Mac Soda

December 2007: MacWorld was coming up right around the corner, and the Apple blogosphere was buzzing. From a new Sub-notebook, to iTunes Movie Rentals, stories were being posted daily about some new thing Apple was going to introduce right around the corner.

December 2008: If last year was New York City, this year is New York City as depicted in the movie I Am Legend. Nothing big, if anything at all, is expected out of Apple this January at MacWorld. None of the blogs have rumors of new products that might be coming (besides 9to5). No leaks of any kind have come out. Either Apple increased their secrecy to the point of killing all their buzz, or more likely they wont be introducing anything.

What is the reason behind this huge shift? Apple wrought this buzz kill unto themselves by taking their biggest event of the year and reducing it to a bunch of Schiller tech-babble. The hype generated each year by MacWorld was easily worth the 5 million dollar fee. Instead Apple has decided to take things into their own hands, release products on their own timetable, and scrap Macworld in favor of smaller on-campus events. While this may work just as well as Macworld did, Apple seems to have forgotten the old saying: if it works don’t fix it.

If you had told me a few weeks ago that Jobs wouldn’t do Macworld, I would’ve said you were insane. In fact, I did. After reading a Macrumors story regarding the possibility of Steve Jobs giving the keynote, I gave the following reply…

Absolutely worthless post. 

Let me fill everyone in on a little secret: Steve Jobs will give the keynote no matter what. Period. 

This story isn’t even worth Page 2.

Flash forward a few days, and I was in a state of shock. I was told Santa didn’t exist, my house had burned down, and all my lifes savings had been drained simultaneously. Today I’m not as upset… I understand why Apple made this decision, and frankly I think it may be a good one. But I can’t lie, its really weird to not be concerned about Macworld whatsoever.

And no, Steve Jobs is not dying… if he is, this Macworld announcement is unrelated. The reason Schiller’s giving the keynote is because they are trying to move the attention to their future media events. Steve Jobs=Importance. If Apple pulls something big out of their sleeves at Macworld, then maybe Steve’s in poor health.