“From June 11- 15th Apple Inc. held its annual World Wide Developers Conference to luke-warm review,” Brian Booker writes for ValueWalk. “Many were expecting or at least hoping, for an unveiling of the iPhone 5. And just about any WWDC without an iPhone 5 was all but bound to fail to meet expectations. Perhaps more tellingly, Apple failed to unveil any true innovations or ground-breaking developments.”
“Some pundits are already beginning to wonder if Apple is losing its step and if the lack of ground breaking products and services since the loss of Steve Jobs points to a loss of creativity and innovation within the firm,” Booker writes. “The most talked about announcement at the WWDC was the inclusion of the retina display on the Macbook Pro line. The Retina display is Apple’s ultra-high resolution 15.4” screen sporting 2880×1800-pixel resolution. Yes, scaling up the retina display for the Macbook [sic] Pro line is certainly an achievement, but it doesn’t have the ‘oomph’ of launching a new iPhone or Mac line. On the other hand, the launch of the Macbook Pro line with Retina does dispel a major rumor, that Apple would be dropping the Macbook line.”
Booker writes, “More importantly, Apple has arguably failed to launch a ground-breaking product since the release of the first iPad in April of 2010 and iPhone 4 in June of the same year. Since then, Apple has focused on incremental upgrades across it’s line of hardware, and despite rumors of an iPhone 4, the company has launched only the moderate upgrade iPhone 4S… So is Apple losing its step? While it may be too soon to tell, the news coming out of Apple does seem less revolutionary these days. Whether this is due to the loss of Steve Job’s business genius, difficulty in pushing an already pushed envelope, or part of a larger business strategy remains to determined. Yet after years of leading the consumer electronics market, Apple will now have to look far and wide to come up with a truly innovative product.”
Booker writes, “Apple is still the unchallenged king of the tablet market but change may be on the horizon. The Android-based Amazon Kindle Fire debuted in the 2011 Christmas season and had a strong showing, selling some 4.7 million tablets during the 4th quarter (2011). In total Android tablets account for”
MacDailyNews Take: That’s it. No, seriously, that’s exactly how that paragraph ends; with no punctuation, in midstream, it simply cuts off – just like Brian’s oxygen supply in the womb.
Oh, BTW:
• Apple’s revolutionary iPad widens lead as tablet sales surge – June 15, 2012
• Apple’s massive domination of tablet market unabated as Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire demand tumbles – June 5, 2012
• Apple’s iPad remains dominant in Q112 while Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire fizzles – June 4, 2012
• Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire shipments have dropped off a cliff – May 9, 2012
• Amazon’s Kindle Fire shipments fizzle to anemic 4% market share – May 4, 2012
Booker writes, “Meanwhile, Microsoft is about to launch Windows 8 for tablets and will enter directly into the market with their own tablet, the ‘Surface.’ While it may be too late for Microsoft to enter the tablet market, early previews have been largely positive. Windows 8 has received promising early reviews…”
MacDailyNews Take: Booker’s definition of the word “positive” is obviously unique in all the world:
• Jason Schwarz: Top 10 reasons why Microsoft’s Surface is DOA – June 22, 2012
• Acer founder: Microsoft will quit making tablets soon – June 21, 2012
• Thanks to Apple, Microsoft is doomed in the era of mobile computing – June 20, 2012
• Apple’s revolutionary iPad vs. Microsoft’s anti-tablet ‘Surface’ – June 20, 2012
• Microsoft’s Surface tablets provokes ‘sense of betrayal’ among Windows PC assemblers – June 20, 2012
• Fox News: Copier Microsoft is doomed to fail with Surface tablet – June 19, 2012
• Microsoft’s Surface tablet destined to be as successful as the Zune – June 19, 2012
• Surface: Why Microsoft’s big mystery turns out to be a big mistake – June 19, 2012
• Microsoft’s Suicide, er… ‘Surface’ – June 19, 2012
• ZDNet Sr. Tech Editor Perlow: Microsoft’s Surface has catastrophe written all over it – June 19, 2012
• ZDNet’s Kingsley-Hughes: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is an awful, horrible, painful design disaster – June 8, 2012
• Analyst meets with big computer maker, finds ‘general lack of enthusiasm’ for Windows 8 – June 8, 2012
• Dvorak: Windows 8 an unmitigated disaster; unusable and annoying; it makes your teeth itch – June 3, 2012
• The Guardian: Microsoft’s Windows 8 is confusing as hell; an appalling user experience – March 5, 2012
Full article – Think Before You Click™ – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unfortunately, the world is full of abjectly stupid people. If they were all herded onto an island, Brian Booker would be their king.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BIll Elkus” for the heads up.]
Yeah, Apple just extracted $2500 out of me… double what I’d been planning to spend on a new laptop this summer. Sounds like Tim’s a failure to me!
$2,450 think was my total ……
$3850
The price of stupidity is incalculable.
But if you study very, very hard you might be able to fix the problem for yourself.
It hasn’t worked for you.
$2750
That’s what mine will be. Gotta close a couple of deals first.
I’ve been selling lots of stuff I don’t need on eBay. Yesterday I made $1200 towards my next iMac.
even though I didn’t buy a new retina this month apple got about 7,000 off of me this year with every other device one person is not apple it’s a idea and a perfect one at that
I hear you. I’ve bought a 13″ MBP, a 32g iPad and three iPhones this quarter.
Wow!
I had better sell my stock after all apple always releases new phones at the WWDC.
Yeah like the one they released last year! Oh, wait.. Never mind.
I read many of the comments on this article at its original site… Mostly they said… “Another idiotic article by someone who just.doesn’t.get it. A waste of pixels.”
Such fun.
en
The media is generally in a race to the bottom, but things are becoming truly ridiculous with this wishful “Cook-is-bad-for-Apple” thinking. Can you imagine the frenzy if Apple actually just matched a previous quarter’s profit?
““Many were expecting or at least hoping, for an unveiling of the iPhone 5. ”
What a bunch of Firickin’ morons! Is their name Osborn??
Actually yes, they are loosing their edge. Apple used to have a “wow” factor when Steve held the reigns. With Cook, he can’t wait to jump over to the sidelines and let his cronies talk.
The expected insertion of anti-Microsoft propoganda aside, the rebuttal to this article is as about as lame as spending summer vacation with your grandparents. I’m dumping the last of my Mac inventory by the end of the year; as for the stock – my gut tells me that if the sheep keep buying, I’ll keep making more money…
Maybe their loosing their edge means their blades are at the ready – sort of like loosing the dogs of war?
Idiot.
“Losing.” You’re losing your spelling edge.
@auramac
TheMacAdvocate’s usage was correct. He was being gently sarcastic of Brandon’s grammar error.
Loser. /s
Whew doggy, auramac certainly opened a large can of tragic irony didn’t he.
Sometimes we are at our most amusing when we least intend to be.
See the parent comment. C’mon. It wasn’t that obtuse.
You’d make a great blogger, my man! Is your last name Booker? Brian’s brother?
Tim doesn’t jump off the sidelines. I realize all of this pretty basic stuff slipped right past ya.. kind of embarrassing to miss the obvious so hard, eh?
Tim does the CEO presentation- facts, figures, numbers- a state to the union of apple if you will.
then clown phil bounces on and does the product demos, scott forstall everything iOS, etc and etc… you see, the various heads of management at apple take the stage and show off their products. everything hopefully making sense, yet? I hope so- but if not- try to stick with me, kid.
Jobs used to do the demos from start to finish bad in the old days. Years ago, he started taking back stage more and more as the above presentation format came to be. I suspect it was Steve’s way of showing apple wasn’t all him when he was diagnosed with cancer so the dense people like brian booker would have a smidgen of a chance in figuring out what was going on. but no chance. stupid is as stupid does. You know exactly what I mean emirate :D?
So that means you’ll be shorting it then? I hope so. It will be interesting to see what your gut tells you when Apple flies through $700.
Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Keep making more money shorting AAPL? Give me a break. Buy and hold has produced 4000% profit over the last 10 years. There is no greater collection of morons than at Value Walk. They are complete idiots and very amateurish in their writing and reporting. Just another hit whoring FUD machine.
Sheep, what sheep…. Here sleepy little sheepy….come here little sheepy.
Brandon is the quint essential Troller that has been making rounds like all the poor roaches.
I just get such a great laugh from this type of stuff, you got all these losers running scared now due to worst Microsoft launch since Windows Vista and they have no clue what to do, they waited so long they don’t like Apple and android is horrific and now it’s all faded away, dried up and gone.
On the surface “pun intended” Now we see a need to Attack Tim Cook for making Apples worth more then any other company has every seen in Tech.
Love the little jabs also but who in the hell mentions Grandparent’s in a post to covey a point unless your 12-19.
Enjoy that stock Brandon, and remember, you really aren’t that important.
Choice is a freedom and really, no one really cares what your poison is.
If your having a Baaa….d Night sleeping, you can always count those sheep.
Ahem, the words are: “losing” and “reins”.
Steve did seem to reign over Apple, though.
You don’t release all the new products at the same time silly, even Cook knows that!
“Even Cook?”….
No new MacPros.
No new iMacs.
No new Mac minis.
Can’t make a profit selling older products with antiquated technologies either.
Apple’s iPad and iPhone are the mobile devices I prefer. Screw the MacBooks, gimme a better desktop for my central hub.
Just updating the whole mobile Mac lineup including, incidentally, the fastest laptop they’ve ever shipped, with the best display, to boot.
Too bad (for you, apparently) that Apple continues to pull in lots of profit.
It’s not all about you. Deal with it.
Yes, but those three product lines cover a lot of customers, and it would behoove Apple to listen to their customer base if they want repeat business.
Hmmm. So Apple not selling any of their desktop machines like hotcakes is good for profits? Please explain.
No jobs = no Apple
OMG! Nobody told Apple! Good thing youre here to set them straight.
Seriously, they miss you back at StupidSite for Winblows . Please go back the village ia obviously short an idiot.
What morons like Booker will never be able to grasp is it is not about flashy stuff made to generate headlines but substance.
Apple has a rock solid foundation which allows it to come out with ground breaking stuff without crashing to the ground.
You want flash? It will be ready when it is ready and not a moment before that. Not when some manager wants to generate some buzz.
Still, people like Booker are always fun to read around here.
And people kept saying that Jobs had lost his luster when he stopped having the “One More Thing …” moments at keynotes.
The fact is Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010. That’s 6 years from iPod to iPhone; 3 years from iPhone to iPad (which, BTW, used the same OS as the “old” revolutionary product, the iPhone).
Amazing how Apple is beaten up for not introducing a revolutionary product in the past two years, but no one seems to rail on Microsoft, which hasn’t released anything even remotely revolutionary since the original Xbox. And that wasn’t revolutionary, just a competitor to Sony’s PlayStation.
The next iPhone will be chastised for not being revolutionary enough, and until Apple redefines another market (TV, car interface systems, home automation, hot tubs, whatever), it will be criticized for not having another revolutionary product released “on time”, as the media defines it.
Apple will continue to do what Apple does best — ignoring the media pundits and Wall Street, and making great products for its consumers, with the occasional revolution thrown in for good measure when we least expect it.
Exactly!
Remember when “they” said (upon the announcement of the original iPad) that it was “just a big iPod touch” ?
Now, however it has become: “the iPad launch was a revolutionary epoch, that apple just hasn’t been able to match since”.
Apple haters seem to have a tragically (or perhaps conveniently) ephemeral memory (even about what they said only a couple years ago)
+1
No one expected an iPhone 5. Anyone reading this asshat beyond that clause deserves what they get. This is another desperate clutch for pageviews, the engine that powers 99.9% of internet journalism.
Strange, isn’t it. Some were hoping for a new TV (although that seems like more of a leading up to Christmas launch to me).
No one was expecting the iPhone 5.
…“it simply cuts off — just like Brian’s oxygen supply in the womb.”
Oh, man, MDN entertained me today with that zinger.
Yea, just LOL and everyone looked at me.
Perhaps the writer needs to stop worrying about Apple and more worried about FINISHING A SENTENCE.
King,eh? Well I didn’t vote for him.
Bloody peasant ,,
“Many were expecting or at least hoping, for an unveiling of the iPhone 5.”
Anyone who was conscious in 2011 knows that iPhone 4S was announced in the fall and signaled a change in announcement schedule for the foreseeable future. We’ll see the new iPhone in October with iOS 6.
I believe we heard this same “Apple is beginning to lose it, they didn’t reveal any groundbreaking products” line while Jobs was still CEO.
Let’s see: iMac, iPod, iTunes/store, iPhone, iPad. Yes, those were released in consecutive WWDCs! Of course! Or something.
But did anyone see the MS conference? Not an edge to be found… in fact, it was embarrassingly hilarious.
Expect crap like this for the next month as we head into earnings. They are so predictable.
“In total Android tablets account for”
You’re reading it wrong. The only possible interpretation of that sentence, is “In total Android tablets account for “.
I am so sick of this garbage ! it always starts at the end of the quarter jerks publishing ill thought out arguments and assuming that to succeed tim cook has to invent something we have never seen before to fill a need that we did not know existed . Apple has tapped only the smallest portion of its potential on the devices it has already designed. it has set up manufacturing systems to make millions of units . you don’t turn an ocean liner on a dime . you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater . Cook has turned us toward new products with out cutting the branch off the tree he is sitting on .As an investor I’m backing the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it management style . oh wait i forgot apples obligation to entertain and impress this idiot with some cheap trick like for instance a hinge in the back ! or some big red buttons !
“and assuming that to succeed tim cook has to invent something we have never seen before to fill a need that we did not know existed”
You see, there’s the problem. Anyone who follows Steve Jobs has that pressure upon them, since that’s exactly what Steve Jobs used to do regularly.
Personally I believe that Jobs, knowing that the end was coming, pulled forward a lot of the revolutionary stuff by sheer force of will. Under another CEO the iPad, for instance, might only be getting released now. Of course the trouble with that strategy is it leaves one hell of a void for any successor to fill.
Once Cook’s Apple releases one completely new success the pressure will tail off, but the longer the incremental rather than revolutionary improvements dominate the Apple headlines the greater the pressure will be. I’m sure he knew that before taking the job, so don’t worry on his behalf. He’s still raking in the billions in the meantime, so there’s no calling for his head from anyone who matters.
Earnings season upon us – Let the FUD fest begin.
“Us greedy bastards cabt make amoney anywhere else on on the market so we need to really torpedo Apple with FUD to make up for the slow business when it annouces more record earnings….”
Not sure about Apple, but Pixar certainly has
Tim Cook is CEO at Pixar?
Ok seriously, what makes you think that Pixar has lost anything since Steve’s death? (I’m guessing that is what you were trying to say)
Brave just opened as the 13th straight number one opening for the company, and they don’t seem to have lost any of their “startup” culture, even as a subsidiary of Disney.
Wow! Bunch of morons posting. The last “wow” from Jobs was the iPad… 20 months before his death. It hasn’t even been a year yet and you fools are proclaiming the death of Apple.
Sorry but I for one believe Steve was smart enough to leave good people running things. You all are idiots to believe otherwise.
Booker the bull shipper.
I’m buying the new MacBook Pro….as soon as I can.
Its time to start ferreting these morons out and hitting them with a hammer. A not inconsequential portion of the so called tech and business press refused to accept Apple’s success as it built up year after year for the last 13 years. Now these stupid fuckers think they can detect a lack of success in 8 months. There are not enough expletives to convey just how worthless twats like Booker really are.
But you made a good start, Shadow. Keep it up!