The annual Apple hysteria by Jobs: Any point getting excited in our region?

It's now become the annual opportunity for hysteria among technology geeks and quite a few consumer gadget enthusiasts too.

The annual Steve Jobs address at the Macworld conference creates such a buzz on the web and through the media that it sometimes doesn't live up to its own billing, like this year, I'm afraid.

Last year it was the iPhone which, obviously, turned out to be worth the hysteria with its unique user interface and slick design. Having sold over 2 million units no one can say it didn't succeed!

This year on January 15, we had the somewhat 'lower key' thin MacBook 'Air', which even good old Steve tried to muster a smile about upon announcing. The bigger news, with long term ramifications for the movie industry, and the traditional video store too, was the announcement that Apple would be offering movies for download (obviously for a fee) at iTunes. The announcement was big because Apple revealed that it had every major movie studio on board.

Such is the pulling power of the Apple brand and Steve Job's personality, who by the way is the biological son of a Syrian immigrant to America but who was adopted by the Jobs family. I don't really know the relevance of this to anything, expect for the fact that it gives any brilliant Arab hope, provided he/she is surrounded by a conducive environment like San Jose's Silicon Valley, where Steve has lived all his life!

Anyway, back to the impact of the newly announced products on our region of the world, it goes without saying that a hardware product, like an ultra thin Macbook, would arrive in the region, clock up sales and probably add to the surprisingly growing Macintosh user base in a region where we all thought the Mac was dying!

As for iTunes, unfortunately, we still can't enjoy its services as we are still considered a 'back-water' market for Apple, and I can't understand why it's taking them so long to open an iTunes store for a country in the Middle East. Some 'experts' tell me it's due to 'payment gateway' issues and the fact that Apple has to come in and look at every market.

Apparently, iTunes is still not available in every European or Asian market either, so maybe that's a consolation.

In the meantime, regrettably, everyone's pirating music and video through Peer-To-Peer (P2P) networks, but that's another story.

So, how has Jobs touched our lives- excuse the pun with the iPod Touch?

In several ways actually, not least contributing to the creation of the personal computer revolution 30 years ago in his parent's garage, but also by launching products which can make any person, anywhere in the world excited.

I've got an iPod and iTV, many of my friends have MacBooks, I actually know a couple of people using 'hacked' iPhones- another example of us still being a 'back water' to Apple, but the enthusiasm is there and Apple has had a regional office in Dubai and an dealership in Jordan for nearly two decades.

We expect more attention from Apple, we deserve more and we'll throw in the Syrian-origin card if we have to!

Mr Jobs, are you listening?

Published in The Star newspaper
zanasser@gmail.com