WWDC Leopard keynote: check; too bad Wall Street didn't like it

Apple today checked off the second in its hat trick of events for the month of June, and it was rewarded with the volatility in Apple stock we promised a few weeks ago. Prior to Steve Jobs' keynote, the stock was over $126. After the keynote, the stock closed just above $120. The issue? Steve's didn't really announce much.

Oh, I know, Jobs presented a lot of cool features and eye-catching visuals. In fact, I was pleased to see one of our predictions did get announced: Apple's new Leopard OS will bring a new Finder and user user interface to the Mac that uses much more transparency and overlaying of active data, much like HD-DVD or Blu-ray menus. A great example: "Stacks", a feature where many files are stacked into one icon in the doc. Click on a stack, and you get either a "fan" or a grid of documents from the stack to choose from (shown above). There's no new window here -- it's just one of those transparent overlays that says, "don't stop what you're doing, but make a choice." The interface ends up being visually simpler, but makes things easier to find.

But despite the introduction of a few new features like Stacks and Quick Look (another transparent non-window feature), much of the rest of the keynote was centered on features that have already been announced. This wasn't a mistake. It wasn't because Jobs didn't have anything to announce or say about Leopard. And, in my opinion, it wasn't because there aren't new knock-your-socks-off features in Leopard that we still haven't heard about. Why would Jobs do such a thing?

It was because Leopard isn't shipping for another four months.

Now, Apple is giving away feature complete copies of Leopard to all the developers at WWDC, so they are going to get the full story on the disks they receive under a very strict NDA. But the public won't see any Leopard bits until October. If Jobs had described everything that consumers were going to get in October, how exciting would the Leopard launch be? Answer: about as exciting as the Windows Vista launch. Ouch.

I'll dissect some of the notable surprises that Jobs did announce -- things like Safari 3.0 for Windows and the new gaming developers -- in the days ahead. And I'll publish our full analysis of the financial impact of the WWDC announcements and what they mean for Apple's business as part of our June Analyzing Apple report, which should be out next week. But the most important aspect of the keynote from my point of view is that Jobs returned to his close-mouthed self. Despite this being a Leopard showcase, he kept unshipped product hidden behind the curtain. That showed discipline. It showed strategy.

Sun Tzu says in The Art of War, "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." It's equally good advice for marketers -- and Jobs proved today that he hasn't forgotten it.

Technorati Tags: Analyzing Apple, Apple, Financial analysis, Keynote, Leopard, Mac OS X, Marketing, Quick Look, Stacks, Steve Jobs, WWDC