“Apple glows with a nearly holy light these days,” Katie Benner writes for Bloomberg. “The vibes coming out of Cupertino are so good that it seems like Abbey Road is playing on a constant loop down at headquarters while executives stand bathed in sunshine, holding puppies.”
“Weeks after the company’s blockbuster financial results basically saved earnings season for corporate America, a report shows that iPhone sales accounted for 93% of all smartphone profits last quarter,” Benner writes. “(Samsung managed to eke out some profits, but the rest of the field broke even or lost money.) A Canaccord analyst says that only 15 percent of Apple’s installed-base of 404 million has upgraded, so there’s still lots of room for future sales.”
“Let’s give Apple its victory lap,” Benner writes. “The company’s lock on smartphone margins proves that there’s no substitute for sleek hardware and a decent proprietary operating system. Right now there’s no other tech company that’s even close to nailing this formula.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple the Great!
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Cellphone, not only smartphone profits.
Gee… That article sure takes a condescending tone. As if the writer had to begrudgingly acknowledge Apple’s successes.
Or is it just me?
You sure are giving it the benefit of the doubt calling a jouranalist a writer. Of course it’s a condescending tone, it’s designed to minimize the perceived gap level between two objects.
Let’s say Apple has 90 integrity units and the jouranalist has about 5 for an integrity gap of 85 in Apple’s favor. By marketing itself combined with bad mouthing Apple the jouranalist can close it’s perceived integrity gap and even move it to favor them.
The jouranalist has done several things to boost their integrity units:
– Provided a name.
– Provided a photo.
– Provided her name in the headline.
– Provided links to other pages about her.
– Provided a link to a corporation.
That barrage of information hits you before you even read the article, so now the perceived integrity level of this scum is over say 50 units.
Next, take components of the article and fill the empty space with jouranalistic ego blowing. It’s a nefarious technique used in these small articles. Here are a few samples.
A. “People are Talking About…” vs. “My boss told me to talk about” vs. “I need hits so I’m putting Apple in the headline along with my name.” Of course the empty space here is “People are Talking About what I tell them to.” A penultimate move down this path, at least at MDN is “People will Talk about what I tell them to and that is the great United States of America, yes pay attention to us and only us.”
B. Apple glows with a nearly holy light these days–> but not as holy as mine.
That’s only half of it of course, it’s not only about super mega inflating the jouranalist ego, it’s about deflating everyone else. “Yes, things could blow up. The Apple watch could be a flop. The streaming music service could be a software disappointment. Apple Pay could not catch on ”
Now these statements should be taken at an integrity level of 5 units or so and totally dismissed but the jouranalist has built itself up to the point where it’s running at 50-60 integrity units so it’s making valid points, not based on the points but on the perceived integrity.
It’s the same sort of thing that allows hypothetically a country to torture people on the one hand, a despicable crime against humanity and an act that drives away all integrity units while at the same time smiling at the UN, giving the impression that the country does have integrity. Amazing how people buy it.
It’s the basic promote yourself and demean others approach, with this being the kicker. “But for now let’s give Apple its victory lap.” Think of it as a deity display or benevolent dictator, one who will for now, acknowledge Apple a victory lap. By this time the perceived integrity units of the jouranalist is about 90 and Apple 50.
It’s quite common in modern day jouranalism.
You’re giving a lot of unearned credit calling the typist a journalist.
Yes, she could have dictated it using Siri, and if that’s the case I haven’t given enough credit to the typist. Thanks for pointing that out.
Along with the smile you provided.
@ Road Warrior.
I agree. My dear country really tarnished its integrity when many in it argued that torture was OK and it was actually allowed for a season (By the way, I have some very conservative leanings, but consider myself independent.) It is never OK to torture, no matter what the reason. The ends do not justify the means. Call it Karma or Providence or Integrity, but eventually doing bad will come back to haunt you.
As for the “give Apple props this time” piece. I have been watching Apple and the pundits surrounding Apple since the ’90s. This is not new. This is what the pundits do every time Apple has success. For some reason, the majority of the pundits really dislike Apple. I have not figured out why yet. It seems so irrational.
Besides, if you treat bad people with respect, many of them will change their opinion of you, and stop fighting you. If you treat bad people with disdain and torture, all of them will hate you and fight you forever.
Bad treatment of bad people might (probably not) get you short term gains, but will always get you long term setbacks. As we see now in terrorism, which is more of a powder keg than ever.
Good treatment of bad people might get short term losses, but will always get long term success. As we saw in WWI and WWII when POW’s taken by Americans were treated well, many of those POW’s became America lovers.
Maybe we should take this lesson and not treat Katie Benner badly for her article. Write her with well reasoned points of disagreement or observation, but no insults or meanness please.
@ SixnaHalfFeet,
Thank you for your sentiments I appreciate them. You comments about torture are some of the most rational that I’ve read. I’ll add to it, that the torture season as you put it is still going on, there are people still being held at American run gulags, been held for over a dozen years, and still no day in court for the majority of them. Some have been released, tossed to the curb side and left to fend for themselves. It’s not just the torture, it’s the total lack of rectifying the situation. On top of it there is some president that waves a “we must look forward and not backward” statement instead of prosecuting those responsible and delivering justice. It’s not tarnishing integrity, it’s tossing every shred of integrity out the window. Your country unfortunately is emerging as the new threat against global security.
I like your feedback of the article and yes it is a common trend to go after Apple’s success and it has been going on for a long time, so much so that many just feed articles into the system. The pundits at times may praise Apple but keep waving the doom card every chance they get. It is irrational, it’s geared to sell an emotion that sells papers… fear.
Apple loves what it is doing, Apple aims to empower people, to provide tools so that we can be the best we can be. To those who live off fear love is a great threat. I’m not looking to treat the author badly for what they have written, insofar as I know she is doing it of her own free will. There are things I liked about the article even though it does fit that pattern of taking a swipe at Apple. It’s to be expected, again that approach of putting others down in order to promote oneself. It’s all a question of choice, and also interpretation. The author is expressing ideas, it is up to readers like us to determine the validity of those ideas. Apple is doing the same and it is doing it very well. I am not inclined at this point to write to her about her article, it is too short and insignificant, and for me she’s just a cog in the machine that pumps out this stuff, to entertain the masses. What I write about Apple is here for the most part.
Again thanks for your sentiments and ideas, they are quite valuable and insightful. Enjoy.
i sensed that too,”decent proprietary operating system?”
Holy? What does holy mean? I don’t hear that term used.
The Sun King was Louis the XIV , according to himself ….