Last year Apple stunned, excuse the pun, the Mac world and announced it would no longer attend Macworld Expo or any other trade show event effective after Macworld 2009. Many reasons circulated why Apple would make such an incredible decision with most boiling down to expense. Apple didn’t need trade shows, trade shows needed Apple was the governing thought. While that may be true — Macworld 2010 attendance and vendor participation will reveal that answer — there really is more to the reason for Apple’s ignoring the industry standards of dog and pony shows. Three words: Steve Jobs ego.

It’s no new news to make reference to the iCEOs audacity as folklore is strong when concerning Jobs character. Apple does like to put spin on things no matter what the announcement and when it told the world that it was removing itself from the trade show circuit due to cost and the desire not to be forced for product release dates, it sounded “about right” on the surface. However, one has to scratch their head and wonder why not even a year after that announcement, Apple declared to the world, in a building on the same block Macworld is held, the iPad. Okay, so it must have been the cost thingy, right? Well, maybe, but for a company with tens of billions — ya, billions — of dollars in cash, this argument doesn’t seem that valid, either.

Digging deeper into the iPad launch, one finds many interesting facts. First, the gathering was by invite only. A typical Apple strategy. Second, only well known organizations received these invites. Third, the hands-on demonstration was limited, for example CNET was only allowed to have three of its members take a look at the device to prevent “inner cross-over”. Lastly, the public was visibly forced out and prevented from entry. In the end, Steve Jobs ran the show from start to finish down to who was allowed to sit in the halls of his majesty. Plain and simple, Steve is a control freak and he couldn’t command what IDG did with Macworld Expo. So, he pulled Apple out of it.

There are many examples of Steve’s ego getting in the way of catching a bit closer to Apple-related “stuff” such as when he pulled the less than flattering biography iCon from Apple Stores world wide. The stories are extensive how Apple would fail during Jobs’ day-to-day absence during his liver ordeal of 2008/2009. Since Jobs micro-managed everything, down to what color ties his lieutenants could wear (just kidding on the last one…I think) no one thought Apple had a chance without Jobs running the ship. Really, it does not take much to run the case for Apple leaving Macworld because Jobs doesn’t like how he can’t run the show.

I’m on record for loving Apple and its products and I admit many of the reasons I came back to Apple in 2001 was because of the many great things Jobs brought to Apple. Yet, I am also very vocal about what a pompous jerk Steve Jobs is, as well. From suing blogs due to printing leaked information and talking about how they are “breaking the law”, and yet he forgets about all those free long distance calls he made in the 70s using Woz’s Blue Box as well as “ripping off” Xerox PARCs mouse and GUI for the original Mac, to naming his company similar to the then worlds most popular record label and then telling companies with iPod-like names today to “change your name, it’s simple enough;” it’s tough to accept Jobs as the genius the world wants to paint him.

As long as Jobs has a strong product on stage with him, he’ll continue to ride his high horse with little worry of being jousted off of it. Yes, Jobs can give the pseudo finger to IDG and then show the world the iPad weeks before the revised Apple-less Macworld Expo but remember this, Steve, not all empires last for ever. Rome fell and so well you. How you want to be remembered in history depends how you treat those in the present.

You know, as much fun as it is to beat up on Microsoft for all its buggy software while applauding Apple for its great user experience, one has to question if this is excuse enough to turn a blind eye at the trendy cool Cupertino-based company for its wrongs. Like Snow Leopard issues, specifically, printing. How does a company have an operating system in beta for over a year release a final product that completely breaks hundreds of printers from working? This makes little sense to me and blows me away that both Apple and HP were surprised by this development.

I was personally effected by the lack of responsiveness to print jobs on my HP LaserJet 3600n. There I was, printing just dandy in Leopard the Thursday night before I purchased Snow Leopard. Friday afternoon comes and the fairly fast completed upgraded puts me in front of a printer queue that states “Connected…” and not much more. After canceling my print job, deleting the printer, rebooting, and re-installing, the same issue occurred. This time I had patience and low and behold, three minutes later, the printer started printing! I printed another test. Again, it took 3 minutes. Every job took 3 minutes from the time it left my Mac (or did it really leave it?) After much investigation, I discovered I wasn’t alone as IT World well documented. Apple’s web site had nothing to offer other than others with the same issue posting pleas of help.

Then, HP and Apple admitted there was an issue and released an updated drive raising many “dead” and once unsupported printers back to print heaven. My 3600n, however, was not one of them. Several minutes still passed between my mouse click on the Print button and the actual print happening. More searching on the web for an answer was fruitless, forgive the pun, for my Apple. In desperation, I contacted Apple Care and even the Level 2 tech had no clue what was wrong.

Well, I went back to an old friend. Back in my OS X 10.3 days, I was forced to use open source drivers for my older HP DeskJet and once again, on a hunch, I went back to the world of better code. Guess what? Because of macosx/hpijs, I can once again print in a heartbeat.

So what’s it all mean? HP has crappy drivers and Apple did a poor job of beta testing. Dude, I’m not the only one with an HP 3600n out there. Maybe Apple needs to be less concerned about secrets and surprise and make a more general beta like Microsoft did for Windows 7. If you’re wondering, ya, my HP 3600n works fine with Microsoft’s just released OS update.

Apple announced to much excitement to developers in mid-March the ability to tap into the iPhone via its dock connector with the release of iPhone OS 3.0. Examples of uses that wooed the crowd was a blood pressure cuff when connected to the iPhone displaying a patients systolic and diastolic pressures right on the devices screen. Instantly turning the iPhone into a sphygmomanometer! Another a great app shown was an EQ controller for a speaker system (see photo) and an FM transmitter application that would find the best position on your radio for clear transmission and tune to it for iPod playback. But here we are half a year later from the announcement and a few months since the release of OS 3.0 and there’s nothing to be found of any sort in the AppStore that utilizes this ingenious feature. Nothing.

In the recent return of Steve Jobs running the dog and pony show for the Designed in Cupertino company, Apple’s iCEO positioned the iPod touch, running the iPhone OS, as a gaming device more than just an iPhone minus the phone at last months iPod update gala. That said, there was no mention of taking games to the next level with a gamepad accessory that would just attach to that connector port on the iPod touch or iPhone. One will find a developer showing off their, excuse the pun, fruits in the tune of a video featuring the iControlPad playing a first-person shooter…via a jailbroken iPhone…with no availability date. Proof of concept but Scott Forstall of Apple did the same thing with the blood pressure slide at the iPhone OS 3.0 announcement, too.

But wait! There is hope. TomTom has a nice video on its site featuring a cradle for the iPhone that assists its iPhone GPS application that I told you about way back in March. My source at TomTom tells me that this cradle, which possess a GPS antenna and speaker, that uses the iPhone Connector will be out sometime this month. If this become reality, then TomTom will be the first application to speak to hardware via the iPhone Connector on the market. I would caution you not look for it at Best Buy anytime soon but it might just show up in your pillow case while trick-or-treating at the end of the month….at Best Buy, of course.

Hopefully we’ll see a flurry of hardware devices that will take advantage of Apple’s gateway to all-things accessories such as keyboards, gamepads, speakers, and maybe even monitors for video viewing (Virgin America are you reading this?!) I have to think that Apple didn’t just put an API into the iPhone to only let a good thing die. No, I think something wonderful is upon the horizon but gosh darn it, I want it now!

Well “late summer” has come and gone and nearly half a day into the promised launch date of MMS for all AT&T iPhone customers, it finally arrived a little before noon Pacific time. With Twitter a flame with tweets to slam the network at 5 pm Eastern with MMS use, one thing is certain about todays MMS release: Apple is watching.

Apple formally introduced Multimedia Messaging Service to the world in early June at its iPhone OS 3.0 dog and pony show. It displayed it before the developers in a nice large screen with all the carriers that would support MMS upon the June 28th release. Of course, it paused for everyone to take in the fact that the Death Star AT&T logo was missing from the slide at Moscone Centers stage. Front and center, not.

After a furry of angry tweets, Facebook status updates, and blog posts around the Interwebs, AT&T months later sent Seth, its PR guy, to explain the absence via video. See, the thing was, iPhone users were just so unlike other smartphone customers with their data use that AT&T couldn’t possibly support MMS so soon. Soon? Really, MMS support was a surprise to AT&T the day of announcement? Hard to believe but even so, it begs the question why hadn’t it built out the network PRIOR to the announcement when it had to know it was eventually coming? Well, Mr. ATT went on to tell viewers that Ma Bell was fixing a hole for the benefit of iPhone users and would be taking care of signal issues, as well, during the summer. Bonus! Seth really worked it in the video showing lots of towers, data, and hope. Yes, hope you can believe in.

Well, here we are, finally MMS is working and running for iPhone users nationwide and all eyes are on AT&T. How will it handle this? Rumors on Twitter early Tuesday, just days before roll-out, was that a preliminary stress test crashed the system. Today will be a test like none other for AT&T and if it fails, well, it’s almost a sure bet that Verizon will reap success from AT&Ts failure. With Seth’s assurance that iPhone users would enjoy the experience and the billions of dollars it poured into upgrades, failure will only mean that AT&T will never ever be able to fix its holes. Apple will use that as reasoning why it just is no longer “happy” with its relationship and will tell AT&T that it wants to see other people. Of course, it’ll still be friends with AT&T, just not exclusive friends.

So, AT&T, today you must shine or it is over. No marketing blitz will save you from the woes of Apple taking a trip to Jersey and welcoming that guy with his glasses and large group of friends to the iPhone family. As they say in Jersey, put up or shut up.

UPDATE: Upon my first MMS test, it took nearly a minute to complete the send of the MMS message to my wife’s iPhone. Here’s the great part. At five bars in a 3G area, it took nearly 10 minutes for her to receive the MMS message. 10 minutes! While I know everyone with an iPhone is probably using the system right now, man, 10 minutes is S-A-D. I could have described the picture to her via SMS in that amount of time. Shesh…

Did you notice something different when adding a new contact or a phone number to an existing one lately on your iPhone or in Address Book on your Mac? Well, if you upgraded to Snow Leopard on your Macintosh you may have not caught the new entry for Phone Number Type in Address Book 5.0. Right under Work and Home and just above Mobile is “iPhone”. You’ll find the same entry type available on your iPhone running OS 3.0 or higher as well.

So what is Apple trying to do with this new entry? Marketing? Hidden feature? Nothing? Well, most likely it’s just really a marketing ploy since phone calls from iPhone to iPhone using this type does nothing more than Mobile to Mobile. Oh, if you use the iPhones Voice Control to call someone with this entry as their selection but say “Mobile” instead of iPhone, thankfully the Voice Control understand what you “really” mean and still finds the correct number. Voice Control does politely tell you, however, that it is an iPhone that you’re calling when confirming your selection.

Who knows the true reason of Apple’s inclusion of this new entry other than being a “vanity” selection. Maybe one day there will be a use for it or maybe it will effect how one sends SMS and MMS to one another. Either way, I’m going with the vanity aspect for now and loving it.

With much anticipation, Apple took off the covers of its latest version of the iPhone OS today from its Cupertino headquarters. As believed, Cut and Paste, MMS, and tethering support was announced. Actually, tethering was brought up during the Q&A and was confirmed by Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iPhone Software at Apple, telling the audience, “We’re supporting tethering in the client side, we’re building that support in. We’re working with our carriers around the world.” Dozens of other features, mostly for developers, where announce as well such as support for Google Maps so applications will no longer have to send a user to the Google Maps application but rather integrate it directly into its application. This also means turn-by-turn directions will be supported though it will be “bring your own maps” for licensing reasons. TomTom has a chance!

Forstall early on admitted blowing it on a feature that should have been out last year saying, “Next, Push. You know, we’re late on this one.” Working with developers and listening to their suggestions lead to a re-tooling of Push and now Apple believes the version that is in 3.0 is much better than what it once had. Examples of push, such as IM, were shown to work very nicely much like SMS or reminders in the current version of the iPhone.

Subscriptions will also now be available for software making way to purchase multiple levels of a game or more months for a sports service, for example. Peer to Peer connectivity is also added allowing for easier connection between two or more iPhones for multi-player games or for address card exchange, though the latter was not mentioned.

Hardware vendors will also have use of the iPhone via the dock connector, finally. Examples shown were the iPhone docked in a speaker system in which you could control the tone with an onscreen EQ. SvenOnTech is aware of Altec Lansing showing off alpha hardware to Apple in January and suspects that this very hardware was shown in the slide show, today. Other items shown were a blood pressure cuff and a blood tester for diabetes. With this access, it’s quite conceivable third-party vendors can finally tap into the phone and possibly tie it into car stereos or home dock systems. The ultimate speaker phone.

Copy and Paste looks fantastic. When asked what the hold up was all about the answer given was “security” without any further explanation. I find this a very interesting response since nearly every device on the market has this feature and these manufactures, such as Microsoft and RIM, seem to have not been worried about “security”. It’s hard to say if it was a cover-up excuse or something deeper RIM and MS haven’t considered.

Other goodies include landscape support for SMS, Mail, and Notes. Speaking of Notes, you’ll finally be able to sync those scribbles in your iPhone with 3.0. Voice notes was also shown off which looks to be quite nice. Steaming video was demonstrated by ESPN which looked incredible. YouTube will now allow you to enter your account information keeping favorites and subscriptions synced between phone and desktop. Multiple pictures can now be sent in Mail as well as direct access to the mail application for other apps. Safari users will also be happy to know Auto-fill has made its to the upcoming summer release of 3.0 as well.

So, what about that MMS and A2DP (stereo Bluetooth support) caveat? You know, how Apple just kinda breezed over the fact that you’ll need to have a 3G iPhone to get that working? Mmm, kinda fishy, we think. While it’s solely possible that the lack of support for stereo Bluetooth may be so on the older hardware, we’re at a loss why MMS cannot be supported. Let’s see, you can take a picture in the Facebook app and send it to your profile, today. Same with Twittelator Pro to post pics and embed the link in your Twitter posts, but Apple can’t open the camera in SMS and grab a shot to send because of hardware? Doesn’t make sense to us. Other 2G devices do MMS just fine, so why not Apple’s? We believe it’s a way for Apple to force users to purchase new hardware though we could be wrong on this. Still, can’t see how hardware other applications use without issue for photos can’t be used by Apple.

All-in-all a great announcement for developers at the iPhone OS 3.0 preview announcement. If they use the tools given to them today, this free update for all iPhone users, $9.99 for iPod touch, could be a mean and exciting update for sure. Guess that puts egg on our face for last nights post, huh?

Excitement is brewing with anticipation for the iPhone 3.0 OS update preview tomorrow. Rumors are already spilling details that include Copy and Paste (FINALLY!), MMS, and built-in tethering (at a cost, I’m sure.) Unfortunately, folks, I really don’t see this as a major update, just like 2.0. Apple, with Steve Jobs on stage, does a great job of making nothing seem special. Tomorrow it will have a difficult job pulling that task off without iCon front and center. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll agree with me, there’s nothing special in what we’ve heard thus far. Copy and Paste should have been released in a minor update with 1.x. MMS should have been there on Day One and tethering introduced no later than 2.0. So if these rumors are true, and most likely they are as Kevin Rose is backing some of them and was dead-on with his last predictions concerning Apple, why are we all getting excited? Give me a break, the Plane Jane Motorola RAZRs have 2 out 3 of these features. Yawn.

Some may point out the addition of the Premium App Store as another rumor for 3.0 but I discount that since it’s not tied to the OS and more to the back-end of the store. Who cares. This is nothing more than Apple trying to make more money, encourage better games, and crack deeper into the PSP and DS market. This is not an operating system advancement.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that these reported features will finally make it to the phone I love to use, but I’m just trying to add perspective here. There’s no reason to get all giddy for nothing short of what we should have already had. I truly hope there is MUCH more coming and that the Palm Pre tit-for-tat reports are correct. It would be nice to see a turn-by-turn GPS application announced (which again, nothing new for many other smartphones), video support (more same-old-same), and push-notification finally supported promised by Apple at its last software upgrade preview nearly a year ago. I want to be dazzled like I was at Macworld when Steve announced the iPhone. Please Apple, don’t just repackage your competitions features as something new and amazing. Do us right.

While Macrumors.com live feed was hacked and spewed mis-information that Steve Jobs had died, Phil did alright in Steve’s place this morning at Macworld’s final Apple Keynote. Sure, he went WAY in-depth but that was largely due to the lackluster amount announcements. iLife, iWork, and iTunes multi-level pricing is about what we got this morning. Oh ya, you can now purchase music on your iPhone via the 3G network starting today, as well. Sure, iPhoto’s face recognition is way cool, as is iMovie’s ability to take the jitter out of your bumpy video, iwork.com document sharing is nice, and the Keynote iPhone App Remote is great, as is the 17″ MacBook Pro, but nothing earth shattering today. (I’m sure my high school teacher will kill me for that run on. Sorry Mr. Orlando.) Oh wait, yes, the 17″ WILL come in either “I can’t see a thing” gloss or the better matte option. I guess that rox.

Apple finished its announcement with Tony singing about leaving his heart in San Francisco as this is Apple’s last Macworld. And again, Steve Jobs is not dead. Well, he may be and the Board is just holding off on that news like his cancer and his hormone issue. But hey, that’s another story.

Since doors are opening late, I now have to figure out how to make up my 10:30 appointment. Stay tuned for more updates through the day.