IDG World Expo and Apple today announced that more than 64,000 attendees packed the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City last week for the Macworld Conference & Expo. This year's record attendance is the highest ever for the New York event.

The final attendance numbers contrast sharply with lowered attendance figures at other technology shows this year&endash;most notably, PC Expo held at the same convention center just three weeks prior. Macworld has now surpassed both PC Expo and Internet World as the largest annual technology event in New York City.

"The loyalty of the Mac community is astounding," said Charlie Greco, president and CEO of IDG World Expo. "While other tradeshows struggle with low attendance numbers, Macworld Conference & Expo continues to set new records. As the number one technology tradeshow in New York City and San Francisco, Macworld is proof positive that the Macintosh platform is hotter than ever."

"The growing enthusiasm for the Mac platform is contagious. Our customers and developers demonstrated phenomenal support for Apple's latest innovations at Macworld this year," said Philip Schiller, Apple's vice president of Product Marketing. "It's really great to see this strong show of support and excitement by so many customers for Mac OS X and all of Apple's digital lifestyle products demonstrated at this year's show."

In addition to the show's record attendance, more than 44,000 people around the world tuned in simultaneously for a live stream of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote via their QuickTime® Player. QuickTime 5, Apple's industry-leading software for creating, playing and streaming high-quality audio and video over the Internet, is available for free download to Macintosh® and Windows users at www.apple.com/quicktime.

Highlights from the opening keynote address included a preview of Mac® OS X version 10.1, with demonstrations of native Mac OS X applications by 10 major developers including Adobe, Aspyr, Alias|Wavefront, Blizzard, Connectix, FileMaker, IBM, Microsoft, Quark and World Book. More than 1,000 native applications are now available on Mac OS X and more than 50 third-party developers made announcements at the show supporting Mac OS X.

Apple introduced major upgrades to its desktop computing family with the introduction of a new line of faster Power Mac™ G4s with the revolutionary SuperDrive™, and faster, more powerful iMacs™ for today's digital lifestyle. iDVD 2 for Mac OS X v 10.1 was also previewed.

"Macworld New York was a great success for Connectix," said Mitchell Cipriano, vice president of Marketing at Connectix, one exhibitor featured in the 'Ten on X' keynote. "The attendees are perfect for our products and booth traffic was heavy. In short, a perfect show."

"The traffic at our booth was phenomenal,"said Michael Rogers, president of Aspyr Media, Inc. "The entire games area, including the gaming theater, was one of the most popular we've seen at any expo. We were thrilled by the opportunity to showcase our products at the event."

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March 21, 2010