They are the reason Apple's shares leaped out of the box at the opening bell Tuesday.
Jobs at Macworld 2007
The key words in the press release Apple (AAPL) issued Tuesday morning were not OS X Lion, iOS 5, or iCloud -- the three components of what the company is billing as the "next generation software."
As important as the operating systems and services to be unveiled next week at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference may be, they had already been telegraphed to investors and baked into Apple's share price. In fact, one of the reasons given for the stock's lackluster performance lately had been that these software advances -- and not a new iPhone -- were all that Apple was planning to showcase at WWDC.
No, the four words that set the Street's hardened hearts aflutter -- and Apple's share price soaring nearly 2% in early morning trading -- were "Steve Jobs" and "keynote address." [The stock closed at $347.83, up $10.42 (3.09%) for the day.]
The news here is that Jobs, who is on medical leave, is well enough to give the keynote and that he feels what Apple is introducing is important enough to be given the Steve Jobs imprimatur.
What makes a Jobsian keynote different from any other presentation by any other CEO?
It helps that he generally delivers the goods in terms of new products with real impact. But he also works hard to deliver them with some drama and flair. Insiders say he prepares his product introductions as if they were Broadway shows. The format is deceptively simple: a setup, a twist, and a big reveal. It's actually surprising that no other high-tech luminary seems to have mastered the form.
To give you a feel for what's involved, check out the first 4:47 minutes of one of Jobs' signature performances: the January 2007 Macworld keynote at which he introduced the iPhone.
Reports that Apple had announced he will be speaking at WWDC turn out to be a year out of date.
Source: GigaOM
In what may be a record for the number of crossed-out words in a single item, GigaOM's Charles Jade has retracted nearly everything he posted Tuesday morning, admitting shamefacedly that he "mistakenly referenced a [year] old press release."
His original post, quoting an official Apple (AAPL) announcement "highlighting Steve Jobs MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 24, 2011 12:42 PM ET
On YouTube, you can find his iPhone 4 keynote boiled down to a length to fit your needs
Source: RonaldsThings
If you like to know what Steve Jobs is up to but don't have the time -- or the attention span -- to watch the full-length, 1 hour and 53 minute version of his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote that Apple (AAPL) posted on its website, don't despair.
Thanks to a 21-year-old Estonian MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 9, 2010 6:57 AM ET
The pressure is on Apple's CEO to surprise and amaze the tech world on Monday
Steve Jobs at WWDC '08. Photo: Apple Inc.
"You won't be disappointed," wrote Steve Jobs a few weeks ago in one of his cryptic -- and increasingly frequent -- e-mail pronouncements.
This one was in response to a fan concerned that Apple's (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference, which Jobs will kick off with a keynote address, had been MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 5, 2010 5:23 PM ET
The Apple (AAPL) keynote Bingo game -- brilliantly parodied in the famous 2008 IBM buzzword ad (pasted below the fold) -- has become a fanboy tradition, although as far as we know nobody has ever interrupted a Steve Jobs presentation to shout "Bingo!"
Marketing senior vice president Phil Schiller, not Jobs, is scheduled to give the keynote at this year's World Wide Developers Conference Monday, but that hasn't stopped the Bingo MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 7, 2009 6:34 AM ET
This is a live blog of the valedictory keynote Steve Jobs decided not to give -- sending Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller to Macworld 2009 in his place.
Schiller's remarks began shortly after 9 a.m PST (12 noon EST),
Posts are listed in reverse order, with the latest posts on top. All times are a.m. PST.
The headlines: Expectations were low, but even those were largely unmet. There was no Steve Jobs MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 6, 2009 11:00 AM ET
"And this is exactly what we're going to try to do in 2008, our first full year on the market. Is grab 1% market share, and go from there." -- Steve Jobs, Macworld 2007
There's been a lot of confusion about what Jobs meant when he set that sales target for the iPhone in January 2007. The giant screen behind him showed "10M units" -- 10 million being roughly 1% of MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 7, 2008 10:30 AM ET
The following is a live blog from Steve Jobs' keynote from the great hall at Moscone West. It started just after 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) and ended at 11:50 a.m. PT. Apple's press release is now available here; you can watch the event in QuickTime or MPEG-4 here.
The posts that follow are in reverse-chronological order, most recent first.
11:45 a.m. Wrapping it up. Steve Jobs just announced the big MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 9, 2008 8:59 AM ET
To set the stage for Steve Jobs' June 9 keynote, Leigh McMullen of Wired.com's Cult of Mac has done a brave and lovely thing: he's created a multimedia time line of nearly every keynote since Jobs' return to Apple (AAPL) in 1997.
Lovely because McMullen's tiptoe through time is so nicely laid out, generously annotated with historical video clips of Steve Jobs -- growing steadily more wizened -- as introduces everything MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 7, 2008 2:14 PM ET
The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) that opens Monday morning in San Francisco would be a relatively obscure technical gathering of programmers and IT administrators - with sessions on "Advances in OpenGL" and "What's New in Objective-C" - were it not for one thing.
Steve Jobs.
The keynote address that Apple's CEO is scheduled to give starting at 10 am Pacific Time (1 pm ET) is perhaps the second most closely watched MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 6, 2008 3:26 PM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Intel Corp | 26.73 | -0.43 | -1.58% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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