Andy Ihnatko was speaking to the Southern New Jersey Mac Users Group at Gloucester County College this evening (for free!) and Mike Noble and I went.  We were a spot early and a women who later turned out to be a bobblehead doll was Andy’s escort and she kept giggling and brushing her hand against him in the “oh stop, that’s TOO funny” hand motion.  Mike and I stood out from the crowd for a few reasons, first we were both under 45, second neither of us had Apple desktops or laptops, and finally we were more interested in seeing Andy than seeing Andy’s presentation and he (Andy) delivered.

Notes taken during presentation:

• Had some weird hand motions
• Didn’t change opening slide for 10 minutes
• There was a guy behind us pumping a textbook in statistical methods up and down.  The book looked pristine and he was wearing a “Mac 8” t-shirt that looked to be from the Crimean War era.
• He bumped the presentation adapter about 15 minutes in and the device locked up like a bank vault.   It took about 10 minutes for the device to restart.
• Andy says “cara-bye-ner” not “cara-bee-ner”.
• Used the phrase “and the moment that really put the bleach in their Campbell’s soup”.
• “Apple defines success in the same way you and I define success: doing what you do well.”
• Audience questions were squarely divided into two categories “TELL ME I’M SMART/GOOD ENOUGH!” and “WHY WON’T APPLE DO WHAT I WANT THEM TO DO!” with the winner being a woman who talked at Andy for 10 minutes on why Apple wouldn’t let her do a hardware unlock to change international carriers to which he replied “get the international plan”.

Despite my starting disinterest for the topic I really want an iPad now, although I don’t anticipate breaking my rule of “don’t buy anything first generation from a company that’s usually around to produce a second generation”.  One of the over-riding ideas Andy presented was that hardware was secondary to finding creative ways to allow users to interact with software, that in the absence of intuitive UI the rest is immaterial.  The premise is well reasoned and I’d only add the caveat of “if something wants to catch on in the broadest possible market”.

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