Is CES Still Trying To Seduce Apple?

Apple announced this year that they would no longer attend the decade-old Macworld conference, leading some to speculate that the company would shift their focus to CES. Well, the CEA is now shifting their focus to Apple, but why?

The floorplan for CES 2010 sees the iLounge—the section for Mac accessory retailers—expanded to six times its previous size. Why would they do this? Macworld, despite Apple’s absence, is still happening, albeit one month later, so it’s not like CES is addressing a trade show void. On the surface, it looks like the CEA might actually be trying to seduce Apple into attending their conference.

But just as before, something about such rumours is odd: Apple left Macworld because it didn’t need Macworld, so a move to CES, which they need even less, would be hard to understand. A more likely explanation is that CES is just trying to kill what remains of Macworld. There may not be a void in the Apple tradeshow world right now, but that doesn’t mean the CEA wouldn’t like to create one, which they would gladly fill in 2011. [CNET]