I've never really understood the collective madness that surrounds Steve Jobs keynotes. The Apple CEO is undoubtedly charismatic, and he does a great job of turning the already obsessive Mac maniacs into a frothing mass of excitement, but his announcements are starting to pick up a dangerous momentum all of their own.
“Steve” gave his latest keynote last night in San Francisco at Macworld Expo. The only real news was that Apple has moved to Intel processors from IBM's PowerPC processor. This wasn't news in as much as everyone knew they were doing it (it *was* news when Apple announced it was shifting), but it did come six months earlier than Apple had said, which is a sort of news.
Apart from that, it comprised some software updates and an FM radio for the latest iPod (irritating though not my 4G iPod – which was only bought in August). No explanation given as to why Apple and Jobs have consistently said no one is interested in having the radio on their iPod when everyone else in the world was thinking “well, I wouldn't mind to be honest”.
But Jobs doesn't do explanations. At this point I should link to the best run-through of the speech I've seen so far – Bobbie Johnson at The Guardian's blow-by-blow account.
The Guardian also picked up (and added to) the increasing collective madness about these Jobs speeches, running a front-page Tech section piece about how he practices these events. It was a good decision editor wise, riding the wave at its largest and guaranteeing lots of eyeballs because Mac maniacs love nothing more than reading about Steve Jobs and fantasising about being best mates with him. The more fine details they can get about him, the better. So long as it is all glowing.
And the article was glowing. With a disturbing abundances of first-person “Steves”.
I suppose most people want to find someone that they can hold up as semi-gods and go see, and get excited and hyped up about. It makes life more exciting. I am a sick individual in that I just don't have this module installed in my brain. The more I see people unthinkingly praising and gazing at someone, the more I want to get stuck in, expose their faults and so bring some kind of sanity to proceedings.
Blinkered following and faith is the complete anti-thesis of what I try to do as a journalist. I want people to form their views based on a careful balance of facts and considered reflection, and I try to supply as many of them as possible. Where people's perception strays furthest from the cold reality is where journalism is needed most.
I wasn't in San Francisco. But I was at Parliament last night at a meeting of the Internet Service Providers Association where the issue of the Data Retention Directive and its impact was being discussed. I'll go into more details in a subsequent blog, but what I found amazing was the Jobs effect when home secretary Charles Clarke came into the meeting.
He was an hour later, and he stayed only 15 minutes before heading off. He arrived, gave a very short speech that said nothing at all and then sat down for questions. During these questions it become clear that he was going to cost the people in the room running ISPs an absolute fortune. It was also clear that he will continue to push for new laws that would require more and more content, which will cost them more and more money. It will also remove yet more centuries-old civil liberties, but that's a different meeting.
How did the people in the room react? They were absolutely charmed. They roared with laughter at Clarke's political in-jokes (something that I can't stand), they nodded their heads when he said he was hoping to work with them, they applauded when he sat down having given nothing and appeared to have listened to less. And they let him leave to more applause.
Now if it had been anyone else that had walked in and done that. A civil servant, or a top council man, or even an under secretary, I imagine the men in the room – and they are no patsies, they are toughened businessmen – would have torn them to pieces. But because it's the Home Secretary, he has the strange aura of fame that causes people to not want to upset them.
And that is why society has errant personalities like my own. Not only that but the more “famous” people I meet, the easier it is to look straight through the gloss and aura and see what is really going on. Charles Clarke is a very talented politician and a tough nut, but the laws that he introduces are doing no one any good at all. The ISPA has good reason to be worried. And this morning, away from the glamour, they will suddenly realise it.
