Tim Cook Takes Swipe at Windows During MIT Commencement (cnet.com) 91
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered the commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday, and he couldn't help taking a swipe at a rival. In a section of his speech describing his search for answers and tough decisions in college and beyond, he admitted turning to a Microsoft computer. "I went to grad school at Duke, looking for the answer," Cook said. "I tried meditation. I sought guidance and religion. I read great philosophers and authors. In a moment of youthful indiscretion, I might even have experimented with a Windows PC. And obviously that didn't work." The line got a hearty laugh from the crowd.
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Or you could be overreacting to a funny.
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But it really isn't; it's just a harmless joke that even Bill Gates would laugh at.
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Now that the cell phone market is saturated, and their spinoffs like tablets and smart watches have failed to capture the same success, the shareholders are going to get antsy. In the long term, focus could shift away from real innovation to "innovation" in the financial sense, that is, squeezing every last drop out of what they already have. And I think that would work wonderfully for the shareholde
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All that supposedly implied in 5 words over what is clearly a joke? I think not.
The OP & you somehow invent a story of gloom and doom from a harmless joke. Michael Dell advised that Apple be split up, shut down, sold off and the value returned to the shareholders because they were clearly finished as a company. I doubt your crystal balls are any better than his was & again, it was a joke .
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But Apple isn't in any financial trouble, nor do I expect them to be. What I expect is that they won't be able to put out blockbuster products every couple of years into perpetuity. T
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What?!! The USG would be as likely to step in & save a mismanaged Apple as they did Yahoo.
Pride has almost nothing to do with either of the USG's recent interventions (The Auto industry & the Banks). JOBS and knock on JOBS are the reason for both and Apple doesn't have a comparable footprint in jobs disruption in the U.S.
Apples' underdog days are over true, but only the Apple haters are looking into their crystal balls and concluding that "the glory days are over". Given how poorly you understand wh
it's a quip (Score:2)
Oh, come on. It's a quip, nothing more than that.
If you spend more than ten seconds thinking about it, you're overthinking it.
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Personally I think AAPL is a long term short now - they are obviously still riding Steve's coattails as he did the best he could to set them up to do so; but without a once-in-a-lifetime visionary genius, they are nothing special.
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The problem is that a numbers guy is now at the top and a designer is now making engineering decisions.
That's not the way to do it and the so-called "iMac Pro" is proof of it. Cramming all that hardware into the iMac design is just insane.
I have no idea why Tim Cook, a logistics guy, still haven't pushed for a handful of motherboards to be re-used into multiple products. Make a low-end motherboard that you can use in the Mac mini, MacBook Air and a low-end 17~19" iMac. You lower your costs, your development
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Since they're designing their own motherboards I really don't see any problem with this idea. If you're thinking about ports vs internal connections, that's a small "price to pay" compared to designing three different motherboards and letting sales drop because you're not updating the product lines.
Re: So... the time has come... (Score:1)
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Re: So... the time has come... (Score:1)
Apple's whole culture is based in being a minority player. A company with products more expensive than the market average. In personal computers they have never wanted to be the majority player. They foster an elite customer base by intent. That way they can charge significantly more with higher margins.
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The Mac OS prior to System 7 may well have had shortcomings, and useful only as a toy OS. It wasn't until they got OS X that they had a serious OS
But they screwed that up! (Score:1)
Increasingly, it's got ancient tools, proprietary tools, and a "package management" system that is more about making Apple money rather than easing a user's administration of his computer. They went from UNIX to eunuchs pretty quick.
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The A/UX I was using on my Mac II in 1987 was a full Unix that also had a fully functional MacOS GUI.
Student Budget (Score:2)
is he suggesting that Apple's computers weren't even an option to him at that point?
I expect so on a student budget. Apple's computers are not an option to many students given their currently insane pricing. This has always been an issue but a few years ago they seemed to get the pricing right and I saw a lot of students in my lectures with Mac laptops, now it is down to just one or two with most have Dell, HP or low-end MS Surface devices.
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Or you could simply buy a P-P-Powerbook.
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I'm a faculty member and while I could afford their prices and would prefer MacOS to Windows. However, the fact that I could pay $2k Canadian less for a top-end laptop a
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Quit your whining you two, all you're doing is making me crave an apple-flavoured latte.
How about a relevant rival? (Score:1)
No dissing on Google, who is Apple's actual competitor in the 21st century?
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In the context of discussing his college years? Exactly how would that have worked?
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No dissing on Google, who is Apple's actual competitor in the 21st century?
Management with no imagination.
Water is wet (Score:3)
Fire is hot. This is now news.
Did he inhale? (Score:2)
The real question is did he inhale? Apparently not though he seems to have drunk the Apple Coolaid.
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I think parent AC is right, Tim Cook is a lesbian trapped inside a man's body.
That might explain the lack of input ports (i.e. holes) on the Macs.
The CEO of the worlds biggest tech company (Score:1)
company says he was unable to figure out how to use a Windows based PC? I'd imagine having to use two mouse buttons and a start menu can be pretty daunting...
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The real battle of that era was Atari ST vs Amiga. The Mac was an expensive black and white computer with a miniature monitor and the PC was... well, a slow, beeping, low-resolution 4-colours piece of crap.
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You mean the same start button that needs to be used to stop the computer? Or the Windows button that does something else entirely on Windows 10?
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Eject a disc? You simply click on the "eject" button next to the drive name.
Stones (Score:2)
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You've never tried Windows 10.
its a good line... (Score:1)
it was a funny line, thats it - It is not "taking a swipe" its a throw away laugh line. he didnt disparage anything or any one, he, as the apple ceo, said he may have tried apples rival...Big deal - why is this news?
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Yeah...this is headline?
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I guess this must be "News for nerds" (Score:1)
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Don't overreact (Score:2)
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While that's true, it's also the kind of jokes made by companies who are imminently about to fail at something.
I'm not sure are they flattering Microsoft by joking about the competition or adopting their mobile and music business strategy?
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How can grownups be "fans" of a company? And even go public with it?
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He could have said "I got a BSO" or something related to Windows, but he didn't. You could replace Windows for any product, (Billy Gates about Mac, Zuckeberg about google... ) and it would have raise laughs as well.
That kind of jokes are not fair play, because the pun has nothing to do with the target, it could be used for any one. I don't think it is funny an edited photo of Donald Trump wearing a diapper, not because I love Donald Trump, but because it is not imaginative. If you are anti-Clinton you could show her wearing a diapper and your supporters will laugh. If you are anti-Pope you can show him wearing a diapper and your supporters will laugh....and go on forever.. those are easy jokes.
In a gas station stops a car and from the car gets out [basket star]. He tells to the gas employee. - I am [basket star], I forgot my wallet at home, please, let me fill the tank and I will pay you in a few hours the double. - Well, you look like [basket star], but understand me, I am not sure, I have never met you personally before. Could you do something to probe you are [basket star]? [basket star] gets a ball from the car and does wonders with it - Obviously it is you. I'll fill the tank
Another day [music star] stops at the gas station. He tells the gas employee. - I am [music star], I forgot my wallet at home, please, let me fill the tank and I will pay you in a few hours the double. - Well, you look like [music star], but understand me, I am not sure, I have never met you personally before. Could you do something to probe you are? [music star] sings one of his most famous songs. - Obviously it is you. I'll fill the tank.
Another day Donald Trump stops at the gas station. He tells the gas employee. - I am Donald Trump, I forgot my wallet at home, please, let me fill the tank and I will pay you in a few hours the double. - Well, you look like Donald Trump, but understand me, I am not sure, I have never met you personally before. Could you do something to probe you are Donald Trump? Donald Trump says - Well, I can't do anything - Obviously it is you. I'll fill the tank.
Along the years I've heard this joke with different politicians. The joke disappears and reappears after a few years or months with a different politician. It's not a great joke, it is a joker joke.
What's the joke like in English, I wonder?
Taking swipes at competitors... (Score:2)
This sounds like a strategy taken from the Microsoft playbook of things to do right before your next major product flops.
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This sounds like a strategy taken from the Microsoft playbook of things to do right before your next major product flops.
I'm a Mac user - but this was my first thought as well. I recall Ballmer doing these sorts of things - making fun of Macs, making fun of iPods.
Apple - like Microsoft from a decade or so ago - may be rolling in dough... but it also seems to be out of ideas.
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That sounds like fake news. I'm sure CNN will be all over it in 5...4...3...
Really? (Score:2)
I guess the time has come that every bad Windows joke is now 'news for nerds, stuff that matters. Sad.