January's Consumer Electronics Show books up fast, as would-be congregants know well. But it seems that one potential attendee is still not committed as we roll into August -- interesting, since the world already knows what the fellow won't be attending in early 2010.

The erstwhile guest is Steve Jobs, of course, and with Apple already declining to take part in MacWorld next January, speculation has been rampant that Apple and its rock-star CEO would make the jaunt to Vegas. That speculation seemed to be strengthened by a post by Ben Charny for the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that Mr. Jobs would be not just attending but speaking.

Pandemonium! The Apple head has of course been asked repeatedly over the years, but in the true Cupertino fashion has often not even bothered to respond to the invitation, let alone committed to attending. What might have happened to change his mind?

Nothing, it turns out. The WSJ blog post in question became distinctly top-heavy with corrections as the story unfolded -- Mr. Jobs has been asked but has not yet responded; moreover, Apple itself may or may not be exhibiting, despite this year's addition of the 12,000-square-foot iLounge, which will feature developers for the iPhone and iPod lines.

It's rather late in the CES process for a major player such as Apple to insert itself in that process, by the way; Ryan Kim at the San Francisco Chronicle asked Gary Shapiro, the head of CEA (the organization that runs CES), and Mr. Shapiro said that the only available spaces at this point would be rather small -- less than a few thousand square feet.

An ugly reporting misfire, to be sure, but the comments below the piece from angry, disappointed readers indicate that the Apple fan contingent was sorely let down by the news and, as they will, chose to share with the world the pain caused by their spiritual wedgie (sample quote: "this kind of journalism turns [the WSJ] into a gossip site more on the level with Perez Hilton").

But cheer up, Macolytes. The currently scheduled CES keynoters, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Intel's Paul Otellini, attract hideous lines to attend their talks, and we're used to those two; the queue for a Jobs keynote would have had to start convening right about... now.