Another failure of your logic is that 300,000 apps that you say no one uses are not getting updated. Well if they are that useless, time to go and clear some of the cruft. How can you argue that some apps nobody is using not being updated indicates a problem? Makes no sense, you are looking to hard for a downside. There is no fragmentation issue.

Jeepers. Is it the 90′s again, where it’s only by some unknown luck of a draw that Apple survives from day to day? I really wish the media would grow up with regard to POVs in Apple.

Jeepers. Is it the 90′s again, where it’s only by some unknown luck of a draw that Apple survives from day to day? Some unfathomable mystery? I really wish the media would grow up with regard to POVs on Apple.

Apple’s supply chain leaks too much info to make the product introductions have the usual drama.

Why? Because only a small percentage of apps actually make money on the app store. Probably 200,000 to 300,000 apps are sitting in he app store and are free or get 3 downloads a week, making no money for the developers.

In other words these app developers have zero incentive to ever upgrade these apps.

Even EA, of the largest developers for iOS have already stated hat they will not updat their apps to TEH new screen.

I cannot imagine that Steve Jobs, who was obsessed with every tiny details of the iPhone design and screen would appreciate the black boxing that will be a permanent feature of this platform now for years to come.

Notice, not even the messy fragmented Android platform has such a glaring flaw in their devices, what to speak of the flagship device.

@jainkg, I like your Jobs worship. But we’re talking about a gestalt known as ‘Apple’. Go read some history about Jobs. He GOT IN THE WAY and WRECKED a lot of great Apple ideas. As this thread has pointed out, Jobs was a blundering human like the rest of us. A lot of people HATED his often blind egotism and stubbornness. HE was the blithering idiot who sought out and hired Steve Sculley, portending all the Marketing-Moronic self-destructive practices that plagued Apple until that $Billion Performas-rotting-in-the-warehouse catastrophe.

So get off the downers. Nothing-at-all in this year’s version of Apple says ‘downhill’. Only the stock manipulators and TechTards spew that rant!

Nothing-At-All says ‘malaise’ in any of Apple’s products this year. Look at them evolve, indeed! How many companies actually evolve these days? Damned few! How many companies ride out a worldwide economic depression by THRIVING? Just about zero. That’s all happening WITHOUT Steve Jobs.

I’m waiting for the next ‘REVOLUTIONARY’ Apple move to be the next iteration of the Mac OS. I’ve been cheering for 3-D graphics in the OS since 1998!!! Apple have already filed the patents to get it started. Here comes one very kewl revolution.

Watch the other patents Apple has been filing this year. They’re as STUNNING and ENVIABLE as ever. This is the single most entrepreneurial technology business going AT THIS VERY SECOND! I see no reason for that to stop.

I will point out that Tim Cook hired a TERRIBLE DUMMY to head up Apple Retail, John Browett. His ideas are retrograde, negative and demoralizing. The bum should be thrown out ASAP. Tim Cook has heard the word!

Apple has NEVER been perfect and never will be. But Apple does have US. We are the most vibrant and vigilant of customers. We know Apple history and all their self-inflicted wounds. Many of us have lived within the rest of the technology community and know from experience how it is done WRONG. We loudly and fervently KICK APPLE’S BUTT when they go off track! Like no other company I know of, WE ARE PART OF THE COMPANY. Don’t count us out or consider us headed downhill!

(enough caffeine for me today).

In particular, we can plan on the, ahem, next (as opposed to NeXT) version of the Mac OS, potentially called OS XI, to have plenty of Jobs fingerprints all over it. It will be 3-D graphics. It will be revolutionary. It will be insanely-great.

(yeah, I know. but it’s fun to pretend to be prophetic!)

There will not be a “glaring mismatch” with apps. There will only temporarily be a slight mismatch with small black bars where the previous black plastic used to be.

The argument to reach across a narrow screen is not nonsense. You don’t type on the top of the phone… ever. extra real-estate at the top of the phone doesn’t impede use with iOS.

The one gesture that is used at the top of the phone is bringing down the notification center. Try holding your iPhone 4 and reaching for the microphone on the top, you can do it, can’t you? It’s no higher than that.

Design is about choices, certainly you know this. There will always be negatives to any choice. But the positives of this very slightly taller screen (Full 16:9 video, extra set row of apps onscreen, more room for messages/emails, larger space for webpages, two extra days of landscape calendar, and overall usefulness and joy with better video and pictures) far outweigh the few negatives.

Mike did illustrate one thing: The concept known as CULT OF PERSONALITY.

Darn, Steve Jobs left Apple again, albeit permanently this time. I think the mourning period is over Mike. Deal with it and catch up with the present. DUH they’re a different company. They were also a ‘different company’ every single year Steve Jobs worked there as well. It’s called being ENTREPRENEURIAL. Go get some business education.

Nothing new here folks! Stupid statements about Apple have been made every single day since the release of the Macintosh. Just laugh.

Apple Death Knell Counter @MacObserver

If Apple end up falling for Marketing-As-Management again, the horror that messed them over in 1996, THEN I’ll get all worried and frantic and stuff.

I’m sure I may have missed a few, but Steve’s big mistakes have proven to be potentially fatal.

As long as Apple has the ability to recognize new markets (or recognize when they can reform current markets), they’re ok.

As long as Apple keeps innovating and Cook knows when to say no, they’re ok.

It is unestetic, odd, fits nothing in design, ruins a gigantic advantage that the iPhone platform had… minimal fragmentation.

It will create a glaring mismatch of hundreds of thousands of apps that will never be upgraded.

It was a purely ego movement by Apple not to appear to copy Samsungs larger screen. Apple had be different, but this time in a stupid way.

The platform will suffer from this mistake for years.

Apple could have simply continued to offer the smaller screen for people who prefer to have a smaller screen for whatever reason.

The argument that you can reach across the narrow screen is nonsense, because now the 4 inch screen is longer than if the screen was wider with a 4 inch screen… harder to reach the long end at the top, which is is the longest distance for the hand to reach.

Point is. I’d never measure success based on the Street’s perception. General public sentiment is more accurate.

This is the start of a long decline for Apple. Not that that’s a bad thing but lets hope they don’t start to go the way of Sony.

Oh wait.

Seriously, Jobs was amazing. But nothing in the Apple lineup or presentation needed his immediate presence. He left a great company, and great people in place to make great products. His legacy will be even more impressive than his accomplishments while alive.

As a German writer said, life is easy in the subjunctive mood.

I don’t know where they will find someone like Steve. I feel really sad writing this.

The reason why is because I was at a new a new apple store opening today and it wasn’t as polIshed as it could have been. Maybe it’s me, because I’ve spoken to Steve when apple launched the regent street apple store and to speak to him was a moment of history. In the brief 2 minute conversation it was apparent I was speaking to a man who was totally unique.

It was like talking to leonado da Vinci or Jimi Hendrix a life changing experience.

I’m sure Phil Schiller, Tim, jinny and all the too executive still miss him badly. I know I still do, maye it’s the fact that it’s getting near the anniversary of his passing.

I have faith in apple and it will be very successful but the question I ask is where that charismatic figurehead that inspires the world in the company?

I personably think jinny I’ve is the only viable successor to Steve considering they worked together every single day while Steve was alive.

If Elgan really believes that “the whole announcement event just fell flat” simply because Steve wasn’t there, then he’s missing a point somewhere. Steve would be the first to maintain that the products should speak for themselves, and the iPhone 5 is an impressive piece of technology.

Yeah, Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs when it comes to stage presence, but his presentation skills have improved considerably, and I’ve no doubt he’s worked at that.

Does anyone here really believe that the Wall Street would have so much faith in a “caretaker CEO”, and a company running on autopilot, expending the final breaths of creativity of a deceased genius leader? For a full year?? Just a reminder: AAPL closed yesterday at an all-time high, after also hitting an all-time intra-day high of nearly $700 per share!

And for those who aren’t sure about Wall Street’s prudence these days, check out the competition (MSFT, GOOG, HP…). Obviously, no amount of Courrier, Surface, Win 8, mobile Win 8 or other “exciting” innovation from Seattle got those Wall Street guys to notice. Perhaps it is because they still have that same old CEO…

You’re missed but not forgotten, RIP Steve.

Apple heavily influences all of those industries and sets trends. In many of them Apple disctates the rules of engagement and determines who even gets to play.

Cook doesn’t need to be Steve Jobs for Apple to continue to plow through its competitors. None of them have a clue what it means to surprise and delight your customers and give them extraordinary and memorable experiences.

as i’ve posted before, 2013 is the year when we will first see products and services that Jobs did not get started. then we can talk about the results of new leadership – and it’s certainly a team effort now more than ever.

That said, he has plenty of power to create what he wants at Apple and doesn’t need to be saddled with the CEO role to which I feel he is ill suited in order to produce his magic. He is exactly where he should be. Whoever fills the CEO role after Cook should understand the company as a whole, which takes more than amazing design skills.