What the ....?

Plus--it's a DEVELOPER's conference. Maybe expectations were a teensy bit too high? OK-- no anti-gravity-- but we did get a Time Machine.

You're the first person I've read today whose opinion is in alignment with my own. I've followed countless WWDC keynotes, and you're absolutely right - they're not like Macworld announcements. In fact, Apple seems to have dropped the big show announcements in favor of unscheduled - and pretty plain - press releases when announcing new products such as the newly updated MacBook Pro they released six days ago. Also like you, I applaud Apple's latest Windows app - Safari 3.0. What's not to like about Apple getting yet another app ported to Windows, and perhaps getting more leverage as to what plays and doesn't play in the real-world internet standards (ahem, that would be Microsoft's standards).

Go to Apple.com and look at the new Leopard features - especially the little demo movies of each one. Very nice. Also nice is the new Boot Camp's ability to freeze the state of the Mac OS or Windows, and then quickly (well, relatively quickly) toggle back and forth without rebooting. I still like Parallels, but the new Boot Camp will probably be a huge hit with the serious gamers who need 100% performance. All in all, this WWDC was everything I expected, and like you, I don't understand today's stock selloff.

Point missed. With safari on Windows, iphone developers who live on windows have a platform/application to test it with. Instant huge developer base.

Thanks for your sane take on what actually happened this day. It was a developer conference and the message was mainly for windows developers to come over and give mac a try... But under the hood OSX leopard surely has alot of power which consumer will benefit from, but that announcement is in oktober?

Im looking forward to see what apple has created using all these "under the hood" innovations.

I was also surprised at the drop - but not because of the supposed lack of interest in the Safari upgrade and Windows availability. I was surprised that investors didn't react favorably to the new hard date for the iPhone release. There had been fears that Apple was going to miss their June date, but Steve's announcement would seem to have put those to rest.

But then again, if I knew what investors were thinking, ..... well, you know the rest.

They had to release Safari for Windows as Safari is what is being used on the iPhone and all apps will be written in web 2.0 format so all those that want to develop no doubt will want to use safari to test there iPhone apps and of course as it is suppose to be so fast then it will be very appealing to no OSX users and make them think.. this is nice I might try a Mac out for size.. makes alot of sense to me

RE: Safari for Windows

Safari for Windows was released at a developer's conference not so much to entice end users, but because if the development environment for iPhone is going to be web 2.0 running on Safari using special safari widget tags, then you will want to make that environment available to the folks developing for the iPhone.

In other words, why create an iPhone emulator when you simply have to port Safari to Windows.

This is not about a browser being launched, I bet it will well taken by Windows users.

"Nothing that was said, or indeed wasn't said, necessarily should be contrued as negative news."

That depends on the audience! WWDC and MacWorld Expo, is the platform for pure satisfaction for long time Mac users, the ones that held the company together for years, when times are apple were bad.

Today I didn't get my long awaited FIX! And this is how mac zealots feel! In fact Mac users have been forgotten on both WWDC and MacWorld Expo, it was time for redemption, and Steve failed us again!

A New iMac? A revision of the Mac Pro, with better graphics, hardware raid? A revision to the Xserve Raid, with SATA support?
A new version of iWorks? iLife 08? .Mac for free with Google integration? The lack of screen sharing on iChat?

None of these and many more were a no show on Steve's notes today! And the worst thing is that I have no urge what so ever to run to the Apple Store and buy the "One More Thing Item".

Please Steve don't forget about the Mac User, the one who storms to the stores

seems to happen a lot with planned events: stock prices rise with great expectations, and then tank after the actual (more realistic) good news.

the surprise announcements do a better job of boosting the stock in the days after.

i think you hit a key point: a lot of the investors don't really get the company. whizbang hardware makes sense to them; subtle things that will grow the platform over the long term don't.

IPhone application development announced at WWDC 2007 is based on Web 2.0 and open standards. It would wise for everybody to find out what Web 2.0 is and what its implications are before passing judgment on the WWDC 2007 announcement. Here is a very good explanation of Web 2.0 --

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Releasing Safari for Windows may erode away a huge base of web development companies who currently buy the mac to test their sites on Mac. That could be a reason for the stock to drop. If the best of apps come towards windows, the mac does slightly lose its luster.

Interesting to note, and, yet of particular consequence to the actual blog posting - how many commenters actually wrote about money?

Leaving aside the ridiculous nature of stock speculation and the fact that the market tends to go up when unemployment does ("10 million layoffs today, but the Dow Jones hit 20,000!")...

Anyone remember Asteroid? And the lawsuits? This is the reason Apple sued Think Secret, O'Grady's, etc. When product releases and previews don't match up with the rumors, the stock price tanks. Review almost every one of Jobs' keynotes. The stock dropped afterwards.

Which wouldn't matter, except that that is real money. Which disappeared because "I didn't get my long awaited FIX!"

It's enough to make me wonder why the board doesn't put a gag on Jobs. It would probably save them cash.

Steve Jobs did not forget the Mac. Absolutely not. WWDC is about the Mac - totally. It's the operating system - stupid - to paraphrase Bill Clinton.

Steve Jobs layed the groundwork at WWDC to grow the Mac's marketshare by releasing Safari for Windows. Like iTunes and the iPod, Safari for Windows is a way to entice Windows users to purchase a Mac. In fact, a large proportion of new Mac users are Windows switcher precisely because of Apple's software on Windows.

Steve Jobs also layed the groundwork at WWDC for expanding the number of potential iPhone users. By releasing Safari for Windows, there is a tighter link between Windows users and the iPhone.

People miss these broad strategic moves on Steve Job's part at WWDC. They want the next gadget. WWDC is about strategy - not the next gadget.

At last year's WWDC, there was also disappointment. There was no gadget to buy. The Intel Macs were months into the future. Leopard was not ready for release. People were expecting Leopard to be released at last year's WWDC. Beh.

At MacWorld, there was also disappontment. There was no new Mac to buy. There was iPhone. But iPhone wasn't going to be released until June. Beh.

People - the ignorant ones - always have too high an expectation of Steve's keynote - with the thought of new gadgets to buy. But there really hasn't been any since the iPod was introduced more than 5 years ago.

If anything, this is a great keynote portending a lot about the future - and growing Apple's profits.

The drop in Apple's share price is great. It means a buying opportunity! Yeah! That 4% drop will easily be made into a profit. Just watch! Yeah! Go Apple!

Arik, it's deja vu all over again. Apple's stock price typically rises, sometimes dramatically, before a Stevenote...and then falls the same day of the speech. I'm pretty confident that if you looked at the actual numbers from previous years, you'll see this happen again and again.

One pundit years ago noted on a Mac-oriented site that this trend was merely a sign of profit-taking. I couldn't say one way or the other. As a long-time Mac fan, I've often noticed a letdown after a Jobs presentation. Why wasn't this knockout feature added (this year it was seamless Windows integration that proved elusive)? Isn't the price for that new machine awfully high? Why isn't there more whizziness?

Finally, WWDC is a *developer's* conference: it doesn't focus on Apple's entire product range. A shame that no new iLife was announced, but not a shock. What I'd like to know is what the hell happened to ZFS? Was Jobs so POed by Schwartz's pre-announcement that he dropped it from his presentation?

It would appear that for all of your knowledge of Apple and technology, you are in need of some clues as to how the stock market works. What you saw was a classic case of the trading phenomenon known as "Buy the rumor, sell the news", where short-term speculators (not long-term investors) bid up a stock well in advance of an anticipated announcement, and then turn around and dump the stock when the announcement actually occurs (or even a little earlier), pocketing a nice profit. This is all done irregardless of the business fundamentals and is a trading strategy that seeks simply to directly profit from the "buzz" surrounding hot companies. It is not a 100% reliable straategy, but does work often enough that traders and speculators are willing to take a gamble with it, especially if the company seems hot enough (usually meaning that journalists are touting the company.)

Also, any time a stock has a "meteoric rise", cynical short-sellers are attracted, which increases volatility and can lead to relatively frequent large short-term declines even though the overall trend may be up. The flip side is that quite a few big "pops" to the upside are caused by short-covering (buying) after short-sellers bet wrong and have to undo their bets on a decline.

Most of what goes on in the stock market on a short and medium-term basis is *not* based on longer-term fundamentals.

Hope that helps you understand why the stock market doesn't behave the way you expect it to.

-- Jack Krupansky

No Hardware announcement. We like new gadgets from Apple, and there were none, so people - reasonable people - fell like they are slipping. To not understand that, well, no wonder people are surprised by the stock drop. Apple failed to deliver something that was expected.