Apple dropped its bombshell announcement in a press release issued late this afternoon, Dec. 16. The PR is about Macworld Conference & Expo 2009 being Apple's last. But I see that as a smokescreen obscuring something much bigger: CEO Steve Jobs won't give the keynote as he usually does.

Instead, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will give the Macworld keynote on Jan. 6. The question everybody should be asking: "Why not Steve?"

Good PR works like this: Bad news obscures even worse news. Because the topic of the press release is that this will be Apple's last Macworld, many bloggers and journalists will write mainly about that. They'll look at how Apple has pulled out of other events and how the bad economy is affecting other trade shows. As Michael Gartenberg tweeted today: "This close to CES and there's still room at the Inn," which is unusual. Rooms are usually booked and rates rising in Las Vegas for the January event. Michael tweeted: "$129 - $149 depending on the property and room. Sign o the times."

In fact, Michael has taken the position that pulling out of Macworld won't mean much to Apple. He writes: "As for Steve Jobs as a no-show? I'd expect this to be a pretty tame Macworld in terms of news." I don't agree. My inbox is chock-full of Macworld meeting requests, and not a single one for CES.

Read the rest of this column on AppleWatch.