Wednesday, January 10, 2007

MACWORLD: When did Steve start showing vaporware? - Valleywag:

Here's what's really going on. Apple isn't competing with Microsoft anymore, or with Dell or with white-box PC makers. The former Apple Computer is now just Apple , a consumer electronics company. The consumer electronics industry already has its own calendar. Sales are geared up for Christmas, followed by next year's new product previews first week of January. Even His Steveness can't buck the schedule.

If Apple were starting from scratch in 2007 we'd have gotten the iPhone demo onstage in Vegas today. But over the years Jobs has garnered a hugely disproportionate mob of fanboys in the tech press (guilty as charged, Jack) who'll fly to Frisco for the occasion, at the expense of skipping part or all of the consumer electronics industry's Super Bowl.

Why unveil the iPhone today instead of June? Because the competition are doing the same thing, same day as they've done every year with their own infurating "sign up to learn more" preview campaigns. By holding his own mini-CES 500 miles away, Jobs literally stole the show. As I sit here typing in a sulk, an NPR stringer in Vegas just messaged, "CES is dead because iphone is all that mattered today. there is a mood of -- like everyone here went to the wrong party."

I hate to say it, but: Genius.


1:54 PM