The Apple Expo was a European annual

sales Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale. The seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in r ...

conference and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

exposition held by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

The conference featured over 250 exhibitors annually, with Apple being its main exhibitor. This conference was most often viewed as the European counterpart to

MacWorld Expo Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...

, a similar conference that was held annually in San Francisco.

History

The Apple Expo event was originally invented and held in France around 1984 by the employees of the French Apple distributor Seedrin Sarl, and its manager

Jean-Louis Gassée Jean-Louis Gassée (born March 1944 in Paris, France) is a business executive. He is best known as a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He also founded Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system ...

. All the employees of this small distributor were each time involved in participating for this annual show, where several third party software and hardware distributors would also have their booth. Apple Seedrin (which turned to Apple France) continued for decades to organise this event every mid September. Within the small (100 people) Apple France subsidiary, a team was even created (with Adeline Domenjoz) to set up this event. Due to the growing size of the event, Reed OIP was contracted for show management. Around the turn to the 21st century, the Apple corporation took the ownership of the Apple Expo organisation, and Steve Jobs included this recurring date in his possible events list. With this new corporate management, the French subsidiary employees slowly stopped being be part of the booth demo team. The last years showed that the event was slowly turning into an iPod expo, more than a Mac one. Year after year, Apple stopped releasing new products during this event, removing much of its booth investments, and limited the amount of available new products on show. The last issue was a Reed Expositions-only event, without even an Apple booth. There were other similar events held in Europe, like

MacExpo MacExpo London was a trade show dedicated to the Apple Macintosh and iPod which was held annually in London, United Kingdom at the Olympia Exhibition Centre from 2002 to 2007. It was a major part of Apple's calendar. Background In 2004, Macworld ...

in London, but with no link with the Apple Expo. Below there is a time line of all significant product announcements announced at the Apple Expo:

Timeline

{, class="wikitable sortable" , - ! Year ! Location ! Description , - , 2008 , Paris, France , Apple Expo Canceled. Apple said it would not participate in the Paris expo at all, saying it would be participating in fewer trade shows. , - , - , 2007 , Paris, France , 25 to 29 September. , - , 2006 , Paris, France , From 12 to 16 September at Paris expo. , - , 2005 , Paris, France , The traditional

keynote A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework fo ...

done by Apple at both MacWorld Expo, and Apple Expo was left out. The only product announced by Apple was a new and improved

.Mac MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and eventually replaced by the ...

bundle. , - , 2004 , Paris, France , Due to

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

having

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

, the keynote was instead done by

Phil Schiller Philip W. Schiller (born June 8, 1960) is an Apple Fellow at Apple Inc. He is a prominent figure in Apple's keynotes and has been a member of the company's executive team since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. In 2020 he became the first ...

, an Apple executive. Schiller announced the new

iMac G5 The iMac G5 is an all-in-one personal computer that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from August 2004 to March 2006. It is the final iMac to use a PowerPC processor, making it the last model that could natively run Mac ...

. , - , 2003 , Paris, France , Steve Jobs announced various upgrades to the

PowerBook G4 The PowerBook G4 is a series of notebook computers manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer between 2001 and 2006 as part of its PowerBook line of notebooks. The PowerBook G4 runs on the RISC-based PowerPC G4 processor, designed by the ...

line of computers. As well, he announced the Apple

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

wireless keyboard and mouse. , - , 2002 , Paris, France , Much of the keynote consisted of a demo of Apple's new

Mac OS X v10.2 Mac OS X Jaguar (version 10.2) is the third major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.1 and preceded Mac OS X Panther. The operating system was released on August 23, 2002 either for sin ...

operating system. Steve Jobs also announced

iCal Calendar is a personal calendar app made by Apple Inc. that runs on both the macOS desktop operating system and the iOS mobile operating system. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's iCloud service, or can synchronize with ...

and

iSync iSync is a defunct application developed by Apple Inc., which syncs iCal and Address Book data to SyncML-enabled mobile phones, via Bluetooth or by using a USB connection. It was first released on Jan 2, 2003, with technology licensed from fusion ...

. , - , 2001 , ''N/A'' , The Apple Expo was cancelled due to the

September 11, 2001, attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

. , - , 2000 , Paris, France , In this keynote the

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

public beta A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

was announced, as well a series of new

iBook iBook is a line of laptop computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted entry-level, consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-en ...

External links

Former Apple Expo Official SiteMacWorld Expo Official SiteApple Expo 2003 - Keynote Photos
Computer-related trade shows Apple Inc. conferences