I was at the dinner, too, and there was much discussion of the question of whether Apple might ever exhibit at the show. But as Ryan says, Shapiro specifically said that the company hadn’t booked any space, and that it was too late for it to buy a large booth at next year’s show anyhow. If Charny found evidence that Apple is going to “attend” CES in any sense other than sending one or more staffers to Vegas to walk around the show floor and see what the competition is up to, it’s news to CES.

As for the WSJ’s headline–”Will Apple CEO Headline CES ‘10?”–the answer would appear to be “It seems really unlikely.” Shapiro said that the CEA has invited Jobs to give a CES keynote for years, and that the Apple CEO has never expressed any interest in doing so.

I’m sure that CES would be ecstatic if Jobs suddenly agreed to keynote its event. But Shapiro said that CES likes keynotes which provide vision for the entire industry and which aren’t too self-promotional. Jobs keynotes, of course, are always profoundly Apple-centric (often snarking at other companies) and focused around products the company is about to release. And Apple decided to pull out of Macworld Expo in part because it didn’t like having to schedule product releases around somebody else’s trade show in early January.

As Apple said in its press release announcing it was saying goodbye to Macworld:

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.

That doesn’t mean that the chances of Apple taking a newfound interest in CES are zero. But they’re way, way less than those of the company spending the same money it would have invested in a major CES presence in its own event in the same general timeframe…

[UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle's Ryan Kim, who was also at the dinner, not only chimes in but provides a transcript of Gary Shapiro's comments about Apple and CES.]

[FURTHER UPDATE: The bit about Apple attending CES is now gone from the WSJ story, which now starts with a correction: "It is not clear whether Apple will attend the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. This post previously stated that Apple would attend." Seems to me that all evidence--such as Apple's failure to book show space--still suggests that it's not unclear, but unlikely, that it'll be there.]

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But it’s not just as a courtesy that we press people are normally let into such speeches–media coverage is one of the primary reasons why they exist. It’s impossible, for instance, to imagine a scenario in which Steve Jobs keynotes at Macworld Expo or Bill Gates ones at CES were anything but publicity extravaganzas designed to attract as much media attention as possible.

Also, as Segan pointed out, the auditorium where Segan pointed out would have been bulging with folks who could have blogged the event (with photos) from their phones if they chose. In the era of citizen journalism, the only way to truly keep journalists away from a speech would be to bar citizens from attending. You’d Gore–the co-founder of citizen-journalism TV channel Current, not to mention a former newspaper reporter–would understand that.

Besides, it’s not as if Gore hasn’t made plenty of remarks at tech-related events that were open to the media. I first saw him do so (via a special video) at the SIGGRAPH graphics show a couple of decades ago. And here’s fuzzy photographic proof that I’ve encountered him twice in the past five months alone (at the Web 2.0 Summit and Google’s Google Earth launch):

(Actually, come to think of it, maybe it’s photos like those that lead Gore to be publicity-shy.)

Anyhow, Gore has apparently thought better of the whole thing: the CTIA announced today that Gore will let members of the media into his talk after all. Good news. I’ll have left CTIA by the time he appears on April 3rd, but I’m happy for my fellow reporters–and, more important, for everybody out there who’d like to attend the conference but can’t, and will therefore rely on press coverage to learn what happened.

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What say you? Time for a quick T-Poll…

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I’ve been to plenty of Jobs Macworld Expo keynotes since that 1997 one, and if they’re indeed a thing of the past I’m going to miss them. We do have the memories, though–and, thanks to YouTube, we have plenty of video documentation of the Jobs reality-distortion field at work. Here are highlights from most of the Expo keynotes since 1997. (I don’t include any of the many Stevenotes that weren’t attached to Macworld Expos here, but I blogged some of them as well as most of these clips last year at my old PC World blog.)

Return with me now to the Jobs keynote in Boston I ignored at the time, won’t you? Right after the jump, that is…

1997, Boston: Apple “iCEO” Jobs talks about the Apple-Microsoft alliance and gets booed (!!!):

1998, New York: Attendees got both a faux Steve (actor Noah Wyle, who’d played Steve in a TV movie to Anthony Michael Hall’s Bill Gates) and the real deal:

1999, New York: The ugly original iBook and the invisible-but-important Airport wireless networking, the latter demoed with Phil Schiller’s help:

2000, San Francisco: Jobs intros OS X, compares it to Linux, explains the year-long rollout, and announces he’s sticking around as CEO:

2000, New York: Jobs introduces the G4 Cube, beloved by him and some critics (like, er, me) but rightly spurned by consumers:

2002, San Francisco: The original iMac is replaced with the adorable, short-lived “desk lamp” version:

2003, San Francisco: PowerBooks humongous and wee:

2005, San Francisco: The mostly-compromised iPod Shuffle and somewhat-compromised Mac Mini (Jobs gets the audience to applaud the latter’s lack of a bundled keyboard and mouse):

2006, San Francisco: The original MacBook Pro, the first Intel-based Apple computer:

2007, San Francisco: The holy mother of all Macworld Expo Stevenotes–the iPhone unveiling (I missed this one–I was at hosting a PC World breakfast at CES, which was held at the same time as Macworld Expo that year):

2008, San Francisco: I’m not finding much of anything but shaky handheld versions of this on YouTube. Here’s a snippet of the MacBook Air intro:

And let’s end, as Jobs so often does, with some music. From this year’s Macworld Expo San Francisco, Mr. Randy Newman:

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To quote its release:

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.

All of which is true. And it’s conceivable that it’s the whole story about Apple’s decision. But the release doesn’t tippy-toe anywhere near any of the truly interesting questions raised by this bombshell. Such as the twelve that leap to my mind–which I’ll ask after the jump.

1. Does no Jobs mean no significant product announcements? You’d think that if something like a netbook or two was on the way, Jobs would be there, if only for one swansong of a Macworld keynote. Or, in his absence, an Apple exec who’s better at creating reality-distortion fields than the pleasant-but-not-exactly-electrifying Schiller.

2. If there aren’t any significant product announcements at Macworld, does that mean no big Apple news in early 2009? I’m guessing not–Apple has proven itself entirely capable of doing keynotes (ones by Steve Jobs, at least) on its own timetable that get huge attention despite not being attached to conferences. If it’s running a bit late or has simply lost interest in Macworld Expo, it could mount a press event extravaganza of its own later in January or in February, on its own schedule.

3. Why no Steve? I don’t like talking about the man’s health, which is why I didn’t lead with this question–he deserves his privacy, and I’m no doctor. But the question will be asked. Endlessly, unless he shows up at another event soon.

4. What does this mean for Macworld Expo? I enjoy the show and know, like, and respect many of the folks involved in running it, so I hope it’s not devastating…or even fatal. But it’s terrible news for the event–a Macworld Expo without a Jobs keynote will get dramatically less attention and therefore pull in fewer exhibitors and attendees.

5. What does it mean for the Apple market? The Apple release speaks the truth when it says that trade shows don’t matter as much as they used to. But IDG would tell you that Expo is an important marketing platform for the companies (most of them very small) that sell Apple-related software, accessories, and services. And I bet many of those companies would agree, and would like to see Expo prosper.

6. Might Apple compete directly with Macworld Expo? Probably not. But it certainly could–it does an entirely competent job of running the developer-oriented WWDC conference, which is also a key event for the Apple market, and a powerful venue for Jobs keynote addresses and product introductions.

7. Why did Apple announce it won’t be at Macworld next year? Telling the world about the decision now is arguably the fairest thing to do, but it’s also probably more damaging to Macworld Expo than if the news had come out later?

8. Why did it say it’s not exhibiting again, period? It’s not often you hear a company state any decision with such finality. It’s telling the world it’s parted way with Expo forever, not that it decided to take a pass this year.

9. Actually, why did it do a press release at all? It’s a bit like holding a press conference to announce you’re divorcing your spouse.

10. When did IDG know? Did Apple give it a heads up? Even a brief one? Or did it get the news when the rest of us did?

11. Is there a backstory we don’t know about? Macworld Expo Boston was once a powerhouse event of its own, but it withered and died after it moved to New York and then back to Boston; Apple pulled out. The Apple-IDG relationship is venerable–Macworld the magazine debuted on the same day as the Mac, with Apple’s full support–but you never know what might be going on behind the scenes.

12. Have we seen the last Jobs keynote? At Macworld, apparently. But for many reasons, I hope he strides onto a stage somewhere in the near future…

(Obligatory but unnecessary full disclosure: I spent 17 years at IDG, the owner of Macworld Expo.)

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I’m in Berlin to attend this week’s IFA, a giant event that’s the European equivalent of the U.S.’s Consumer Electronics Show. And IFA has Miss IFA, who “represents the dynamic and cosmopolitan image of the IFA and the city of Berlin,” according to the show’s organizers, Messe Berlin. “She invites visitors to explore industry highlights, find out the latest information, and discover the vast range of products at one of the world’s leading trade fairs for consumer electronics, and starting in 2008, for Home Appliances.”

Miss IFA has extremely red hair, an extremely red dress, and extremely red shoes–she’s “the young lady with the fiery ginger looks,” according to Messe Berlin. She didn’t have all that much to say when she attended a press conference this afternoon, but she apparently never met a piece of consumer electronics she didn’t like. Here she is in a bunch of stock shots produced for this year’s show, some of which were taken at Berlin landmarks such as the Brandenburg Gate. (More pix after the jump.)

As mentioned above–and in contrast to CES–the IFA show includes traditional appliances as well as electronic stuff. Miss IFA is pretty enthusiastic about them, too. I’m not sure, though, what she intends to do with a clotheswasher or dishwasher in the middle of a field–or whether she intends to tidy up that field by vacuuming it…

“The new fridge-freezer combination Colorglass Edition by Bosch is delighting Miss IFA,” reads the caption to the picture below. That’s a relief–from the looks of things, I was worried that it was taken moments before she was flattened underneath it.

And just to prove that Miss IFA is indeed real, here’s my lousy photo of her working the floor at tonight’s Showstoppers press reception:

IFA is just getting underway today; I’ll report back with more news–most likely not involving Miss IFA–throughout the week. (And full disclosure: I’m here as a speaker at three sessions during the conference, and am being paid a fee for doing so.)

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