Looking Back at Macworld Expos Past

Ad promoting the first Macworld Expo.

The Macintosh was introduced in January 1984, and the first Macworld Expo was held in San Francisco's Moscone Center in 1985. Sponsored by Macworld magazine, the first magazine devoted exclusively to Macs, the first Expo was held Feb. 21-23, 1985 and attended by approximately 10,000 Mac fans. (The first Macworld Expo had to share the Moscone Center with a boat show that had been booked for the same weekend.)

The first summer Macworld Expo was held in Boston on August 21-23, 1985 and gave Mac lovers the opportunity to see Macintosh Office: The Mac 512K, the first LaserWriter, and AppleTalk networking. There would be an Boston Expo until 1997, when Apple pushed Macworld to move the Expo to New York City, where it remained until 2003. For 2004 and 2005, the Expo returned to Boston, but without an official Apple presence, and IDG announced in Late 2005 that there would no longer be an East Coast Expo.

Since 1997, Steve Jobs has given the keynote address, earning it the nickname Stevenote.

The San Francisco Macworld Expo moved to early January in 1986 and remained there until 2010, when IDG moved the Expo to February. It has since moved to late January, and the 2012 Expo was renamed Macworld | iWorld in recognition of the importance of Apple's iOS platform, which is selling in far greater numbers than Macs.

This week our staff looks at the pros and cons of the Macworld Expo moving from early January to later in the month.

Dan Knight (Mac Musings): Macworld Expo was always a great way to start the new year. Very little happened in the Apple orbit starting a few days for Christmas and into the first week or so of the new year. Having Macworld Expo in early January gave us something to look forward to, something to spike interest in Macs, and for those of us in snowy climes, an opportunity to get away to San Francisco.

There were two issues the Expo had to face, perhaps the biggest being the International Consumer Electronic Show that almost always overlapped Macworld. It wasn't an issue for Apple and companies that only worked in the Apple sphere, but for companies that supported both Macs and Windows - or later iPhones or iPods and competing devices - it was a question of whether to cater to the Mac fanatics, ignore them and go for the masses at CES, or bite the bullet and have booths at both shows.

The other issue was that Mac fans knew the Expo was coming and that Apple would almost always have one or two new Macs, so they would defer buying in the last quarter of the year unless they absolutely had to make a purchase. After all, come January, Apple might have an even better model! I don't know how much impact that had on Mac sales, but I know that I would advise people looking at Macs in November and December to wait until the Expo if they could.

Moving the Macworld Expo later in January removed some of that buyer's remorse. "I just bought this for the family for Christmas, and two weeks later Apple replaced it." Particularly in that regard, I was happy to see the Expo move to late January/early February. And it also eliminates the overlap with CES.

Dan Bashur (Apple, Tech, and Gaming): I can always remember the Expo and how much it meant to fans. Groundbreaking announcements were made there along with some exciting (and somewhat infamous) product launches. The two Expos that stick out in my mind the most that signaled the beginning of the end of an era and the rebirth of Apple as a company include the 1993 and 1997 Boston events. Tom Hormby of Low End Mac recounts the tale of the Apple Newton in his article, which in terms of man hours versus sales was a tragic failure for Apple. The cheesy ads in taxi cabs and the eagerness to unload as many Newtons as possible at Macworlds 1993 was so un-Apple like. The Newton was a moderate success in terms of units sold, but when the tens of thousands of man hours spent on the project were combined with an expensive marketing campaign, the Newton was not one of those bright spots in the history of Apple. As much as we looked forward to the Newton at Macworld, the fanfare did not live up to its potential, had the struggle not been so great to get the Newton project off the ground.

On the other hand, 1997 ushered in a time where we all felt touched by a visionary who would retake the reins of the company he helped create and would bring back the company from the ashes. One of Steve's most famous "Stevenote" speeches was made at the 1997 Macworld Expo, and with Steve soon back at the helm (as "interim" CEO until that became permanent), every following Macworld was reinvigorated with excitement leaving crowds bewildered. The room would go silent when Steve took the stage until the usual thunderous roar and applause that would follow his announcements, especially that "one more thing." It was sad when Apple pulled out of the event and began reserving announcements for other events such as the WWDC. I hope that Tim Cook will bring Apple back to the event and return it to true form. Macworld was like the Comic Con or E3 for Apple fans, and the Expo itself can be revived with the presence of the company that made the Expo an event that millions looked forward to in the first place.