As I write this I'm getting ready to head to the airport to fly back to Nashville from San Francisco, where I've been covering Macworld. The weather in SF is sunny, which represents the overall feel of the show.

Today (Saturday) traffic is much lighter than in the past two days on the exhibitor show floor. However, there were still several visitors. And many more will likely drop by this afternoon, after I've departed.

A couple of final, random thoughts:

° There are iPhones everywhere in this city. Everywhere.

° I got excited when I approached the Targus booth. I thought they actually had a iPad sitting there among their new iPad cases. But it was only a mock-up.
Let's do it again next week. Jan. 25-29, 2011, to be exact.

Guy Kawasaki -- a former Apple evangelist, author, entrepreneur, and founder of the Alltop.com web site (and the guy I once recommended as the successor to Steve Jobs -- but Guy wasn't interested) -- gave his "Revolution from the Rest of Us" today at the Macworld Expo.

His presentation looked at the current state of innovation and revolution in the tech market. He started out with tales of his early days at Apple, then went on to show five products and/or companies he really likes. There were also questions from the audience.

Square (http://www.squareup.com) showed its credit card payment for the iPhone. It's due in late spring or early summer.

Hearplanet (http://www.hearplanet.com/) talked about its self-titled app, a "talking tour guide for your iPhone." It sports: global coverage with "hundreds of thousands" of...

When Apple pulled out of Macworld Expo a year ago, the doomsayers started marching out in droves. I was scratching my head at this -- and on the first day of last year's show, committed to our booth at the show, and as a sponsor. Sure, I knew the show would be smaller (after all Apple had previously taken something like 30% of the square footage of the show). And sure, I figured people would scale back on their booth sizes due to concern and the economy overall.

But what was also clear to me was that the community needed a place to network, to mingle, to see products. And with Macworld Expo SF being the last Apple community show, there was no doubt in my mind that it would continue. And, I fully expect that 2011 will be significantly bigger than 2010's event.

The first day of the show was packed. It was literally hard to walk in the aisles at times. Some of this is having a lot of people in a smaller space, but the traffic was solid for most of the day. Booths...

Sure, Apple isn't here and the exhibitors (around 230 or so) are squeezed into one hall (Moscone North), but the exhibit hall traffic was VERY busy today. That's a good sign.

The weather in San Francisco was very nice Thursday -- sunny and with highs in the 50s. That's a big chance from back home in Nashville, where we've been having the most snow fall in the past seven years. Of course, folks up north would laugh at our miniscule (compared to them) accumulation of the white stuff.

Kudos to David Pogue on his hilarious keynote today. He was joined on stage by LeVar Burton (star of "Roots," "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Reading Rainbow") and the very talented young folks behind the Auto-Tune the News phenomenon. You HAVE to check out their work on YouTube. One highlight of Pogue's 90-minute keynote: "It's a Wonderful Mac," a twist on the classic film in which Steve Jobs (played by Burton) finds out what the world would have been like had Apple never been...

Apple patents ranging from a new media player armband to a magnetic connector have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Here's a summary of each.

Patent number 20100032462 is for an armband that holds an electronic device. The armband includes a pouch which includes a window and an opening configured to allow an electronic device to be inserted into the pouch. The armband also includes an arm strap wherein the proximate end of the arm strap is coupled to the pouch, and wherein the arm strap includes: holes arranged in a specified pattern; loop cells at specified locations along the length of the arm strap; and a hook cell located at a distal end of the arm strap. The armband further includes a ring coupled to the pouch configured to allow the distal end of the arm strap to be passed through the ring and pulled toward the proximate end of the arm strap so that the hook cell can be coupled to one or more loop cells. The inventors are Gordon Cameron and Cameron...

The fact that the iPad, introduced last week, uses an Apple designed A4 chip offers a hint at future iPhones, iPod touches and—who knows?—perhaps even Macs.

The A4 was custom designed by Apple engineers to to be extremely powerful, and yet extremely power efficient. It apparently uses technology from PA Semi, a boutique microprocessor design company that Apple acquired in 2008. With Apple now in control of its own processors, you can bet good money that the A4 will appear in an upcoming iPhone. Then the iPod touch.

Beyond that? On one hand, it’s hard to see Apple deciding to use its own chips inside its Mac line-up rather than Intel processors. That would entail a major transition. On the other hand, who believed the rumors that Apple would move from PowerPC chips to Intel processors a few years ago? Few people (including me) did. But it happened. And, as CEO Steve Jobs has said on numerous occasions, Apple likes to design the whole widget.

Personally, I think...

One thing no one has talked about is the advent of 3G on the iPad without a voice plan and what that might mean for the iPod touch. Will it get that, too?

I don’t know. Since it’s the iPad’s “little brother” that would make sense. It was something that many folks wanted (and the pundits commented on) when the iPod touch came out. In other words, we all really wanted an iPhone sans the cell phone.

Along the same lines, there are rumors that the next iPhone (the 4G) will have a faster connection. So perhaps we’ll see an iPad 4G and an iPod touch 4G in the not-too-distant future.

Apple patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office may hint at new portable devices -- or redesigns of future laptops. Patent number 7660749 is for a portable computer that comprises a chassis and a connection system.

The connection system has a plurality of different connector receptacles. The connection system is configured to swing relative to the chassis between an open position where the connector receptacles are exposed for use and, closed position where the connector receptacles are hidden and stored within the chassis. The inventors are Gavin Reid, Chris Lightenberg and Bartley K. Andre.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Connection systems are well known and include electrical contacts that enable devices to communicate with other devices. For example, connection systems may include Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, FireWire ports, RJ-11 ports, and RJ-45 ports.

Mobile devices such as notebook computers are becoming...

I’ve long argued that Apple should at least offer a Blu-ray option for the Mac. Or at least build Blu-ray playback support into Mac OS X so that third parties could. And recent stats back me up.

According to the In-Stat, igh-volume shipments of Blu-ray players, most of which feature network connectivity, are finally making inroads into the broader disc player and recorder market. By 2013, Blu-ray player shipments will still lag slightly behind the 90 million DVD player unit shipments. However, higher average selling prices will put Blu-ray player revenue at more than four times as large as DVD player revenue.

“In North America, significant price drops of Blu-ray players drove unit shipments to triple in 2009,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. “The cost differential between standard definition DVD and Blu-ray is becoming much smaller and new features such as IP/network connectivity are becoming increasingly important. Blu-ray is finally starting to make...

I’ve long hoped for an Apple home server product (the iServe? the iMedia?). Now that the iPad is here, I think the time is more opportune than ever for such a device.

The iPad is a great device, but even the upper end only has 64GB of internal storage. A home server would provide a way for keeping family media assets managed and available.

There are home server choices for the Mac, but all of them could be bettered by an Apple product. The Apple server could also be the next step to venture into another market, home control. For example, if Apple would offer a home climate control to your home server, you or the server could change the temperature in your home from a distance or in accordance with your iCal schedule.

An Apple home server could be a great companion for Macs, iPhones, iPods, iPads and other Apple devices. In fact, put it under the Apple TV division and let’s move beyond the “hobby” category.

Heck, I really wish that the Apple TV would...