That news certainly loosed a firestorm of commentary in the blogosphere, mostly negative. However, I have to think that all things considered this is more just a sign of the changing times. The age of the tradeshow is fading away. Don’t forget that we’re also in the context of a rapidly changing economy along with travel costs going through the roof (despite the recent price drop in crude oil).
It’s also worth remembering that MacWorld is not an Apple operation. It’s an event designed and managed by IDG who does this as a for profit venture. Unfortunately for IDG the world has changed immensely in the last couple of decades and many of the old ways of doing things are being reviewed and revisited to see if they are truly cost effective uses of resources and money. IDG’s priorities are not Apple’s priorities.
Personally I never really liked trade shows terribly much and find that other than the opportunity to meet some people face to face, the show floor is pretty much a waste of my time since the advent of the internet. In the old days when you got the bulk of your information from monthly magazines (and MacWEEK for the lucky information addicts) there was an awful lot of stuff that simply didn’t get covered for lack of space and broad interest. Now with a few dozen RSS feeds I am informed of a whole pile of products that never would have made the pages of print magazine and I’m a google search away from finding a new product that responds to just about any need I might be able to describe.
The best part of the trade shows were the demo CDs. I spent days following MacWorld frantically loading up various products to test after discovering various new developers on the show floor. Today, I’m a click away from downloading and installing a demo or trial version so where’s the added value to the average person?
I think that Peter Burrows at Business Week sums it up bestby noting that Apple will continue to host it’s own events (on top of WWDC) and that product development cycles don’t necessarily coincide with a January launch. If nothing else, this will permit Apple to better manage expectations - there was nothing worse than no big news from Apple at MacWorld.
I would add that over the last few years Apple has acquired sufficient importance in the technology and mainstream press that they no longer need the venue of MacWorld to get people’s attention. In practical terms, Apple is capable of getting the same level of coverage and media presence with their own events, even if they are smaller media only events instead of being open to the public. Witness the liveblog coverage of the recent notebook event by Engadget, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, CNET, SlashGear, Macworld, MacRumors (via Twitter).
I do admit that I will miss the privilege of attending a Stevenote as he is a master presenter, but as I’ve done for last few years, I’ll just wait for the video to show up in my iTunes feed.