[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple at Expo: What went wrong? here

[stevescherer]

Nice article and thanks this makes me feel better. I hope that you are right, though, and I hope that Paul Kent and his team are given a fair chance to remake Macworld Expo. I want to go to one of these in a couple of years.

[cv]

The handwringing from by the tech media is incredible. TRADESHOWS ARE DEAD. Get over it. Apple has an impressive track record running their own media events and for the first time, this year's WWDC event sold out.
As a shareholder, I am glad to see these dinosaur tradeshows die out. The writing has been on the wall for years (Summer CES, E3, Comdex).
If Apple decides to hold a press announcement two weeks after Macworld/CES, you'll be there. And you won't have any other distractions in the room.
That's how it works.

[joshuawait]

It's true that a number of factors have greatly effected MacWorld Expo and Apple's participation. However, MacWorld Expo has failed to keep up with the times, organize the event well, and make it attractive to companies. Even though attendance has gone up, quality has gone down. The organizers of MacWorld Expo has gotten exactly the results of their way of managing this event. If MacWorld Expo is to continue, it will have to work hard at providing a space for community to thrive and not just milk people committed to the Mac platform.

[cycomachead]

I'm never gonna get over Apple dropping out...I'm in high school and every year, and I mean every friggin year (even when out break was 3 weeks once) MacWorld expo is the week we get back from break!!!!! I was waiting till college or after college to go to one and wait in line to see a keynote live, but that won't happen.e
Anyway, now the ranting is done, there are great points here! I really do agree with the second to last point (though it just seems plain WRONG that Apple would have NO booth) MWE could be more of a mac community event and things for the Mac-more than just new products, more sessions and events, more like a WWDC but obviously for the non-devs. (Note I want to go to WWDC to learn code, so if you get what I mean by the learning thing...). It could end up in a couple years having a good effect (as long as it's not a MW Boston repeat), but we need Belkin, Adobe, and all those guys to be there too. We need the little guys like Elgato, and the semi-independent devs to show of their apps.
However, the mood of this years expo I think will be different, somber that it's the last with Apple but made the partying will be bigger for that reason. I want to hear reports. Also 2010 I think will be disappointing unless the social and new aspects will be hyped. Don't get me wrong I think it will be a good show, but so different, and in the short term change can feel awkward and disappointing, even if good.
But, I really, really want to go to A macworld...even if I never see an Apple booth...

[cv]

If you want to go to Macworld, you better go this year. My guess is that there is a 50-50 chance that the following year's event (2010) will be cancelled.
If Apple doesn't want to be at Macworld, why would anyone want to be there?
IDG should kill off Macworld 2010 ASAP.

[dreyfus]

I have to fully disagree with cv's assessment of tradeshows. They are not dead at all. There are still more airplanes sold during Paris Air Show than any other single day a year, the Frankfurt Book Fair is crucial for publishers almost world-wide, and the same holds true for several vehicle, photography and consumer eletronics shows. The primary reason of these events is not selling, it is communication, networking, discussing future collaboration, things that do only create mid-term and long-term return. Nothing most shareholders will ever understand. It is saving the toothpaste and pay for implants later.
I cannot meet high-ranking Apple reps in an AppleStore (just badly trained teens with pseudo-cool haircuts and stupid t-shirts who cannot answer a single complicated question while standing between some cheap IKEA furniture), and I do not meet executives from other relevant companies at one single point elsewhere. Apple benefits from the ecosystem created by these companies, and devaluating such an important event (that costs them pennies overall) will have negative effects.
I think evaluating different scenarios (e.g. making WWDC and Macworld a huge combined event at a better time in the year, not too close to the holiday season) would have been a possible solution. No severe additional expenses and even more bang for the buck...

[cycomachead]

See, that's the problem...those of us teens who'd want to answer your questions are either to young or to busy with school and learning to code.

I imagine I'm not the only teen who had dissected 4 different generations of ipods, reinstalled OS X so much that I practically memorized the screens, use terminal, and tweak OS X.

When I can, I'm getting a job there.

[davebarnes]

What you smell is the vommit from numerous IDG employees who just lost their jobs.

[Photonerd]

What went wrong?? LOL Apple became much more successful with their new retail business model than their crappy old one. The MW events were holdovers from the Flower Power iMac days when such things were necessary for Apple to have visibility. Nothing "wrong" happened here. Move on. It's business.

[chefmitch]

I am not too surprised. After going to Macworld for the past couple of years, I had already decided to skip it this year.
I just didn't think there was enough of a reason to make the trip even though I live less than 30 miles away form Moscone Center.
With the internet/blogs making it so easy to keep up with what is going on in the world of Apple, it is hard to justify going to an event like Macworld.

[Duncan8146]

"Every company I’ve met in advance of Expo, I’ve implored to announce their product before Jobs gets on stage, because after that announcement everything else gets lost."
I develop software and had an agreement with one of your writers to submit it the Saturday before so it wouldn't get lost. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in San Francisco leaving unanswered email and phone messages with him enquiring as to when the PR would appear. It never did, I had to submit it again a week later. Apparently he was "busy". So maybe you will be able to better concentrate on the community in future and not run around doing Apple stories and ignore us. Fine by me.
Maybe after Apple saw how it was run last year they want out and maybe in a few years, after you cancel it they will do their own show. I was there last year and even though I pre purchased with the early-bird discount, I could not get in for hours and hours and hours and hours. You had to submit your bar code or whatever and then they would print your badge. That does not work so well when 20,000 people show up at the same time and half of them have been directed to stand in the wrong line. It was unforgivable. Was anyone fired for that? Maybe Apple Inc. receives a lot of nasty emails because of what IDG does. Ever think of that?

[Jason Snell]

I'm sorry we didn't cover your product. But you know, we do have a limited amount of time, which means we have to prioritize and not every product gets covered. I know that's not easy to hear, but that's the truth.
I know quite a bit about the IDG-Apple relationship -- almost certainly a whole lot more than you do -- and I am not really able to reveal some of that. What I will say is this: it is not an accident that Macworld Expo is an event in which all negative feedback is aimed at IDG and all positive feedback is aimed at Apple.

[downunder]

For 9 out the last 12 years I have made the 12,000 km journey to MacWorld to get the latest goss and hear the great man, and 2009 is no exception. However I really feel let down this time by the late announcement. But I did say in my MacWorld predictions at the start of 2008 that Steve was to step down through ill-health. Looks like I may be right.