Although for many years Macworld was the place where Apple showed off their new products, the company decided to orphan the expo in January 2009, claiming trade shows were now superfluous with the dawning of the Internet.
Of course, Macworld’s recreated itself since then as a place for third-party companies to show off their wares, but as Apple has increasingly emphasized its iOS side of the business, the Macworld name has started seeming anachronistic.
You probably won’t be surprised what Macworld’s organizer’s are renaming the conference. You may be surprised at what a charmless mouthful it all is, though.
Yep, Macworld is now rebranding itself from Macworld Expo to Macworld|iWorld, in order to stress that we live in an age in which both Mac and iDevices are equally important products in people’s lives.
But blech, what a mouthful. What an ugly little line delineating the Mac and the iDevice family, when iCloud is meant to bring them together. In fact, why call it Macworld at all anymore? Surely iWorld is less convoluted, more inclusive and pure. If people are worried that the Mac is being left behind, surely they can be reminded that ‘i’- precedes both the iMac and iBook, and is a letter still very much synonymous with the Mac world.
That said, Macworld|iWorld is still the same old expo we all know and love, and registration is now open. You can sign up here,
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
16 responses to “Macworld Expo Changes Name, Opens 2012 Registration”
and the iBook has been dead for how long now?
Apple products are slim, beautiful, and minimalist.
This name is huge and awkward.
I think just for this year they’ll use this name to transition then drop the Macworld next year
Yeah… why mention the iBook and not the iPad, iPhone, iOS5, etc. in that sentence!?
When is cult of mac gonna change its name to iCult
Honestly, that’s not the worst idea in the world.
Re: Macworld’s new name, just iWorld alone is totally fine. As noted, the longer, more awkward title is probably just transitional.
LoL They just didn’t want to freak out the cultists by making any sudden dramatic changes. The lone iWorld branding is on its way soon enough.
This is nothing more than the Datsun|Nissan phase.