As noted in my rant about Steve Job’s health and how it’s none of our business, yesterday was the final Apple Macworld Keynote. Phil Schiller gave a decent keynote (link goes to Apple’s video stream), though he was a little nervous at the beginning. I’d be nervous too, he had some huge boots to fill. Apple announced a few expected products with some pretty exciting features, iPhoto 09 and iMovie 09 look pretty sweet. They also announced that by the end of Q1 all of iTunes will be DRM free (In my opinion this = huge.)
So why did Apple change it up this year? Doing so spouted tons of rumors about Steve Jobs’ health; things got ridiculous. TechCrunch and TUAW argue that the whole shindig served to lower expectations. Lower expectations means less of a stock price hit with “lackluster” product releases. It turns out, that on years when they weren’t announcing iPhones and Intel Macs, Apple’s stock took a beating from the collective disappointment. Techgear’s source, Keynote Index Fund, has some pretty compelling data on the whole thing.
Obviously, we’ve yet to see how today will end but I think the point to take from all of this is a new strategy from Apple in regards to how they handle their massive unstoppable hype machine. By pulling out of Macworld Apple’s basically taken back control – now they can release products on their own terms on their own turf. Further, now that Phil has successfully completed a daunting Keynote without vomiting all over himself, they can save Steve Jobs for the big announcements (once he’s feeling up to it).
(TUAW) (Keynote Index Fund via TechCrunch)
