TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who believes Europeans are too lazy to found startups, experienced drooling contempt at the DLD conference in Munich.

Vaguely employed videoblogger Amanda Congdon concluded that L.A. is full of racists.

Macworld editor Kelly Turner froze in San Francisco.

BusinessWeek's Amy Feldman thought about the children.

Media critic Jeff Jarvis criticized the media.

Anyone else's tweets we should keep an eye on? Send us more Twitter usernames, please.

For a small, Apple-obsessed website like MacRumors, the annual Macworld keynote is like its Super Bowl. And having its site hacked is like activists infiltrating NBC's satellite truck and telling the audience the quarterback kicked the bucket.

What makes the stunt all the worse: Jobs, the quarterback in question, isn't even giving the speech, having cancelled his appearance in an attempt to regain his health. And there have already been false reports of his death circulating.

The usual talking-head blather on business-news cable networks about these incidents: Why, there must be short sellers behind this, trying to manipulate Apple stock! That strikes me as unlikely. Users of the 4chan bulletin board, known for their obnoxious pranks, took credit. Since Jobs returned to Apple over a decade ago, the company has saturated the airwaves with ads. Technology-soaked teenagers, looking at an authority figure to strike back at, naturally gravitate to Jobs, knowing an Apple-obsessed media will pay attention. (See? It worked!) A juvenile stunt doesn't require a financial conspiracy theory to explain it.

MacRumors' hacked page:

In a letter posted to Apple's website, Jobs writes:

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

The letter is an obvious response to the furor unleashed by a post on the gadget blog Gizmodo, in which a source privy to Apple's product secrets claimed Jobs's health was "rapidly declining." The source was right about the "declining" part, wrong about the "rapidly," it turns out.

It has been an expensive secret to keep. Apple's market value has jumped by $2.3 billion this morning alone, as traders reveled in the relief of a lie undone.

In the fall of 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a fact he kept secret until July 2004, when he underwent surgery to remove the cancer and rewire his digestive system.

This summer, when Jobs's gauntness grew unmistakable, people wondered if Jobs's cancer had returned. But a simple look at a decade worth of photos of Jobs, who is famed for his annual keynote speech at January's Macworld Expo, showed that his weight loss was progressive, not the sign of some sudden illness.

Stupidly, that was the story Apple spokespeople stuck to — that he had a "common bug." The denial of a deeper health problem just fueled more speculation — and led Jobs, in a profane call to a New York Times writer, to explain, off the record, the same mysterious health problem he's now told the world about.

Jobs's terse explanation, though, raises more question than it answers. Now that he's given everyone a tidbit, they'll want more. Which hormones? What's the cure? Why did Jobs take so long to say he had a health problem? Why did Apple PR lie and say everything was fine? And why did gullibly servile reporters like CNBC's Jim Goldman buy it, counting a call to an Apple spokesman as "reporting"?

Which brings me back to the stock market's reaction: Investors are, perversely, happier knowing Jobs is unwell. Which means it's time for him to go. He has done incredible things for Apple in the past decade, rescuing a company that the industry viewed as certainly moribund.

But the lack of clarity about his future has become an albatross for the company. The stock market hates risk. So the possibility that Apple might lose Jobs's services through death and illness gets discounted; as far as investors are concerned, Jobs is already dead to them.

Which is the real reason why we're seeing Apple marketing executive Phil Schiller, Jobs's jokey demo sidekick, give Jobs's keynote speech tomorrow. Jobs may be better by the spring. But it's time for his company to act like he's gone.

Steves health is rapidly declining. Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.

This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why Macworld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. Saying they are no longer needing [Macworld] is the cover designed by the worldwide "loyalty" department.

This source has repeatedly been 100% correct before. Those times, however, were always related to news and images of unreleased Apple products. I can only hope that, in this more personal matter, it is absolutely wrong. And that if he is not, that sentence just means that Steve Jobs is retiring according to his plan.

While Steve Jobs' health is nobody's business—not the press, not investors, not the public—we believe that there's a line between saying "no-comment" and plainly misleading—once again—the public.

Steve Jobs have been giving Macworld Expo keynotes since he came back as interim CEO of the company in 1997. Since then he has never failed once, always introducing notable products both at Macworld San Francisco and Macworld New York. During his latest Macworld keynote, in 2008, he introduced the MacBook Air. Later this year, he used his WWDC presentation to announce the new iPhone 3G. In his last two show-n-tells, for the new iPods and the new MacBooks, he used less time on stage, giving more limelight to key members of Apple's executive team.

According to our Deep Throat's report, the fact seems to be that whether or not Apple had other reasons to pull out of Macworld, they weren't the only ones, and they certainly weren't the same ones used for not putting Steve Jobs through the ordeal of a two-hour presentation.

Apple did not comment on this story after being contacted.

Future, Cupertino — After a long and fruitful tenure as CEO, Steve Jobs steps down in early 2009 to fanfare and industry fawning. Apple needs a new leader. It's time to choose your own adventure.

Much deliberation and coin tossing goes on in the back rooms of Apple. Their board of directors choose a person who they strongly believe can lead Apple into its next phase of growth, a person who can, at the very least, match Steve Jobs' product development whip cracking, if not his outsized public persona.

The board chooses...

• Jonathan Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design. Turn to page 10.
• Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. Turn to page 11.
• Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Operating Officer. Turn to page 12.
• Bill Gates, Super Rich Dude. Turn to page 13.
• Yourself, Super Poor Dude. Turn to page 14.

Choose Your Own Adventure is property of CYOA.com.

Wall Street analysts estimate that Jobs, regarded as a perfectionist product visionary who has resuscitated Apple's business, adds some $20 billion to Apple's market capitalization. Apple's stock price, down 5 percent in after-hours trading, is expressing fears that genteel reporters can't: Could an ever-worsening illness have led Jobs to cancel his annual Macworld keynote?

Jobs underwent major surgery in 2004 to treat pancreatic cancer. Since then, he's believed to have suffered complications which led to his gaunt appearance — an illness Apple's top flack, Katie Cotton, brazenly lied about.

Apple's official story: Trade shows are a boring, outdated form of marketing, and Apple has better ways to reach consumers. But Jobs made Macworld anything but boring through his theatrical unveilings. They caused such a frenzy that bloggers made an art of reporting on his every word in real time.

I don't expect Apple to comment on Jobs's health. He has made it clear he thinks it's nobody's business, calling New York Times columnist Joe Nocera a "slime bucket" for daring to ask. The stock market is giving voice to an impolitic concern: What will Apple look like without Steve Jobs?

Instead of Jobs, delivering this year's supposedly final Macworld keynote is Phil Schiller, Apple's senior VP of worldwide product marketing.

While we have confirmed this information with Apple, what this means for WWDC or town halls is unknown. We had predicted that Steve Jobs was preparing his farewell following his highly de-centered introduction of the new MacBooks. At the very, very best, this is another step in that direction, preparing the world for an Apple without Steve. We don't really want to think about the worst.

But we have to. This sudden, dramatic announcement says to some, loudly and unfortunately clearly, that Jobs' health has taken a significant dive since his appearance introducing the new MacBooks. One theory might be that Jobs had to step down one day, and while we noticed a transition towards other execs at Apple events, starting this fall, a true control freak would want to step down on his own terms before something like health required them to do it without any say in the matter. That's one theory. But there are far better ways to do this. The best way being Jobs finishing his long career of on stage presentations by giving the last and final Macworld Keynote presentation in person. There's not really any reason why they wouldn't have planned it this way. At least a brief, headlining appearance Jobs, followed by a team effort announcing new products—if for no other reason than to dispel the alarm that's already shaking the internet, but also to make the transition even smoother.

What's Wrong With Macworld?
There are other possibilities besides illness, we suppose. Is it a decline in the confidence and importance of Macworld? Also possible, but let's remember this is where Apple launched the iPhone, its most important product since the iPod, and this past year, the MacBook Air, which set the tone for its notebooks for the rest of the year. True, this year's rumored products—an updated Mac mini (plausible), iPhone nano (stupid) and tablet/netbook (dream on) aren't mind-blowing, but still. What we have seen happen in the last few years is Apple use the internet and their marketing dollars to reach the mainstream without the mainstream press. They probably don't need Macworld or that major expense, even if Apple can afford it. Apple's launched plenty of product at Cupertino HQ recently and they've all done well, and on Apple's own timetable. (Macworld is in January, at the slump of the retail world's cycle.)

Money, Money, Money
So why not announce a full retirement, if he is too ill to continue—a possibility if he's too ill to show up on stage? This opaque announcement is more mysterious, and uncertainties tend to be more troubling than truths, even hard ones. Apple stock hasn't quite felt the impact, only down 5 points in after hours trading, but if Steve really is worth $20 billion to Apple's market cap, once the news spreads, expect it to plummet further, faster. An iPhone delay rumor might knock off a few billion, but the suddenly realer than ever possibility Apple's wizard-in-chief really is about to fade into the night—something that spooked traders even when Jobs actually did make an appearance—is an even more drastic event. In the long run, Jobs handing over the reigns is a GOOD thing to start doing now, to reduce dependence of the stock price on one man alone. If Steve leaves the day to day entirely, the only way any one is going to have confidence in the company is if they see and feel other executives have been in place for awhile. Like Ballmer taking over for Gates, a transition that took years upon years, Apple would be dumb to start this process late. And incredibly dumb to do so on the leader's deathbed, as the world is now speculating.

Who's Next?
And why Phil Schiller? Why not the man most likely to wear the crown, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who resembles Jobs more than anyone else at Apple? If Steve Jobs was retiring, why wouldn't he announce his retirement himself? Or have his immediate successor do it? All questions we'll have to wait until Macworld to get answers to, unless Apple's iron secrecy dissolves in this apparent crisis moment. Another one: If a transition isn't what's happening here, but Steve is too ill to appear in public, how is he possibly well enough run Apple from behind the scenes? Why wouldn't he make the transition more smooth if at all possible, gradually transferring power to his chosen successor. An opaque announcement—that Apple had to have known would spark this speculative frenzy is NOT the optimal way to do this.

Timing
The timing of this whole thing is really off, too, in more ways than one. News that you want buried, you drop on Friday, not Tuesday, which is actually the optimal day for the MOST coverage. Also, if Steve Jobs is in fact retiring, the best, most controlling way to do announce this would be at Macworld, Apple's final Macworld, without this back-handed press release sending the press (us) into a frenzy before the fact. This seems like the worst way, but there are other paths that even crappier, which is likely why they're doing it this way: him appearing seriously ill on stage, or worst of worsts, dying before Macworld. Which if the latter were the tragic case, it's unlikely, given how (very rightly) guarded he is about his health, that Steve would announce its imminence. Maybe burying news would have seemed weak, and so Apple launched this on Tuesday in an unflinching message of bravado. Crazy, but this is a cult we're talking about.

The Next iThingies?
Even supposing the worst of all possible scenarios, we don't think this will change Apple's roadmap, at least not for the immediate future—products have to be designed and engineered way in advance, so 2009's slate is likely already completely mapped out, so even if Jobs does leave Apple soon, his direct hand will be felt in Apple products for at least the next year, if not longer. (That's even assuming too much; just because he's not presenting doesn't mean he's actually stepping down day to day.) And undoubtedly, his impact and legacy will endure far beyond that. Lack of product is a possible but unlikely thing to happen in the near future, specifically Macworld. Maybe the fact they have an uberproduct in the wings is a good counterbalance to losing Steve's presentation skills? But then again, one way to look at it is that the Macworld cycle is, again, broken, and Apple has nothing to present this year and Jobs won't get on stage for that. So, just as likely, if not more so than health issues, is that Apple simply has no amazing product to present at Macworld, so they're sending the B-team to present it, conveniently broadcasting the irrelevance of Macworld at the same time. The possibilities are endless.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling reiterates the irrelevance of Macworld as the rationale for their pullout, saying that ""It doesn't make sense for us to make a major investment in a trade show we will no longer be attending." But it still doesn't address why Steve won't speak at the final big show.

The End of an Era
So maybe this is the real announcement at this year's Macworld, the one everyone knew would come one day, though it doesn't make any less shocking.

More on this very topic:

• Steve Jobs Skipping Final Macworld Apple Keynote
• How the News of a Job-less Keynote Was Forced Out
• Valleywag: Control freak Steve Jobs's chaotic Macworld no-show news
• Will Trade Shows Survive?
• On Steve Jobs-less Keynote: Sometimes I Hate It When I'm Right
• Do You Think Steve Jobs Is Retiring Very Soon?
• Is Steve Jobs Preparing His Farewell?
• The Quiet Man Who May Become Apple King

Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld

CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year's Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple's last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.
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 Apple's 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 has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its
award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CEO Mike Kisseberth has eliminated a number of senior managers in the last three months, including the publisher of Macworld, director of consumer marketing for PC World, and the senior director of marketing for PC World.

Carroll was promoted to the position in April 2007, shortly before CNET veteran Kisseberth replaced IDG CEO Bob Carrigan, who was serving as acting CEO of the PC World/Macworld group. Hopefully Carroll won't take too much of the advertising business for the magazines that he oversaw with him.

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(Photo by Davity Dave)

A Brief History of the Reality Distortion Field

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• Steve Jobs and his Reality Distortion Field: Apparently the Star Trekly-esque named Bud Tribble was working on a software project for Apple in 1981, and thought he had been given an unrealistic ten-month schedule from inception to ship date. When asked why he didn't just ask Steve to change it, he reportedly said "Well, it's Steve. Steve insists that we're shipping in early 1982, and won't accept answers to the contrary. The best way to describe the situation is a term from Star Trek. Steve has a reality distortion field." Although it turns out no one could find a connection between that term and Star Trek, and thus a legend was born.
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• The Scramble Suits from A Scanner Darkly: In Phillip K. Dick's novel about drug addiction and the paranoid world on both sides of that issue, government narcotics agents wear "scramble suits" that change every aspect of the reader, shifting at a moment's notice so that people looking at someone wearing one will never be able to tell what they look like. In the novel they shift extremely quickly, but they slowed it down in the movie to show how they work. They alter your voice as well, making you the most visible invisible man/woman around: they scramble reality for everyone except you.
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• The Matrix in The Matrix: Nothing distorts reality more than entire system of machines set up to grow you from a fetus, nurture you, and feed your brain signals that tell it you're growing up normal inside a world that doesn't exist. As Morpheus says, "It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Sounds pretty distorty to us, although if they decided to make us some sort of science fiction superstar inside this simulation, we probably wouldn't mind. Then you'd all be invited to the rad parties we'd throw.
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• The Holodeck in Star Trek: Seriously, we could never understand why people just didn't stay on the holodeck 24/7. Sure, it's technically "not real," but it does everything you'd want a real world to do. You've got an entire library of billions and billions of option of things to simulate, plus you can even disable the security protocols making it possible to actually die while you pretend you're inside Alice in Wonderland. It's like a portable Matrix To Go (tm), so how did they ever manage to get any work done with one of these things around?
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• The world of They Live: You can blame our current obsession with this film on the fact that it's been showing up on cable a lot lately, but there's something about this Roddy Piper/John Carpenter film that makes it hard to hate. In their world, an alien signal is being beamed out that makes humans as complacent as cattle, and stops them from seeing the aliens as they actually are. Thankfully, Roddy gets some magic glasses that help him kick ass and thwart the fugly aliens. Although in retrospect, they just wanted to make him rich. Was that so bad?
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Image above from the Joy of Tech website. Full version can be seen here.

We're very excited about these new products and we think our customers will be too, so we wanted to kick off 2008 by getting them into our customers' hands as soon as possible. They're both available starting today.

Yeah, I figured I'd get that answer. What does this mean for the Keynote? Are they getting the proc bumps out of the way just to make room for the sexy new designs and devices made from scratch? Only The Steve knows. And whatever the answer, one thing is clear. These releases are only the tip of the iceberg.

A big part of the fun of Apple events past was watching the tech press get totally end-run by Jobs and company. Four Macworlds ago, analysts promised nothing but price cuts for the recession. Reporters rumormongered a story buried somewhere in CNET's archives: The new gadget would be "a portable multimedia device, less than one inch thick." Correct if they meant a one-inch thick supersize, metal-skinned, $3,300 PowerBook. Oh, and a 12" Mini-Me version, too. Surpriiiiise!

The other part of the fun was writing about stuff readers could actually order, instead of rewriting long-term promises for, say, Intel's now-forgotten Viiv. The dual thrill of liveblogging a Stevenote was (a) letting 2 million fellow fanboys in on the show, and (b) hitting reload on the Apple Store in another browser window so I could order mine first.

No luck today. Steve hauled out a TV box we'd seen already but can't have yet, and a phone for which we can only "sign up to learn more." I've made a name by doing hands-on reporting about stuff that's ideally already available. If this is the new face of Macworld, I can stay home and read it on Engadget.

Funny thing is, though the biggest surprise was when Steve's clicker conked out, the press grunts here grouse about the lack of advance briefings (watch Time's reporter rub his exclusive meeting in their faces.) A few drinks into Tuesday evening south of Market Street, it's hard to avoid a boozy Macworld hack who needs to tell you that after fifteen — no wait, twenty years following this industry, he can totally fucking assure you my friend that this is what happened today:

• The iPhone and Apple TV are late products the company couldn't keep secret any more.
• Bloggers have destroyed Steve's leash on the God damned media.
• Those wet-nosed brats at Google leaked. He had to decloak, he had to.
• Jobs needs the buzz ASAP to save himself from this stock options ... this .... fiasco! He's a disgrace to the company that built the computer I saved up my pennies to buy back in — [Bartender, cut my friend off, ok?]

Here's what's really going on. Apple isn't competing with Microsoft anymore, or with Dell or with white-box PC makers. The former Apple Computer is now just Apple , a consumer electronics company. The consumer electronics industry already has its own calendar. Sales are geared up for Christmas, followed by next year's new product previews first week of January. Even His Steveness can't buck the schedule.

If Apple were starting from scratch in 2007 we'd have gotten the iPhone demo onstage in Vegas today. But over the years Jobs has garnered a hugely disproportionate mob of fanboys in the tech press (guilty as charged, Jack) who'll fly to Frisco for the occasion, at the expense of skipping part or all of the consumer electronics industry's Super Bowl.

Why unveil the iPhone today instead of June? Because the competition are doing the same thing, same day as they've done every year with their own infuriating "sign up to learn more" preview campaigns. By holding his own mini-CES 500 miles away, Jobs literally stole the show. As I sit here typing in a sulk, an NPR stringer in Vegas just messaged, "CES is dead because iphone is all that mattered today. there is a mood of — like everyone here went to the wrong party."

I hate to say it, but: Genius.

To be precise, they're 1.5 pixels off from being a perfect 16 to 9, but whatever. More likely Cupertino's perfectionist artists wanted to make it look exactly right to human eyes. I hesitate to go against the rumor mill, but where are home consumers spending most of their money now? On big-screen TVs that say Phillips, Sony, Panasonic — every logo but Apple's in the most sacred spot in the house.

There's no business like show business, especially for Steve Jobs. While other execs don suits and read from slides, or hire superstars to mask their own dullness, Jobs takes the stage like a leopard in jeans and black turtleneck. He strides the full stage front to back, side to side. He never seems to be reading his lines, yet rarely fumbles a word. Jobs invites Hollywood celebs onstage as his pals, and makes clear other CEOs are mere understudies. His energy and fervor are contagious: In an hour, he'll have you shuffling mortgage payments to buy the new Mac. If you've never caught his act, it's worth the campout.

What's Steve going to show this time? The 100-to-1 rumor is that Apple finally has a phone ready to go. Don't call it an iPhone — it's more likely an iPod-branded phone. Digg founder Kevin Rose, who's been right with the rumors before, says "it's small as shit" and has two separate batteries — one for playback, one for phone calls.

Apple's magic-show events are the exact opposite of the approach Microsoft used to market its iPod-fighting Zune media player and OS X-alike Vista operating system. Instead of a Big Bang unveiling, Redmond marketers spent months ahead of time planting preview articles, reaching out to influencers, flying bloggers to meet Bill Gates and giving them pricey "review units" — treatment once reserved for The Wall Street Journal.

In theory it was Cluetrain marketing, but in practice the transparent campaign gave would-be customers months to build expectations their Zunes couldn't meet upon arrival. By the time the product was available, buyers' urge to splurge had evaporated. After seeing Jobs pull a Nano from his pocket in 2005 — minutes after Motorola and Cingular execs had shown their awkward ROKR phone — it's hard to imagine why Microsoft didn't likewise spring Zune on an unsuspecting world. If wowed consumers had been able to snag one the same day, they might've given it a chance.

To be fair, Microsoft needs to get partners mobilized months before the product ships, which makes it hard to keep a secret. Apple's self-contained business model only needs you to show up and buy. A surprise launch is not only possible, it's a better sell capped with Steve's exhilarating kicker: "And it's available ... TODAY."

The best Apple launches shock even insiders with gadgets that defy expectations. The original iMac. The iPod. The 17" aluminum laptop. The flat-panel iMac. The Nano. But Jobs' last two shows were letdowns. Intel Macs ... finally. An iTunes player for your TV ... next year. Steve's rock-star glow was missing, as if he wasn't that stoked about what he had to show. It was as if he had something much bigger that wasn't ready.

Until now. The iPhone rumor is almost too ubiquitous, too unchallenged. Apple PR elves calling tech reporters sound higher-pitched, more urgent than usual. Check out the He-Is-Risen imagery splashed across Apple's home page this week. Get the message? Tuesday isn't Christmas, it's Easter. Fifteen months ago, Apple packed reporters into a room to show them an iTunes phone — and launched the Nano instead. After two years of iPhone hype, it'll be lame next week if Steve only whips out what everyone expects. More likely, he's got "One more thing..."

I'm all ferklempt, talk amongst yourselves. Topic: Is Apple presenter Phil Schiller wearing the most hideous onstage outfit you've ever seen at an Apple conference? Discuss.

Video highlights from WWDC 2006 [Macworld]