Steve Jobs : Manipulation Genius
by kurisu
So, yesterday was the opening of Apple Expo in Paris. Of course I’m sitting in front of a Mac mini thousands of kilometres away, and I couldn’t join the fun with my beloved team members.
We all know that the Stevenote was replaced by a Q&A session featuring some of the big shots of Apple. But surprisingly, the reports were scarce after said event… and I was wondering why… and then it all came together : Steve Jobs is just grand at manipulating people and events…
Apparently, the Mac press was not invited to participate to the conference… only the big local press was invited to ask His Majesty questions.
What better way to avoid questions you do not want to answer ? This is freaking brilliant : invite a bunch of journalists that don’t know squat about what really interests the die-hard Mac users, make them feel like they are given privileged access, and answer with a bunch of empty marketing ready-made sentences. At the end of the session, the journalists feel satisfied with stuff like “we will protect our 99 cents iTunes Store scheme” or “the iPod is the greatest actor since sliced bread” (ahhh Sliced Bread… a very moving performance in “Breakfast at 6″…) and the ever-cool “music is big, dude !”, Mr Jobs looks like a hero for flying to Paris just for the event, Bob’s your uncle and everyone is happy.
Later on, walk around the Expo, look interested, drop-by the Sony stand for some fun pictures holding a Sony mp3 player and there you have it : another successfully dodged bullet.
I cannot believe that guy could make such a fuss about his mere presence with yet so little to announce or divulge ! I mean yeah, I got 1GB of space on my .mac account ! yoohoo ! more space to fill a dead-slow iDisk.
This has got to be the greatest waste of time in any such event this year. Man… this guy knows how to buy time !
Bravo…. bravo I say !
September 26th, 2005 at 18:30 CEST
Hey:
I had the chance to be there at my first Apple Xpo ever, by a very gentle courtesy of a very good friend. However, gotta say I felt so disappointed that almost limit to depression. Nothing new under the sun. I agree this was a very weak Xpo and the Jobs’ presence in Paris was no more than a complete show to make smoke curtains over the awful truth: Apple had nothing really powerful to show this time. Is the nano iPod, the .Mac Update and the iTunes phne enough stuff to make a Keynote.
As the PR Jobs is, I am sure his presence in Paris was more a marketing show.
I join your bravoes!!