Let’s cut to the chase. Cue Apple PR:
Apple today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show,
Wait, what?
Today’s announcement has taken the Internet by storm, but not many believe it to be about Jobs’ health.
If the only news were that Schiller was subbing for Jobs as keynote speaker this year, I’d be more willing to entertain rumors of Jobs being sick. But announcing that they’re done with Macworld Expo, period, full stop? That’s not something Apple would do just because Steve Jobs wasn’t up to it this year.
I agree. This is about Apple focusing it’s efforts on home-made events such as the ones this year announcing new notebooks and new iPods. When Apple throws an event, they can control everything, unlike at Macworld Expo. I think it’s a smart move finically and from a PR perspective. Having Schiller on stage this year is weird, but it seems more like a transition between “Stevenotes” and future Apple events. Besides, we’ve seen faces other than Jobs’ more and more recently, as when Jonathan Ive took the stage discussing the unibody MacBook design process. The end of Macworld Expo (as least as we’ve known it) does not mean the end of Steve Jobs’ presence at Apple, on stage or off.