Macstock 2019 . . . Best Yet!
by Tom Piper
Macstock V on July 28-29, 2019, was the fifth annual gathering of Apple faithful at the Luecht Conference Center on the McHenry County College campus in Crystal Lake, IL (near Woodstock, an hour northwest of Chicago). With a theme of CREATE!, it had over 200 Apple advocates in attendance with people from California to Tucson to New York to England. There were 10 featured speakers and 5 special speakers with over 13 hours of content (including OWC demos).
There is much that I could say, but this information is all available at https://macstockconferenceandexpo.com where you can see the schedule, the speakers, news items and much, much more. If you were not able to attend, you can buy a Digital Pass on this website to view the presentations and Deeper Dive sessions. I was also one of the 17 contributors of short films shown during the video presentation session.
There were many great presentations, of which two really got my attention. One presenter pointed out that 81% of Americans believe they have a book in them that they should write, but only about 0.4% actually achieve that goal. Ulysses is a Mac and iOS app which takes the user from inspiration to publication. Another presenter discussed how creating great movies or videos has required expensive video gear and a powerful computer which was time-consuming and complex. But now, he described how technology has put the creation of good video within reach of millions using just an iPhone or iPad, plus the iOS app LumaFusion to manage video files and workflow for creating, editing and publishing.
In addition to the regular education sessions, we also had gatherings at the nearby Bull Dog Restaurant where attendees came Friday night for mingling and refreshments, and Saturday night for dinner and great games. If you would like to see pictures that I captured while there, just go to icloud.com/macstockV. It was so good, that many people stayed Sunday evening to continue our friendly gathering.
Letha and I are going back again next year (July 25-26, 2020) when the them will be PLAY! You are welcome to join us and the many other kind, thoughtful, interesting and motivated Apple devotees.
