“In addition to posting its first profit decline in almost a decade, something else unfamiliar cropped up at Apple’s Q2 earnings call: a sense that Apple gives a rat’s ass about investors, the press and its customers,” Christina Bonnington writes for Wired.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple always gave a “rat’s ass” about their customers and investors.
“Sure, when your stock price is plummeting it’s hard to pull off the ‘we are god’s gift to all that is well-designed and lust-worthy and we don’t need to entertain your little thoughts,’ but Steve Jobs probably would have tried,” Bonnington writes. “On this week’s earnings call, Tim Cook didn’t try to play that role. Instead he offered a far friendlier Apple then we have ever seen.”
MacDailyNews Take: Is that a good thing or a bad thing? AAPL shares are currently up 32 bucks, or 8.5%, since Tim Cook became Apple CEO on August 24, 2011.
Bonnington writes, “The transition didn’t happen overnight. When Cook was officially appointed CEO of Apple in August 2011, the company retained the same rigid, tight-lipped austerity that it did under the leadership of Jobs. But in the year and a half since, Apple’s culture of secrecy has opened up. Its blatant disregard for the opinions of investors, press, and consumers has given way to more open communications, more insight into what goes on behind its walls, and a greater sense of respect for the people that devote their time and money to Apple’s products and services. In short: Apple cares now.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple always cared about those who are important, namely customers and investors. Apple should continue to treat the media as it always has, something which uses and abuses and is therefore fair game to be used and abused in turn. In general, Steve Jobs treated the media exactly as they deserved to be treated. In the case of dealing with the media, regardless of how the media attempts to cajole, Cook should always ask himself, “What would Steve do?”
One thing Cook does need to do is to retain top-notch PR people and allow them to do their jobs, something Jobs seems loathe to do, by manipulating the media to Apple’s advantage; stay out in front of issues instead of needlessly letting them fester and grow in silence.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Now maybe the media can be the one that cares for a change. How about just stating facts and leaving out the wild speculations! Just how much has the media cost Mom and Pop? A lot more than Apple has in their persuit of perfection.
Dear NCG598: No offense, but you do live on the planet earth – right? “The Media” is a raging dragon that eats everything in its path without hesitation or remorse of any kind – period. And, it is not for little boys or girls, or for the faint-of-heart, the weak, the impotent, those lacking in any kind of shrewdness, wisdom, or foresight, or who are in any way naive or reckless with their own sense of personal dignity.
As for Tim, I think he’s going to get the hang of this sooner than later.
Instead of telling the crooks on Wall Street to take a hike, the current management, led by Tim Cook, caves in to their demands and loads up on more debt. Not just more debt but a humongous amount of debt. Steve Jobs would have told them where to go – to hell probably.
Cook is just a wussy. A total wuss. Look at what Wall Street did to Kodak, Zynga, Motorola, Bell Labs (Lucent Technologies), Nortel and a long string of failed companies that took on too much debt and caved in under the debt load.
Looks like all Wall Street has to do is look menacingly in Cook’s direction and his balls will shrink to little nubs.
Agreed. Debt is always a bad thing. Why doesn’t Apple just buy all shares and become private?
Joe, your post is even more ridiculous than BLN’s post, and that is saying something. It requires *oustide* assets to take a company private – in this particular case, several hundred $B in cash and securities. Cook and company cannot use investor (owner) assets to buy the company from the investors (owners). Quit posting this nonsensical idea.
Your credibility just tanked with that juvenile crude insult. What are you 14 years old ?
and Tony the Tiger is 5 yrs old !
This is one of the most enduring human traits that frustrates the hell out of me. People are too lazy to think anything through, and will project their own insecurities and misgivings onto whatever and whoever they see fit. Apple is one of the FEW companies, that really DOES CARE about their customers. That’s why they don’t fill their computers with a bunch of useless garbage that needs to be removed before use. That’s why they sweat the details. That’s why they don’t use lazy thinking and focus groups. It’s because they care about their customers…DUH.
“It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”
~ Steve Jobs
Braindead. MDN is spot on. This is a strawman the PC press loves to keep putting up. You know who has contempt for their customers? Samsung, for lying about all their ripped off features, and Microsoft, for their fake attempts at progress. These two companies should be strung up for milking their customers for years.
Christina, for Christ’s sake, and its profits, Apple has ALWAYS given consideration to its customers. They are its business.
Just more journalistic flame to get the article noticed.
In the same way the IT managers hate Apple because they said, “what you are doing is wrong, look here’s the computer for the rest of us”, the analyst also hate Apple because Apple has said, “we don’t care about the stock price or what analysts say, we only care about putting the best experience we can in front of our customers”.
Apple quiet rightly ignores what the IT professionals and the analysts want, but they pay a heavy price for that.
IT Managers have ignored the Mac for years and only recommend Windows, and now analysts are trying to bring Apple down several pegs.
Both parties are punishing Apple for daring to ignore them. Go Apple!
“Sure, when your stock price is plummeting it’s hard to pull off the ‘we are god’s gift to all that is well-designed and lust-worthy and we don’t need to entertain your little thoughts,’…”
I stopped reading right there.
And I stopped reading at “then”:
” Instead he offered a far friendlier Apple then we have ever seen.”
She has a hard on, that’s for sure.
And there it is folks, all you need to know about Wired’s “journalism” in one easy lesson!
If Apple did give a rats ass it would treat and support independent Apple only reseller with a bit more respect. They would also redirect questions from Geneses LMAO too these resellers when it involves businesses, servers, networks, high end backup and crm system to someone that knows there ass from their mouth.
I don’t think Tim should give a rat’s ass about investors. He has already done too much for Wall Street and the problem is that once you give them a little, they want more and more and soon after, like now, Wall Street is running the show and Tim has to try to please them all the time. They are not thankful for what they are given. They are angry over what you haven’t given them yet. Tim should do like Buffet. He should just concentrate on running Apple and ignoring stupid investors. Investors have done nothing for Apple but Apple have done so much for them I.e. the stock price.
Run Apple Buffet style!