Matthew JC. Powell to present at CreativeTech

Mac guru Matthew JC. Powell and friend. Photo / Supplied

Matthew JC. Powell is the editor of the electronic MacTheMag, oversees MacTheForum and produces MacThePodcast and MacTheTwit (follow 'mjcp') from Sydney. The former editor of Australian Macworld is coming to NZ this September to present and MC at the CreativeTech conference.


Matthew will present the CreativeTech Keynote for Saturday's session on 'Apple, you and the future'. As a well travelled, well connected and experienced Australasian Apple personality, Matthew is in a unique position to make some interesting calls.

I asked him some questions last month in a piece published in MagBytes, the free subscriber Apple info and tips email PDF I release every month through my mac-nz.com site. This annotated version for Mac Planet adds information from phone calls, podcasts and email/twitter conversations we have had.

Matthew first laid hands on a Mac back in 1985 at his local ComputerLand store. "I spent an inordinate amount of time in there playing with it. It was way outside my budget though; at the time I was writing programs in BASIC on my Atari 600XL so the whole graphical-interface thing was kind of amazing."

He first used Macs professionally in 1989 while working for a company that made form guides for greyhound races.

Throughout University Matthew used Macs, and a friend from his Uni days ended up working at Australian Macworld. When an opportunity came up to review a video card for the Mac LC II (giving it the awesome graphic capabilities of an LC III), she asked Matthew to do the review.

"Mainly because I was the only person she knew who had such a crappy old Mac"!

The review appeared in the April 1994 issue, and led to more freelancing with the magazine. He started working there full-time in July 1995 and became Editor when Osmund Iversen left in August 1996.

Matthew stayed until IDG stopped publishing AMW in September 1997. IDG and Ziff-Davis (which at that time owned MacUser) merged their Mac publishing efforts into a joint venture called Mac Publishing LLC, and all of the international editions had to merge as well.

Even though the Australian Macworld brand survived, Niche Media (which had been the licensee for Australian MacUser) became its publisher. Matthew stayed at IDG, but in 2001 Steve Noble left Niche. Matthew went for the editor's job even though Niche was in Melbourne and Matthew lived in Sydney.

"Even though I was interstate and didn't want to move, I figured the job could be done remotely ... I edited AMW remotely until December 2008. All up I edited 101 issues, just shy of Osmund Iversen's 106."

Matthew went on to set up new media ventures - MacTheMagazine, the forum MacTheForum, the popular MacTheTweet and the free podcasts in iTunes which interview interesting Apple related people from around the world (just search for MacThePodcast in the iTunes Store).

The podcasts, like most, are free. of course.

It's always good to ask what Apple setup an Apple user would choose if their budget had no limits.

Matthew says "That's a pretty tricky question actually, because the setup I have at the moment is pretty sweet with wireless networking and multimedia streaming and remote-controlling with iPad and whatnot.

"If I had a large chunk of money to spend I'd probably get some hardware with grunt to run Mac OS X Server and have centralised Time Machine backups and more-efficient calendar sharing.

"I'd also update a lot of the hardware around the place - my wife still uses a PowerBook G4, so we can't use 802.11n.

"I know that's probably boring and you're wanting me to say I'd get a fully-tricked-out Mac Pro so I can rule the world bwahahahahaaaa, but the reality is I'd much rather have a nice fast network and reliable backups."

Matthew, like many veteran Mac users, has a concern that Apple's focus has shifted too much away from the Mac. "It was barely mentioned in Steve Jobs's WWDC keynote, and even though it's a very large chunk of Apple's revenue (and growing) all the big announcements seem to be about iPad and iPhone and iOS. Mac updates happen almost by stealth."

He concedes that, business-wise, that may not be a bad thing. "Companies change, and good businesses adapt to those changes. Remember when Microsoft just did programming languages?

"The whole iPad/iPhone/iTunes framework is becoming a very powerful mobile computing platform, and Apple is right to put resources behind the shift. But I believe the Mac is a very important part of that framework."

But "Once the iPhone 4 rollout is complete, I hope we'll see some more emphasis on making the Mac more attractive to more people."

I asked what Matthew thinks is the most exciting technological development of the last decade.

"Obviously the Snuggie. It's a blanket - with sleeves! Amazing.

"Seriously though, downloadable music, movies and TV shows from iTunes and others have fundamentally altered everything from major corporations' business models to teenagers' lifestyles. The extent of those changes, and the ways creative people are going to make a living in the future with the new rules, are still unclear and very exciting to watch and be a part of."

I also had to ask what he was looking forward to at CreativeTech (September 10th and 11th at AUT's central Auckland campus).

"Well, Mark Pesce obviously - what a fantastic opportunity to hear from someone who's been that pivotal in computing. But there's also the Acqualia sessions (Zac Cohan and Nik Youdale) and I'm a fan of their work, and 50 Mac Tips*."

Maybe there won't be a whole lot in that last one I don't already know, but even one or two gems that save me some time or effort will be worth it.

* 50 Mac Tips will be presented by Miraz Jordan from Wellington. She writes Tech Universe here on nzherald.co.nz.

On the CreativeTech event, Matthew concludes "Plus of course the opportunity to spend time with people who are as enthused about their computing life as I am about mine."

(He's probably also looking forward to the iPhone-controlled blimps and robot-building facilities furnished by the Creative Technologies' Interdisciplinary Unit of AUT! Matthew will also be emceeing the wrap event: 'Six New Zealanders on Apple in their lives.')

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com