Not much was expected from a Macworld without Steve Jobs, but it was instructive nonetheless to ponder today how an Apple no longer fronted by the tech world’s arch showman might look.
Stand-in Phil Schiller did a passable job – though nearly an hour of software demos (new versions of iLife and iWork) made this feel more like the sort of event Microsoft would throw (and probably will later this week, when Steve Ballmer kicks off the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas).
The focus of Schiller’s presentation was on the guts of Apple’s machines – the software that increasingly defines the superior user experience the company hopes to deliver, and, for the latest up-market version of the MacBook Pro, a new battery.
A new battery? Tech geeks will remember that Jobs himself went to considerable pains to explain the engineering breakthroughs that led to the new MacBook casings when the laptops adopted an aluminium skin three months ago. Still, it’s not the sort of thing to whip the Apple faithful into their customary frenzy.
All this presentation served to do, ultimately, was highlight just how much Apple still relies on new hardware design to generate the enviable excitement surrounding its brand. Jobs is both the animating spirit behind this fanatical attention to design and, in his presentation of new products, the perfect showman. Somehow, the new 17 inch MacBook Pro announced today would have got so much more of a lift in the hands of the master.
Ultimately, the lack of new products guaranteed to make this year’s (final) Macworld unmemorable. But there was more to it than that. It may be hard to define exactly what constitutes the Steve Jobs sizzle, but its absence left the Macworld crowd deflated.
