Apple Leaves Journalists Jonesing 277
Hodejo1 writes "Apple traditionally has big product announcements in the early spring, so around February both the mainstream press and the tech blogs began to circulate their favorite rumors (the iWatch, iTV). They also announced the date of the next Apple event, which this year was in March — except it didn't happen. 'Reliable sources' then confirmed it would be in April, then May and then — nothing. In withdrawal and with a notoriously secretive Apple offering no relief the tech journalists started to get cranky. The end result is a rash of petulant stories that insist Apple is desperate for new products, in trouble (with $150 billion dollars in the bank, I should be in such trouble) and in decline. The only ones desperate seem to be editors addicted to traffic-generating Apple announcements. Good news is on the horizon, though, as the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference starts June 10th."
This was in evidence last night, as Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke to the press at the All Things D conference. Cook's statements were mostly the sort of vague, grandiose talk that gets fed to investors on an earnings call, but it's generating article after article because, hey, it's Tim Cook.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
^ that is all
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a Mac fan, and I think the iPhone is all right. I'm not an Apple hater.
That said, I completely agree. We are now reporting about non-news as news?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's sort of like having a small child or a puppy. It's when everything is quiet that you start to wonder what they're up to.
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Also like a small child or puppy, the average owner will spam everybody else with updates and pictures until they are sick of it.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
"A small child or puppy with $150 billion of other people's money. And someday governments around the world will grow enough balls to take it back."
People gave them money in exchange for a product. That's called business.
As to "growing enough balls", get real. We have corporations that make billions in profits quarterly, pay little to no taxes on them, and then the government turns around and hands them billions more in subsidies and tax breaks. And yes, I'm talking about you, Exxon.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little hesitant to reply to you since your tone of voice is so nasty but.. here goes.
When you buy stuff, you really should pay the entire cost of that stuff which should include the costs and benefits of the legal, political, education, and infrastructure (roads, communications, etc.) which went into making that stuff. Some of these costs are publicly funded by taxes.
That is why corporations should pay taxes.
I don't want to underwrite the cost of your latest gadget by paying for all of the public goods which helped create it.
You need to pay for your own stuff.
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I wish all taxes were corporate. That way all the cost of taxes would be hidden in the product cost. Then I would almost never have to pay taxes because I almost never buy anything. All the people I know who have to have the latest and greatest could thus pay my way. I like it. I have two cars, one a 98 model and a newer 01. I bought a new washer and dryer in 2010, my second set since I got married in 1980. I bought a new TV in 2011, my third in the same period. It's not that I'm cheap I just don't
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sorry, did Apple break into peoples' houses and force them to buy iPads and iPhones and Macs at the point of a gun? Because I'm pretty sure they didn't.
That 150 billion is Apple's - they earned it, it's not "someone else's" money - unless you can prove that they have failed to pay the taxes required of them by law, in which case SOME PORTION of that money certainly belongs to the governments to which taxes are owed.
If Apple has satisfied thei
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Citation? Or do you just have insinuation?
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Apple is now Just Another Tech Company run by MBAs and Marketing jackwads.
If Steve were here, he would tear the entire iTunes team a new asshole and then fire them all.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with the first part (and hey, they can coast for a decade, so maybe they've got ample opportunity to get moving again), I don't agree with the second part.
iTunes sucked hard for many, many years while Jobs was at the helm, its awfulness isn't a feature of Tim Cook's days.
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Apple is now Just Another Tech Company run by MBAs and Marketing jackwads.
If Steve were here, he would tear the entire iTunes team a new asshole and then fire them all.
Steve should have fired the team that makes the Windows version of iTunes. That software is in the same league as "The most shittiest software in the world" such as Samsung Keis. iTunes especially is just so much junk.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Apple stories bring in ad revenue. A lot of it, in fact. If you can attract Android fanboys and Apple-haters to the mix, you can count on a good chunk of ad revenue.
So Apple non-news is the media's attempt to bring some Apple story ad revenue back.
Journalists are hurting for money too, you know,
And Apple's positioned themselves to be the "premium, but accessible" brand. Unlike Google (who simply are ho-hum because they're splashed across the vast majority of web searchines), and Samsung (who you see everywhere for everything - from lowly crap to high end smartphones and appliances).
And Google I/O was a huge bust in terms of reporting. The PS4 and Xbox One announcements tended to be yawners.
Only Apple stories can bring in crowds from Apple fanboys, Android fanboys, Apple haters, and the general public - it won't be long until even the Apple-haters have haters ("I remember when hating Apple was COOL..."). Android stories bring out some Android fanboys, and a few Apple fanboys, but otherwise not much of a stir. Microsoft stories (including Xbox) similarly - the anti-Microsoft rhetoric has died down. Even Google can't seem to pull in crowds.
Except it seems that Apple has throughout its entire life a steady supply of fans, haters, and people interested in their product.
Hell, it won't be long until you see "Tim Cook - help a starving journalist and announce *something*".
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Apple's not announced any amazing new products! Apple is doomed! SELL SELL SELL!
I don't care much about Apple either way, but the way people speculate about it is so silly. Of course, this is the company that manages to meet its own stated revenue targets but takes a stock hit for not meeting third-party analysts' made-up targets. All I can do is laugh.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Apple used to be a lot more reticent regarding future products. The fact that Mr. Cook is talking/hinting about future products is confirmation that Apple knows its best days are behind it. Mr. Cook is trying, unsuccessfully it appears, to regenerate the buzz around Apple.
Yeah, maybe it's time to shut Apple down and give the money back to the shareholders. [wikipedia.org]
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That's an excellent point.
That said, the way they turned it around was to re-hire Steve Jobs, their visionary co-founder. Obviously, that option is now deceased.
They could try and throw Woz back in there, but... well... no.
Now they're back to the place where they are a corporation being run by people who are removed from the original vision. The good news is that these guys are Jobs' hand-picked successors, and that they have a lot of money in the bank. The situation is not the same as when Jobs got fire
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hand-picked successors can certainly fail, but it isn't the same situation as being thrown out by Gil Amelio and the Board.
Needless to say, Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, but that might be "acceptable". One might consider that the Board probably knew that the share value would tank simply because Steve Jobs died. If they were prepared for that eventuality, then they realize that *any* successor would be screwed. If they're going to fire him, they are going to want to do it based on a stock drop that Tim Cook is primarily responsible for.
Now, as for Cook's actual ability to be CEO, two things are unclear.
1. If Apple is tanking, is that simply because Apple's products were entering sort of an iterative phase even before Jobs died? Some had pointed that out in the past.
2. Can Steve Jobs be replaced by anyone at all? Was he like Alexander the Great or Charlemagne in terms of being able to build an empire where no empire should have been able to appear normally? If Apple was built solely on personal abilities of a particular person, instead of on collective leadership, it will need to change significantly to be able to survive without him.
On point two, however, one should point out that Alexander the Great's successors were actually rather successful at maintaining their still-large, if divided, holdings. Tim Cook may not be an Alexander, but he could shape up to be a Ptolemy. In that sense, he might still be the right man for the job, even if everything he does seems to look like failure in contrast to Jobs. Cook might ultimately be successful at maintaining as much of the Empire as he can, but he's probably still going to lose a good chunk of it no matter what he does.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, it didn't get chopped in half. AAPL peaked at 702, and troughed at 390, give or take. Second, at no point did AAPL lose much more than about a year worth of gains. Every dollar the stock lost was a dollar that it also gained under Tim Cook, at approximately the same rate.
News flash: AAPL is prone to wild swings. Nothing new here. The only difference this time is that there's a whole new crop of pundits who don't remember 2008, 2001, etc.
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Further to that, it's not clear that the stock price of any given company at any given time is entirely related to its performance. If the world were rational, Apple would still have a high stock price because they still make enormous profits. As a long term bet, they're fairly solid. Their price to earnings ratio is incredibly good.
Apple makes more profits in a quarter than Amazon has, cumulatively, over its entire history. (http://go.bloomberg.com/market-now/2013/01/23/apples-profit-vs-amazons-promise/) S
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How can any CEO keep their job after their stock value was chopped in half in less than a year?
The value of the stock, particularly stocks for companies such as Apple, is often based on sentiment with crystal-ball-esque predictions of future earnings and performance. It can take a long time for reality to set in. Frankly the price was too damn high, it was all based on euphoria of Apple producing a never ending stream of must-have products and the idea that the stock will continue to increase... and it di
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"Apple's "market-changing" products seem to be fewer and farther in-between of late."
Please. Apple II released in 1976, Lisa in 1983. Macintosh in 1984. Powerbook in 1991. iPod is 2001. iPhone in 2007. Air in 2008. iPad in 2010. The iPad mini (yet another bestselling product) just last year.
Just how often is a single company supposed to create a "market-changing" product anyway?
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"Slashdot is becoming ever the shill site since took over"
Surely that's just the universal, elitist meme talking, like no-one who's here now is as cool as the original crowd, etc.?
Well sorry for not being cool enough. Blame the Roman Catholic Comprehensive school I went to.
journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
A good example to watch.
A successful company, ahead of its markets, does not need a new product every 6 months.
Journalists, on the other hand, do need news.
Re:journalism (Score:4, Insightful)
It does when "Buy The iDevice++" is their business model. There's a lot of 3 to 5 year old iDevices out there that are still perfectly suited to what their owners actually need, but Apple has made a metric fuckton of money by convincing people to upgrade every year even if they don't need any of the new features. At it's heart, Apple has become a marketing company that happens to also sell what they market. Without that marketing power, iDevices would have all the popularity of the Zune.
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The mobile phone industry was built around getting people to buy new phones every year (18 months, towards the end) for a long, long time before Apple came on the scene, and there weren't new features - needed or not - as an inducement.
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I used the generic iDevice rather than the specific iPhone because they use the same model for iPods and iPads. Although iPods have pretty much faded from the spotlight now, that's what Apple began the entire iDevice trend with long before the iPhone was even a rumor, much less a product.
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I don't think the tablet market is sufficiently saturated that they're selling iPads primarily to people that already own one, yet. (You may be interested in this piece [asymco.com], which shows through stats just how saturated the iPhone market is, though.)
Re:journalism (Score:5, Informative)
It does when "Buy The iDevice++" is their business model. There's a lot of 3 to 5 year old iDevices out there that are still perfectly suited to what their owners actually need, but Apple has made a metric fuckton of money by convincing people to upgrade every year even if they don't need any of the new features. At it's heart, Apple has become a marketing company that happens to also sell what they market. Without that marketing power, iDevices would have all the popularity of the Zune.
I think that you are completely and utterly wrong on how Apple views their customers. You are listening to too many rabid fanbois and reading too many awesome tech journals.
Looking at phones in particular: before the iPhone came along software upgrades, though possible, were generally a pain. This was further complicated by carrier software versions preventing manufacturer updates being applied. In general you bought a phone and the software was fixed. Apple continue to support older versions of phones with new software releases with as much feature parity as won't impact the experience. Their aim is to keep their customers happy so that when they come to replace their device they will buy it from them. The philosophy is to build the best that they can and build customer loyalty.
I've had two iPhones, a 3G and a 4S. The 4S is still good enough for pretty much whatever I want to do so I can't see me upgrading this year unless the next phone does something magical. When I come to replace I'll buy another iPhone. Why? Because it does the job I want it to.
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I think it's two things related to the software.
1. As you say, there are software upgrades put out regularly, you're not stuck with security holes or old useless phones.
2. Even though the software and devices are upgraded, they stay almost exactly the same from revision to revision. There are new features, but the iphoneX+1 still works almost exactly the same as an iphoneX. That is the important part. People hated having to relearn the interface of their phone every time they got a new one. It's still an is
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Actually everything I have seen says that Apple makes little to nothing on selling music, apps, storage, etc. Sure they generate tons of revenue, but Apple claims most of that revenue pays for the service, royalties, etc. Remember Apple only gets 30% of every dollar in Apps sold. A lot of apps are free, in which case Apple is losing money operationally. Only Apple and the record labels know how much Apple hands over to the record labels on every song sold.
However, making the ecosystem work with all the devi
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There's a lot of 3 to 5 year old iDevices out there that are still perfectly suited to what their owners actually need,
You are either that guy with the latest of everything who thinks he knows what everyone else needs (and it is always less than what you "need") or you are that guy with a prepaid flip-phone who sends emails to webmasters because there aren't enough ALT tags to keep Lynx usable.
Speaking as someone with every iPhone since the 3G still running at home, this statement can only be true for very
Re:journalism (Score:5, Informative)
I'm still on my iPhone 4. I have no particular need to upgrade every year. I've been buying Macs for a long time, and I always sold them when I ran out of AppleCare...I'm hardly on a 1-year upgrade cycle. Now I'm actually still using a 4-year-old iMac and an even older MacBook. (We bought a new Mac Mini to run computational experiments, but it's headless.)
In fact, most of the people I know are still using their iPhone 4. I know one person with an iPhone 5, and he came from a Windows phone.
If there's a policy or climate of consumption, it's societal, not due to Apple's marketing. The idea that you should update as often as possible isn't new to computing. Heck, it's not like it even started with computers. I've known plenty of people that leased cars just so they could get a new one every couple of years. Consumption is the curse of the current capitalist framework that we live in. That Apple exists and exploits that system somewhat shouldn't be pinned on them; they're just a symptom.
I MAY upgrade to what Apple announces this year, but I might not. I may my own determinations based on what my needs are.
Apple doesn't make vast changes to its products year on year. It adds a new feature or two and releases an upgraded OS to a lot of people for FREE. And here's the irony: Android owners are constantly ragging on Apple for this. "Oh man, nothing new out of Apple! Why should I buy their stuff?" They can't win around here. Either they're not making crazy big changes that would force you to buy a new item, or they're releasing new, upgraded products TOO DAMN OFTEN. No way to win.
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In fact, most of the people I know are still using their iPhone 4.
Slashdot should have a "-1 worthless anecdote" mod. Not singling you out in particular, just sayin' that Slashdot is full of "everyone I know..." and "it is/isn't good for me, therefore it is/isn't good for everyone".
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Anecdotes aren't data, I know, but my worthless anecdote was a counter to the worthless assertion that the parent made. :)
Re:journalism (Score:4, Funny)
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/Oblg. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple [theoatmeal.com]
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$20 million in revenue is generated overnight
They're already making more than that without celebrities.
famous for being famous (Score:5, Insightful)
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You read an article which is entirely composed of speculation about Apple's future product roadmap, and you come away with the conclusion that Apple's fame isn't about its products?
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If you're referring to this /. artcile, I read an article speculating about journalists speculating about what Apple might possibly do sometime. Maybe.
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Yes, but it's demonstrably an interest in Apple's actual products, and not just fame-for-fame's-sake. There's a difference between rampant speculation about the new Star Wars film (because people really care about Star Wars, the end product) and rampant speculation about Harrison Ford's personal life (because fame).
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Being announced in the September and Holiday press events, like they were last year?
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Sure, they created the iPod, then the iTunes music store, then the iPhone, then the app store, then the iPad... but what have they done lately? They should be introducing breakthrough products at least annually, right? And that time they had the most profitable quarter of any company in history... that was, like, over a year ago! Stick a fork in'em -- they're done.
Guess what folks -- Apple is going to continue to do nothing... right up until the day they do something.
What's Apple Famous for Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that and popularizing the graphic user interface everyone uses in the first place [wikipedia.org].
And for having a pretty decent Unix-based operating system [stackexchange.com] while Ballmer drives Microsoft off a cliff [forbes.com].
And for designing the first mp3 player that the mass-market embraced [mashable.com].
And for ushering in the change from feature-phones to smartphones [bgr.com].
And for creating an earthquake in the tablet market such that in the future it is predicted more tablets will sell than PCs [macrumors.com].
But yeah...they are just famous for being famous...
Of course then a couple years will go by and people will forget all of history and again claim that Apple is just famous for being famous. Such is the cycle of Slashdot.
Re:What's Apple Famous for Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has had great timing.
All of this stuff was bound to happen around when it happened. Apple saw these things coming and was there at the right time, as opposed to first. But then they always just make a shiny shiny, and half-ass it, because that's enough to get most of the dollars. You know, just like everyone else.
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Apple has had great timing.
All of this stuff was bound to happen around when it happened. Apple saw these things coming and was there at the right time, as opposed to first. But then they always just make a shiny shiny, and half-ass it, because that's enough to get most of the dollars. You know, just like everyone else.
I have to disagree with you here. I think Apple created their own timing. The only thing they waited on was broadband internet access. When it was introduced, the iPod blew people away; the iPad did something that Microsoft failed to do for over 10 years: get a tablet to be accepted and used by the general public. I would guess that you could give MS another 10 years and they still wouldn't understand the tablet market without what Apple had done. Google wouldn't have even considered creating An
Re:What's Apple Famous for Again? (Score:5, Informative)
Before the iPod, MP3 players were either small with low capacity or used huge fragile laptop drives. They had horrible interfaces and slow transfers.
This was Android before the iPhone.....
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2170500/googles-android-prototype-smartphone-blackberry-rip [theinquirer.net]
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The first iPods used 1.8" hard drives - not the 2.5" laptop drives.
The Mini use 1" hard drives -- not flash. The shuffle and the nano were the first to use flash.
The mini was the best selling iPod before the Nano.
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Timing is a skill. If you don't believe me, ask a sharpshooter.
Or, hell, ask actual entrepreneurs. Some people are too early to market. Some are too late. It's been said that timing is everything, and not just for Comedy.
But yeah, hey, it's just timing. If it's just timing, why don't YOU do it?
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What's Apple famous for again? Yup, they are famous for being famous.
Well that and popularizing the graphic user interface everyone uses in the first place [wikipedia.org].
Introduced 29 years ago, by Steve Jobs.
And for having a pretty decent Unix-based operating system [stackexchange.com] while Ballmer drives Microsoft off a cliff [forbes.com].
Introduced 13 years ago, by Steve Jobs.
And for designing the first mp3 player that the mass-market embraced [mashable.com].
Introduced 12 years ago, by Steve Jobs.
And for ushering in the change from feature-phones to smartphones [bgr.com].
Introduced 5 years ago, by Steve Jobs.
And for creating an earthquake in the tablet market such that in the future it is predicted more tablets will sell than PCs [macrumors.com].
Introduced over 2 years ago, by Steve Jobs.
See where I'm going with this? We all know Apple's history. The point is: what insanely great innovations have they unveiled since the death of Steve Jobs?
Answer: NONE.
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Apple seems to be more about the rumours and the stories about their products nowadays...
I sense you must not be familiar with the Mac community. Rumors are the norm.
You can spin that to be a bad thing, saying, "They have rumors because there's nothing of substance." You could spin it to be a positive, saying, "The market is so excited about Apple's products that they engage in wild speculation." Regardless, the Mac rumor mill has been spinning for decades, and this is not something that has emerged "nowadays".
Just a rumor (Score:3)
Re:Just a rumor (Score:5, Funny)
Not only will it blend* the most hipster smoothie you have ever tasted, but the sleek iBlender can also play music** and videos***, make phones calls****, get you lost in your travels***** and more!
*Blades sold separately in the iTunes store.
**Requires iTunes
***Requires AppleControl iMplants
****Requires monthly tithing
*****Feature, not a bug. Just ask our lawyers.
Jonesing? (Score:4, Funny)
WTF is Jonesing ?
Are they drinking poisoned cool ade? (Rev Lim Jones)
Speaking in a deep voice? (James Earl Jones)
Singing Tenor (Tom Jones)
I'll admit I wasn't born in the USA, but English (English) has been my main language for over 50 years
Re:Jonesing? (Score:5, Insightful)
When faced with a new word it is often prudent to attempt to deduce its meaning from context. Given that the article is about journalists "in withdrawal" and "cranky" due to a lack of new Apple news, what do you think that "Jonesing" could mean?
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I think it's a twist on the saying "Keeping up with the Joneses" which basically means trying to compete with the neighbours in the context of a middle-class suburban class war, i.e. "Mr Jones next door has a new Porsche, this means we'll have to get a better model!".
In other words they're saying that because Apple hasn't come up with anything newsworthy the media is having to make up stories to try and out-compete each other for views and that one paper saying "Is Apple running out of ideas?" will be follo
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Err, No....http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jonesing
"Exhibiting a strong craving or desire for something eaten, imbibed, or taken as a drug. Comes from opiate culture."
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Well there goes my innocence.
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"Jonesing" is drug slang, usually used in regard to heroin. It means I need my next fix, and I need it NOW.
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I'll have to hang around with more heroin addicts to make sure I know all the slang in future.
People are forgetful (Score:2)
This is a typical Apple product cycle state.
Apple typically has a "big year" followed by nothing. Feast followed by famine.
2012 saw major and minor updates of almost every product Apple makes including new product roll-outs.
So I fully expected 2013 to be a very slow year for Apple announcements and full of wild speculation and rumor mongering about what they are planning next. This has been a trend for Apple for almost 15 years since they rolled out the first iMac that iconized their iProducts into stuff p
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You contradict yourself. First, you rightly point out that there will be fast years and slow years, and that people forget history in the slow years with their silly predictions of apple's doom.
You then forget history yourself when you bring up pointless bs about their stock price. Seriously, zoom out the stock chart to show the last 5 or 10 years, and you will see in context that the drop of $300 is merely correcting an anomaly. From 2009 to 2011, aapl had sustainable growth. Then in 2012 there was a crazy
My lame rumor seed (Score:3, Informative)
Okay, I'll toss one out just for fun: I think the smart money is on an iPhone 5S announcement on June 10th, which will be a minor speed bump, and the new Mac Pro will wait until one of Apple's short-notice-press-conferences in the fall. I have no evidence for the Mac Pro speculation, other than what Cook has publicly stated about their timetables... but I have anecdotal evidence for the iPhone 5S: According to Sprint employees that I spoke to just yesterday, supplies of the current iPhone 5 are starting to dry up. (They couldn't find me the 64GB models at all... I ended up settling for a pair of 32GB models that they had shipped to the store.) When Apple starts to close off the supply chain for a given product, that's usually a good indicator of an impending replacement, and if memory serves, previous reports have suggested that Apple can flush almost their entire supply within about a week. With the WWDC just around the corner, that seems about right to me.
"it's generating article after article... (Score:2)
...because, hey, it's Tim Cook."
Um, yeah, no kidding. How are the clicks on *this* article doing, non-jonesing Slashdot editors?
Nature of the business (Score:2)
Journalists have to make up news if there is none. If there's no crime, they'll make up something else for you to freak out about, because "225,000 people enjoyed a quiet, uneventful night at home" does not sell papers.
Just because journalists are idiots, does not mean Apple is actually doing anything wrong.
So the story is... (Score:2)
... there is no story.
Like my profession's image could get any worse... (Score:4, Insightful)
To any tech journalists upset that Apple isn't spoon-feeding them product news: Get out. Just leave the business. Please?
Seriously, if you don't know to do your own digging for a story or don't want to, you're in the wrong line of work. And there are plenty of other people who would gladly take your place.
It's somewhat reasonable to be worried (Score:3)
It's somewhat reasonable to be worried ... if you are an investor. No one else should much care. So ignore all the journalists who are not business/financial in nature.
Historically, Apple has an approximately 6 month announcement cycle which corresponds to biannual major public events, one for developers in the fall, and one for everyone else in the spring. At these events, it alternately announces its new desktop/laptop hardware, and then its new iDevices.
This is one of the few times they've missed their spring announcement in almost a decade; the last time was when Tiger slipped shipping for over six months, and that coincided with a claim of a new 18 month development cycle which lasted only one release cycle. This was actually occasioned by some major management screw-ups internally, coinciding with the first major drop-off in Steve's health.
Apple has been pretty religious about keeping to this schedule, even through the power shift in 2008/2009 when the taller Oompa Loompsa realized they were more or less in charge of the steering wheel of the chocolate factory, should they want to fight each other to steer.
The iPhone 5 was more or less a fizzle. They're selling OK, but the difference in aspect ratio, made for economic rather than design reasons, combined with the maps change and other changes resulting from non-renewal of contracts with third party vendors, including Google, made it probably the worst launch for an iDevice and an iOS release in Apple history. Technologically, they are a step away from design being the goal in a design/cost tradeoff, and a step backwards in system software.
Mountain Lion sold well, but only because they dropped the upgrade price to practically nothing. It was a more or less bug fix release for things that should have never been released in Lion in the first place, and the "Game Center" was a non-feature (no games), and the "Message Center" was moving iOS features into a desktop OS, which makes sense for some of them, but when Facebook integration failed to materialize, even in updates, it's potential utility went down.
It's pretty clear I called the code on the patient way too early myself, but given that it's hovering at around 60% of its high of about 8 months ago, I'd say it was a matter of "when" not "if" the product pipeline would be drying up.
Intel Apple partnership (Score:3)
It would seem reasonable that Apple and Intel, two giants in tech industry, would partnership with Intel's new Haswell chipset. It is well known that Intel wants to compete more in the "mobile" computing markets. Apple has a solid foothold in the market and can benefit Intel greatly but putting Intel chips in all of their new products. If Apple has the "next big thing" planned already then they may also be waiting for June 3rd/4th to make any announcements following Intels expected unveiling of their new chipset designed primarily for the mobile markets. If this is the case then Intel will start the hype, Apple will build on the hype, ?, profit.
Re:The reality distortion field is waning. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, *you* try taking over a cult sometime, buddy! You hand people their Kool-Aid and all they can do is complain that Ascended Father would have sweetened it more.
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The henchmen also didn't drink the kool-aid. Whose henchmen were they? You still think they were his?
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They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I have to kind of chuckle because, well, Android...
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Android was designed with the potential for arbitrary screen resolutions from the outset, in contrast Apple pretended fragmentation was an Android problem rather than accept the reality that fragmentation is a necessary fact of progress (because for progress to occur, hardware has to change).
The net result is that with iOS you often end up with programs where they either just zoom in and create a pixelated wreck of your lovely retina display, or they just use up an absolutely tiny fraction of your total scr
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I can't say that it's been an issue in practice on either platform. Most iOS apps are either at the native resolution (I can't recall the last time I used an app that wasn't Retina) or a simple 2x upscale which looks nigh-identical to running on the lower-res hardware. Meanwhile Android devices have converged on the small subset of screen resolutions and sizes that are available at high volume from panel fabricators, such that developers only have to target a handful of specifications.
Phone apps run on tabl
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Yeah, I think fundamentally the problem is that Android always made it clear hardware was going to be different between devices, whilst Apple spent a few iterations pretending you could just write for the first few iterations with very few differences, until you couldn't.
Effectively many early Android apps were built to work with different resolutions, iOS apps weren't and so it meant Apple had this scenario where they had a whole app store full of apps not built to support anything other than 320x480 then
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There was no technical reason why the iPad couldn't have just zoomed iPhone apps to near-fullscreen automatically. The reason it doesn't is that Apple wanted to encourage people to think about how to use the extra resolution rather than just expand the screen. The result is that you get a lot of iPad apps that take advantage of the extra room on a tablet vs. a phone, compared to many Android "tablet" apps that are just blown up versions of the phone interface.
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I've never really seen any qualitative difference between Android and iOS tablet apps in recent years though I agree Android had a lack of tablet oriented apps prior to Android 4 so I'm not really sure it makes any difference.
It is however still just an ugly hack that persists to this day with some apps and as Android tablet app quality has improved (along with Android itself) it's become a glaring scar on iOS.
It's also of little benefit to the user, the user doesn't care what the app developer may or may n
Re:Apple is in trouble (Score:5, Informative)
They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I have to kind of chuckle because, well, Android...
You didn't really read gp's post, right?
Google told the Android developers a long time ago that they should prepare their apps for a variety of resolutions and DPIs.
Apple on the other hand told their developers that they can expect fixed resolutions, and are now struggeling with the fact that they have different resolutions, different DPIs and different aspect ratios.
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They are stuck with a bunch of odd resolutions and encouraged developers to target them all directly, resulting in debacles like the black bars when they went widescreen.
I have to kind of chuckle because, well, Android...
You didn't really read gp's post, right?
Google told the Android developers a long time ago that they should prepare their apps for a variety of resolutions and DPIs.
Apple on the other hand told their developers that they can expect fixed resolutions, and are now struggeling with the fact that they have different resolutions, different DPIs and different aspect ratios.
Never mind that they decided their flagship (only) mid-size tablet was going to mimic the screen of the old-ass iPad, low resolution, low DPI, and 4x3 aspect ratio. If the iPad Mini had a better display it would have crushed every tablet competitor, much the same way the "new iPad" did when it was released. But heavens! We can't expect our 20 million app developers to have to wrap their head around one new set of dimensions! Better to just let them re-use code designed for a larger display, and get back
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Google told the Android developers a long time ago that they should prepare their apps for a variety of resolutions and DPIs.
They may have "told them", but they didn't get the memo. Android works great when you have one of the most popular devices. Otherwise, you get lots of weird rendered screens, games that "work" on the phone, but really need a tablet-sized screen to work the controls, odd placement as stuff tries to orient itself on an untested screen size, apps that flat-out won't work with your device, etc.
I have an android phone and an android tablet, and I generally like them very much. That said, my mom's iPad is a smoot
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My phone has a slightly wacky resolution, the only time I see black bars is during loading screens and the like, games use the whole display, so do apps.
Now granted, I wrote an app in tasker that doesn't do all that magical stuff, but who cares? I've literally never seen any objectionable/notable black barring in anything I've paid for, or any popular app.
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Apple got a "two for one" trade in on "innovation" for "litigation" and "legislation."
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Apple never hints at its products ahead of time. There was no 'hint' of the iPhone 4. Or 4s. Sure, people expect Apple's upgrade cycle now, but they never hint at anything. The secrecy of Apple is legendary.
Market share, from a business perspective, is only relevant insofar as you can make money off of it. A joke, to illustrate:
Two guys buy a truck full of watermelons. They pay $5 a watermelon, and rush to the market to sell them. They sell each watermelon for $4, hugely undercutting all the other sellers a
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Tell that to Apple's shareholders.
They don't care much about the money in the bank, but about the new money to be made.
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Except they can't get to a lot of that money because it's held offshore and if they bring it onshore they'll lose an awful lot of it in taxes.
What use is the $102bn they hold offshore if they refuse to bring whatever is left of it post-tax into the US when there's little of value that makes sense to invest in in the countries they're holding said money?
Unless they plan on moving their HQ and all their talent to Ireland and such or just accept the tax deduction and bring it into the US (or another country) t
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If you couldn't interpret the meaning of my post then I'm not going to rephrase it for you as it means you're obviously too mentally inept to understand anything much.
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You're an idiot. The most expensive MBP w/Retina display is $2799.. I'm sure you could make it $3000 if you added a bunch of options... Certainly not "mid-range". The cheapest MBP w/Retina display is $1199; just slightly more than your $500-$1000 PC laptop... At the local clearance outlet, I see a similarly configured ASUS, on special, for $699, limit 2 per customer, while supplies last...
Sure, you can make any point if you're willing to outright lie...
Not a fanboi; I'm largely indifferent about Apple and
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To find a decent pc laptop with discrete graphics is more like 1000 dollars. I've shopped them and anything that isn't junk is close to a grand. A lot cheaper than Apple but not anything like the silly 300 dollar laptop you mention. There isn't a single Apple computer with a celeron processor not to mention the crappy lowend AMD processors. The main reason there isn't is that Apple doesn't want to compete in the lowend market. People end up with a piece of shit computer after spending 6 or 7 hundred do