Yes, it’s another day in paradise as tech-writing trips over its gigantic clown shoes in order to discuss all of Apple’s many challenges.
Writing for the Associated Press, Michael Liedtke commits a common sin:
“Apple CEO Dares To Be Different From Steve Jobs” (tip o’ the antlers to Myles Taylor).
Not being Steve Jobs is really Cook’s biggest flaw, isn’t it? Or, at least, not being the Steve Jobs that pundits always seem to think they knew better than anyone else.
“Think different” became Apple’s creed during the late Steve Jobs’ reign as CEO. Now, chief executive Tim Cook is embracing the idea while making decisions that would have seemed crazy to his fabled predecessor.
And Liedtke knows this because he is only a millimeter tall and used to live in Steve Jobs’s head.
The shift in management philosophy has resulted in an odd twist: Apple Inc.’s pace of innovation has slowed …
Has it? Do they not require the ability to do simple integer math in order to write about business for the AP? Yes, it was three years from the introduction of the iPhone to the introduction of the iPad and it has been four since that. But it was six years from the introduction of the iPod to the introduction of the iPhone. If Apple introduces a new product line this year, it will be batting its average.
… and it now looks more like a conventional company than the corporate rebel Jobs tried to cultivate. Instead of releasing revolutionary gadgets such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple has been mostly upgrading existing products and figuring out ways to manage its bulging bank account since Cook took over.
Uh-huh, sure. Provided you can’t do addition and subtraction, that’s just obvious.
Now. Are you ready for it? You know it’s coming, right? What’s the one thing this piece needs? What’s the one missing element that will take it over the top to sheer awesomeness?
“Jobs wanted Cook to step out and be different,” says …
OMG, WHO IS IT?!
… longtime technology analyst Rob Enderle.
GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!
And the crowd goes wild. With anger and disappointment.
“But I think …”
Do we really need to go into the reasons why what Rob Enderle “thinks” about Apple lacks any weight? Such as the fact that he’s always colossally wrong about Apple—probably because of his client list, which is filled with nothing but Apple’s competitors? The horny one would think not, but here Enderle is once again, being quoted as if his opinion matters.
“… he wanted (Cook) to do the things that were central to the business, not things that Jobs thought were stupid.”
And Rob Enderle would know what stupid is.
In the meantime, a host of technology companies have forged ahead with wearable devices, including Google Glass and Samsung’s line of Gear smartwatches. Also stealing the innovation spotlight: Internet connected housewares and appliances like the Nest thermostat, whose maker was founded by former Apple designer, Tony Fadell.
Once again the Macalope sees pundits using a dual standard when saying “innovation.” When Apple innovates it redefines a market and ships millions and millions of devices. Shipping a device that gets you thrown out of bars and attacked on the street and asking $1500 for the privilege isn’t the kind of innovation that does much good.
Wall Street is still taking a wait-and-see attitude with Cook. Apple’s stock ended last week at $585.24, well below its peak of $705.07 …
Which it reached under Cook.
… reached in September 2012, but still a 56 percent gain since Cook became CEO.
Sounds horrible.
Cook is “the guy who liked doing everything that Steve Jobs hated to do,” Enderle says. “When you make Jobs’ polar opposite the CEO, it’s probably not going to work out well.”
Surely there’s some mention of who pays Rob Enderle’s bills.
Surely not. When it comes to Rob, it’s always “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”