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Apple Leaves Journalists Jonesing

Posted by Soulskill on from the irony-noted dept.

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.

31 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ^ that is all

    1. Re:Who cares? by MightyYar · · Score: 4, 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?

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Who cares? by SJHillman · · 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.

    3. Re:Who cares? by Vanderhoth · · Score: 5, Funny

      or more likely they're throwing all the toilet paper they can find in the toilet and pulling the flusher repeatedly flooding your bathroom and making a huge mess that someone is going to have to clean up. They may also be starting a fire.

    4. Re:Who cares? by shadowrat · · Score: 5, Funny

      What kind of dogs did you have?

    5. Re:Who cares? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    6. Re:Who cares? by Vanderhoth · · Score: 4, Funny

      Shih Tzu, why do you think it was playing in the toilet?

    7. Re:Who cares? by chrish · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      - chrish
    8. Re:Who cares? by shmlco · · 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.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    9. Re:Who cares? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That said, I completely agree. We are now reporting about non-news as news?

      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*".

    10. Re:Who cares? by tnk1 · · Score: 3, 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.

    11. Re:Who cares? by mspohr · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    12. Re:Who cares? by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How can any CEO keep their job after their stock value was chopped in half in less than a year?

      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.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    13. Re:Who cares? by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You dont think business should be paying taxes to support the infrastructure that provides them with the opportunity to do business?

      --
      Good-bye
  2. journalism by Tom · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:journalism by SJHillman · · 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.

    2. Re:journalism by SigveK · · Score: 4, Funny

      It may have been unintentional on your part, but I like the use of "Buy The iDevice++" as opposed to "Buy The ++iDevice".

    3. Re:journalism by MrMickS · · 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.

      --
      You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
    4. Re:journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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 devices makes you want to buy an iphone, then an ipad, then an iMac, then an AppleTV, etc.

    5. Re:journalism by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 4, 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.

  3. famous for being famous by shortscruffydave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  4. Re:Just a rumor by SJHillman · · Score: 4, 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.

  5. Re:The reality distortion field is waning. by TWiTfan · · 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.

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
  6. Re:Apple is in trouble by Xest · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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 screen space.

    That's what he's referring to, Apple's complete lack of foresight and the horrible mess it leads to if developers don't update their app each time Apple has a screen change.

  7. Re:Apple is in trouble by moronoxyd · · Score: 4, 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.

  8. Jonesing? by rossdee · · Score: 3, 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

    1. Re:Jonesing? by Sockatume · · Score: 4, 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?

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  9. What's Apple Famous for Again? by neoshroom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:What's Apple Famous for Again? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:What's Apple Famous for Again? by Karlt1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      There were plenty of MP3 players around before the ipod (and good ones too!).

      Before the iPod, MP3 players were either small with low capacity or used huge fragile laptop drives. They had horrible interfaces and slow transfers.

      Android was in development for a long time before Apple released the iPhone, as were various other similar projects (for example, OpenMoko; which was never taken seriously by the industry, but basically got quite a long way towards producing something similar to the iphone quite a long time before the iphone was actually released). Development takes a long time - Google didn't see the iphone and immediately magic up a competing platform, they were both developed simultaneously and Apple happened to get there first.

      This was Android before the iPhone.....

      http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2170500/googles-android-prototype-smartphone-blackberry-rip

  10. Like my profession's image could get any worse... by robp · · Score: 3, 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.