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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Foreign wide 
| | The headline doesn't mean anything. I just thought it was a fun pun, and I don't have time to think of another one 'cuz I'm going on the air in two minutes. |
I was, and he's right
| | By the opening day of Macworld, one day before Steve Jobs' keynote address, the show and Apple had been written off. The crowning touch came from Merrill-Lynch. On Jan. 7, it downgraded Apple's stock rating to "sell," explaining that "the new product pipeline looks skimpy." |
| | By now you've seen the news about Apple's announcements. There is no point in being kind about it: Every source that claimed to know what Apple had planned got it completely wrong. What makes this stand out from other milestones of unsubstantiated reporting is that the media gave the rumors the force of fact. The public went along, assuming that in the age of the Internet, Apple couldn't keep big secrets. Among Apple's thousands of employees, hundreds of beta testers, and the staff at countless retailers worldwide, surely someone would break nondisclosure. Somebody had to send an anonymous e-mail containing the slide deck for Jobs' keynote. You just can't control information. |
| | Yes, you can -- and Apple did. Not one outlet predicted the 17-inch PowerBook, the 12-inch PowerBook, or the Keynote presentation software. No one called Apple's release of an accelerated X Window server in advance. Integrated Bluetooth? We were assured it wouldn't happen this year. We had no notice that the PowerBook would have 333MHz DDR (Double Data Rate) memory or that the $99 Keynote could do smooth compositing and 3-D effects in real time. Instead, we were treated to wild guesses about video-enabled iPods and Mac tablets. |
| | Now that we know the reality of Macworld, we know something else: Not one writer who claimed to have reliable inside sources at Apple was on the level. Apple's people kept their mouths shut and every nondisclosure agreement was honored. Steve Jobs got to surprise his Macworld audience. .. |
| | That's an achievement as notable as any of the new products -- and perhaps even more notable, because it helped preserve the value of current inventory in the distro pipe. (There's a reason why "Osborne" is a verb.) |
| | But I've also never seen more concern, by Apple employees on the floor of the show (not all, but some), about speaking on behalf of the company -- even when they weren't being asked to speak, or to do anything more than answer questions about stuff on display. A number of them wanted me to "clear" this or that (e.g. taking a picture inside the booth) with "Media Relations." |
| | Credit where due: there were still plenty of brave ones who weren't nervous at all. And most of them seemed pleased to be in on the surprise. |
Maybe it'll melt like Greenland
| | Good news: Maybe AOL won't die instantly. Sez Ted: Despite AOL's missteps, I think the momentum of having however many bazillion subscribers can carry AOL fumbling into the future. |
¬oo BaD
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