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.

We’ve all seen the “leaked” photos of the full-screen iPod for months now. This picture is one of the earliest and has been pretty much discounted as a hoax. However, the notion that a widescreen video iPod is coming keeps fueling the rumor fire and thus many believe not if but when. So indeed, when? When Apple gets more movies to slap onto it. That’s when.

CEO Steve Jobs has had a tough time convincing Hollywood to listen to some computer guy tell it how to run the music and movie business. Understandably, what’s a geek know about movies? Nothing, but he knows how to get it to everyone who wants to buy one; that’s what he knows. Jobs also knows that no one, relatively, is going to buy an expensive iPod that plays widescreen movies if there is really no widescreen movies to be had. All one has to do is look at the new HD DVD players that have been out for almost a month now. ‘What HD DVD players?’ Exactly. Good luck trying to find any kind of selection of titles on the new high def format. Jobs doesn’t want that problem when the next true video iPod hits the streets.

SvenOnTech believes that Jobs has had Apple engineers working on the next level iPod for some time. Just like he had OS X engineers running that operating system on Intel chips since day one. Jobs needed a dog for show-and-tell down there in Hollywood and that may be the what we’re seeing on the Internet with most of these leaked photos. We also believe that Jobs needed to get the ball rolling on content and thus had to give reason for a video iPod, hence the 5G iPod. Enlarging the screen on that iPod took little effort on Apple’s part and would allow the Cupertino-based computer company to have reason to start selling video at the iTunes Music Store.

Now that this is all in place, it’s time to bring real movies to iTMS. A little of that is happening and rumors have it that the next version of OS X, code named Leopard, will have a BitTorrent built-in. With no other reason for BitTorrent than to assist in huge downloads, this seems to add more weight to the fact a full-screen iPod is coming soon. That coupled with the fact that Jobs took a powerful role at Disney instead of cash for the Pixar buy out should really point to movies are coming.

Jobs understands many things and he understands the chicken and the egg problem. Once a good foundation of movies are available on iTunes Music Store (by this Christmas?), you’ll see the next iPod in all of it’s full-screen glory in the hands of a smiling Steve Jobs. Trust us, we nailed the MacBook Pro was coming, so we think we’re on a roll with these predictions.