Sources: Apple never planned live stream from Macworld

Rumors that Apple may have axed live coverage of Steve Jobs\' opening Macworld keynote are bunk, AppleInsider has learned.

Apple\'s decision not to broadcast chief executive Steve Jobs\' keynote presentation during next week\'s Macworld Expo was likely a result of pre-determined plans, and was not in retaliation to spoiled surprises, extremely reliable company sources said on Friday.

According to sources, live webcast video streams of events such as Jobs\' keynote presentations, on average, are costly and yield few benefits to Apple as a company. As a result, in recent years Apple has scaled back on realtime webcasts in favor post-event video-on-demand steams, which reportedly costs the company much less.

Additionally, industry sources claim that preparations for live webcasts with mass appeal typically must be made well in advance of the event. Company sources believe such arrangements were never part of Apple\'s Macworld to-do list.

Sources further cite post-event streams and authorized product pages and press releases as more favorable avenues of news distribution for Apple — eliminating the chaos and potential misinterpretations of news reported through Mac websites from realtime feeds.

\"It\'s likely that we won\'t again see realtime event webcasts from Apple for the foreseeable future,\" said one informed source. \"But this is not an indication that [Apple\'s] apparent decision not to stream this year\'s Macworld keynote resulted from recent media reports, nor was it a last minute decision.\"

87 Comments

macfandave

said about 18 years ago

One word: Pay-Per-View

Like jack-o-lantern and mother-in-law are single words. I'd bet a lot of us Mac fans would pony up a few bucks for the privilege (all the financial types would be "investing" in the up-to-the-minute info).

Of course, the true faithful have paid thousands to be there live, but some of us just can't do it.

And, face it, even the worst Keynote in the past few years was not a disappointing as most Mike Tyson fights.

gyc

said about 18 years ago

I expect that there will be a lot of iSights at the keynote. :-)

messiahtosh

said about 18 years ago

I still expect the keynote to be broadcast via satellite.

Just to note, the 2004 MacWorld quicktime stream link is no longer working from Apple's site of Apple Events. The link is there but does not work.

deestar

said about 18 years ago

Quote:

Originally posted by macFanDave
One word: Pay-Per-View

Like jack-o-lantern and mother-in-law are single words. I'd bet a lot of us Mac fans would pony up a few bucks for the privilege (all the financial types would be "investing" in the up-to-the-minute info).

Of course, the true faithful have paid thousands to be there live, but some of us just can't do it.

And, face it, even the worst Keynote in the past few years was not a disappointing as most Mike Tyson fights.

If not paperview it could be a nice extra feature of the .mac subscription.

fraeone

said about 18 years ago

This is such a bummer. As for logistics, Gates' CES Keynote on 1/3/2005 was live broadcast. With rumors that he would introduce Xbox2, combined with MS' userbase, I have to imagine the CES stream was far more costly to provide.

That being said, a Media Center 05 box locked up on him, and their new xbox racing game, Forza BSOD'd during the demo. If anything, Jobs may be afraid of similar snafus.