“Steve Jobs was reportedly wearing a top hat when he visited New York publishers last week. It’s a fitting lid for the Apple CEO, who can be as tricky as a magician,” Brian X. Chen writes for Wired. “Jobs has a knack for throwing off Apple watchers with his masterful misdirections.”
“Ever wonder why analysts and journalists grossly overestimated the price of the Apple tablet prior to its official announcement? Part of the reason is that Jobs had said during a 2008 earnings call that Apple could not make a $500 computer that was not a ‘piece of junk.’ That assertion lent credence to rumors that the tablet would cost $1,000,” Chen writes. “Oops. The entry-level iPad announced in January will cost: $500, at least at the low end of scale. Presumably Jobs doesn’t consider it a piece of junk.”
Chen writes, “What follows is a list of five more famously misleading quotes that Jobs pulled from his bag of tricks.”
• No Plans to Make a Tablet (iPad)
• Not Interested in the Cellphone Business (iPhone)
• People Don’t Read Any More (e-reader)
• No Movies on a Tiny Little Screen (video iPods)
• We Don’t Need to Add New Stuff (camera in iPod touch)
Full article here.
Time for the idiot press to stop expecting eveything handed to them on a silver platter.
Work you parasites !
Research , investigate , study, and learn, before you spout off everything automaticlly and based on gossip , innuendo and …oh yeah – “what he said”
the last one..we are not interested in the search engine business…hmmm
yeah lets see… a humungous server farm in north carolina, iPad, hmmmmm….content?
yeah…about that, we are going to have to move you down to the basement…
yeah..oh yeah , screw your stapler. yeah…hmmmm…
The guy has the right to change his mind.
I think “AppleTV is a hobby” is going to be another added to the list someday.
i don’t think apple considers the ipad a computer in the traditional sense. it sure doesn’t seem to be.
Oooooo magic! This writer needs to be tossed in the Pacific with a bloody chicken leg.
Well, there’s still no camera in the iPod touch so maybe he was being honest about that statement.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
They all fell for it. LOL
I guess all the years of bending over and letting MS have their way with them without so much of a whimper helped prepare them for stupidity. That’s okay. Let them continue to cream over anything PC/Windows POS news.
“…Presumably Jobs doesn’t consider it a piece of junk.”
Presumably Jobs doesn’t consider it a computer.
Or a tablet.
He’s a flip flopper! He was against the iPad before he was for it.
The recent sneaky statement I saw was in a crowd after the iPad unveiling someone shot Walt Mossberg asking him about how he’ll compete with Amazons lower then cost e-books. He just cryptically said the pricing would be the same, Walt asked if Apple will lower the prices and he said again the pricing will be the same. A week later Amazon was having to deal with it’s pricing.
I don’t think Steve was being sneaky; I think that’s what he thought at the time. He learns like everybody else. Remember when the iPhone first came out there was no AppStore and ppl were complaining that it was too “closed.”
The iPad will evolve quickly. There will be a lot of pressure and me-too competition. Ppl really want 2 cameras and a lot of sensors, and the uses these will engender will be phenomenal.
It’s like he’s telling you what they are working on without saying it. A computer that is $500 and not a piece of junk has been their goal all along. Typical straight talk from Jobs. We can’t do it! And at that time they couldn’t, now they can.
That was then.
This is now.
Technology moves on. Sometimes overnight…
I’d like to see a lot of effort go into Wired’s iPad app.
Then have Apple reject it.
“…call that Apple could not make a $500 computer that was not a ‘piece of junk.”
I believe the correct statement was “We don’t KNOW hot to…..”
Now they now it.
Dates important.
For example the ‘No Plans to make a tablet’ was 2003!
In computer years thats in the Jurassic. All kinds of things changed: multi touch tech, battery life etc.
sure there might be stuff on the drawing boards 7 years ago but they say vast majority of concepts Apple thinks about doesn’t end up as products. If in 2003 Apple said they were interested in tablets people will be bashing Apple endlessly if they didn’t sell one in late 2003 or early 2004!!!
If Apple has a virtual reality 3D interface in concept planning but not be ready until say 2018 or might not even ship, what should Apple say today if asked about it, should they say ‘we’re planning it?” Microsoft would as they seem to thrive on vaporware…
@ABQ Peter
+1 (for 1st sentence only).
Along the same timing lines, Steve also said that 3G was a battery hog and it wasn’t ubiquitous enough (paraphrasing). Of course, the unspoken intent of what he said included “at this time.” It was coming, he just didn’t say when. When talking about Apple products, he only speaks in the present tense. He doesn’t look back, and he doesn’t discuss what’s to come.
Steve doesn’t talk about the future, because he doesn’t know what it is…until he creates it.
told you so. See my comment here:
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/07/analyst-roundup-iphone-sales-could-drop-production-cuts-possib/
I’m a genius, thank you and goodnight.
I accept credit cards. Don’t know what to do with them, mind.
“…. don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk ….”
Some say the iPad is not a ‘computer’ in the ‘traditional sense’. Of course, the Mac was never a computer in the ‘traditional sense’ when it was introduced.
The very word ‘computer’ is really an anachronism. The devices we call computers are multi-use portals, communicators, media conduits. There is a ‘computer’ in there somewhere … the part that does the ‘computing’ … but we will sooner or later have to find another word. Same thing with phones. How is a device which is becoming more and more visually oriented still called a ‘phone’. I don’t mind a little cognitive dissonance in my life, but words do have real meanings.
I think Steve Jobs likes to play with the meanings of words and so a statement like “we don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk” has to be parsed carefully. Especially in retrospect.
Keeping people guessing is the best way to maintain a competitive advantage in business … as long as you also deliver.
So Steve Jobs doesn’t want the world (and competitors) to know about what Apple is doing to gain marketing and competitive advantage. Meanwhile, other CEOs feel compelled to brag about things that are “coming Holidays 2010” or kill sales of their company’s existing products by PRE-announcing the replacement a few quarters in advance.
avoid the osbourne effect by not announcing steamware like, oh I don’t know, the courier, or bathtub surface
He didn’t lie about the iPad. It’s not a traditional computer. When Jobs referred to $500 computers it was in response to a question about netbooks. iPad is no netbook.
Macromancer,
Right you are, sir!!!