Apple Announces Last MacWorld, No Keynote From Jobs

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Apple has announced that this year’s MacWorld in January will be the last. Even worse, no keynote from Steve Jobs either. You’d think that if this is the final show, Steve Jobs would be doing the keynote for sure. Am I right?

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.
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O's no's, what will people do with out the jOb's to tell thems what to do next.
 
This is great for them. Save money, and hopefully as time goes on people are less hung up on how Job's looks. Cause he's gonna walk away eventually.
 
Some trade shows are just worthless if not completely pointless. MacWorld is one of those types of shows. They are nothing more than vehicles for the cheap chachki crap that secondary chinese vendors peddle at these places. Now a plastics and machine tool convention, well boy, that's a hum-dinger of a good time let me tell you.
 
didnt they announce the iphone and macbook air there, doesn't seem like a place just for "cheap chachki crap that secondary chinese vendors"
 
techpriest said:
didnt they announce the iphone and macbook air there, doesn't seem like a place just for "cheap chachki crap that secondary chinese vendors"
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Do you really think that the Iphone/Ipod or the Macbook air are well made products?
 
Methadras said:
Do you really think that the Iphone/Ipod or the Macbook air are well made products?
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as much as i would never buy a macbook air, i do think its a well made product... also my ipod 5g looks like its been run over by a car but it still works just fine and really well (with rockbox & flacs :) ) and my iphone has made me realize just how horrible windows mobile really was...

so ya
 
Methadras said:
Do you really think that the Iphone/Ipod or the Macbook air are well made products?
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Does that matter at all? They still made Apple, Apple. I'm sorry but even if your bias (and guess what, I hate Apple) makes you want to deny the facts... MacWorld is likely the biggest contributor to building up hype for Apple and therefore it is extremely important. It's rather shocking to see people from both sides (Apple lovers and haters) try to play this off as not being important. Fact: It's a REALLY big deal. Hype is key to Apple being Apple, key to Apple selling product, key to Apple maintaining it's image (which sells their products).

Jobs must be in bad health, about to leave the company, or has finally gone insane.
 
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
 
they better announce a new iphone or at least a 32gb model.

my iphone is pretty tough lost it on scream at six flags when i went through a loop while it was raining and all i got was minor scratches on the corners and none to the screen
 
FLECOM said:
as much as i would never buy a macbook air, i do think its a well made product... also my ipod 5g looks like its been run over by a car but it still works just fine and really well (with rockbox & flacs :) ) and my iphone has made me realize just how horrible windows mobile really was...

so ya
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The Macbook Air is exceptionally well made, and what were once anemic specs are now able to run Final Cut Studio and drive an external 30" monitor. It'll likely be my next notebook in a year and a half or so (who knows, might be able to run TF2 and Left 4 Dead on it at that point!). And yeah, the iPhone and the Blackberry Bold are the only two phones I'd ever consider at this point, everything else is shit.

What's being left out here is that Apple aren't the only ones that have pulled out of Macworld. Google, Adobe, Belkin (who have made a fortune on accessories) are all out. From what other news stories have speculated, the issue is political between vendors and the company that puts on the expo, IDG.

Note that IDG is the exact same company that drove E3 into the ground a few years ago. If things are bad enough to have even Apple pull out of a trade show that is based around them then something must be up. Either way, look for more "town hall" style product announcements on Apple's own time instead of basing the big ones around every January. It'll be different.
 
Serpico said:
The Macbook Air is exceptionally well made, and what were once anemic specs are now able to run Final Cut Studio and drive an external 30" monitor. It'll likely be my next notebook in a year and a half or so (who knows, might be able to run TF2 and Left 4 Dead on it at that point!).
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$1800 for a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, integrated graphics, no ethernet, no video out, no optical drive, and only 1 USB port? I'm going to need a lot of koolaid to get on board with that idea. Add a dongle for any of those missing devices and there goes your USB port. Have fun gaming on your 30" screen with no mouse.

For less than that you can get a netbook for basic web browsing and a nice 13" notebook for real work. The only reasonably priced Apple product is the iPhone.

If I owned Apple stock I'd be ditching it too, they're starting to look like John McCain's presidential campaign. You've got a sickly old man at the helm spewing bullshit with a shiny thing behind him that everyone wants to touch. :p
 
Wait a second... the 25th anniversary of the release of the Macintosh personal computer at MacWorld 1984... the last MacWorld in 2009... and Steve Jobs isn't going to do a keynote? Wow... did Hell just freeze over or what? This has to be the most ironic thing in the history of ironic things...

Unless his health is seriously taking a nosedive fast and the rumors were true. There is absolutely no reason he wouldn't do a keynote at this 25th anniversary event unless some really REALLY big things were about to happen at Apple in the next 30-45 days or so...

Man, this is truly groundshaking stuff.
 
Serpico said:
The Macbook Air is exceptionally well made, and what were once anemic specs are now able to run Final Cut Studio
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I generally like to burn my work out to discs when I'm done working in Final Cut, oh wait....
 
please excuse spelling, on moble phone

with all the secrecity that is apple and how closed they are to the outside world of enthusists
steve jobs is looking like kim jung ill

I work at a photo studio, and the reverance they have for the mac is nausating. mac hasv some pretty good hardware and their industrial design is top notch, ever notice how mac peple quitly ignore anything before osx.
nthere are few things that a mac can do that a pc can't also do.

I was recently taskes to spec out a pc for lightwave. and when the quote of what they needed was about 5500, they asked well pcs only cost 500.
lets get a mac for that price.

ughhh...
and don't get me started with *9 and bootcam. for those you are just overpaying for a pc.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
If I owned Apple stock I'd be ditching it too, they're starting to look like John McCain's presidential campaign. You've got a sickly old man at the helm spewing bullshit with a shiny thing behind him that everyone wants to touch. :p
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LOL! :D
 
bezelbubba said:
I work at a photo studio, and the reverance they have for the mac is nausating.
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It sounds like you work at my place of employment (pre-press studio). In the past two years we have replaced all of our old monitors used for color correction with Apple cinema displays and if you know displays you know why that wasn't a wise choice but despite that it has an Apple logo so it must be amazing right? Now many of the monitors that are less than a year old are having all sorts of problems and are going out. I'd say about 25% of the monitors are failing. Add to the problem that our 3-4 year old G5's are dropping like flies and the rest of them suffering repeated crashes, slow downs, and general bugginess and you start to get the sense that maybe the hype isn't all it's cracked up to be but no, mention a PC in that place and the same guy who was bitching and moaning about his Mac two seconds earlier will flame the hell out of you for using something other than a Mac. I routinely get ganged up on for using PC's at home and mp3 players other than ipods. It's a little ridiculous at my employer also.
 
I know someone who works at a firm that does some pretty big projects, and heavy 3D video rendering, and they won't touch Macs for many of the reasons listed here. They've tried them, and they just don't output near as well as PC workhorses do, even when you take the whole issue about hardware quality and longevity out of the mix.
 
And just for the record, it's not the last MacWorld which seems to be the misunderstanding to some degree (and yes I made that mistake by not clarifying it myself). It's just the last MacWorld that Apple itself plans to attend and show products at, which seems truly odd and a thousand times more ironic than reality would dare let us believe.

This all makes no sense at all unless Jobs' health is truly an issue right now.

At the height of Apple's popularity, with supposed numbers on the books to show their popularity is growing, with a larger user base than ever before in the company's history, with more products on the market than ever before, I can't comprehend how they'd decide to pull out of the single event that means the most to the people that actually buy their products (WWDC is for developer's and yes I know they buy stuff too but, even so...).

It's just unfathomable what the hell those folks in Cupertino are smokin' these days...
 
Joe Average said:
This all makes no sense at all unless Jobs' health is truly an issue right now.
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And this IMO is asinine. Your entire multi-billion dollar corporation hinges on a single guy? That's ridiculous. If I were a shareholder I would have bailed long ago.
Bill Gates has made an effort to phase himself out, as a corporation should: it shouldn't rely on any single guy.
 
They're going to save Steve Job's head like in Futurama when they put them in the jars. Then he's going to dictate the company for the rest of it's existence.
 
Oh noes! What will the Mac addicts do now!? I recently got to play with the latest Mac PC, my dad bought one (hanging head) I found it to be slow and, sluggish. Also getting into apps is a total PITA to me. I did get some of it figured out but, I found it to be a a real POS. To me Windows is easier to navigate and use over OSX. This all my own opinion of course.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
$1800 for a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, integrated graphics, no ethernet, no video out, no optical drive, and only 1 USB port? I'm going to need a lot of koolaid to get on board with that idea. Add a dongle for any of those missing devices and there goes your USB port. Have fun gaming on your 30" screen with no mouse.
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The specs have been updated since. As I said, what were once anemic specs are now boosted by a dedicated nVidia GPU. A wireless mouse negates the need for the USB port. The video port is also separate from the USB port. As it stands, with my Macbook Pro I don't ever have anything plugged into it outside of the power cord, so losing ports really won't bum me out.

You also skipped over the part where I said "in a year and a half to two years" I'll be getting one. By that time, a Macbook Air (or whatever it is at that time) will likely have the equivalent performance of current high end notebooks. As it stands, gaming is a more and more a waste of money for me with a notebook. Aside from the screen, the main reason I splurged on the MBP was for gaming when I'm on the road. As it stands, that was a waste of money. I've played Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 approximately six hours combined since I got this thing in March. IMO, not worth it. Otherwise I game on my PC at home. Most of the time I'm checking email or on the web on my notebook.

The form factor is the important thing to me. The only notebook that currently makes me jealous is the Macbook Air. The Macbook Pro has a ridiculous amount of power for the size (under an inch thick) and weight (about 5 lbs). That said, I still want something smaller. I travel for work with that thing all the time and I after seeing the Air, I want that to travel with.

For less than that you can get a netbook for basic web browsing and a nice 13" notebook for real work.
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I haven't seen a single netbook that I have liked. All are junky in construction and have awful keyboards. Yes they're cheap but money isn't a factor. A Macbook Air is very small with no interface compromises: same full size keyboard as the Macbook and Macbook Pro, full multitouch trackpad with gesture interface, webcam, light sensor for controlling monitor and keyboard backlight brightness, magnetic connector for power, LED backlit display, all in a very tough aluminum enclosure.

Yeah, considering the big performance bump the Air got in only eight months, I'm expecting I'll be plenty happy with its performance when I get my next notebook in a few years. Netbooks are nice for people on a budget, but definitely not for me, thanks.

The only reasonably priced Apple product is the iPhone.
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The Mac Pro is the cheapest multi-Xeon workstation out there, cheaper than ones by Dell and HP. The Macbook, up until its upgrade to an aluminum enclosure, was extremely price competitive with identically specced 13" Dells. I still think the new Macbooks should be an "intermediate" notebook, but apparently Apple has decided to leave behind the $1000 sweet spot with the recent update (I really don't agree with this). The Macbook Air is actually cheapest notebook in its class. The Voodoo Envy, which uses the same CPU but a worse GPU, still costs more. The all-in-ones are generally priced competitively with those from Dell and HP, although its been ages since the iMacs have been refreshed and they've recently fallen behind there as its prices have held firm while others have dropped. This will reset again with the next update, probably in the next month or two. The Macbook Pro definitely carries a premium price, but considering all the stuff you get (slim light aluminum enclosure, multitouch trackpad, backlit keyboard, LED backlighting), it isn't like you're paying extra for nothing over the competition. The Mac Mini is an awful value and needs to get taken out behind a shed to be put out of its misery. Its a mixed bag but poor value is definitely not the norm.

Blown 89 said:
I generally like to burn my work out to discs when I'm done working in Final Cut, oh wait....
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The DVD drive is smaller and thinner than a frigging CD jewel case. Considering that I pretty much never use a burner anyways (and I prefer copying to external drives), I think I can manage somehow. :rolleyes:
 
Blown 89 said:
Add to the problem that our 3-4 year old G5's are dropping like flies and the rest of them suffering repeated crashes, slow downs, and general bugginess and you start to get the sense that maybe the hype isn't all it's cracked up to be
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I really wonder what is up with this. I entirely skipped the IBM G5 generation, going over from a G4 desktop and notebook from 2002 and 2003 respectively, to Intel Macs (iMac last November and Macbook Pro last March). I know that heat was definitely an issue with the G5s, the high end models even went so far as to come with ginormous heatpipe HSFs out of the box. I wonder if there is a fundamental flaw with the G5s. My G4 was a fucking tank and ran like the day I bought it when I gave it to a friend last year. The G5s don't sound like they are nearly as robust.

The XBox 360 is the biggest consumer electronics disaster ever with something like a 30%-40% failure rate, and those use a similar PPC CPU as the G5. If reliability was an issue, that combined with the fact that IBM failed at bringing a viable notebook CPU to market makes it seem very logical as to why Apple ditched IBM for Intel.
 
Serpico said:
You also skipped over the part where I said "in a year and a half to two years" I'll be getting one.
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And I'm sure that there will be plenty of similar products at a lower price point, just like there are now.

I bought my Sony VAIO SZ360P long before the Air came out and its a much better notebook (2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, dual Intel and nVidia graphics, 13" LED backlit screen, 2 USB ports, firewire, VGA out, DVD burner, 3 hours battery life, and a beautiful carbon fiber case. It's barely larger and heavier than the air (fits in a manila envelope), and it also comes with a decent OS by default. :p

I got it for less than $1800.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
And I'm sure that there will be plenty of similar products at a lower price point, just like there are now.

I bought my Sony VAIO SZ360P long before the Air came out and its a much better notebook (2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, dual Intel and nVidia graphics, 13" LED backlit screen, 2 USB ports, firewire, VGA out, DVD burner, 3 hours battery life, and a beautiful carbon fiber case. It's barely larger and heavier than the air (fits in a manila envelope), and it also comes with a decent OS by default. :p

I got it for less than $1800.
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I've checked out that notebook and I'm not a fan. Plus is actually larger in dimensions than the current aluminum Macbook (not Air), not to mention that it costs $500 more expensive for the same or lower specs and less battery life. Sonys are the most overpriced notebooks out there.

And don't get me started on the toy OS it comes with. ;)

Either way, I'm not interested in something that large. Glad you like yours though.
 
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