The photos look a lot like MUG meetings that I remember from long ago. But it’s all happening in Beijing, where Apple put on an all-day show at the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel. Apple showed off Front Row, iLife '06 and iWork '06, “a quick intro to Chinese in Mac OS X Tiger (Li even told us how to use the simplified Chinese to traditional Chinese translation feature and how to input rare characters)”, and the newest versions of the Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, and the iMac Core Duo.
The report is from David Feng, President of the Beijing Macintosh User Group.
The lead to this page came from a Hong Kong blogger who remarked on seeing a photo of a widget for the Chinese calendar, which enabled her to find it for her own Mac. That’s the Chinese calendar, not just a Chinese version of our Gregorian calendar. The widget, splendid in red and gold, is shown in a screen shot of the Apple presentation.
There might be a clue here: Mr Feng posted a report also to macsimumnews, expressing surprise at Apple having taken time to “China-fy” their presentation. Back in ‘02, he says, their big presentation featured a Taiwanese presenter—oops! If Apple has gotten wiser in the meantime, and their competitors haven’t, then Apple may prosper indeed. More details about Apple’s spotty appearances in Beijing in the macsimumnews article.
In a metaphorical sense, you might say that Apple alrady has deep “roots” in this area: current scientific thinking puts the origin of the domestic apple in the region of central Asia and Asia Minor, including Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and China. From the 1990’s until now, the USDA has made numerous trips to that area collecting tissue from wild apples, which have about doubled the available genetic diversity. Most of the past collecting has been done in Kazakhstan; maybe Apple can partner with the USDA offering some computer support for trips to China!
Comments