Apple: I was plan­ning to attend MacWorld 2009 and received the press pass a cou­ple of weeks ago. I was hop­ing to sali­vate over the new 17″ MacBook Pro and some other cool but yet unknown prod­ucts. But the email stated that I wouldn’t be get­ting into the keynote due to huge demand. Although it was tough think­ing about not being able to see the cool prod­ucts up close, I decided it wasn’t worth trekking all the way up to SF. No keynote, no MacWorld for me.

Well, that huge demand for the keynote might not be there any­more. Apple announced that MacWorld 2009 will be the company’s last MacWorld. MacWorld will go on, but with­out Apple. That in and of itself is bad news, espe­cially for IDG, the guys who put up the con­fer­ence. IDG has stated that MacWorld 2010 is a go, just with­out Apple.

But the really bad news is that Steve Jobs won’t be keynot­ing at MacWorld 2009. Instead, it will be Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing. I don’t have any­thing against Phil Schiller, but he isn’t Steve Jobs. A Phil Schiller-led keynote at MacWorld… just doesn’t do it for me. The plan to watch the keynote the day after sounds like a def­i­nite green light. I really hope Steve Jobs con­tin­ues to do smaller events near Cupertino. And I hope he’s healthy. When’s the next press event after MacWorld, Steve?