Did Apple pull the major announcement (the “one more thing”) from this year’s Macworld Expo keynote in anticipation of Steve Jobs’ health announcement? My reasoning goes like this: First, Apple had something really cool to announce at Macworld Expo 2009. Something that would have taken up the big empty space at their booth. We heard rumors that after the Expo, Apple was going to announce a new Mac mini as well as something so big that the rest of the news would pale beside it. A Mac netbook? Opening the iPhone to other carriers? We couldn’t find out.

The last Macworld Expo I attended was in 2004. It was my first in San Francisco, as New York had previously been my beat. But even on the other side of the continent, it still felt familiar to me. It still felt like a Macworld Expo. The iPod was still fairly new, there was no iPhone, and people were there to hear about the Macintosh. Macworld Conference and Expo is now a different beast, and by beast, I mean that little duck from Wonder Pets with the annoying voice.

Ask almost anyone who attended the Macworld keynote this year what they thought of it and you probably won’t get a very great response. With no Steve Jobs, the keynote was almost bound to not be as great as the past few years. However, not only did Phil take the place of Steve, but there more »

One of the most interesting things about being media at Macworld Expo is that people always want to know what you think. Or, more accurately, they ask what you think so they then have reason to tell you what they think. I’ve been to five Macworld Expos now in both New York (ah, those were the days) and San Francisco, and almost every meting I have with exhibitors on Tuesday starts with, “So what did you think of the keynote?” I answer, but I’m always more interested in what publishers and developers have to say. This year, by and large, it’s not looking too good.

Geotagging became an official part of iPhoto ’09 as Apple announced its new “Places” feature. Users will either be able to tag the location of the photo manually, or, if using a camera that has GPS capabilities (like, say, an iPhone), the data will be added automatically. From there, iPhoto will create a map with pushpins indicating where pictures were taken. Users can mouse over them to get a thumbnail version of the photo, similar to the Flickr geotagging feature.

Here we go. 2-1/2 hours away from the keynote, and our live blog is up and running. Stick with Appletell ongoing commentary leading up to, during, and after the keynote, complete with images and some video later on. The countdown begins now.