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Larry Ellison Believes Apple Is Doomed
Nerval's Lobster writes "Oracle CEO Larry Ellison thinks that Apple will collapse without Steve Jobs at the helm. In a televised interview with CBS News, scheduled to air August 13, Ellison called the deceased Jobs 'brilliant' and compared him to iconic creators such as Thomas Edison and Pablo Picasso. When asked about Apple's future now that Jobs is dead, Ellison didn't hold back: 'We already know, we saw — we conducted the experiment, it's been done.' Raising his hand above his head, presumably to indicate the rise of Apple's fortunes during Jobs' initial reign, Ellison said: 'We saw Apple with Steve Jobs.' Then he lowered his hand: "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." In other words, the period following Jobs' ouster, when the company's revenues declined and it launched whole portfolios of consumer products that failed. 'We saw Apple with Steve Jobs,' Ellison continued, raising his hand above his head again — this time, to suggest that incandescent period following Jobs' return to the company, when it released the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and a variety of bestselling PCs. 'And now, we're going to see Apple without Steve Jobs,' he finished, and his hand fell."
later, a bear eats fish and takes a dump in the woods. Story at 10
When Jobs was ousted they went from a $1 billion a year revenue company to a $10 billion a year company a few years later. It was Sculley's ouster that doomed Apple ;)
Wait, how is Apple a competitor to Oracle?
He's right - Android is eating iOS's lunch. I can see it in my own family. My oldest boy remembers when having an Apple product was cool. My next son could care less - he picked up his first tablet for under $100 and hasn't thought about Apple since. My elementary-age daughter calls her tablet an "iPad", but it too is an Android device. All my family's phones are now Android phones. If I was ever going to buy another laptop, it would be a Chrome book. Etc, etc, etc.
Yeah, Larry Ellison's advice ...
Bringing you such commercial successes as The Network Computer.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Apple is reportedly working hard on a portfolio of new products, including a much-rumored timepiece, but the actual release dates of that hardware and software are an open question. Until then, expect the doomsayers to continue their morbid chatter.
A timepiece? Like a watch?
That'd have to be some really great fucking watch.
but even moreso, I hate to see all that innovation being justifiably attributed to one man. Steve Jobs wasn't the idea man. Steve Jobs was the man who let the ideas happen. The results came from having people who could innovate being bolstered by someone who could actually see it through to market from a corporate and marketing level.
It's like a guitarist who tries to sound like Brian May or a singer who wants to sound like Freddie Mercury. They might get all the notes right, but it will never be the same. I share Larry's doubts as to whether the company can survive without it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
It feels like Apple has lost direction since Jobs passed. For example, look at iOS 7: It's a mishmash of awkward design language, with inconsistencies and a flat, boring look that likely never would have been approved by Steve. All that lovely texture that iOS had is gone. People are already complaining about it and I'm sure there will be an even bigger uproar once it goes public. They took inspiration from MICROSOFT for crying out loud!
Look at the rumored (but very likely) "low cost iPhone". It's made of cheap plastic, which Apple had been trying to get away from for years with Jobs at the helm. Steve would have likely insisted that they find a way to build the iPhone out of its current materials but less expensively, and I'm sure the engineers would have lived up to the challenge.
He was a perfectionist, and while I didn't agree with all his decisions, his absolute refusal to compromise and insist that everything be exactly right is what led to Apple becoming what it is. I already see things going downhill and it's not going to be pretty moving forward.
More to the point, Larry thinks the NSA program of collecting everything is "excellent" and "necessary".
Larry also is whining about Google adhering to the Sun Java license as it was written and intended. Larry would prefer they send him large amounts of money instead.
Larry can go to his private Hawaiian island fuck himself.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
History revisionists love to gloss over all the Apple disaster products jobs also presided over. Jobs provided drive and some great marketing, he didn't design the products or come up with the technical brilliance to create them. Apple may indeed lack leadership without him but he is far from irreplaceable.
In all fairness, I think this counts as a Steve Jobbo bowel movement article, and /. is required to have at least one per day; so give 'em a break.
Is it a surprise that *Larry Ellison* thinks an enormous corporation is soley dependent on the single megalomaniac at the helm? Apple suceeding without Steve Jobs would destroy his entire worldview.
Even the Apple board is bemoaning the lack of innovation. Personally I'm looking forward to the company that brought us the walled garden and the app shop exiting the stage.
Brilliant as a salesman, yes. As a tweaker, and idea thief, yes,
As an inventor - "like Edison", an innovator?? HECK NO!!!
Jobs invented NOTHING, as far as technology.
Ellison: Apple needed an assh0le in charge just like Oracle needs this assh0le in charge.
I can't think of any Oracle product that competes with Apple.
Besides a lot of tension and drama?
Edison was a dick who took credit for work that his underlings did. Jobs is of the same cut.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Steve Jobs was never an Edison or a Picasso he was just a scruffy dirty bum who knew some stuff about computers to be hired at Atari in the early 70's and then later become even more of an asshole at Apple that most people didn't dare not be the "Yes man" or "Yes Woman" to incur his wrath. Jobs fired people on the spot along with screaming and Balmer at Microsoft just throws chairs while yelling DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS over and over again like some crazy chant!
That's Business 101: The company, large or small, that is dependent on a single person will usually fail when that person leaves. Whether or not Jobs built a company that will survive without him will be evident with time.
I don't respond to AC's.
The main difference between Apple without Jobs the first time 'round and now is that The Apple Jobs left the first time wasn't shaped by him but by the people who ousted him. This Apple however has Jobs stamp all over it, it has the people he picked, he trusted and he trained. If you think Jobs was a genius, which Ellison does, then that has to count for something.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
So why hasn't Microsoft collapsed? (and for people saying it has....yeh uhm ok).
it sounds kind of hand wave-y to me.
At Tanagra.
Wow, that is as dramatic of a story summary as I have ever seen on Slashdot. Made me tingle all over...
Apple hates java maybe?
No one would argue that Steve Jobs made important contributions to modern computing. However, it's hardly surprising that a CEO, such as Ellison, would have an inflated perception of the importance of one individual (i.e. the CEO) to the success of a company. If he didn't believe that, then it would be hard to justify the millions he pays himself every year.
I wonder if Larry cares about his legacy. Gates is going to be known as a philanthropist. Jobs a tech leader and innovator. Everyone is going to remember Ellison as a rich douche that raced yachts. For a little while at least. Then they'll forget him.
Apple hates java maybe?
Apple can get in line behind the rest of us.
#DeleteChrome
...who can clearly explain such complex issue.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
He showed that people WILL pay for well-designed, well-made things, even at a premium. Now that he has shown it can be done, it should be pretty easy for Apple to continue down that path. Think about it: there was nothing revolutionary about any of their recent hits: the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. They were just extremely well-made examples of each respective line. Some innovations were added, sure, but the main thing is Apple actually GAVE A SHIT about how well they worked for the user. All the innovations they added were in pursuit of making things BETTER, not just "more".
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Oracle hates java...
And since the last I checked their was no such thing a Silicon Valley Heaven, at least not for companies, I guess they are all going to Silicon Valley Hell.
The question for Apple is this: Will this happen before or concurrent with the end of human civilization?
Apple is dead, long live Apple.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
If only a bear would eat Ellison, but unfortunately bears have too good a taste to eat sacks of shit.
Wha?
Apple loves Oracle, they even work with them (and MS) to try to crush google.
so umm, no.
CEO's get paid obscene amounts of money. It's reasonable to expect them to justify such a lavish outlay by telling the public how "unique," "indispensable," and "valuable they are.
News at 11.
For sure Dirty Larry would have fired Jobs even faster than Scully did.
Having said that, the road ahead for Apple looks rocky, with strong competition in the phone and tablet markets.
But they have plenty of cash, and smart people. Let's see what they will come up with next.
Hopefully it will be more innovative than just another screen size...
It isn't that I don't appreciate the new technology, but after I bought a MacBook Pro in 2010, I haven't needed to buy another one since. And I always figured that it would have a 10 year lifespan. That isn't good for Apple, unless they are getting more new users.
The iPhone 4S was my first iPhone, and it could last another 5 years just fine for what I need it for.
But, I know that Steve Jobs was one of a kind, and it is very hard to replace him.
Have gnu, will travel.
Larry when you learn not to cheat in the AC45 class maybe just maybe will listen to you.
Oracle Admits to cheating
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Thomas Edison wasn't a creator as much as was a repackager of other people's ideas and whose litigious nature stalled progress in any number of areas. So I suppose Ellison's comparison of him to Steve Jobs is incredibly apropos.
Apple, and the computing industry, was different in 1993. Apple wasn't making smartphones and iPods; Microsoft could kill small companies merely by issuing a press release implying that the features being developed by these small companies would be included in a new version of Windows NT ... 'soon'; Google didn't exist, on-line digital media didn't exist apart from binary groups on a certain use-able net that we're not allowed to mention.
Time for this fellow to update his examples.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
One of the issues with all the "media marketplaces" like iTunes, Google Play and yes, the MS Store, is that they're not going to disappear anytime soon. I'm not sure how many people are going to abandon an entire app platform once they've sunk a lot of money into it. Before the smartphone era, changing phone carriers meant that you would have to rebuy a few ringtones and other carrier specific stuff, but an Apple to Android or reverse switch means you have to rebuy a lot more. I've specifically avoided buying tons and tons of apps on any platform for that simple reason...it becomes much more expensive to switch later on. So even if the music is sort of DRM-free, either inertia or a very large collection of purchased software is going to keep a lot of people on one platform or another for a while. Since Apple charges premiums for new hardware to access this stuff, they're in good shape for a while.
With the new online store model, the store owner is guaranteed a very good chance of long term survival even if their market share drops over time. Microsoft and Adobe are taking it one step further and introducing stuff like Office 365 and Creative Cloud. Previously only large businesses signed month-to-month rental agreements with software companies, and now consumers are being dragged in as well. Guaranteed revenue stream vs. one-time perpetual license.
Netcraft confirmed. Also, 2014 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Apple, after Jobs: An Android-esque "me-too" UI. A complete lack of buzz for the new iPhone. An absurd trashcan PowerMac.
Most telling, rumours of a stripped down "budget" iPhone.. Kiss Apple's luxury image and hipster status goodbye when that happens (it will). A great many people love their iPhones because it makes them feel "cool" and "upscale". When those dirty poors start carrying the same device around? Forget it.
New devices? An iWatch? Really?
So why hasn't Microsoft collapsed? (and for people saying it has....yeh uhm ok).
Microsoft aren't ever going to be the company that rolled out Windows XP and was threatened with anti-trust around the world ever again. Someone else, perhaps Google will end up in that boat, but Microsoft have their own future to sort out now that they are a follower, again.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nothing was mentioned about Bill Gates being as key to the structure and operation of Microsoft as Steve Jobs seemed to be in Apple. Just because they are both prominent founders of similar companies does not mean, in any way, that the occupy the same role or function in each company, both having completely different cultures and structures.
Wait, how is Apple a competitor to Oracle?
Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison both liked boats, big stinkin' boats.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Because Ellison is so credible.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
How does hating Java lead to hating Oracle?
Because publicly traded companies breed and promote people who stay within the box, and apply the model that the investors, accountants, and whoever else are OK with. Bureaucracy and politics are self perpetuating cycles that assimilate good ideas to meet their wold view.
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
At least Jobs electrocuted fewer animals to death.
Other than that, the comparison fits.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"...wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence." -Larry Ellison
I don't "do" Apple but hearing Larry Ellison postulate about the future is laughable. The guy got all his money through vendor lock-in and insane licensing models. If he was that bright, he'd be more innovative.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Apple stands behind no one. It would cast a shadow on the shiny.
In other words, the period following Jobs' ouster, when the company's revenues declined and it launched whole portfolios of consumer products that failed.
This troll is employed by Slashdot?
why is this summary so f-ing long ? summarize. i dont care what his hands were doing during the interview.
also again we hear from Nerval's Lobster. Who does he blow to get on the front page so much ?
...Is the poster child for corporate success.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
So say we all.
Here's why.
Disclosure: I've been using the Mac as my preferred platform wince 1985.
The recent releases of the Mac OS (post Snow Leopard) have been weird and much less useful. Everything is animated, you can't turn the animations off and often, you are forced to wait for the animations to finish.
This causes the UI to get in the way of productivity.
Many times the animations are distracting. Small, darty animations distract many and make them uneasy, since these are the same motions of a mouse or roach. These reactions are felt way before the human mind has a thought formed on what they have seen. It's a more innate reaction. The more you use the system, the more uncomfortable you get with it. And you can't turn them off.
Also, there has been this push to push UI metaphors from iOS on to the desktop. THIS IS TERRIBLE. On my 17" Macbook, in Lion, my scroll bars became the width of a quarter. How is this better than the previous OS? It isn't. Also, auto termination of apps, where the app isn't really auto terminated, but just the UI is? All to save 5 MB of RAM? I don't know about you, but I actually use my File: Open menu to open docs and when I can't tab to an app because it quit behind my back without my permission, I hate this.
iOS 7. OMG. Where to start? Simply by looking at the publicly released images, the design inspires "weak and feeble", with overly saturated (painful) colors against too much white. The functional gears Settings icon of the past has been replaced with a weak looking non functional design that can't work. It doesn't do anything. It's not connected to anything. It's thin and weak.
On this front, the initial releases looked terrible and were panned by many. Even the creator of the font that they used (Helvetica Neue) stated so. One terrible thing is that many elements that were buttons or tappable, used to have a button treatment that made the UI instantly more understandable since a button LOOKED like a button. Now, text is simply blue. Unless it's in another application and then it might be purple, or yellow. This is bad. This is a step back. This forces the user to guess more as to what is a clickable/tappable element and makes the elements harder to see. This isn't helping make an easier to use UI.
Sandboxing. This is the WRONG way to do security. I don't know what the right way is, but this is a royal PITA.
Devices. Gluing the contents to the case? So you can't even update your own machine? Even with the 2011 models, it's not rosy. Simply to replace the keyboard on my 17" MacBook will cost me 500 dollars. 500 damn dollars on a two year old Machine. Sweet mother of suck.
iTunes 11 shipped with a really easy to find data loss bug that cost me 6000 archived podcasts.
There may be some great engineering going on under the hood, but all I've seen coming out of Apple since Snow Leopard have been substandard OS releases that are slower than Snow Leopard, with questionable features that do not make the Mac easier to use. Even the look of the new software is not what it once was. Look at iTunes 11 (fugly) vs. iTunes 10 (crisp).
And no more 17" MBP? Look. We're all getting older and cramming more pixels into a smaller space isn't going to make the screen easier to read.
Airdrop? Who cares! Give me a FAST UI that doesn't burn my eyeballs off.
I'm really upset with the direction Apple's taking. Snow Leopard was the last release that I could use to get work done and from the publicly released photos of iOS 7, I'm sadly counting my days as a Mac user.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Edison was a dick who took credit for work that his underlings did. Jobs is of the same cut.
CEOs like NFL quarterbacks always get too much credit when things go well and too much blame when they go badly. It's the nature of the position. Jobs didn't usually take personal credit for much of what happened while he was in charge. His speeches seldom revolved around his own contributions. Rather he got credit for it from outsiders whether he deserved it or not. Apple has a LOT of very talented people working there and while Steve Jobs clearly was a very effective CEO, he could not possibly have been responsible for everything that happened. Business is a team sport and even if you have a standout player they can't do it all on their own.
Ha!
What a blowhard. A tool. A shameless self-promoter.
Oh, and so right about Apple.
God, I almost choked on that. Larry being right? About anything?
Steve Jobs's love for boats did not, as far as I know, kill anyone.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Apple is dying, but not because Steve Jobs left the helm. It's because of greed and poorly designed devices.
As a recent example, my friend's iPad battery recently went belly up. She *loves* her iPad. But they want $289 to replace the battery, so she bought a $700 touch-screen all-in-one computer from Sony and is pleased as punch.
How can you expect to retain market share when replacing a freaking BATTERY costs half the price of a device?
And how many *entire* Android devices can be had for $300?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Oracle man hates Java man
They have a fight, Oracle wins
Oracle man
Don't know why people are bashing on Larry Ellison so much. Larry Ellison & Steve Jobs were close friends (Steve was even the photographer at Larry Ellison's wedding). So of course Ellison knows what he's talking about when he says that Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs.
Larry Ellison confirms it.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
We are all doomed.
In a billion years or so the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our galaxy.
A few billion after that the sun will run out of Hydrogen and Helium and turn into a red giant.
Theres also a risk of a major meteor impact wiping out 90% of all life on this planet.
And global warming etc.
Let's say Ellison is right and Apple goes bye-bye without Jobs. Who cares? If the company can't survive without the genius then it isn't a viable enterprise. That's capitalism. Look at RIM/Blackberry. At one time they were the smartphone market. Now they're shopping themselves around for a white knight to save them from oblivion. I think Apple has enough talented people to continue turning out good products. Maybe not breathtaking, exciting and groundbreaking products, but certainly not crap.
Larry spouts this same stuff just about every year.
Larry's comment parallels those that rant that Microsoft is doomed because Apple will eat its lunch. Or those that laugh at Apple and Microsoft saying they are both doomed because cheap Android devices will be their end. Those are extreme comments. Apple, Google, and Microsoft will both continue making record profits that will just increase. For a company, profit is the only true measure of success. They're all adapting. I think the only true change that has come about is that now coders like myself have to be knowledgeable of cross-platform methods so they can hit all the markets, both present and future. Peace out.
Honestly I can't see ether one failing. Oracle has corned the enterprise market, while Apple has corned the consumer market. Both of them are so large at this point that they can limp along like Microsoft ad infinitum. They will out live me, I know that much.
Racing yachts is the personal version of the world's tallest building. Not too long after your race/build, a fall is coming.
resentment over the sky-high support fees, snaky sales pitches, bait-and-switch product lineup, and failure to patch Java holes has never been (climbs on ladder, out window, up fire escape, stands on chimney, raises hand) higher...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I'm starting to get tired of this Thomas Edison comparison that I read from time to time. Thomas Edison's inventions inventions fundamentally changed the human condition. Specifically the light bulb. Suddenly the entire human race can get a lot done inside larger indoor spaces and at night where previously limited lighting prevented many activities. The iPhone did not in anyway change the human condition on these scales. Combined with Edison's other inventions Jobs looks even less important. He made a few good devices using existing technology. He did not reinvent the light bulb.
Apple, and the computing industry, was different in 1993.
Yes - back then, Apple's once industry-defining proprietary platform was facing mounting competition from multiple vendors selling a wide diversity of hardware but sharing a common, de-facto industry standard, operating system licensed from a near-monopolist.
Whereas now...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I think he hit the nail on the head. I've been saying this also. What miracle has Tim Cook done to win over the hearts of the Apple sheep? Nothing they will slowly wake up once they realise that their product hasn't gotten better or more magical in the years following Job's death.
mod up to 11
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
God doesn't think he is Larry Ellison. Popular book. Larry Ellison is a known liar. The book was all about how much he lies. Ellison is known for saying what is in his company's interest. Just take it for what it is. Steve Jobs did alot of this stuff about other companies. Some CEOs just like to run their mouths...
Apple and Oracle don't really compete in too many categories. So I am surprised he is even bothering with this. I dont believe Oracle even runs on Apple anymore (and they try to run on as many OSs as possible) and that decision was made while Steve Jobs was around.
I could be wrong on this. I think he was buddies with Steve Jobs and he is just touting his friend. The statement will get 2 days in the press and then be forgotten.
Whilst Jobs may have been a Class M asshole, Larry Ellison is the largest red giant asshole in the universe. That he hasn't been 'pancreased' by now, proves Karma can be sadly capricious.
Apple is about fashion. iPhones are still selling like hot cakes, and people don't give a damn wether some Android device is more powerful. iStuff is hip, looks flashy, has a ton of accessories available and never will stop being hip, cool and well designed. It's like the Zippo Lighter or the Vespa Scooter.
To detail the Vespa example and why it comes to my mind: I just went looking at Scooters these days - Piaggios Vespa sells at least 700 Euros more expensive than the rest of the lot ... and that's with bargain deals. There are Scooters of simular quality from the far east, yet at my dealer of choice, of all 50ccm Scooters on display 25% of them were Vespas. Not Piaggio, but the actuall Vespa, in all colors and variants. They even got a new luxury model that sells for 7500$(!!), the Vespa 946. A friggin' 50ccm Scooter for 7500+$!!
And I tell you what: if I had the money, I'd probably buy one. You know why? I don't want to think about Scooters. I want mine to look cool and timeless and be fun to ride. Most people are like that when it comes to Smartphones and computing devices - I'm not, but then again, I'm an expert. With Scooters I'm not. I'm like "Oh, this one looks cool, rides nice and also comes in black & chrome and real metal. And you can get flashy jackets and gear with the same logo. I'm sold." There was a mechanical engineer there today with her 9 year old son. She didn't even look at the quality Taiwan models. It had to be a brown metallic touring Vespa with original Vespa topcase, 3500 Euros vs. 2000 Euros be damned. And I bet she has an iPhone for the same reason. It's like Levis vs. cheapo, Coka Cola vs. no-name Coke. People by the "original", no matter the price.
No, Apple isn't doomed by a long shot.
Apple has turned owning an iDevice into a fashion statement - an advantage that Oracle, MS and quite a few other companies would kill for. Unless Apple really screws up and breaks their *very* sophisticated product development pipeline - which I don't see happening - Apple will to just fine. Especially with gross margins still well north of 30%. Margins and mindshare even Oracle probably can only dream of, btw.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I am sure Larry promotes data capture of any sort, as it very likely stored with one of his products. And buying into the cult of the 'Super CEO'? Most likely a wink to his own narcissism....
love is just extroverted narcissism
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Zero-point-six-eight seconds, sir. For an android, that is nearly an eternity.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Oracle owns Java.
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race." -Albert Einstein
Java hates everyone, but is loved in India.
There is a lot to be said for well executed tables for content consumption (different than those for productivity).
"Content consumption" sounds like someone who's happy to have tuberculosis.
But seriously, the problem with an iPad as a viewer for works created by others is that it's so expensive. People will buy an iPad (or give an iPad as a gift) and not have enough money to buy a device for creating. Eventually, someone (likely a child) will end up with an access to only an iPad and no easy access to a more versatile device to do the things that need it.
... Johnny Ive and the rest of the folks working for him did. Jobs did three things: he specifically insisted on being a premium brand and quality to justify it, he hired people that could execute on that, and as the voice of the company he sold the brand and it's products very well.
The same people are there and I don't suspect that they are being asked to do much different. I think that a lower-cost iPhone is not a bad idea -- BUT, it better adhere to the overall quality mantra and still be a premium device in the price-point or that will be deleterious to Apple.
However, Tim Cook, bright as he may be, seems utterly dispassionate about Apple and Apple products. When he gives a keynote address, it's as though he's selling the proverbial widget; he doesn't communicate that he's devoted to the product or that he is earnestly striving towards some grand vision. When Cook talks, you know he's there to sell you widgets - no vision, no excitement, just a product that he feigns a vague interest in so that he can sell them. Cook needs to be replaced - if not as CEO, then as the public face of Apple.
Apple's got a pretty nice tech stack going for it. There's a lot of possibilities there, and while the future of Apple is still in play, it's on pretty good footing. What it really needs to do, though, is pick up the pace on development of it's products. Jobs had a habit of making sure that there was always something new to keep the press coming back to report on the latest and greatest from Cupertino. Whether intentionally or not, Cook is not following that pattern. Jobs would rather suffice for a small but important upgrade than wait unknown periods of time for a show-stopper, and he'd always have product lined up to go when it was announced (again, Cook is behaving more like HP/Dell/Microsoft/Sony in not keeping with that tradition).
Steve Jobs's love for boats did not, as far as I know, kill anyone.
He didn't get a chance to take it into the SF Bay, it was finished after he was.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What we saw before was Apple being run by Sculley, Spindler and Amelio, none of whom can hold a candle to Tim Cook. What Apple has today is an executive team who were pretty much all hand-picked by Steve. Sculley was Steve's great recruitment screw-up, and he was far more careful after that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:CEO badmouths competitor & tries to demoral
Truncated header sounds a bit kinky. But I won't judge.
Before Steve Jobs came. And they really only made money by putting smartphones and tablets into usable consumer devices, while their primary business (Mac) is left to rot and there is still no long-term market for them.
Now that he's gone and smartphones and tablets are becoming too cheap. They will crawl back to the cave they come from.
I feel a puzzling sense of loss without him walking the planet and coming up with new and better ideas. The tech industry is staid and boring without him.
Nothing was mentioned about Bill Gates being as key to the structure and operation of Microsoft as Steve Jobs seemed to be in Apple. Just because they are both prominent founders of similar companies does not mean, in any way, that the occupy the same role or function in each company, both having completely different cultures and structures.
Bill never saw the internet coming. If he hadn't dropped out of college he might have got into telnet, gopher or archie servers and seen some potential. That he saw Java as a major threat to Microsoft says something about how myopic he could be. Ellison must have enjoyed quite a few laughs will watching Bill and Steve Ballmer thrash around at Microsoft. Is it any wonder Oracle haven't come out with a video game console, such as an O-Box?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since Jobs' death, they've been riding on the coattails of his work. Once his ideas run out, they'll be done-for. Unless Woz can pull magic out of his pocket and take over the reigns at Apple, that is.
Without using brand names, please tell me what you can do (e.g., use cases) with an iOS device that you can't do with an Android device of equal or lessor price?
Play iOS-exclusive video games. Buy music by bands who have chosen to release on the iOS music store but not the two major Android music stores. Get free 2-day shipping with a year's subscription to a video streaming service that's compatible with a phone. Use Bluetooth input devices without them breaking after a system software update. I'd give citations, but you told me no brand names.
Wrooooooong. Ask any analyst or corporate professional if Apple should have done better without Steve Jobs. Hell yes! It's just that Tim Cook is worse. He "Dell and HPed" the company by cutting quality to make more profits, as if they needed more. While Tim Cook doesn't treat his staff like crap or have a suicidally detrimental unreasonable fear of non-passive cooling like Steve Jobs did but he is definitely running the company like a crazy person who has no idea what he's doing.
Apple was doomed to fail without someone who knows what they're doing at the helm simply because of how they got popular. Their target audience is still rich douchebags who want to show off their pretend "top of the line" product that allegedly has some sort of quality reputation but in reality just has a high price. Their "it just works" and "anyone can sit down and use our products" died around the same time as iTunes 8. Their iCloud and iTunes 11 software makes Symantec Backup Exec look user friendly by comparison and it's about as resource efficient too. People are starting to REALLY hate their software. If you look at the iPhone 1, 2, and 3, every one was twice as likely to have the screen break than the one before it according to real insurance and warranty numbers.
Their apple computers were for morons who didn't know how to use the internet or a computer in general but now that they're realizing they're falling for e-mail scams and catching viruses, they're regretting their 4x overpriced Mac they just bought. Their dominance of media editing ended with the invention of Cuda and Europe is about to kick them while they're down about software bundling.
So their products are overpriced, not respected anymore, their software is a joke, their support quality is slipping, and rich people are starting to realize that Samsung is superior in every way. Good luck with that, Apple. THAT is the real reason Apple is doomed.
Here here!!! Actually Ellison should watch how much Viagra he keeps buying. I've heard he needs to keep the wood stiff to beat the competition from taking his customers away
If only a bear would eat Ellison, but unfortunately bears have too good a taste to eat sacks of shit.
Damn! I wish I had a mod point. Made me spit out my soda.
I generally sympathize with predictions of gloom for Apple's long-term outlook. But they are based on changes in the market that Apple has been unsuccessful in adapting to. And to some extent, this difficulty started when Jobs was still around. Specifically: - Android eating into their market share on Tablets and handhelds - Changing business models. Less and less people are buying paid apps, making advertising the main source of revenue for app developers. Admob (Google) controls 90% of the market. What this boils down to is that Google gets a significant cut of revenue on the Apple App Store. This fraction is increasing and Apple's attempts at competing in the space (iAd) have failed dramatically. Having admitted a negative outlook, it is impressive to see that the current leadership is trying to define their own vision, rather than trying to guess "what Steve would have done." Making iOS 7 non-skeumorphic, i.e., not using physical analogies in the user interface was a complete departure from Jobs' vision of a "beautiful, immersive user interface that you already know how to use." Apple's leadership is trying to redefine Apple as a company and trying to evolve its ideas to the world today. I disagree with some of the comments that the iOS 7 UI sucks. The home screen is kind of ugly when you look at the 80's style icons, but I've been using it for a few months I significantly prefer it to the old interface. You have to use it for a while to feel the difference. When you look at a 3d beveled button with a shadow, you subject your brain to a lot more information than you do when you look at a simple rounded rectangle. Your brain has to exert itself just a tiny little bit more. It's hard to explain because it happens at the subconscious level. This bit of saving adds up over time, making the interface easier and more pleasant to use. The decision to ditch arguably one of the iPhone's biggest assets - its skeumorphic interface - and start from scratch must have taken a humongous amount of courage, especially for a company Apple's size. With the way things are headed (Android, Ads, competition from Amazon, Google) it's clear that they cannot do without this kind of courage and determination. I wonder, though, if it would have been possible at all under Steve's reign....
To make it easier for users other than xxxJonBoyxxx to verify my assertions, I'll state the brand names in this post:
An example of an iOS-exclusive game is Tiny Wings. An example of a song on iTunes but not Amazon MP3 or Google Play Music is "Bück dich" by Rammstein. The video streaming service that offers free shipping is Amazon Prime; it's compatible with iPhone, iPad, and Kindle Fire, but not Android phones or other Android tablets. The Bluetooth devices that broke after an upgrade are the Wii Remote, which stopped working in 4.2, and the ZAGGkeys Flex keyboard, which stopped working in 4.3.
later, a bear eats fish and takes a dump in the woods. Story at 10
What kind of bear? What kind of fish? How was the fish caught? How big was the dump and what are the coords (for geocachers)? 10 PM or AM? Which timezone?
Come on manz, this is Slashdot and we expect details!
Sheesh, people try to measure apple in dollars or think of it as a bauhaus design center of shiny curved minimalist objects just don't understand what the vision always has been. Once you understand what Job's vision was, you can then decide if apple has it still or not. I'm undecided because on fiscal year of change is not the way to measure this.
When I think about the Jobs trajectory from apple through Next to the iphone I used to see it as a story about early adoption of technologies that let software replace hardware. e.g. the apple had refreshing of dynamic memory backsided on the video, and soft sectored disks, and replacing of parallel ports and UARTs with software system.
But when the iphone came out I finally realized that his vision was really fulfilling the Eberharts vision of the future in the mother of all demos. He was the translator of high concept computer science into consumer products. The iphone was the first truly practical ubiquitous reconfigurable hardware widget. It instantly transformed itself from one single purpose specialized appliance to another at the press of a single button. Each concrete form was single purpose and specialize not some do-it all device making it easy to on the user.
I think that is what jobs was shooting for all along. He always wanted to change the world and while we might have seen each brilliant little improvement as changing things (e.g early adoption of Postscript and WIMP interfaces) the real change that's never going to go away is this universal pocket device. He gave us something that even star trek didn't have. But when you watch Eberharts video you realize he was grasping in his crude way at simple universal interfaces to.
So I think Jobs actually completed the primary aspect of his journey.
Where would he have gone next with it? I think there's three things left to complete. First, Eberhart also enuniciated the cloud future of colloborative remote interaction on data sets that could be represent themselves in different ways depending on what viewing device each user was applying. (early model view controller, but for concrete devices). So number one is the iphone's becoming the physical manifestation that connects the clouds to points in the environment. It's going that way already as iphones control our cars and become networked games and video phones. Jobs just would have come up with some magical version of that which would delighted and surprised us with its simplicity. Perhaps that's where siri was going. The other thing that's not done more coupling between the cloud and the device. You shouldn't have to care where the computation is happening. And the third is enrichment of the devices ability to sense and interact.
All of those but the last one are obvious and thus incremental now. What does it mean for devices to interact? In the time of eberhart computer scientist thought that machines would learn to reason and thus learn to communicate on their own. So machines would be able to make requests to each other that exceeded some pre-defined "API". You would be able to communicate with them to, more along the lines of stating what you wanted and less along the lines of stating how to achieve it. That's the one thing there doesn't seem to be any progress in.
So where should apple go now? Well fulfilling the cloud dream of ubiquitous sensing and computing occuring transparently to enable handheld devices to become super powered tools has a long road ahead. Perhaps its a pre-requisite to the next step of interaction based on goals not defining process.
THe one thing I'm on the fence on is the current counter reaction against Jobs skewmorphic interfaces. I'm of the opinion that these contain powerful intuition and tap subconscious mental models we don't appreciate. I'd like to see machines adapt to our biases not try to make us like their natural interfaces.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Somebody should check whether or not he short sold Apple stock prior to the interview. Not a bad strategy, sell stock at today's price, bad mouth Apple, predict the end is near, when the price falls, purchase the shares to settle the sales. Works great, unless you get caught, that is.
Seriously, though, of course Apple is doomed. Every company that is at the top is dislodged eventually. In the tech world, at one time it was IBM, then they were doomed, then it was Microsoft, then they were dislodged. Then Apple seized the crown and eventually they will be dislodged, too. Whether that is today or down the road, only time will tell, but it is inevitable.
What is important is what you do after you are dislodged. People forget that back in the late 70s and early 80s Apple was at the top of the heap and was knocked off of it. They had the education market locked up. It wasn't IBM and the PC that dislodged them, it was Microsoft and Windows. Now whether it was because Jobs had left or because of Microsoft making a number of key alliances with business partners, people can argue all day long.
The important thing is that Apple, like many before them, was knocked off the top of the heap, and reinvented themself with a new product line and a new OS and a bunch of new consumer goods that just worked. When Apple switched to OS X, the pundits all cried out what a terrible mistake it was. They were wrong. Just like Larry Ellison is wrong. Apple isn't doomed. They are destined to be replaced as the number one tech company, nobody can hold that position indefinitely. But, as their shareholders laugh all the way to the bank, not being number one is a far cry from being doomed.
Then again, maybe we should listen to Mr. Ellison, he seems to have first hand experience on how to run a company that was top in its field straight into the ground.
Larry Ellison Believes:
1. Living in a dojo is normal.
2. He can speak psychically with sloths.
3. Cold fusion can be achieved with only 2 qts of peanut butter and a gym sock.
4. That Santa Claus is real but works for the KGB.
5. That meds are for weaklings.
6. That all exit NDAs should be written in Klingon.
7. That he can throw a puppy farther than you.
8. That he invented the sandwich.
9. Math is only going to be around for another decade or so, until it is replaced by complex hand shakes.
10 Punching a dolphin in the face is the way to enlightenment.
Apple is a human organization run by humans. It is subject to the same laws that all things human are subject to. One of those laws is the wheel of fortune. Sometimes fortune smiles on you and you will be up. Later fortune will frown on you, and you will be down. But the wheel is always spinning.
âoeA prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs, hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. Youâ(TM)ll ask me why. Itâ(TM)s because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns.â
Nikos Kazantzakis "The Last Temptation of Christ"
George C. Scott as Patton: "For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph - a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting."
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Sun licensing was always intended to prevent a free Java implementation on a mobile phone.
Dalvik is Google's free Java implementation for mobile phones, is it not?
So Google might've complied with the terms as written (the US courts seem to think so) but they certainly took an end run around Sun's intentions.
All that being said, the sooner people stop wasting their money on Oracle products the better.
I can get manufacturer supported software updates for at least two years after I buy the device.
If I ever were to be mentioned in the same breath as Edison I would likely be rather upset.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD0Q5FeF_wU
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
1998 - iMac
1999 - iBook
2001 - iPod
2005 - iPod shuffle/mini/nano
2007 - iPhone
2008 - MacBook Air
2010 - iPad
When Apple releases a category killer, typically it takes a year or two before it is recognized as such (the iPad is the exception above), then they turn the crank and improve it year over year, making serious money for a decade or so total.
Note that they only have to do that about every three to four years - note the 2001 - 2005 gap (which could be extended to 2007 if you lump all the iPods together).
We should worry if Apple hasn't had a New Shiny Thing by, say, 2015, giving them some slack due to Steve's departure.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Microsoft aren't ever going to be the company that rolled out Windows XP and was threatened with anti-trust around the world ever again
Right, because they learned their lesson and grease the right palms now. You can violate anti-trust all you want if you pay the right bribes.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
On the one hand, Ellison saying this sort of thing is completely consistent. So... not news.
On the other hand...
I think he may be right. Apple's mapping app. Need I say more?
Jobs may have been a been a dick, but with him Apple had a mission. Now, it seems like any other company. Dedicated to $$$ above all else and run by 'managers'.
Bruce A. Knack
Silicon Surfers
Holy fuckolies... I've been reading this site since its earliest days, and this has to be the most intelligent comment I've ever seen.
It also highlights the kind of thinking that the Linux crowd, as much as I love you guys, simply doesn't understand. If you want to win the server market or the embedded market, that's a piece of cake compared to winning the desktop/laptop/palmtop market. But it's not just a harder task, it's a much different one. As long as Linux remains a fanboy clubhouse with disconnected, arrogant "leaders" like Linus and RMS and a small army of programmers who refuse to act like grownups, nothing major will change for Linux and the mainstream user. MS could royally fuck up 8.1, 9, 10, etc. far worse than they did 8, even worse than they almost did with XBOX One, and still hold Linux at bay.
As much as I detest MS (and Apple), it pains me to say this. I would love to see Linux snap up 50% of the desktop market and send MS scrambling for ways to (gasp!) make Windows and Office vastly better instead of inventing ever more arcane ways to milk users for every cent possible. But I just don't see it happening...
What products did Microsoft invent on their own, that didn't come before them?
Microsoft bailed it out in fear of Linux. I don't think Microsoft is in a position to do this again. Not at the moment anyway.
Competitor? Nah. Ellison and Jobs were actually close friends, based on comments both of them made over the years. If anything, this is a case of one person thinking that their friend's life work simply can't exist without the friend. And, despite being an Apple fanboy, I have to admit that he's likely right.
I'm not with the doom-and-gloom naysayers thinking it'll happen immediately, but I do think that, as many other companies before them (e.g. Sony), Apple has had its day and will generally be going down from here (whether they've already peaked or are nearing it, I don't know, since they're expected to have some big announcements this autumn), and it's only a question of how steep the descent will be and when/if it will stabilize eventually (quick note: I'm not talking about the stock market when I talk about descent, so much as the distinguishing characteristics that separate Apple from an average company). I think that Jobs did a good job of getting the right people into leadership and inculcating a culture of excellence in the company that he left behind, so that should ensure that the descent will be a gradual one, rather than a rapid one, but eventually they'll start hiring bozos (to borrow Jobs' term) who will drag the company down.
When Tim Cook hired Browett as their Senior VP for retail, a lot of us assumed that Apple had already begun that process, since the guy looked like he was completely the wrong fit for the company, even though he may have managed to do decently well at the place where he was before. Kudos to them for canning him a few months later after he engaged in a series of highly-publicized screw-ups, but the fact that they hired him in the first place is actually one of the most worrying developments to comes out of the post-Jobs Apple, since their die-hard fans read it as an indication that the soul of the company is fragile and in danger of disappearing sooner than expected.
I wonder how people will describe Larry Ellison when he passes someday?
Larry took off down the hall screaming with hands raised a la "Kermit the Frog".
What I was trying to say is that Larry Ellison's love for boats did get someone killed.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I have seen Apple tank without Jobs before. It looks like they are doing it again.
Jobs was a superior product guy and a despot with unchecked power.
There is simply no one at Apple to take his place.
So it may take 5-10 years for Apple to diminish to irrelevance again.
Larry is right: we have already seen this movie before.
We are sick of Windows. I think there are still people (like us) who haven't yet moved over completely just because they can't afford it yet.
Apple's recent popularity leveled the software suite playing field, and with that there are plenty of reasons to abandon the crapware that is Windows.
I'll have windows as an afterthought at home now. I used to always say "People don't buy windows for windows, they use windows for Office or some other tool and because its the OS that came on their cheap PC."
Apple (w/ Jobs) so dominated the market that Microsoft has taken a dump on usability to try and be different. There's different like cool and hip different, then there's "microsoft" different which is more like "lock the car doors" different.
In my wife's words: "If people have to learn to use a new operating system, the pain of switching to a mac looks is less painful and all my tools are there now. Plus, it works with my ipad."
Me, I'll probably just virtualize Windows 7 until they stop patching it. By then, I'll be full Linux / OSX anyway.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
Below is a DVD of my classical rips, arranged as folders. This is hardly unmanagable.
12/25/2007 10:31 AM Aaron_Copland
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Albinoni-Pachelbel
12/24/2007 09:47 AM Antonio_Vivaldi-6_Flute_Concertos,Op._10-Trevor_Pinnock
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Beethoven_Symphonies_5,6_Karajan
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Chabrier
12/29/2007 12:15 PM Debussy
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Erik_Satie
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Felix_Mendelsohn
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Gabriel_Faure
12/29/2007 01:42 PM Gershwin
12/29/2007 08:32 AM Gershwin-Piano_concerto_in_F
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Glazunov
12/24/2007 11:03 AM Gould,_Glen
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Grieg-Piano_Concerto-Peer_Gynt
12/24/2007 09:03 AM Grofe-Grand_Canyon_Suite
12/24/2007 09:03 AM Handel_Water_Music
12/24/2007 09:50 AM Hubert_Laws-The_Rite_Of_Spring
12/24/2007 09:04 AM J._S._Bach-Brandenburg_Concertos_Nos._1,2,3
12/24/2007 09:04 AM J._S._Bach-Brandenburg_Concertos_Nos._4,5,6
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Jean_Sibelius
12/27/2007 08:31 PM John_Williams-The_Seville_Concert
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Mahler,_Gustav-(1860-1911)-Ljubljana-Symphony_No._1
12/29/2007 08:17 AM Mozart
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Mozart-Concerto_For_Flute&Harp_C_major
12/29/2007 08:33 AM Mussorgsky-Pictures_at_an_Exhibition
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Prokofiev-Classical_Symphony-Ormandy-Philadelphia
12/27/2007 06:35 PM Puccini
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Rachmaninoff
12/31/2007 11:35 AM Ravel
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Rimsky-Korsakov_Capricco_Espagnol_Op.34
12/24/2007 09:05 AM Rimsky-Korsakov_Scheherazade
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Rodrigo-Concierto_de_Aranjuez
12/27/2007 07:53 PM Saint-Saens-Symphony_No._3_Organ
12/24/2007 09:05 AM Schubert_Trout_Quintet
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Tangos
12/24/2007 10:36 AM Tchaikovsky-Symphony_No._5_in_E_Minor_Opus_64
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Trevor_Jones-Richard_III_Soundtrack
12/24/2007 11:02 AM Various-Sorcerer
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Various-The_Glory_of_Gershwin
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Vivaldi-8_Concerti
12/25/2007 10:35 AM Vivaldi-The_Four_Seasons
12/24/2007 10:33 AM X-Bruckner,_Anton-Symphonie_#_4_Es-Dur_Romantische
12/24/2007 10:33 AM Yo-Yo_Ma-Classic_Yo-Yo
If you are storing your music on flash media, you are not likely walking around with a terabyte. What is so unmanagable about a folder interface?
Did that company tank? If Steve is like Tom, Apple should be just fine over the long haul...
In what areas do Oracle and Apple compete?
"Just imagine Oracle without Larry Ellison!"
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I died a little inside when I saw the hideous Jobs Tub. Does that count?
...first sentence.
So please stop it.
It's annoying, and breaks the conventions of what a subject is for vs. the body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Database
The name Oracle comes from the code-name of a CIA-funded project Ellison had worked on while previously employed by Ampex.
I can hate a product without hating the parent company that creates/owns the product.
Basic logic... Try it sometime.
compared him to iconic creators such as Thomas Edison
sounds apt. edison was a money grubbing prick as well that hired and paid others a pittance for shooting down their ideas and inventions before going off and patenting them in some money making version anyway
... That he saw Java as a major threat to Microsoft says something about how myopic he could be.
Remember, Microsoft's initial business idea was to sell BASIC interpreters to Atari. That is, programming language design was Bill's thing, so it is not him being myopic, it is more of him seeing somebody else riding his horse.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
I tend to disagree, but we'll have to see.
I think during Job's second period with Apple he instilled an enduring vision for the company, loosely summed up as "spare no expense in making elegant products that are easy to use". Genius, ground-breaking products get extra credit, but if Apple can just continue to make great products that make people's lives easier it'll do fine. Apple can certainly afford to get top talent to make that vision happen.
It actually amazes me how poorly Apple's competition does with ease of use.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
What products did Microsoft invent on their own, that didn't come before them?
Windows 95 -- to create a graphical environment and rich user experience on top of a massively vulnerable operating system, years after mainframe operating system architects hammered out network security, that took some real ingenuity.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
finally got one right.
... That he saw Java as a major threat to Microsoft says something about how myopic he could be.
Remember, Microsoft's initial business idea was to sell BASIC interpreters to Atari. That is, programming language design was Bill's thing, so it is not him being myopic, it is more of him seeing somebody else riding his horse.
The irony of this is ROM BASIC was something he bought or licensed from someone else and tweaked. I remember working in a Cassette BASIC on something or other at one time. Seems to me he left a pretty ugly string garbage collecting bug in most versions of it.
MS-DOS even began as 86-DOS, someone else's work. Gates was effectively the middle man in the deal to create PC-DOS for IBM.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
But will suffer greatly and slowly fade back into a tiny market.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That he knows what he's talking about, go figure.
Apple is about fashion. iPhones are still selling like hot cakes, and people don't give a damn whether some Android device is more powerful. iStuff is hip, looks flashy, has a ton of accessories available
Ok, following you so far.
and never will stop being hip, cool and well designed. It's like the Zippo Lighter or the Vespa Scooter.
Sorry, no. The intrinsic nature of style is that things go out of style. When Steve Jobs was there Apple was refreshing it's style continuously. This is no longer true.
Apple is dead!! Boy I missed the old days
You have a folder named Music, you have subfolders named A, B, C, D, ... How exactly does that not scale?
Depends on how much time you care to spend/waste organizing your music collection. I've done it that way in the past but it's modestly time consuming to set up and depending on what you are doing can be a pain to maintain. Personally I prefer to spend as little time on it as possible messing around with organizing my music and would rather have a database handle it even if the database is not perfect. It just isn't my thing. Itunes sucks in a number of ways but it is generally good enough for those like myself who just don't really care that much and would rather have some software handle the details.
Larry Ellison doesn't love boats, he loves buying trophies, including the Americas Cup.
Jobs got one dollar per year.
He took a *salary* of one dollar. He got paid far more than that. Huge difference. I'd happily take a salary of $1/year in exchange for 5 million shares of Apple stock and a private jet.
like Sam Walton said back in the day "most people cannot resist cheap shit" and there you have the rise of walmart and the walmart of phones: android.
The brilliance of Steve Jobs, was this. He always brought only fully working and desirable products to market and did so first, in his later years anyway. It was not about the coolest new tech, or the shiniest design. His products had those elements, but before the consumer got the product, it was functional and desirable in all ways, well given the technology of the time. So yes another product might be faster, another might be shinier or another have a cooler feature, but Apples products were always winners in all categories (except price of course).
He also got why the product really was desirable in the first place, how people would want and need to use it. This helped him immensely in making good products.
That is why Apple controlled itsproducts so tightly, they did not want you to look behind the curtain see what all it could not do, they only wanted you see what it did do. So if you had the money, you always knew you could buy an Apple product and walk away happy with the latest gadget.
Also that is why he focused on so few products. Building one great product is costly, another leader might not be able to have the same discipline and vision. If they can't find the right person, Apple will have to chance.
FYI, I am not a fanboy and have not bought Apple products after my fist Mac years ago. But I always understood why they were desirable to people, I just never wanted to pay first adopter premiums.
My friends mother has been making 78$ per hour.This is shocking and unbelievable,but true.Start here> WWW.BAY92.COM
Competitor? Nah. Ellison and Jobs were actually close friends, based on comments both of them made over the years. If anything, this is a case of one person thinking that their friend's life work simply can't exist without the friend. And, despite being an Apple fanboy, I have to admit that he's likely right.
You're not an Apple fanboy, you're perhaps a Jobs fanboi.
Who the hell goes looking for a single, specific song to load into their music playing app?
Directory structure for mere storage isn't even a real argument. It's nerds slapping at each other ineffectually.
You guys should be arguing about ID3, APE, and other tag systems.
Rubbish. Apple did that in 1989.
Proof? Reagan.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
In September of 2012, Apple was still selling fourth-generation iPod touch devices. Those won't get iOS 7 and thus won't get, say, gamepad support.
I've seen Ellison describe himself (and Jobs) as 'Randian Heroes'.
If he really believes himself (and believed Jobs was) a comparable figure to John Galt, then he almost has to believe Apple will fail without Jobs.
In my opinion, Apple was lost when Woz left. The end.
I can get manufacturer supported software updates for at least two years after I buy the device.
Not always. Say you bought a fourth-generation iPod touch in September 2012, about a month before the fifth-generation iPod touch came out. Because this device won't get iOS 7, you don't have a guaranteed two years of updates.
Apple is about fashion. iPhones are still selling like hot cakes, and people don't give a damn wether some Android device is more powerful.
I used to think this way about Apple products, until I went ahead and bought an iPhone myself.
While the fashion part is still true, after using the iPhone, and later Macs, for years now, I now realize the more powerful thing about Apple products is their simplicity.
"Fashion", just like clothes, can only lure you to buy something ONCE as a show off, it cannot keep you using the same product years after years. This is something that most /.ers, who thought iPhone is only about fashion and have never used one, cannot understand.
To keep people USING your product, high quality and attention to details are needed. Like an expensive all-weather coat, or a pair of expensive boots, "fashion" may trick you to buy it, but if its quality sucks, you wouldn't be still wearing it a year later.
Thomas Edison and jobs, yes...
They both hyped and marketed what they stole.
Jobs from Woz, Ed from Tesla and a few other french, german and Italians that happen to create what he told them he invented.
Competitor? Nah. Ellison and Jobs were actually close friends, based on comments both of them made over the years. If anything, this is a case of one person thinking that their friend's life work simply can't exist without the friend. And, despite being an Apple fanboy, I have to admit that he's likely right.
You're not an Apple fanboy, you're perhaps a Jobs fanboi.
I don't think you have to be a Jobs fanboi to say that. I don't consider myself either an Apple fanboi or a Jobs fanboi. (I don't carry an iphone and my ipod is an old firewire touchwheel that remains in the truck for legacy reasons, even though I've had stereo bluetooth and music on my phone since way back in the Blackberry days.) But even if you didn't like the products he created, you can still appreciate the impact he had on society (even while believing that impact wasn't entirely positive). He was a complex individual who got a few things wrong but got many things amazingly right. I agree with OP that it's likely that Apple will suffer without him, and submit that this opinion is entirely pragmatic, not a product of hero worship.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
and then Carl Icahn promptly sent Larry to the proctologist.
They've managed not to grease the right palms in the mobile space so far, or so it would seem.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Stop making Jobs a fucking messiah. And a fucking inventor. He was good at marketing. That's it. Apple will live, just like everybody else. And if they don't - fuck them.
There's one difference. The first time Steve Jobs left it was unexpected and hostile. He knew he was going to Die and he worked tirelessly to instill a culture (good or bad) of creativity. Another reason for Apples Success IS TIM COOK. The reason is his superior supply chain skills - skills at execution. Steve was a visionary. The nitty gritty was done by others --- WHO ARE STILL THERE. So I think Ellison is wrong.
If anyone knows how to run a company into the ground, it's Larry Ellison.
It's a no brainer
Apple was off to a good start with the Apple II, it then went into fail mode until they went into desk top publishing, and that carried them for a few years, and then they were near death at ~~$2 per share when the iPhone and iPad came along at just the right time and Blackberry(who was run by Canadian idiots who ignored it for 5 years). If Blackberry had responded instantly with a catch up, we would see an entirely different phone/tablet ecosystem. Microsoft also had high placed idiots.
Now however, Apple seems out of new ideas, it can only try a cheaper iPhone, which will cost more than dozens of Android variants. So Ellison may be right, the sun is setting on the Apple empire - still, $150 billion or so will allow Apple to live on for a while, unless they do something incredible stupid - like buying their own stock = simple cash combustion, I see they actually burned some cash last quarter - what did it get them? Nothing is what it got them.
We've heard it all before. Yes, Jobs was brilliant. Yes, he was great pals with Ellison. But it's still the tired old "There will never be another Harry Truman" line. "England has gone to hell in a hand-basket since the passing of Sir Winston."
I can't believe nobody is answering this. Ellison - Sun - Java - Android apps. Android apps are written in Java.
If anyone should know about collapsing companies and such, surely it's Ellison.... He's right about Apple, of course.. just like what happened with Sun.. except in Apple's case it was the *loss* of a leader, in Sun's case it was the *aquirement* of a manager..
Will Oracle be doomed if Larry dies tomorrow?
Casteism
That this slavery at Foxxcon is stopped.
I believe that Apple needs to bring something new to the table. I honestly got bored with my iphone and replaced it with android. sames with all my friend and people in my company. they need to give up their proprietary way and introduce SD. And it would be nice if i can just drop my mp3s in there, itunes sucks im glad i dont have to deal with it any more.
Here in Australia there is a Boxing day boat race called the Sydney to Hobart (guess where the finish line is). One race the weather conditions were that bad that a number of people lost their lives. Now I felt sorry for them and their loved ones. I heard Larry Ellison was on one of the boats that made it safely to Hobart. I was sad. I don't care about Oracle but after one interview with the prick I knew this guy is a right royal one. Strange because I usually see the good in everyone.
> Wait, how is Apple a competitor to Oracle?
There is only so much money in the world. Oracle wants it all. Apple wants it all. Ergo, competitors.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
In the last year
iOS7 complete redesign of the OS.
New version of OSX
New form factor for workstation
entirely new manufacturing process for phones
Just slightly over a year ago the invention of retina laptops
Yeah, Ellison is a hell of a one to talk. The only thing he seems creatively capable of is sicking lawyers on his competition and driving creative forces out of his organization, but then again you don't expect more from a narcissist. Besides, the only capital he got from buying Sun Microsystems was the Big Data Financial application and that should be ruled illegal anyway. His handling of Solaris, Java and MySQL has forced people to take their creative energy elsewhere. Fork Larry Ellison!
Invention of retina laptops - what invention, they are fabrications.
The rest is normal progress in machine and OS
I worked for Sun long before Oracle acquired it, and I hate Java, hated it before I left Sun. I hate it for two reasons:first is that Sun messed up the design of the class libraries, and two Java is a bloated C, a strongly typed language. What makes C usable is its small size the small size of the standard library. C++ suffers from the same bloat as Java and for the same reason, but at least you can still use pointers and references without obscure syntactic candy. Modern languages that delay typing to compile time have a generality that is superior to all the administrivia in Java and C++. These days I am liking Python and even Javascript with its namespace lambda construct better than Java.
I'm glad I left Sun long before Oracle took it over. I would have hated to work for Ellison,
You're missing the part where the OS was "massively vulnerable."
But that lower-cost iPhone has been around for half a decade, it's just called Last Year's iPhone. And an even cheaper option is available, the iPhone From Two Years Ago. Right now, an iPhone 5 is $200, a 4S is $100, and the 4 is free (with contract).
So what the Pointed Haired Analysts have been clamoring for has been with us almost from the beginning. Unless, of course, they mean an iPhone that wont be subjected to the monthly smartphone tax from the major carriers...
Really, do tell us where Jobs personally took credit for designing the iPod or the iPad, etc.
You mean, it's eating the rest of the market. Android's expansion has come at the expense of Nokia, RIM, and now feature phone manufacturers, not Apple.
Oooo, anecdotes. Good night, Reagan.
Oh, please. You don't remember nVIR and it's variants? Or MDEF?
If only a bear would eat Ellison, but unfortunately bears have too good a taste to eat sacks of shit.
Really my first thought, what an asshole.
I kind of agree, and here's why.
Apple folks I've spoke with, even interviewed with once, would say the same thing: there was one ego at Apple, SJ. He could come up with a product, see it through his way -- whatever idea he had, that's what you'd get. And it didn't always work, but often enough to have made Apple the most valuable tech company on Earth.
Without Steve, I don' t believe there will or even can be anyone else driving products like that. It simply doesn't happen in big companies, ever... only startups. And Steve was the Apple guy from the beginning of the company. From now on, it's committees like some big companies, more about doing what's safe and more like what they did last year. Or what Google or someone else did last year... there's evidence of both of these things in Apple's more recent producte.
Worse yet, you get someone in the driver's seat without that real vision, as seems to be plaguing Microsoft lately... leading without the right understanding of the market.
Neither of these means Apple's doomed. After all, General Electric survived Edison's demise. But they're certain to be a very different company -- I doubt they have the drive or the right kind of people to be "the old Apple" ever again.
-Dave Haynie
last time Jobs left, he didn't know he was leaving.
in 2011.. he did.
I suspect we're looking at Tim Cook as being relatively unenthuiastic or lukewarm, because he's getting an unfair comparison to Steve Jobs. It would be extremely hard to flat out impossible to replicate Apple's co-founder, and Cook is wise enough not to try. The thing is, Apple is more than Steve Jobs, it's also the apparatus that he put together. The bulk of those people are still doing what they did under Jobs. The Prophent/Messiah may have moved on, but the disciples are more than capable. It may well be that Jobs may have lived just long enough to put Apple on the course it needs to be. The crew should be able to manage keeping the ship properly steered. And for at least now, it's a good course. In fact without Jobs' manic obsession on destroying Google, there's a chance that some of Apple's biggest problems, like this unneccessary jihad might work themselves out over time.