CES used to be the biggest tech event of the year. Every January, almost 5,000 companies and 180,000 people descended on Las Vegas, for the biggest industry trade show in the world. Every electronics company you’ve ever heard of is there, along with thousands of others that you haven’t. Except for Apple, and that matters a lot.
Apple never had a booth at CES. Instead, the company would offer a keynote at the annual Macworld Expo, an event dedicated to all things Mac. iTunes, Safari, the Mac mini, and even the iPhone all saw their debut at various Macworld events. It was at the Macworld in 2007 that Steve Jobs said the company would be changing its name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc.
Steve Jobs: So, we’re announcing today, we’re dropping the “Computer” from our name, and from this day forward, we’re going to be known as Apple Incorporated.
Matt Stuart: Apple stopped presenting at Macworld in 2009. Instead choosing to put on their own events, like the annual September keynote that introduces the new iPhone. Meanwhile, other companies continued to debut their new products for the year at CES. Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft, and many other companies all used that week in January to show off all their new offerings. If it had any sort of combination of wires, batteries, a screen, or used the internet, it probably debuted at CES. And that began to become a problem.
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