Pogue’s Keynote Bodes Well For Macworld Without Apple

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Helped perhaps by low expectations, David Pogue’s opening keynote here was a surprising success, playing to a packed, standing-room-only audience and bringing in a steady stream of laughs at Apple’s expense.

Pogue’s keynote was a variety show, with interviews, skits, singing and dancing — and a one-act play starring LeVar Burton as Steve Jobs.

Pogue also showcased the work of The Gregory Brothers, a quartet of Brooklynites behind Autotune the News.

Overall, the show was charming and funny light entertainment. A traditional Steve Jobs keynote it was not.

One of the characters in Pogue’s play managed to call Steve Jobs a “creepy vegan megalomaniac.”

That kind of thing would never fly if Apple were here at the show. And perhaps it shows what future Macworlds might be like without the anchor tenant.

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The absence of Apple allows the show to be about the bigger topic — the Apple ecosystem — rather than being just Apple, and Apple alone.

“It’s liberating,” said one attendee coming out of the keynote. “I feel good about it. It’s not just about Apple any more.”

LeVar James plays Steve Jobs in a parody of It's a Wonderful Life. Jobs doesn't invent the Mac, and DOS 25.1 rules the world.

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