“Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company’s best days are still ahead,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for Theh Wall Street Journal. “Cook sat down Thursday for a wide-ranging interview with the Journal’s Daisuke Wakabayashi.”
A snippet:
WSJ: Will the smartphone market follow the PC market, where Apple is a niche player?
Cook: I don’t view it that way. There are several reasons. If you look back at the Mac/Windows battle that was going on at the time, you’d find that one of the things that was the catalyst for separating Mac from Windows share was applications. There was a vast, vast difference in the number of applications that was available for the Macintosh than what was available on Windows. Over time, that gap grew and grew and grew. And in fact, the Mac began to lose some key applications. We have over a million apps on iOS. We have over half-million that have been optimized for iPad. That half-million compares to 1,000 for Android tablets. That’s one of the reasons, although not the only reason, why the experience on Android tablets is so crappy because the app is nothing more than a stretched out smartphone app.
The other thing is that Windows pretty much was one thing. Android is like Europe. Europe was a name that somebody came up with for Americans who didn’t understand that Europe was a lot of countries that weren’t like U.S. states. They were very different. Android is many things. How many people who use a Kindle know that they’re using Android? And you see what Samsung is doing by putting more and more software on top. I think it’s night and day. The compare is so off.
So, no, I don’t see it as same. And I’m not saying this just because I am at Apple because I do understand the PC world at that time because I was in it. It was totally different. If you really talk to the people who went through it and understood it at a deep level, I don’t think any of them would tell you it’s the same.
MacDailyNews Take: Before his next interview, Daisuke might want to update his definition of “personal computer” as well as exploring current market data:
Canalys: Apple leads worldwide PC market with 19.5% share – February 6, 2014
Even when ignorantly ignoring the iPad as a “personal computer,” the Mac is simply not “a niche player.” Stating so makes Daisuke sound horribly uninformed. Wakabayashi should go interview Mikey Dell about how well his quest for “market share” worked for him. Or the CEO of HP. Or the CEO of Sony. Etc.
Daisuke might also want to check out PC profit share data, where Apple is anything but niche. Besides creating all of the things – from industrial design to OS look and feel – that the PC industry tries so desperately to copy, Apple dominates the PC industry in profit share.
Related article:
Apple Mac owns 90% market share for ‘premium’ PCs costing over $1,000 – February 1, 2010
No, no, no! I am in Germany, and I don’t want Android to rule. Tim, don’t give up! Especially, do some better ads here, or at least, do some ads. The visibility of Apple is the problem, and I assume, the German team is not as good as it should be. Spend some money here, Tim!
Cook did not say Android would rule Europe, he said that Android is Balkanized like Europe.
I think Tim has just an “american way” to see Europe… In fact, USA are also made of very different countries (they had quite a hard time to get together too!). Don’t tell a Newyorker, even nowadays, he’s just like a guy from Houston!… :p
He’s not saying android has taken over Europe. He’s saying android is like Europe in the way Germany has different laws to England. The same way samsungs galaxy will not run apps the same way a kindle does.
> for Americans who didn’t understand that Europe was a lot of countries that weren’t like U.S. states.
Read First.
Comment Second.
Headlines are for attracting attention First.
Headlines are for conveying information Second.
Mash the potatoes first.
Eat the potatoes second.
No matter how Tim meant it, it sounds like a dismissal of Europe. Europeans do not like to be insulted by Americans. Then again, a dog can bite, but not insult….
Setting aside the lack of reading comprehension and subsequent commentary:
The USA is in a detrimental frame of mind at this point, feeling extremely insecure, to the point of paranoia. What else do you call the blatant tearing out of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution for the sake of temporary perceived ‘security’ but paranoia, oh and stupidity.
Therefore, (there must be some classic paper about this stuff, where did Hannah get to?), the automatic response is:
1) Monoculturalize: Kill off tolerance of diversity. Go maniacally purist. Self-immolate. Pretend you know everything about anything. That’s the ruinous right gang of PoliTards.
2) Find a scapegoat and destroy so you can be better than and vanquisher of something-or-other. That’s the same again. Hopefully this reminds of you ye olde fascism.
3) Corporatization: Hello Corporate Oligarchy, writers and foisters TPP, ACTA, PIPA, SOPA, CISPA, ad nauseam, bringing the world closer… to neo-feudalist tyranny.
Then add in the perennial geocentric, xenophobic, ‘ultimate truth’ delusional history of US culture in general. Blahblahblah.
What you get is a self-destructive mess that is offensive to others, living in an every thinning narcissistic delusion of grandeur as facts mount to the contrary.
So yes, I can fully understand any easy excuse for finding the USA insulting.
But it’s not all that way. I never prescribe the KISS Principle (‘keep it simple, stupid’) because all it does is make people simple and stupid. Look deeper, everywhere.
The USA, scared as it may be, is shooting around, as weel as the people who voted me down just because I disagree, and in shooting around not clearly targeting anything sensible but more often than not the few friends it has left. I am from The Netherlands and in general we admire the US, often grateful for the rescue from the Third Reich, but this hostility towards Europe is stupid.
“Why does everybody hate us? Why do they see us as hillbillies?” Well take a look in the mirror……yep, that’s why…..
That USA that help free Europe from fascism, could sure use Europe to help free itself from fascism. It’s not the same country.
As for the geocentric, ugly American, xenophobic hillbilly effect: I consistently find that the people with open, active, joyful, encompassing, imaginative minds within the USA are those who have been fortunate enough to either:
A) Live in a foreign country for a considerable time
OR
B) Grow up within a cross-cultural home environment.
AND
C) Got out of the inept school system (including and especially the ‘private’ school systems) for a considerable time and WORKED FOR A LIVING for a period of time.
Add all three together and you’ve hit upon someone with an optimum experience of the world during their childhood, ready to see the world at large for what something close to what it really is.
Without those three: Ugly, stupid American.
Note how this particular personal factor is all about experience, not innate intelligence. Amazing, isn’t it.
Bravo Derek!
this is what Tim Cook really thought:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/06/state-dept-official-caught-on-tape-fuck-the-eu.html
yes it smells funny and has hairy armpits
The handwriting on the wall has been written by Apple.
Yet, here we are 7 years downstream and no company has laid out a unified “Applesque” system for integrated hardware, OS & Apps.
To me that means Apple’s lead is growing as it meets user needs for quality and reliability. Consumers rarely buy crap twice.
Before his next interview, Tim Cook might want to update his definition of “Europe” so that he doesn’t come off as yet one more geographically ignorant American:
Tim, Europe is NOT a “name that somebody came up with for Americans who didn’t understand that Europe was a lot of countries that weren’t like U.S. states”. The use of the term “Europe” has been around since antiquity, the Greek’s mentioned long before the native American people and Europeans knew about each other.
You are a smart cookie Tim, try to show a bit more class when coming up with an analogy. Here’s a suggestion, Android is a lot like America. It’s a name that has come to be known as a bunch of states that don’t understand the free world.
Hey, that works pretty good.
I understand what Cook was referring to. It was not that “Europe” is a new word but that the usage as a monolithic culture is used in the US is pretty new. The low information American voter DOES think of Europe as a monolithic USA like ‘country’ that shares a culture that is similar to the way the US shares a language and a culture. In the popular main stream press, media, and low information mind, “Europe” is a country, not a collection of unique cultures, languages, and peoples, each with their own attitudes, outlooks, aspirations, and prejudices. I think Tim’s Android analogy is spot on. . . much more so than your Android:America analogy. Within the Android:Europe analogy there are there are usages of Android that are totally unrecognizable from the over-arching Android culture, they speak an entirely different language, so to speak, have differing architecture, perhaps even drive on the opposite side of the road, in twenty-eight member countries. On the other hand, there is the iOS:US analogy where the culture, language, architecture, roads, everything is basically the same everywhere with only minor constrained variations, across all fifty states (actually semi-independent countries in law).
Hey Swordmaker, great post.
I’m glad you understand what Cook was referring to. It may be not that Europe is a new word, but Cook was way off the ball when he said/suggested that Europe was a “name that somebody came up with for Americans…”
He would have been much better off saying something like “a name that has come to be known…”
I don’t have much issue with the rest of Tim’s analogy, Europe is certainly diverse, compared to the melting pot aspect of the U.S. but I do think there are aspects of my analogy that are much better, especially since Android is so full of malware and various operating systems that are inferior to the consistency of iOS ecosystem. If one is looking for a malware analogy and a variety of operating systems the U.S. makes a wonderful fit in fact even better when one considers that an ecosystem involves respectful interaction between countries, something that the U.S. is failing to demonstrate again, and again, and again.
Good point, RW… Tim should just quit speaking to the media or in public or anywhere that his words can be reported. They never help Apple, its products, or AAPL. The only way that MDN can defend the premise of Apple as a marginal player is to keep calling mobile gadgets “computers.” People don’t see them as any more than they are – relatively faddish gadgets bought by people who will toss them aside with the next gizmo that reflects the pop culture. No, they are not computers and Tim Cook should shut up.
Thanks for your post Jay. I don’t think that Apple should quit speaking to the media, actually I think that is the only time he’s said something that I find a bit out of line.
Oh I know he’s gone on about “great stuff in the pipeline” but considering the rumor mill on Apple and the instant gratification screams patience no longer seems to be virtue for many. I value patience and if Tim Cook, like it or not is going to come out with the first post Jobs product, but it’s not going to be tomorrow. Quality takes time. Meanwhile naysayers and manipulators and journanalyst and yadayada will go on with their field day.
So I disagree that Tim Cook should shut up, and I disagree that the ipad, iphone are not computers. By definition they are, if you don’t know that look it up. Computers may have become faddish gadgets as you say but they are still computers.
Tim Cook is the CEO and I have confidence in him. I know you don’t, probably never will, as I have read your posts on the topic, one that you are focused on.
No flames here, I simply choose to disagree with you. Oh I could change my mind, I hope you are open to that to. Otherwise, well free speech, by all means continue your diatribe. I’ll keep mine going as well.
Have a good one Jay.
If this isn’t sarcasm, then it’s idiocy.
Relax; it was a softly tongue-in-cheek, midly sarcastic reference.
Yeah, I’m going to have to put the /s for sarcasm /h for humor and probably a 1-10 post on the level of sarcasm and humor. Did they outlaw the comprehension of humor in the states or something?
Not yet, but I understand there is pending House legislation, jointly sponsored by representatives from Arkansas, Texas, and South Carolina, that would restrict the definition of “humourous” to statements devoid of any moral content and conforming to a standard of common decency. Presumably, Sarah Silverman would be out of a job.
This is hardly superior to the enlightened Northern states, who are still living down proposed 1897 legislation regulating the value of pi and squaring the circle in the process. The genius of the American political process is that it continues to find employment for idiots.
“mildly”
“Android is like Europe.”
Yes, it’s overrun with Islamic fundamentalists, smells like rampant body odor, is morally bankrupt, godless, unified in name only, and inexorably decaying.
Replace “Islamic” with “Christian” and you describe the current state of the USA pretty accurately. Jus’ sayin’.
It’s overrun with Islamic Fundamentalists and Godless at the same time. WTF?
You can’t expect the ignorant to think clearly. His reaction is a typical knee jerk right wing response to something he doesn’t understand. Just resort to name calling!
If I’m “ignorant,” then you are brain-dead.
Furthermore, I’ve been all over europe in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and as recently as 6 months ago.
You’ve already lost your culture, France. Many other places in Europe are even worse off. Great Britain is in danger, too. Wake up before it’s too late.
Many Europeans get it, including:
In the early 1960s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves a while. We said: ‘They won’t stay, [after some time] they will be gone,’ but this isn’t reality. And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side by side and to enjoy each other has failed, has utterly failed. – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, October 2010
Multikulti is a dead end in more ways than one.
You NAILED IT, baby!
Ah, bigoted jingoism. One could say America is overrun by Christian fundamentalists, smells like chemical spills and strip-mall asphalt, is intellectually bankrupt, superstitious, unified in name only, and inexorably decaying.
Ahh more bigoted jingoism to counter your charge of bigoted jingoism. Not much progression there..
“godless” and overrun by Islamic fundamentalists? How does that work?
It works fine. There is only one GOD, the American GOD. The Islamic god is a false god.
Man creates God in his own image.
Amen!
American God…..would that be Zeus or Thor?
No, do not try to be facetious. The true American GOD who makes the faithful rich and gives us fearsome weapons to conquer our godless enemies.
So you’re a Mormon then?
Otherwise you ought to realise that the entire Bible occurs in the Middle East. There’s bugger all American about it.
The Middle East is lost. GOD moved to America.
Why bother imagining an all-powerful creator of the universe if all you’re going to do is turn him into some petty jingoistic fanboy?
Oh hold on, scratch that. According to the Bible that’s all he’s ever been isn’t it…
Why anyone believes that crap is beyond me. You’re all insane, Christians, Muslims, the lot of you.
Yes, Dave H: Brain malfunction coupled with deep ignorance.
Yep, same god. Just as false.
Android is Euro-trash. If the Europeans and Asians prefer using Android devices, that’s their choice. Apple will just have to try to reach as many global users as possible. There are certain things that simply can’t be controlled by any one company. I might be pissed that Android has seriously crippled Apple’s iPhone and iPad business but if consumers want to purchase low-cost Android devices then I’ll just have to accept it for what it is.
I tweeted at the author of the article regarding his characterization of Apple as a niche player in PCs. This was his response.
https://twitter.com/daiwaka/status/432326300892540928
The challenge is time really. Investors want new successful innovations cause they analyze that the i line in smartphone is on the top. Furthermore Tim says new products are on the way. However they are not deliveree (yet). Than investors become less patient as time is counting. An advantage od that is that Apple has more time to make better quality. The disadvantage is that investors having higher expectations and if they are not met in time than even the best product of the world has come to late. Time will tell!
The “Android=Europe” comparison is quite apt. Both entities are immoral, useless, and full of theives. In Europe’s case, they stole land that would be America. Every time I hear that a football field sized chunk of the Amazon rainforest is destroyed, I get all pissed off, but then I remember that it is the European colonials who are responsible for this mess. I care for the Earth, especially the Americas where my ancestors are from, and it sickens me how invaders from foreign lands came over here and destroyed the only things we had…