Despite some interesting new products, there was a collective "huh?" rumbling across the blogosphere yesterday after Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote. Why? Much for the same reason that many give Apple kudos for--the secrecy.
Here's the thing. Apple has done so well delivering some innovative products over the last couple years, such as the iPhone, that people expect a lot from Apple. Lots more. In fact, they are ahead of the Apple curve in their thinking. Why? Because with all this secrecy Apple is unable to set expectations. And even if they did try to set things straight by leaking some details here and there, who would believe them? There's so much fake leaked material racing across the Internet. It's become a favorite 15-minute fame game. Who can Photoshop the most realistic Apple subnotebook? Who can list the specs of the as of yet next gen iPhone? The noise level is getting awfully high--and messy.
There were some differences this year though that may have played into this. It appears that many of the prime products mentioned in the keynote had been leaked before the official announcements--at least in part. We didn't know the specifics, but we'd learned that there was to be a new thin, 13" notebook. We had learned that Apple was going to rent out movies. We had learned that the iPhone was going to get a refresh.
Maybe it was partially the fact that these details were leaked that many started dreaming further. There was chatter about a Tablet Mac. There was talk about 3G and WiMax. There was talk about a sub-notebook. All of these would have been leading, ultra-cool products. But none were to be found, which created a deflating sigh of disappointment.
This is the problem with keeping things secret--or should I say semi-secret. People dream. And rarely can you surpass the expectations of those dreams.
Remember when Microsoft's Origami was pre-announced via a sparsely worded website? People dreamed. And the dreams raced past what was to ultimately arrive.
Yes, there was a great spike of traffic at the time. There was a lot of news coverage and chatter. However, I'd argue it all led up to a collective sigh. It wasn't that the product was bad. It was that people got ahead of it. That's the challenge.
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