iPhones at Wal-Mart? Pink Slips for Christmas at Yahoo? The 40th Anniversary of the Mouse. Obama Zunes In. And finally American Math Education: 2+2=Dumb! All this and more on your Tech5 Top5 Countdown.
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CNet speculating about Steve Jobs and his missing keynote. Yahoo’s year to forget. Microsoft patches IE. Firefox needs a patch too. Sprint offers 3G 4G wireless modem for laptop. French nix iPhone monopoly. More MFST guys quit. $99 Walmart iPhone a hoax? Apple Mac update is killing Macs. NAND flash now hits 1 million cycles. US should spend $44 billion on broadband. Brainshare conference killed. WDC does big layoff. Luxury mobile phone may get EU tax.
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If you read this blog at all, you know that we heavily favor Apple over Windows, but that doesn’t necessarily make us “fanboys”, and the recent news that Apple will no longer be a MacWorld participant has us disappointed, but even more then that, the last minute announcement that Steve Jobs will not even bother with the Keynote this year is a just a big slap in the face.
MacWorld is, historically, the place that all the mac lovers show up to to find out what latest and greatest products Apple will be giving us for the year. The buzz that MacWorld generates for Apple has been huge in the past, but Apple now feels that they have a no need to make an appearance.
Why? In its own release apple said:
Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.
All of this makes sense, and as a mac fan, I can completely understand the decision. In fact, I myself wasn’t even planning to attend this year, even though I have faithfully attended over the years. Last years MacWorld was a severe dissapointment, being nothing more then a collection of small time application developers and iPhone accessories. What made it worse was that several of the accessory dealers weren’t even selling. The general feel from most of the exhibitors was “You can look, touch, and love, but you can’t buy it, at least not here.”
The biggest problem I have with this announcement is that Steve Jobs is pulling out even this year. The keynote has been a high point of the MacWorld event since day one, and the opportunity to “interface” with Steve Jobs, and find out from the man, what is in store for the year. This year we get Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. Who? Exactly.
Even more frustrating is that this announcement was made on December 16. Less then a month from MacWorld. Will MacWorld expo be refunding the cost of the Keynote passes to people who have no interest in a jobless keynote? Doubtful.
In the end, I don’t disagree with the decision to ditch the expo scenes, but c’mon Steve, give us one last hoorah and a last “one more thing”.
