Apple to Attend CES?

[w00master]

Appleinsider.com CONFIRMS the CES Rumor

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/09/source_apple_plans_to_attend_ces_in_2010.html

Wow. I'm completely speechless.

 

[zephyrnoid]

Just because apples not their doesnt mean the slew of 3rd party products, what the show is supposed to be about, wont be there

Really? I disagree and would easily put money that at next year's "Macworld" a slew of 3rd party vendors will not be there, they'll be wherever APPLE is releasing new (core) products. Ahem. That's what makes it APPLE's show
Macworld used to be revolutionary. We got a chance to hear the true luminaries of computing back in the early-mid 90's. People like Kai Krause. Now it's diluted except for Apple's attendance. No one will fly to San Fran to see the latest peripherals roll out their incremental upgrades. That's the point. MacWorld is hereby dead!

 

[zephyrnoid]

Why would Apple attend CES? What possible reasons could they have? I see no specific reasons in this thread. Apple don't need other people's events to announce products. They said so themselves very clearly.

CES wouldn't be about announcing new Apple products. Apple needs to 'work' the trade shows differently now- to drive 3rd party vendors, partners and yes, non Apple customers to the Apple stores. Apple new releases should therefore sync with CES and NAB etc. not with "Macworld". So Apple can announce new releases and actually present them at thousands of stores simultaneously rather than just once in January. It's a brilliant strategy. I just wonder why they waited so long to ditch IDG???

 

[gmfeier]

My thoughts exactly...

Well, Apple seems to becoming more and more like them each passing day. Seriously, CES is an all aspect electronics show. PCs and accessories, phones, cameras, camcorders, televisions, DVD/Blu-Ray and home audio products. It seems PC dominated because Macworld and Apple had been putting on their own show in Frisco the past 24 years. A lot of companies had a presence at both shows with the Mac products and announcements coming at Macworld. You also don't see a whole lot of pro audio and music stuff, they have their own convention called NAMM.

The advantages I could see to coming to CES could be keep up its presence and have a place for the community to have access to Apple without the pressure to put on an earth shattering keynote with amazing new products..

Apple is not a computer company any more - that's why they dropped "Computer" from their name. The bulk of their future revenues will come from iPhones and related devices. Once Jobs leaves, they may just get out of the computer manufacturing business and license OS X to Dell, HP, Sony etc. I don't love my Mac becaust it's made by Apple, I love OS X.

 

[BenRoethig]

Apple is not a computer company any more - that's why they dropped "Computer" from their name. The bulk of their future revenues will come from iPhones and related devices. Once Jobs leaves, they may just get out of the computer manufacturing business and license OS X to Dell, HP, Sony etc. I don't love my Mac becaust it's made by Apple, I love OS X.

They'd have to get rid of Ive and Schiller too and most of the other top management before they stopped making computers.

Plus, I honestly think the window for that has passed. They should have done it with the move to intel a couple years back, when they still had the option for non-compete clauses for certain segments. Now, you have Dell and Sony moving full force into some of Apple's segments and quite frankly in an open competition products like the Studio Hybrid, XPS One, and the new studio XPS Notebook from Dell and Sony's more or less entire line might get some looks from the not so faithful if they were running Mac OS X. Apple has too much to loose now. A lot of users will continue not to be adequately served with Apple's semi-delusion stance of "we know what's right for everybody", but that's unfortunately the way it has to be.

 

[happydude]

I can see them attending and setting up a display but not delivering a keynote or announcing new products.

yeah, agreed. for the reasons they say they wanted out of macworld, why CES? they'll prob just have an official presence, but there won't be any big new product announcements.

 

[NT1440]

Really? I disagree and would easily put money that at next year's "Macworld" a slew of 3rd party vendors will not be there, they'll be wherever APPLE is releasing new (core) products. Ahem. That's what makes it APPLE's show
Macworld used to be revolutionary. We got a chance to hear the true luminaries of computing back in the early-mid 90's. People like Kai Krause. Now it's diluted except for Apple's attendance. No one will fly to San Fran to see the latest peripherals roll out their incremental upgrades. That's the point. MacWorld is hereby dead!

Trade shows exist all over world. There are tons of people that go to macworld simply because they like macs and want to see the latest add ons they can get. Apple doesnt need to be there for people interested in 3rd party stuff. I highly doubt that thousands of people show up only for the keynote on the first day. If that were the case, Macworld would only be a day long.

 

[Macmadant]

That's so ridiculous, it completely contradicts apple's reasoning for not doing macworld anymore. Even if they do just decide to put an exhibit booth up at CES, why not just continue to do that at Macworld ?

 

[NT1440]

That's so ridiculous, it completely contradicts apple's reasoning for not doing macworld anymore. Even if they do just decide to put an exhibit booth up at CES, why not just continue to do that at Macworld ?

I really doubt that the runners of macworld would be content with "just a booth" and the relationship between them an apple would be even MORE strained (if not broken already).

 

[YMark]

That's so ridiculous, it completely contradicts apple's reasoning for not doing macworld anymore. Even if they do just decide to put an exhibit booth up at CES, why not just continue to do that at Macworld ?

Probably because the CES draws 10 times the people.

 

[gmfeier]

They'd have to get rid of Ive and Schiller too and most of the other top management before they stopped making computers...

Not really. I'm sure Ive and Schiller already know why Apple dropped the "Computer." There will be many other cool devices in the future, but the traditional computer will probably follow the classic iPod into oblivion. Why not replace the computer with an iPhone dock wirelessly connected to an HDTV?

 

[Macmadant]

Apple is not a computer company any more - that's why they dropped "Computer" from their name. The bulk of their future revenues will come from iPhones and related devices. Once Jobs leaves, they may just get out of the computer manufacturing business and license OS X to Dell, HP, Sony etc. I don't love my Mac becaust it's made by Apple, I love OS X.

Yes you love your mac because of the seamless integration with the hardware it runs on, same as iTunes and The iPod, if all sorts of manufacturers start using Mac OS X, then you'll have the bloated drivers problems windows has, the reason you love Mac OS X is because of the integration of hardware and software.

I certainly don't think apple will ever do this, it's Mac hardware business is very profitable and to make up that shortfall they'd have to sell vast amounts of the OS and believe it or not, lots of people still like windows and i wouldn't anticipate a huge growth in OSX market share. Half the reason for adopting OS X is the mac hardware it's self, people love it, I think you'd be very alone in saying you only bought the mac for OS X, it's the entire experience that makes it great, not just the software

 

[BenRoethig]

Yes you love your mac because of the seamless integration with the hardware it runs on, same as iTunes and The iPod, if all sorts of manufacturers start using Mac OS X, then you'll have the bloated drivers problems windows has, the reason you love Mac OS X is because of the integration of hardware and software.

Why do we keep getting this decade out of date myth? Back in the old PowerPC days, almost every chip in a Mac had to be custom made. Both the Mac and computer hardware have changed a great deal in the last decade. Five years ago most PCs ran one of many unrelated chipsets from a bunch of different third party manufacturers. Since then, things have become much more make like. The third party chip makers have more or less left the business. Via and SIS are technically still around, but nobody uses them. ATI got bought by AMD, became their first party chipset supplier, and obviously stopped making chipsets for intel CPUs. The only third party company to have any real sales is Nvidia and even with the excellent 9000-series IGP chipsets, that future is in doubt.

Chipsets themselves have also evolved into family groups. Why make a bunch of chipsets with different drivers, when you can make different versions of the same chipset. Intel is now down to two chipset groups. The high end desktop and workstation chipsets merged with variants of x58 replacing both the x48 high end desktop chipset and the 5400 for dual CPU workstations. Video cards have done much the same. Support chips have always.

Lets compare my iMac with the Dell studio hybrid by parents just bought.
CPU
iMac Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 2.4ghz
Dell Intel Core 2 Duo T5850 2.16ghz
Chipset
iMac intel PM965
Dell intel GM965 (used on white Macbook)
Graphics
iMac ATI Radeon Mobility HD2600XT badged as HD2600Pro
Dell Intel x3100 graphics (used on white Macbook)
Audio
iMac Realtek HD audio
Dell Realtek HD audio
Wireless
iMac Apple Airport extreme-N (broadcom chipset, Atheros and intel wireless chipsets used on other intel Macs revisions)
Dell 1505 wireless-N (broadcom chipset)
Almost all Firewire, wired Networking, hard drives, optical drives, etc supported natively in Mac OS X

This isn't an aberration. A good 95% of the intel PCs sold in the last three years are fully compatible with Mac OS X's native drivers. That's close to 100% with intel laptops. The only difference between what Apple brings to market and what you'll find on the PC in the next isle is the firmware chip and the case. The case of course does not need a driver.

 

[alexbates]

Probably because the CES draws 10 times the people.

Probably so. And also, it will be great to show off Mac's to people that have come to the CES just to see Microsoft related stuff.

I am starting to think that Apple will go to the CES now. This is what Apple needs to do: find a way to get people's attention that have stuck with Windows for 10 or more years. My dad doesn't want to switch to a Mac because he trusts Microsoft after being with them so long. If people had the chance to test out a Mac and see how stable the OS is (compared to Vista) and how great the UI is, I bet they would love it. Also, people need to understand that Windows runs on a Mac to run applications that don't support Mac's. Most people (a lot that even have a Mac) that I know have no idea that Windows can run on a Mac. CES would be a great opportunity for Apple.

I hope they decide to go!