“Apple is not just unveiling a new iPhone next week. It is reintroducing the company,” Tim Bradshaw reports for The Financial Times. “That is the buzz building around what many in Silicon Valley see as the most significant event for Apple since the death in 2011 of Steve Jobs, its co-founder.”
“Tim Cook, chief executive, hopes to turn round a creeping perception that the company can no longer innovate like it once did,” Bradshaw reports. “After staring down competition from Samsung, which is now struggling in the premium end of the smartphone market that the iPhone dominates, Apple wants to reclaim the initiative, said Benedict Evans, partner at tech investor Andreessen Horowitz. For Apple’s leadership, ‘this is the coming out party,’ said Mr Evans. ‘We are now well out beyond the Jobs era.'”
“The big question is whether its new gadgetry can dazzle in the same way as the iPod, iPhone and iPad when they were launched,” Bradshaw reports. “One former Apple employee, who still works in Silicon Valley and asked not to be named, said the event would be an ‘acid test’ for Jobs’ successors.”
Much more in the full article (free trial available) here.
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As I recall sJobs took an acid test back in college and passed with flying colors.
you called?
why are people down voting me when I’ve been summoned by the all-powerful MDN “journalists?”
I thought the poke at the misspelling in the MDN title was somewhat funny. Some people apparently take death far too seriously.
I hope that Apple announces fighting robots, flying soda dispensors, and self-driving pontoon boats.
I hate seeing them out-innovated by Gargle and Sapdung.
I wouldn’t mind flying toasters again.
I am looking forward to Apple tackling Samsung at their other consumer roots: the garbage disposal/refrigerator/toaster/clock/Internet appliance.
So much noise. So little time.
Flip back one, two, four, eight years and read stories of a similar ilk preceding big Apple announcements. It’s always the same hype, and so little insight and true substance. But it’s par for the course with the media. They have no clue of the bigger story behind the story and are desperate for clicks. So fear, uncertainty and doubt rule the day.
When the smoke clears in a week or so, think back about little announcements and enhancements Apple has made in the past few years, items barely noticed in the media and often discounted. I for one think Apple has been seeding the ground with a number of technologies, partnerships and standards that will finally make sense to the more astute journalists, and perhaps a blogger or two (depending on whether their mom calls them up from the basement to dinner – and these clowns are 40 years old).
I think Mr. Cook will be just fine. I doubt that he’ll walk on stage in a black mock turtleneck and glasses. That was then, and this is now. And that’s how we have to think of it. The media is always looking at right now, and where the puck is. A man with all the weight on Mr. Cook’s shoulders has to imagine where the puck will be.
Get ready for sneering Wednesday morning quarterbacking from know-it-all bloggers, analysts and mainstream media next week. I recall all too well snots at sites like Gizmodo having a hissy fit about the bezel width of the original iPad, or utter cluelessness that some pundits had about the purpose of the iPad, thinking it was little more than a glorified iPhone. Wrong.
And they’ll be wrong again next Wednesday. I wish I could be held so unaccountable.
But you know better. Just be patient and let the news sink in for a few days. We might be fanboys, but we can see how the pieces fit together more quickly than they will or ever might. Enjoy the show on Tuesday, then cover your eyes and ears for a week or so. And wear a tin foil hat to protect yourself from the onslaught of BS from the idiot punditocracy. Your blood pressure will thank you.
VERY well said, Brian. Thanks.
Always how I have thought of it, glad to know a like minded soul. Outside of the Apple ascendency, the real story is the collapse of journalism and its infection of the Internet with brainless gossip.
Well written. Except one erroneous off-the-cough point. The Media is NEVER looking at right now, and your puck analogy proves it. You skate to where the puck is going to be. The media is ALWAYS looking at the future (or maybe the past). It’s why they’re so obnoxious!
I think this time is different. In the past, Apple disrupted established businesses like cell phones and personal computers. I’m sure the competition paid for much of the negative press when the iPod, iPhone and iPad were introduced. Today, wearables are a new catagory which is currently flailing. The tech industry realizes they need Apple to succeed with this new catagory and make it popular. There probably will be the lone wolf reporter who will be negative about Apple’s attempts, but they will quickly be shunned by their peers and sent packing to Siberia. Wearables are the next evolution in tech that will employ many developers, engineers, designers, builders, etc. in many different nations. No one wants to screw this up.
It would be smart if we, as Apple enthusiasts and investors, were not so quick to pan some of Android’s wearable attempts. Tonight the Moto 360 sold out. This is incredibly positive news for all the tech industry and investors because for the first time it proves there is a market for wearables. So, if Apple can pull a rabbit out of a hat and deliver on Tuesday we will all benefit and be toasting champaign as the shares increase in value.
I remember how the iPad 1 was panned by much of the press and many who comment on the various rumor sites. It did not exactly “dazzle” upon launch.
It dazzled the world “upon launch.”
Stetve?
Yah, where is the quality control? It’s all about ad revenue as quickly as possible. Sad.
Yea, it’s been one of those days.
Dazzled? Yes, with the new “Mac Pro” !!!
Jobs hired Cook. Essentially told him to run the company as he saw fit. My take is that Cook thinks in terms of infrastructure as he expands the franchise.
Both Jobs and Cook surround(ed) themselves with extremely bright people. The talent pool is deep at Apple. It’s in the DNA.
How many years are they going to sing that old song? Typical financial journalism . . . When you have nothing to report, pull out the stories you wrote last year and the year before that and . . .
Hey, if it works, and I still get paid!
I’ve got a half dozen standard formats from Buy to Sell and just change the name of the company and insert a few product names.
What drivel! Whatever Apple does will never be enough for the chattering class!
The negative hit whores will be going full tilt next week!
Unknown analysts will get tremors and the stock will slide a little!
The cycle continues!
Proofread much? I guess I shouldn’t expect much – it is MDN after all.
Said “creeping perception” was invented by yellow journalists and they won’t drop it no matter what Apple does.
“Apple can’t innovate” is the new “Steve Jobs is losing his touch”.
I think Tim and company will do just fine. They will dazzle us!!
“Tim Cook, chief executive, hopes to turn round a CREEPING perception that the company can no longer innovate like it once did,” Bradshaw reports.“
So we are to to take the word of CREEPs?
Why not verifiable statistical research? Sorry, that was a dumb question!
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“One former Apple employee, who still works in Silicon Valley and asked not to be named, said the event would be an ‘ACID TEST’ for Jobs’ successors.”
So we are to take the word from anonymous FORMER employees?
Why? Because they worked in the CLEANING department?
Oh another make or break event? What is that? 8 in row? Let’s all try to remember that these shitheel analysts were claiming Apple was out of ideas after the iPod, mmmkay?