MacDeadExpo?

Last year some felt I was being unfair for voicing my disappointment at the lack of any real iPod related content at the MacExpo at Olympia in London. While I use Macs I doubt if I would really attend a Mac related event if it didn't have something to do with iPods. I said then I was pretty unimpressed and I doubted if I’d bother going again.

Well, with the news that MacExpo was being re-branded as MacLiveExpo, I thought I would take the day off and venture into the capital to see if the iPod landscape had improved in the intervening twelve months.

With the event being hailed as "The most Important Mac Event of the season" and that if you wanted to be "...rocking at home with the latest iPod accessories, look no further than MacLive Expo", I hoped that maybe a few more companies would attend to display their latest products. Or even their existing product range. We've had a whole new iPod range released since the last Apple special event and the forthcoming iPhone is due to be launched in the UK on November 9th. That must surely be a good omen for accessories?

I was in for an even bigger let down that last year. The hall seemed strangely roomy and it soon dawned that Apple had stayed away from the event, pulling out at what seemed to be the last minute (other 'big names' failed to show as well - Adobe and Filemaker). Bearing in mind that Leopard was released on the Friday of the Expo, 26 November, the absence of Apple was somewhat odd - at least to this Mac user.

And this year iPod accessories/products were represented by just a handful of companies - even fewer than last year? This was definitely not somewhere to come if you hoped to be "rocking at home with the latest iPod accessories".

I suspect the upcoming What Hi-Fi/Stuff show will feature more iPod related accessories as more and more audio companies build the iPod (and other DAPs) into their product line. The iPod has gone from a 'gimmicky' device to something which even audiophile 'snobs' might have to accept has a place in the hi-fi furniture.

So, once again, MacLiveExpo failed to impress me and, I suspect, others too. I am sure that many visitors got something from the event and I hope those who decided to travel any distance were not disappointed.

Is the future of this London event under threat? I hope not, as with figures of 25,000 visitors for the 2005 event show it is obviously drawing people from somewhere, but when Apple doesn't even bother to appear I have to think that something will give. Would I be better travelling to Paris for a better show?

It was such a non-event even Greenpeace failed to show up.....