ve decided to use an attendee number as opposed to a turnstile number. This means that last year if you entered the show floor left and came back you counted as two, this year it’s just the one. This makes the opening day attendance even more interesting. There are no numbers yet, but if what Paul Kent says is true then Macworld really is much more than Apple.

One other personal aside to my Macworld odyssey is that PEOPLE KNOW WHO I AM. This is scary and rewarding, though much more scary than I thought it would be. I’ve me the odd reader who knows my name, but my professional counterparts? Weird.

Last night was the press reception event, I was lured to it with the promise of free food and drink. Good to their word there was food and there was drink. Also included in this hour long extravaganza were a few of the exhibitors with some products an PR people on hand to let us journalists know what to expect from them at Macworld.

There was a bit of a scrum to get to the Buffalo product, which was an iPhone dock that connected to a server and TomTom was there. However, the real buzz in the room was speculation on if we were witnessing the death throws of an endangered species. The last of its kind in fact.

One by one the Mac shows have died, perversely as Apple has become more well-known and successful the less they’ve been interested in this kind of show. Pulling out of Boston, New York, Paris, Tokyo and London over a protracted period has seen those shows sink without trace.

Of course, Macworld San Francisco may well survive because of the added value shows and speakers, but the Expo part where companies spend real cash money to showcase their products to the likes of me and ‘real punters’ may well be dead in the water.

Last night as I came down the escalators the show floor was visible and my first thought was my God it’s small. When I came to Macworld a few years ago the South hall was the main show floor this time it’s the much more compact North hall.

At the press event last night Paul Kent the show organiser stood on a chair asked for some quiet and told us “This Macworld was all about the new products from the rest of the industry”. Clearly an admission that a certain company based about an hour away wasn’t here but that didn’t matter.

Perhaps the lack of Apple will make this a more intimate show, more valuable even and that’s certainly what I hope, but in reality I think that next year this won’t be a show as much as it will be a conference. There was two days of Macworld before I arrived, but those sessions were about how to better use your Mac not about new products.

The South hall is full of elephants and the show organisers are clearly trying to ignore the noise they’re making. Wether they can only time will tell. There are signs saying see you next year all over the place but I think that’s more of a plea than guarantee.

As I sit here typing this David Pogue has re-run that video of Steve Balmer screaming and is currently singing a parody version of The Sound of Silence. I’m not sure Steve Jobs would have even attempted that.

• Easy
• Fills space
• Repurposes information already available as news
• Cheap
• Mostly worthless
  

I’ve read as many iPad will be a failure blog posts as I could to see what the people who have the opposite opinion to me were saying. Most, if not all seem to revolve around a sentiment that I really, really can’t agree with and it’s this:

People want what they already have.

They have USB ports they want them in everything, they have flash enabled browsers they want them in everything, they have multitasking they want it in everything. The list goes on. I’m just not convinced this is true.

The iPad lacks USB?

The most popular reason for the iPad to have USB seems to be so that I can transfer my pictures on to it and this is a perfectly reasonable request, however it’s not a deal breaker for a couple of reasons. First, there’s an adaptor and yes, I know that it’s extra cost and you might lose it, but there it is – you can transfer your pictures to it. Second, and this is perhaps the most important point in my view, in a few years all cameras will transfer images wirelessly. It just makes sense. I have an Eye-Fi card that does it for me already and that’s the way it’s going to be. Not now, not today, but soon.

The iPad lacks Flash?

The arguments sparked by a lack of Flash on the iPad seem to have split the tech journalists and bloggers right down the middle. I’ve seen some compelling arguments that Apple should just make it’s own flash player for the iPhone OS if they think Adobe’s is that bad, but on the other hand I’ve read compelling evidence that Flash is a big pile of technical hurt and it would be better for everyone if it we take it out back and put it out of our misery. I can’t say that a lack of flash on my iPhone has caused me any real problems, but obviously without an iPad to test I can’t say the same would be true on that device. However, as Kevin Costner’s dead dad said:

“If you build it they will come”

By this I mean if the iPad takes off in any meaningful sense all those flash only sites listed on that hilarious blog post are going to run, at speed, to whatever technology enables them to work on an iPad. Be that an iApp, HTML5, HTML5.5 GTI, etc, etc. If the iPad doesn’t sell I’m sure lots of tech pundits will say it’s because it lacked flash, but I don’t think that will really be the reason.

The iPad lacks Multitasking?

Well yes it does and as it stands I think this will be a restriction for many people. I currently have Twitter, Safari, TextEdit and Mail open, but the fact remains that I’m only using TextEdit right now. What I think the iPad needs is not a multitasking OS necessarily, but an intelligent switcher. A switcher that would allow you to swipe between apps rather than going back to the homepage to move between them. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Apple doesn’t add either a switcher or multitasking for quite sometime, but I find it hard to believe they are simply being belligerent about multitasking or that they don’t have iPhones and iPads running more than one app at a time already.

The iPad lacks a webcam?

It does. How many people actually use them? Not one of my contacts has EVER suggested a webcam chat even when we’ve been using iChat with video enabled Macs. I’m sure I’m not alone and I’m sure there are other’s who do this all the time, but it’s a feature the iPad doesn’t need.

So why will the iPad succeed?

What I think people want is a product that does what they want. It’s that simple. It also has to make money for the company that make it. Tis a two way street.

Which leads me on to the reason I think the iPad will be successful and it has nothing to do with the hardware.

The reason the iPad will be successful is because it acts as a window to an important store front. Music, video and books in one place at one time with a simple one-click mechanism. I want to watch 2001 a Space Odyssey, but don’t have it on DVD? I simply press a few times on the magical window and hey presto there we go. I want to read the book on which the film is based, oh click here. Are you sure? Yes, and whilst I’m here I’ll buy the soundtrack too. Easy, simple, straightforward. And best of all? It’s not just Apple that’s making money here, it’s the companies behind those items and as long as they’re making money for doing nothing but providing content they’re going to be happy.

But it’s not just the music, video and books, it’s the apps too. I know a few developers have had issues with the App Store and its processes, but it must be worth something to somebody because there are lots and lots of apps on there and I imagine they’re making money from those apps because more and more keep being added. I’m not suggesting that App store developers are rolling in the green stuff, but there has to be a compelling reason to develop for the App store or the number of apps wouldn’t keep rising. As with all things: Follow the money.

The reason people are saying the iPad will fail is because they are comparing it to what they already have and not seeing it as a third way device.

The iPad isn’t a computer for non-geeks it’s an information device for everyone. This is why it IS the magical third-category that netbooks and slates failed to provide. Its not a computer at all and that’s the difference.