MacRumors

Apple's decision to withdraw from Macworld entirely has been generating a massive amount of feedback, both in our forums and the industry in general. Aside from the immediate impact, many are concerned that the withdrawal represents the end of the Macworld conference in general. Indeed, Apple's withdrawal from Apple Expo Paris has resulted in the cancellation of that show going forward.

Veterans of the Macworld show such as MacOSXHints' Rob Griffiths see it as the end of an era, and feel it represents a loss for the community:

The most-affected group, I think, will be the Mac fans who made the annual trek to the Expo. Speaking as one of those folks -- yes, it's my job to go, but I still have a blast going -- I'll definitely miss the keynote, the One More Things, the cool new products (not just from Apple but the other vendors as well), and that great psychological kick I get from seeing the show every year. But those aren't the things I'll miss the most.

Instead, what I'll really miss is the once-a-year chance to meet with people who I would otherwise never get to meet in the flesh.

Macworld.com's Jason Snell believes the expo could continue and be better off without Apple:

Macworld Expo is the premier showcase for third-party companies who develop products for Apples markets. And yet every year, those same companies schlep out to San Francisco to announce their next big products--and find their announcements completely washed away by whatever Steve Jobs announced on Tuesday morning. Completely washed away. 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.

Analyst response has been mixed with some who believe that this means there will be no major announcements at Macworld, while others feel it is just a natural transition.

Apple announced today that 2009 would be Apple's last year participating in Macworld Expo and that Phil Schiller, not Steve Jobs, would deliver the final keynote address. Understandably, speculation has been directed towards health concerns about Steve Jobs as the reason for the withdrawal. Jobs underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer but has been said to been cancer free as recently as July.

CNBC reports that Steve Jobs' decision was one motivated "more by politics than his pancreas".

Sources tell me that if Jobs for some reason was unable to perform any of his responsibilities as CEO because of health reasons, which would include the Macworld keynote, I should "rest assured that the board would let me know."

Instead, the author believes that Apple has been trying to separate itself from Macworld for years with the use of "special events" to introduce new products a few times a year. This is said to give Apple complete control over its own message.

Meanwhile, Macworld Expo organizer IDG is putting on a strong face saying that they are committed to Macworld 2010 and "look forward to many successful years of Macworld to come."

Apple has announced that Steve Jobs will not deliver the opening keynote presentation at the upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco on January 6th, 2009. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will take the stage in Jobs' place. In addition, Apple announced that this is the final year in which Apple will exhibit at the Macworld Expo, pointing to the decreasing relevance of trade shows as Apple has expanded its direct contact with customers via retail stores and the company's website.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apples Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple's decision comes on the heels of news that Adobe would not be exhibiting at Macworld San Francisco. Several other vendors, including Belkin, Seagate, and Google, have also withdrawn from the expo or downsized their presence.

Reuters reports on the latest data tracking digital music downloads. Specifically, they look at Amazon's MP3 downloads after a full year of sales. According to their data, Amazon remains a distant second to iTunes:

Major-label sources say that they had hoped the company would have fared better than it did. Amazon has yet to release any sales figures for digital music, and it did not respond to interview requests for this story. But Piper Jaffray financial analyst Gene Munster estimates that Amazon will sell 130 million tracks this year -- a paltry sum compared with the 2.4 billion songs iTunes is expected to sell in 2008.

This brings Amazon's estimate to only 8 percent of the digital music download market share without any major gains. This lack of success could influence record labels in their ongoing negotiations with Apple. Amazon MP3 offerings have been seen by music studios as a way to reduce Apple's foothold in the digital download market. Unlike Apple, Amazon has had access to DRM-free song licensing from all of the major record labels. The labels are still hoping that Amazon will gain ground over the next year.

The labels are said to be demanding more concessions from Apple as they negotiate for DRM-free music in the iTunes Store. Possibilities include variable track pricing and watermarking of individual tracks.

Early numbers from NPD Group reveal that Apple's retail sales numbers for November have shown flat year-over-year growth. Declining Mac desktop sales are said to be playing a major role in these relatively poor numbers. In November, Mac desktop sales were down 38 percent while Windows desktops fell only 15 percent. In contrast, however, Apple's notebook sales outperformed the industry with 22 percent growth as compared to a rise of only 15 percent for Windows. Viewed together, Apple's overall Mac sales were down 1% year-over-year.

Analysts blame a number of factors including the economic downturn and the relative premium of pricing of Apple's Macs.

The November data indicate that falling prices for Windows-based PCs, and the rise of low-priced computers like netbooks -- mini notebooks that cost as little as $300 -- have finally tripped Apple, said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, who still expects Apple to continue outpacing the market over the next year. "What you're seeing in the numbers is price sensitivity with the consumer," he said.

NPD analyst Stephen Barker, however, points out simply that the "iMacs need a refresh". As a result, it may be hard to tease out external factors versus product cycle factors. As shown in our Buyer's Guide, all of Apple's desktop Macs (Mac mini, Mac Pro, iMac) are overdue for refresh. The Mac mini is particularly outdated with the last update delivered over 16 months ago. Apple is expected to refresh the iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro early next year.

One of the most notable improvements that accompanied yesterday's Mac OS X 10.5.6 update was the delivery of long promised MobileMe Push functionality to desktop and notebook Macs.

Despite advertising their MobileMe service as providing Push services from your Mac, Apple's original implementation only offered intermittent sync services. Apple acknowledged the mistake in an apology letter and said they wouldn't use the term "Push" until it was "near-instant".

Mac OS X 10.5.6 has brought this service much closer to the original description. Apple has updated their technote to describe the process as it stands:

Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks sync automatically (generally within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or on the web at me.com).

The "within a minute" syncing is offered to Contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks alone. Other items such as Mail Notes, and 3rd party applications will only sync on an hourly basis, with some data (Keychains, Mail Rules) syncing every 8 hours. These new benefits are not yet available to Windows MobileMe users whose data still syncs in 15 minute intervals.

Most developers will tell you that getting rich quickly through an iPhone App is the exception, but the stories of those who do continue to inspire many. Newsweek profiles some of the biggest winners of the App Store at this early stage.

Ge Wang is the developer behind Smule who has created a number of $0.99 applications, the most popular of which is Ocarina, a virtual musical wind instrument (video). Ocarina has seen over 400,000 downloads in less than a month and remains in the Top 10 Paid iPhone Apps. Wang expects his company to pull in close to $1 million this year.

Pangea Software is another company that has been able to find huge success on the App Store. As a long time Mac developer, Pangea was able to leverage several of their existing titles into popular iPhone Apps. Games such as Cro-Mag Rally and Enigmo will help Pangea generate $5 million in revenue this year. Pangea's Brian Greenstone notes that in the past four and a half months, Pangea's iPhone apps have generated more income than retail sales of all of Pangea's apps for the Mac for the past 21 years combined. It's no surprise that Pangea has given up writing Mac games and will focus entirely on the iPhone from now on. Greenstone claims this sort of success is within anyone's reach:

"Some kid in his bedroom can literally make a million bucks just by writing a little app," Greenstone says.

Apple has posted two new 'Get a Mac' commercials to their ad page. The holiday-themed ads utilize a style introduced in 2007 in which Justin Long and John Hodgman provide voices for animated versions of their "Mac" and "PC" characters.

Tree Trimming: "Mac" and "PC" are trimming a Christmas tree together, with "Mac" expressing happiness that the two of them have put aside their differences to do something fun together. A nervous "PC" is reluctant to plug in the lights on the tree, and when he finally does so, a surprise is revealed.

I Can Do Anything: "PC" shows off some of the benefits of being animated, including being able to talk with a bunny. When the bunny reveals where he is headed in order to do his holiday shopping, "PC" exacts a bit of revenge.

Wired claims that Apple will be launching a new version of its Mac mini computer at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January.

Wired cites an Apple corporate employee as the source who could only confirm a release date at Macworld Expo. The Mac mini has been long overdue for updates leading many to assume that it had been abandoned by Apple. Recent reports have indeed suggested that a Mac mini update is imminent.

The author speculates the new Mac mini will adopt many of the recent physical and environmental improvements in physical design as well as include the newly introduced mini Display Port.

Businessweek's Arik Hesseldahl spoke with VP at IDG World Expo Paul Kent, who assured him that Steve Jobs was expected to speak at Macworld San Francisco's keynote and that a joint announcement was coming soon.

"We haven't made the announcement yet. We usually do this in concert with Apple... I have no reason to believe that plans are not moving ahead," for Jobs to speak.

Steve Jobs has traditionally given the Macworld Expo keynote speech during which new products and plans are revealed. The lack of an official announcement has generated some interest and concern about the event. Hesseldahl points out that Jobs absence at a Macworld keynote would be seen "as a bad thing."

Update: Businessweek has since updated the article with this statement:

Now Paul Kent is clarifying his statement. Here it is verbatim: "We haven't made an announcement yet. We hope to in the next two weeks," Rather than clearing the picture up, it just got muddy again.

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.5.6 to customers this afternoon.

The 10.5.6 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.

Apple details the changes in this support document. Some highlights include:

- Improves reliability of Address Book syncing with iPhone and other devices and applications.
- Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.
- Resolves an issue in which pasting text from a Microsoft Office document could insert an image rather than text.
- Includes general improvements to gaming performance.
- Includes graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes.
- Includes fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards.
- Mail: Includes overall performance and reliability fixes.
- MobileMe: Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.
- Improves reliability and performance for AT&T 3G cards.
- Fixes issues that could cause Time Machine to state the backup volume could not be found.
- Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.
- Safari: Improves compatibility with web proxy servers.

The 10.5.6 update is available as a free download through Mac OS X 10.5's Software Update.

Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update (372 MB) - for users currently running OS X 10.5.5.
Mac OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update (668 MB) - for users currently running OS X 10.5.0 through 10.5.5.

Mac OS X 10.5.6 Server Update (469 MB) - for users currently running OS X Sever 10.5.5.
Mac OS X 10.5.6 Server Combo Update (883 MB) - for users currently running OS X Server 10.5.0 through 10.5.5.

Questionably reliable iDealsChina publishes information and renderings of what it claims to be an "iPhone nano".

It is the same height as the just release Nano but wider and thicker and with the same iPhone 3G contours.

iPhone "nano" rumors have persisted for some time with speculation that Apple could introduce a smaller/cheaper version of the iPhone. The site claims the product will be announced at Macworld San Francisco 2009. iDealsChina, however, has a very mixed track record. In August, it passed off renderings of knock-off iPod clones as the real thing and also claimed that the new iPod Touch would have GPS (it did not). The site, however, did previously have access to Griffin case moldings that appeared to be real. The sizes could correlate with smaller touch screen photographs that iLounge published in June.

If Apple were to introduce a smaller sized iPhone, it would not likely be compatible with any of the App Store apps due to difference in screen size and resolution. This fact has led many to doubt that Apple would make such a move.

Otherwise, the rumor mill has been uncharacteristically quiet in the lead in to Macworld San Francisco which kicks off on January 5th, 2009. Also unusual is that at this late date, IDG has not yet announced that Steve Jobs will be hosting the expo's keynote speech.