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Jobs Not Giving This Year's Macworld Keynote
Many readers including thermopile wrote in about Apple withdrawing from Macworld Expo after this year. The other bad news for Apple fans is that Steve Jobs won't be delivering the keynote in 3 weeks — we may have seen his last "one more thing." Apple VP Phil Schiller will be doing the honors. He's "an Apple executive notably lacking in Jobs's showmanship and star power," according to the Fortune blogger. Apple's press release states that "trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers." While this may be true, the keynote addresses have been a critical venue for major new product announcements. Apple's stock is taking a 6% hit in after-hours trading, possibly on concerns about Jobs's health. Reader Harry has gathered together YouTube clips from most of the Macworld keynotes Jobs given since 1997.
> "trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers." While this may be true, the keynote addresses have been a critical venue for major new product announcements.
Maybe they don't have anything.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
they want absolute control
More like, trade shows aren't cost-effective anymore, and Apple was also getting pretty tired of someone else's schedule driving the timing of their product introductions.
I for one, don't expect anything amazing this year.
I do. I just don't expect them to happen only at MacWorld or WWDC.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
To be fair, Steve Jobs is the guy who made all that possible.
We've seen what Apple is without him... bankrupt.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
It's 2008. Steve Jobs has already delivered the keynote at Macworld 2008.
Next year is 2009.
...and watch the stock crater tomorrow.
Unfortunately, ever since Jobs lost significant weight as a result of his surgery (an obligatory side effect for the type of surgery he had), MacWorld keynotes have become a "Steve Jobs Death Watch" for the press. Before, during and after the keynote, more ink is spent on speculations regarding his health than the product announcements.
I think one side benefit of Apple's abandoning MacWorld is the press can no longer turn it into a morbid event.
Actually, I'd argue that Apple entered the portable MP3 player market at the right time. Consider the market at the time - small flash-based players that could barely hold 1 album, maybe 2 if you compressed them below 128kbps, or humongous hard-drive based MP3 players that were larger than a discman (i.e., the Nomad), or when they weren't, were huge bricks.
Now, Apple releases an MP3 player that has most of the space of the large hard disk players, but is only maybe 1 1/2 to 2 times of the flash-based player. Oh yeah, and instead of syncing via painfully slow USB 1.1 (or parallel/serial!), it would work at firewire speeds. So copying lots of music to the hard disk takes minutes, not hours (1GB would take around 15-20 minutes via USB 1.1 versus 2-5 minutes via firewire...).
So what did Apple do? They released an MP3 player in a formfactor that's usable, and made filling it much less of an all-nighter thing and something that someone can do on their way out the door.
Oh yeah, they also marketed the heck out of the iPod, and made everyone who would normally carry CDs or listen to tapes... consider buying one and carrying their entire collection in a handheld device, rather than a huge stack of CDs. Instead of MP3 players being relegated to the realms of the techie, Apple made them wanted and usable to the masses.
And Apple did this a month after 9/11 - when no one was willing to spend $600 nor have they fully recovered. Apple won out because Jobs seized upon the concept just as it was beginning to take off, then when the huge growth happens, they were already on the 3rd generation iPod (total sales under 1 million units at the point, yet it was the #1 selling MP3 player). Boom, the market takes off, Apple has a refined 3rd generation iPod on sale, and people start wanting iPods and MP3 players, to the point where Apple sells millions per month.
Apple got really lucky with the iPod. They were at the right place at the right time.
I think this was bound to happen when Apple made the switch to Intel. Apple traditionally releases product on these big events - MacWorld, WWDC (more to the things developers want), and other big conferences. New product appears on a regular schedule, and advances could be easily plotted. This was because Apple's source hardware (e.g., PowerPC) roadmaps were quite tightly sealed, and thus, Apple could gather up momentum leading up to the event on what the next big thing was.
But now, Intel and AMD have roadmaps known to the public way in advance. New chips, chipsets, graphics, etc., come out monthly, and there's no way Apple can wait 6 months to the next event to showcase their latest computers, using a CPU/chipset/GPU everyone else has been shipping the past 3 months. Apple can't wait for these big events to announce new product, because they happen at inconvenient times.
Apple is large enough that it can draw a huge crowd easily, which it does with these "spotlight" meetings/keynotes. The advantage is that Apple can release product around the same time everyone else releases product. A new chipset released by Intel? Well, hold a spotlight and release the new notebooks within a month or two from the first manufacturer releasing them, before it becomes "old news."
Apple has to release product, and they can't wait for the Next Big Expo to do it - to compete with all the other PC manufacturers now, they have to release in a timely fashion. (Think about how long it took for Apple to release Santa Rosa notebooks - everyone else had them for months!)
Once Apple went Intel, they have to follow Intel's schedule for product releases, which won't coincide with most of the Mac Expos. Or get left behind releasing old technology, with everyone annoyed waiting for the notebooks to use the latest and greatest. It's not practical for Apple to wait - they have to release. Holding a spotlight meeting is easier than holding a random Expo (scheduled months to years in advance) to release product in a timely manner.
Consumer electronics are never seen for its technical merits. It is all about user interface, always has.
What good is having the latest tech where you have to dig it out a seven-level-deep menu structure to use it? Having a clean, simple interface is the key to succes.
And I'm not a Machead by a long shot, either.
I'm going to guess that Apple is backing out of Macworld SF because it's so poorly run that no one wants to go. $20k for a table? sure. five 30" Cinema displays 'go missing' from the loading dock? sorry, not our fault, not our problem. Need a new outlet? You have to hire one of our electricians. How many hours do you want him for? oh, we don't know how long it'll take, you have to figure that out yourself.
The company that runs Macworld runs it half-assed, they don't care about attendees because they know they're the only game in town and people will pay regardless, and they don't care about vendors, because again, you need the exposure or your competitor is going to get it first.
If we're lucky, Macworld will die off and be replaced with something better.
Are you serious? I have had nothing but touch screen phones since 2001.
The models I used actually started out as pure touch screen and then added keyboards (retaining the touch screen) because you can type faster with buttons (and the Xerox graffiti lawsuit). You can also touch-type with buttons.
The iPhone has nothing really new except that it was marketed to everyone and not just PDA users. Suddenly smartphones are "cool" because Apple makes one. That's fine.
I've been a Mac user for over 20 years. I'm typing this on a Mac. I'm glad Apple is doing well.
I'm also glad that people still make real smartphones like Treos, because I am a PDA user and I refuse to give up meaningful features for marketing fluff and looks. My four-year-old Treo model has many, many features that the iPhone lacks, including multimedia features like stereo bluetooth support and over a decade's worth of third-party software available directly from the people who developed it.
Hmm, gotta disagree there.
You have to consider the package as a whole. Not just the raw technical specifications or feature list.
The iPod was simply far better at its core feature when it was launched than any other player. I would argue that by not losing sight of the vision of a small, portable, music player they didn't get caught up with vast featurelists like other players until they could do it the best way. Styling has, of course, helped greatly - but it's not Apple's fault their competitors wanted to sell bricks.
The iPhone's interface is simply still far better and smoother than any other competitor. The difference isn't as much as with the iPod when it was launched, and the competitors are catching up faster this time.
The MacBook has Mac OS X. That's a massive technical advantage for many people, from different viewpoints. I shouldn't need to go into this in detail.
You can market generation n+1/2/3 devices all you want, but if people weren't satisfied with generation n then people won't buy. Apple has such high satisfaction ratings that they surely are hitting people's needs pretty much spot on.
I must also point out that I think Apple peaked already, and quality appears to be going down. There's no excuse for not having a wider range of computers to actually compete in the market. The Mac Mini is so out of date that Dell have better looking and specced offerings!
By saying that you show that you completely misunderstand the mindset of the Apple customer.
People that buy Apple products are not concerned with motherboards, chipsets, memory speed, CPU or other technical details so much (except perhaps MacPro buyers, esp. if they come from PC background).
People that care about that build their own PCs (I have certainly).
People who buy Apple want their computer to be transparent, they don't want to tinker with it endlessly (like that guy fixing old cars in his garage and never having it actually working, he just enjoys tinkering - kind of like Linux people early on).
If you say macbook is just like any other laptop then you don't get it. Look at any other laptop and just look at the level of "noise" on the keyboard designs these days. Find me one keyboard that doesn't scream at you with 5 things written on each keyboard with different colored letters, keys non-standard width or position etc.
That's just one detail, and then look at the beauty of simplicity of classical Macbook keyboard. It just disappears, and doesn't scream at you.
Macbook aluminum case feels so solid and sturdy, better than any other laptop I have ever held. And it does not have things written on it all over the place (certainly not stupid metal labels like Intel Inside or built for Vista), or things glued to it at the bottom containing certain product key.
The computer is sophisticated and simple, understated like luxury European sedan (think BMW, a lot of people don't get that one either, that's why you see idiots that put chrome wheels, and fart exhausts on their BMW).
And then we get to other soft things like the OS. That one is a topic on its own, but the joy of using OS X would be worth it to me even without these other things.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
the only revolution apple has ever pulled off is a marketing revolution. the ipod, macbook and iphone do nothing other gadgets haven't before. indeed on many technical levels they are inferior, especially the ipod.
A very wise person once pointed out to me that it doesn't matter how cool or great a product you have; if you can't convince someone to buy it it's useless.
Never underestimate the importance of marketing (and sales) to success. People buy something because it fills a perceived need; convincing them that they have that need is an important part of the sales process.
Having a good product helps; but being a better product than others is not enough, by itself, to ensure you win. Technical superiority is nice; but unless you can convince people it has value then it's just something the extreme fanboys will argue over (wether is a computer, car, camera, stereo, etc.)
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
My guess about why you're so wrong is your comment sounds like a lot of other short sighted haters who look simply at feature list items one by one and assume that tells the whole story. It's the package as a whole, user interface, user experience, product design, etc. These are all intangibles that add up to far more than the feature list and tech specs. Simply put. . . forest or trees? You're looking at the trees.