Apple Leaves Journalists Jonesing

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.

Comments

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

^ that is all

Re:Who cares?

[chrish]

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.

Re:Who cares?

[shmlco]

"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?

[mspohr]

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.

journalism

[Tom]

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

[SJHillman]

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.

famous for being famous

[shortscruffydave]

Apple seems to be more about the rumours and the stories about their products nowadays, more so than being about their product innovations. Makes me think of 'C' list celebrities, who are really famous for being famous rather than for anything substantive that they might actually do

What's Apple Famous for Again?

[neoshroom]

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.

And for having a pretty decent Unix-based operating system while Ballmer drives Microsoft off a cliff.

And for designing the first mp3 player that the mass-market embraced.

And for ushering in the change from feature-phones to smartphones.

And for creating an earthquake in the tablet market such that in the future it is predicted more tablets will sell than PCs.

But yeah...they are just famous for being famous...

...Until they release a TV with a kinect-like interface running iOS. And then Sony's PS4 and the Wii U crashes and burns, (which is sort of already happening...sales on the Wii U are very poor and Sony's electronics wing isn't doing well either), while everyone is playing Angry Birds on their new Apple TV platform and we get umpteen-million articles about the "New Console Wars," which are now between Microsoft and Apple.

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?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:Jonesing?

[Sockatume]

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?