It’s been 28 years since Apple was officially at a CES event. the last time they were a participant was in 1992 at the Chicago-hosted CES event when the then CEO John Sculley introduced the Newton. Apple hosted its own show, the Macworld Expo which is now defunct to give consumers a taste of its tech products. They now have events like the WWDC to announce new products and services.
This trend of missing out at CES by Apple has been copied by other tech companies who now host their own shows and make their big releases such as Samsung’s Unpacked Event which for this year will take place in February 11th and they plan on launching the Samsung Galaxy S11(S20) and the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2. In case you missed it, Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 10 Lite and the S10 Lite a few days before CES 2020 begun.
At CES 2019, they plastered a billboard ad on a hotel wall strategically overlooking the Las Vegas Convention Center where some 4,500 exhibitors and attendees occupied the 2.8 million square feet space. The ad took a brilliant aim on rival tech companies with Apple touting its privacy prowess.
For CES 2020, Apple will be attending the event in an official capacity. They didn’t even put an ad like last year.
https://twitter.com/backlon/status/1213235293974712320
Here’s why Apple is in Las Vegas.
Consumer privacy. Jane Horvath, Apple’s senior director of global privacy will represent the company at CES 2020 and take part in a roundtable discussion. Jane will be joining the Chief Privacy Office Roundtable on 7th January(Tuesday next week). Jane Horvath is responsible for overseeing Apple’s compliance with global privacy laws as well as working internally and externally on developing issues related to privacy.
She’ll be joining other guests that include Rebecca Slaughter, Commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission, Susan Shook, The Procter & Gamble Company’s Global Privacy Officer, Erin Egan, Facebook’s VP, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer. The talk will be moderated by Rajeev Chand, Partner and Head of Research at Wing Venture Capital.
When compared with other tech giants, Apple’s business model is different giving the company an upper edge when it comes to consumer privacy and doesn’t shy away from bragging about this stuff.
Apple isn’t exactly a saint. It was revealed that Apple hired human contractors that listened in on users on Siri. This lack of disclosure raised concerns, particularly given the frequency with which accidental activations pick up extremely sensitive personal information. The company later halted this practice.
The Chief Privacy Office Roundtable will discuss how companies build privacy at scale and if regulation be a fragmented patchwork plus also answering what consumers want.
It’s going to be an interesting discussion as Apple and Facebook have been at loggerheads concerning user privacy. Apple even going ahead and launching a new web sign-in at WWDC 2019.
https://twitter.com/panzer/status/1135602729739407360
This year’s debate about privacy will play out on the CES stage, not on the streets.
