The Channel Wire

July 30, 2009

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reportedly been tapped to keynote next year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but it's still open to interpretation whether Apple will even have a presence at the event.

CES CEO Gary Shapiro has reportedly reached out to Jobs, asking him to keynote CES 2010 in January and, so far, Jobs hasn't returned his calls, The Wall Street Journal reported. Not only that, but no one at Apple has reached out to Shapiro.

Apple is expected to attend CES, the annual Las Vegas who's who of consumer electronics, marking the first time ever Apple will make an appearance, according to the Journal story.

Were Jobs to accept Shapiro's keynote invitation, which The WSJ said was revealed during a journalists' dinner with Shapiro, the Apple head would be in some elite company. Other industry big dogs like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Intel CEO Paul Otellini have already signed on to take the CES 2010 stage.

But if Shapiro is saying Apple will be in attendance at CES 2010, then why the questions around whether or not the tech giant will really make an appearance?

Former Engadget editor Ryan Block was at the same dinner as The Journal and said neither Apple nor Jobs will be showing up at CES 2010. Block said The Journal account was "specious and flatly wrong" and an Apple appearance at CES is highly unlikely.

"Bottom line, though, is that if Gary [Shapiro] had even gotten remotely close to implying Apple would be at CES, this shoddily sourced piece by [The Journal] wouldn't have been the earliest story with the scoop nearly 24 hours after the fact -- laptops would been immediately out for reports filed from the dinner table," Block wrote on Engadget.

Rumors of Apple's and Jobs' CES 2010 presence comes months after Apple revealed it would pull out of the MacWorld Expo because trade shows are becoming a "very minor part" of how the company targets customers, opting to engage its user base thorugh retail stores and the Web. Apple has also said it engages customers at its own events, like its Worldwide Developers Conference, which has been Apple's annual launching pad for new products ranging from Macs to iPhones.