“Apple has enjoyed one of the most spectacular and innovative runs in U.S. business history,” Michael S. Malone writes in an opinion piece for ABC News.
“The question now is whether the company can keep going, pulling still more rabbits out of Steve Jobs’ hat. The answer, I think, is probably not,” Malone writes.
“That’s not to say that aren’t a few terrific products waiting out there that seem logical extensions of Apple’s current trajectory. For example, everybody expects the company to come out with a 3G iPhone sometime soon, which would be a welcome improvement. Even better would be an Internet phone — which is what I think the iPhone should have been in the first place. And coming up with a real keyboard for the iPhone, a la the new LG Voyager, or at least a pulsing touch screen keyboard, would overcome the iPhone’s one big flaw,” Malone writes.
MacDailyNews Take: There already is an Internet iPhone from Cisco. Word is, it’s selling like snotcakes. As for LG’s Voyager and iPhone’s keyboard, please see these related articles:
Chicago Tribune: Verizon’s fake Apple iPhone, the LG Voyager, is clunky and second-rate – December 18, 2007
Verizon’s ‘fake iPhone’ LG Voyager is no Apple iPhone killer – November 21, 2007
Dopey ‘study’ conjures up Apple iPhone typing ‘errors’ – November 14, 2007
Malone continues, “But then what? The iMac, the iPod (and iTunes) and the iPhone challenged major consumer electronics industries that had either grown complacent (PCs, the music industry) or missed a key innovation (the cell phone industry and feature integration). But now what?”
MacDailyNews Take: “But now what?” There’s a reason why Jobs is a multi-billionaire running one of the world’s most valuable companies and Michael S. Malone is scribbling junk articles about him for such high-technology mavens as ABC News.
Malone continues, “The quick price discounting of the iPhone underscored that the mobile phone world was a far more aggressive and competitive one than the aging personal computer world. And already, Nokia, LG, Samsung and every other cell phone maker is rushing to introduce iPhone killers, and the first wave looks pretty damn good. Can Apple really stay ahead of these guys?”
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, Apple can stay ahead. The first wave of fake iPhones looks pretty good to whom? Not to anyone who’s used an iPhone, that’s for sure. Anyone can make an iPhone lookalike, weld on a touch screen and pretend it’s an iPhone (see recent Verizon ads), but they don’t have multi-touch and they don’t work at all like an iPhone. Just like with fake iMacs and MacBooks, the external looks can be approximated, but the user experience inside obviously can’t.
Malone continues, “And that isn’t the only market in which Apple is coming under assault. The company picked up some market share in computers, thanks to the stupidity of the competition, but that isn’t going to last… Will the results be superior to Apple’s computers? Likely not. But these giant competitors need only be nearly as good at half the price.”
MacDailyNews Take: Half the price? Come on. Spec out comparable machines and Apple fares very well indeed, often beating the likes of Dell. Apple refuses to compete in the bargain basement junk PC market. Apple wants to satisfy customers; they won’t make junk for the sake of low sticker prices. Apple has a reputation for quality that they will not, should not, sacrifice to pad their market share numbers like HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. Basically, you get what you pay for with Macintosh. Especially since Macs are OS-unlimited while the PC box assemblers are OS-limited, stuck riding Microsoft’s bloated Vista (or installing Microsoft’s over 6-year-old XP), forever unable to run Mac OS X, iLife, etc. Consumers grow more tech savvy every day, hence the recent dramatic uptick in Mac market share. HP, Dell, Lenovo, and the rest can try to make the best looking machines they can muster, but they can’t match Jonathan Ives’ design chops, and even if they somehow get anywhere in the ballpark, they’re still stuck booting up into Windows.
Malone continues, “That leaves music and video, where the iPod owns the market (by the way, when Microsoft, IBM and Intel had this kind of market monopoly, the SEC came knocking; where was it with MP3?). No one’s going to take this business away from Apple anytime soon. But once again, short of a quantum leap in innovation, this is now an incremental market — something that Apple has never been that good at. And the competitors are swarming: seen the new Zune? While the world laughed it off and dismissed it, Microsoft, relentless as ever, went back to the drawing board and came up with a nice little machine. It ain’t the iPod, but it, and all of its other friends, just may keep Apple from making Apple-like profits. And when that happens, Apple’s stock falls … and then how will the company continue to afford fighting this three front war it’s now put itself in — all against bigger and richer competitors?”
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
Malone uses the old trick of peppering his articles with faint praise, so that he can get in his weak shots at Steve Jobs, who most likely repeatedly pants’ed him in front of the entire playground back in grade school (see Malone quote below).
With their latest Zunes, Microsoft has partially succeeded in ripping off old Apple iPods, but without the rich accessory market, without iTunes, without the iTunes Store. They, like everyone else, have no answer for iPod touch and iPhone. iPod nano, all by itself, blows the competition away. SanDisk, the actual distant #2 to iPod, Microsoft, with their Zune fiasco, and the ever-dwindling cadre of other also-rans have nothing to offer that will “keep Apple from making Apple-like profits.” They just don’t, and to say that what they have on the market today might “keep Apple from making Apple-like profits” is simply folly. They’ve been trying for over half a decade and the best they’ve come up with are incomplete, derivative fakes of discontinued iPods with extraneous “features” thrown on for the sake of compiling bullet points for their dusty retail placards.
And now for some Michael S. Malone quotes, so you can see the baggage he brings to his articles that mention Apple:
“The biggest reason I try to avoid covering the company is the community of rabid Apple fanatics. When you are in the mood for it, they can be fun — in a nasty sort of way. It’s sort of like bear-baiting: A dirty, little secret in the computer media is that if you want to goose your readership or spike the traffic to your Web site, just say something negative about Apple Computer.” – Michael S. Malone, January 18, 2007
“Mr. Jobs is the most paradoxical of creatures. On the one hand, though time and mortality have mellowed him, he remains something of a monster. If, like me, you grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, interviewed him in the early days of Apple, and even wrote a book about him and his company, there will always be things about him that are unforgivable — cruelties and manipulations (especially to Steve Wozniak), early crimes (illegal telephones, ironically), megalomania, and an unquenchable need to take credit from others (Do you know who led the original Mac team? Invented the iPod? Devised the new iPhone? I didn’t think so) — and that no achievement will ever erase.” – Michael S. Malone, January 11, 2007
Michael S. Malone from “Apple R.I.P,” Forbes, October 5, 2000:
• “Steve Jobs can’t run companies… Why is he a poor CEO? Because he’s mercurial, insufficiently engaged by the more boring (but crucial) operations like distribution and, ultimately, because he’s a pretty nasty piece of work.”
• “Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position. When the end does come, the big companies will have the necessary capital to transition into the multitude of new industries that will evolve out of the PC.”
• “Apple is a small fish, and the pond is going dry… Now that Apple has upgraded its customer base it has no place to go.”
You get the idea.
Well guess what ABC, there’s plenty of rabbits at Apple to come.
maybe thinks he wrote iCON…
I’m telling Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.
Dougless
don’t agree with this person
I always find the price thing amusing. People continually point out that Apple computers cost so much more. I believe they are very well priced when placed beside an “equal” PC.
If they are a little more pricey, so what? If you’d rather buy an economy car instead of a luxury car, fine, who cares? In the end, you get what you pay for. By a PC for half the price and enjoy the headaches that come with it. Equipment that works well and is user friendly is worth something to me. I don’t mind paying for my sanity.
I don’t know how people can still think like this after the iPhone.
I had those same doubts, “What comes after the iPod? They can’t possibly top it.” What do they do? Completely blow me away with the iPhone. Contrary to what Ed Colligan and other naysayers prognosticated, they WALKED RIGHT INTO the cell phone business.
Apple has convinced me that they’re capable of anything.
It’s hilarious how these pundiots speak from a position of authority they clearly do not occupy.
This idiot pundit highlights one of the latest trends in anti-Apple buffoonery: taking a snapshot of Apple’s current state and projecting an almost immediate decline in their fortunes. Why? Because being so intensely ignorant of Apple demands that you be unaware that Apple’s resurgence did not occur overnight. Apple’s current success is a series of hard won battles fought since Jobs took back his company in 1997.
But if you just woke up to the fact that Apple is back, you can pretend that Apple is riding on a handful of recent successes and has reached apogee. It is therefore only months away from the inevitable fall back to Earth. After all, Apple’s success is just a flash in the pan.
Sometimes I think that it isn’t so much that these idiots are ignorant of technology in general and Apple technology specifically , it’s that they are ignorant of the nature of business. They don’t grasp the basics, they don’t follow it, and they certainly don’t look up the relevant data on Apple’s business decisions and sales figures for the last ten years. Because if they did, they would have to admit they haven’t got the slightest clue about the nature of Apple’s return. Add to that the fact that they have in many cases backed the giants like Microsoft and Sony for so long they can’t think any other way. The big companies have put so much of the competition underground that it must be only a matter of time before they figure out Apple and undo Apple’s success.
I think the only real despair here is that 10 years from now, these same idiots will be spouting their “Apple will fail any day now” bvllsh!t because when we look back, they haven’t stopped for the last 20 years, why would they stop now.
Wow. That was a long one.
Tracking follow ups.
Here’s a thought: ABC is owned by Walt Disney, which owns Pixar, of which Steve Jobs was once CEO. When Pixar sold to Disney, Steve’s part of the deal was stock and lots of it. In fact, (correct me if I’m wrong) doesn’t Steve own more Disney stock than any other person, including Walt’s brother? Just something to think about.
Wow. this guy really hates SJ.
@ phatskis,
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But if SJ goes after him that would prove his point! right. leave him alone. It’s obvious he is jealous. They grew up at the same place and look at SJ and look at him (maybe not
This guy must have regular sleep overs with John Devorak – PC butt buddies to the end.
BTW, doesn’t Disney own ABC News? Someone asleep at Corporate?
I finally got my hands on the vaunted iPhone challenger HTC Touch. My impressions:
1. The most confusing interface I have yet seen. It took me 10 minutes to even FIND its Touch interface buried within Windows Mobile.
2. The Touch capability is, well…weak.
3. Windows Mobile is, well…confusing.
4. The media features are, well…so-so to fair.
5. Most every input requires a stylus.
All,
We all know this business is cyclical. Not everyone can stay on top forever. I’m referring to Microsoft. It is a tragedy that PCs are sold with horseshit OSes like Vista and when a consumer walks into a retailer to buy a PC, they succumb to buying cheap shit with an operating system that is a dismal failure. That is why the other option, a Mac, has become so obvious. That is why Mac market share is over 7% in December.
The Malones, Enderles and Dvoraks of this world will continue to be cynics because they are so focused on the past. Apple lost market share when decisions were made by buttheads like John Scully and they let the company flounder. Under the second coming of Jobs, Apple has become a behemoth. Now more than ever Apple will flourish and continue to do so. One has to believe the stuff on the drawing board in Cupertino has to be so mind-numbing cool that no one nor no company has thought of it, or succeeded with it, except Apple.
This asshole makes about as much sense as eating soiled kitty litter.
Tell him what you think.
mmalone@forbes.com
I need a mint, my breath reeks of Balmer’s ass.
Just wait ’til Steve unveils the iRabbit – Who’s gonna look stupid then, huh!
and just one more thing … introducing the iBunny! Rrrrowl!
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“But now what?” writes Malone.
Someone as devoid of imagination as this must have got very short shrift from Jobs in those interviews.
I can imaging him crawling to Jobs begging an interview because of their past connections – and being told to ‘eff off’ too.
Malone is eaten away with envy and animosity. Full stop.
That reminds me with a scientist in 1910(ish) who said:
“We didn’t leave to `God` to create anything else”!!! How stupid was that???? Are those two morons related?
This guy definitely has issues. His ongoing vendetta against Steve Jobs is almost psychotic. It must send him into a rage every time Apple and Steve have another success.
Hopefully, MacWorld Expo 2008 will be the last straw for this little turd, and he will off himself. And what if Ballmer did too! Wouldn’t that be just grand?
Some interesting comments, but it does boil down to one simple, key item: what happens to who in this next economic downturn.
In this context, Mike attempts to prognosticate: “will Company XYZ stumble”? Sure – they all will, somehow. Each and every one of them, because that’s what happens in economic downturns: everyone will invariably be hurt in one way or another … even if this “hurt” is that their growth slows or stops.
In this light, I see all of Mike’s projections to be empty: they’re vague, self-fulfilling prophecies where he will be able to point at something that happened (no matter how trivial) and claim his Pyrrhic victory, and yet he misses the bigger picture.
For example, he might claim that the AppleTV is the “stumble”, yet overlooks the $B’s in the bank that will help Apple weather this recession far better than Dell or HP, as another stumble by Dell could very well be its very real death knell, because of Dell’s eroded – – and essentially unchanged – – business case.
Instead, Mike focuses on so-called “Price Cuts” on the iPhone, while failing to realize that they were merely a strategic move during its initial rollout to limit total demand to available supply and to circumvent eBay scalpers.
Thus, all in all, a very disappointing piece from Mr. Malone.
-hh
You can tell a lot about how clued up Malone is by his track record.
Oct 2000 “”Steve Jobs can’t run companies… “
Jobs seems to get plenty of accolades for the way he runs Apple, Pixar wasn’t too shabby either when he was involved.
He’s licking his lips in anticipation of the next iPhone killer, but it’s interesting to note how the phrase ‘iPod killer’ used to be uttered daily and has now all but vanished.
The measure of his desperation is indicated by his suggestion that Apple can’t keep pulling rabbits out of the hat. Why not ? Just because Malone can’t see beyond the obvious, it doesn’t mean that others can’t. He can only see incremental improvements to existing products, 3G iPhone ( already mentioned by Jobs ), internet phone ( already available elsewhere ), iPhone with a keyboard ( is that still an official Talking Point ? ).
Any competent observer of Apple can see how Apple places components in position and later adds another element that links the two, making something greater than the parts. Apple TV is a part that was placed a while ago, I think we’re very likely to see it’s true worth shortly. Spin-offs from the multi-touch technology are also likely to play a big part in Apple’s future with new products for the home.
Malone needs to get over his dislike of Jobs, it keeps making him look foolish … but there again, maybe he always was a fool. which is why Jobs is now where he is and Malone is where he is, despite growing up in the same neighbourhood.
Thats right Michael, Apple went from Apple computer to Apple Inc. because it didn’t have any any other ideas after iPhone. The well is dry.
He’s good at what he die, though– set up a strawman argument and proceed to build a story for which he gets paid. Such is the state of “journalism.”
Beware kiddies, it’s not just lies about Steve Jobs that fill the propaganda… I mean… news.
CES 2008 starts in three days with Turtle Boy giving the keynote. It will probably be his last.
There will be more bizarre FUD, outright lies and anti-Apple spin beginning next week in an attempt to steal the thunder from MWSF.
Batten down the hatches.
what if this guy is an old friend of michael Eisner, an uncreative dude that publicly hates S J?