Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

In today’s podcast (RSS feed available here), my friend Shawn King at Your Mac Life states that a little birdie from Apple told him why the keynote won’t be webcast this year.

It’s not anything sinister. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s not the angry hand of Steve coming down to punish Mac users for the transgressions of rumor sites. It’s a simpler, more common sense reason.

The reason for this year’s webcast absence is to allow Apple to better control the story after the keynote. Steve will leave the stage and begin interviews with major media outlets very soon after, putting his, and hence, Apple’s, spin on whatever new announcements were just made.

If Apple feels it necessary to take this level of control over announcements, if Apple wants Steve doing some hard-core pimping after the keynote, if Apple wants to set a particular tone in the mainstream media about its announcements, you can reasonably infer that something substantial is going to be revealed.

Webcasting the keynote takes money, personnel, time, attention… Perhaps all of these resources are better directed at the presentation itself rather than a live webcast. As Shawn points out, other keynotes such as WWDC, Paris Expo, the U2 iPod announcement and other special events, are all streamed on a delay. Waiting a few additional hours for your RDF exposure won’t hurt.