maccrazy Best of Show Awards
January 19th, 2008

With Macworld all wrapped up for another year, it’s time for us to announce our very own best of show awards. There were literally thousands of great products out there on the floor and it was really impossible to see them all. Macworld of course announced their awards at a ceremony at the expo on Wednesday and iLounge has also announced its selections. Some of our’s overlap, while others are entirely fresh and new.

Overall Best of Show Award: Apple MacBook Air

This one really goes without saying. First Apple released the iMac, then the iPod, which was later followed by the iPhone. The MacBook Air is to laptops what the iMac is to desktops. The iMac was the first Mac to offer USB and drop the floppy drive. Now with the MacBook Air, Apple has dropped the optical drive, for the first time offers SSD as a built to order option and pushes the boundaries of laptop design. Clearly the MacBook Air will be remembered for years to come and for this reason it wins the Overall Best of Show Award.

Most Awaited New Product: MacSpeech Dictate

As David Pogue is quick to point out, there has been a hole in the Mac speech recognition market for a long time. Dragon Naturally Speaking is known to be the leader in speech recognition, but with no Mac version there simply hasn’t been a competitive solution. Using its revenue from iListen, MacSpeech has now adapted the technology for the Mac platform with MacSpeech Dictate and having witnessed it in use, it is truly amazing. With little to no training required to get results and localised dictation models, MacSpeech Dictate is the clear winner of the Best of Show Award for Most Awaited New Product.

Most Ambitious Modification: Axiotron Modbook

Apple clearly isn’t going to be releasing a tablet anytime soon, so Axiotron decided to solve the problem instead. The Modbook runs Mac OS X 10.5, has 2GHz-plus processing speed, 1GB-plus memory, and the full-range of Apple MacBook connectivity via Ethernet, USB, FireWire, Bluetooth and AirPort. Every Modbook also comes equipped with a built-in iSight camera, optical drive and Global Positioning System (GPS). Very cool, and very worthy of our Most Ambitious Modification Award.

Most Creative Solution: ETCHamac

There were tons of cases and skins for iPods, iPhones and Macs all around the expo floor, and while ETCHamac’ custom etching of such products won’t protect them from the effects of everyday use, the result certainly looks great and is definitely something those wanting a way to make their Mac unique should take a look at. A MacBook Pro costs between US$25.00-$75.00 depending on the amount of surface area to be covered.

Most Helpful Product: Joby Gorillapod

If you own a camera, you should own a tripod. But what happens with you can’t lug a full size tripod around or there simply isn’t anyway to set it up? That’s where the gorillapod comes in. With flexible legs, it can wrap around a tree branch, sit on an uneven table and much more. Sometimes the best ideas are simple, and this is certainly one of them. For this reason, the Gorillapod wins our Best of Show Award for Most Helpful product.

Most Original Booth: Belkin

Apple had an outstanding booth as you would expect, as did many other exhibitors such as Microsoft, Epson, Adobe and Filemaker. However, the Belkin booth, modeled on a house, stood out. With indoor rooms, an outdoor area and a car to demonstrate the wide variety of solutions encompassed by their product lines, Belkin definitely had the most original booth.

Most Original Product: ecamm iLidz

Now this is a product I had heard about prior to arriving at Macworld and I was lucky enough to try them out while I was there. iLidz from ecamm networks are your US$30 solution to bad in-flight entertainment. The image above explains the concept better than words can. Perhaps the design won’t appeal to mainstream consumers without further development, but there is no doubt that the iLidz deserve Best of Show for Originality.

That’s the list for this year. As mentioned above, there were hundreds of equally outstanding products out there, but these were the ones that got my attention. Hopefully readers will find them useful.

Any comments are welcome below.

You must be logged in to post a comment.