Apple's new iPad blow by blow blog

[amirm]

Where did John post this? I need to quote it .. A few questions before I buy one

It is in that wonderful video he post.

 

[Steve Williams]

It's from the CBC

 

[amirm]

Not that I disagree but Cook was carefully chosen by Jobs to carry on his legacy so for me time will tell.

I don't think he picked anyone to be his successor or he would have found someone as charismatic as him. Cook is a corporate manager. Steve hired him to run Ops (Operations). At the risk of overgeneralizing , folks who do that are usually exact opposite of Steve Jobs type people. They are needed in big companies but play a different role and work differently. He lacks star power which Jobs had. Jobs got 99 cent tracks with just a call or two. He broke a long standing tradition in music where LPs and CDs were sold as one thing. Cook wouldn't have a prayer of doing the same. Folks wanted to be able to say, "I know jobs." Far fewer people want to say they know "Tim Cook." Not zero. But nothing like jobs. Who would be able to curse like Jobs did at music labels to break the CD? A man with an MBA from Duke University? I think not.

I believe that Jobs had a floor map of the company's developments for years to come and these will be rolled out without losing a beat

They won't lose a bit operationally because that is who Tim is. But no heroic act will follow. Maybe they hire star players at lower levels but it is a logical conclusion that Apple will be a different company. As with Bill Gates, he failed to find another person like him. Jobs completely failed the "succession planning" here....

 

[Steve Williams]

I disagree Amir but I do agree that people wanted to say that they knew him

 

[amirm]

I disagree Amir

Did you watch the video of the conference Steve? Did you see how different it was from Jobs? Did you see how little of it was rebroadcast on mainstream TV?

 

[Steve Williams]

I agree with that but heck the guy is taking over the shoes of one of the world's greatest icons so IMO time will tell and let's give the guy his due. He can't talk the talk like Steve but it is too soon for me to be judgmental

BTW Amir, are you saying Steve Ballmer is not the person to run Microsoft

 

[Steve Williams]

I don't think he picked anyone to be his successor or he would have found someone as charismatic as him. Cook is a corporate manager. Steve hired him to run Ops (Operations). At the risk of overgeneralizing , folks who do that are usually exact opposite of Steve Jobs type people. They are needed in big companies but play a different role and work differently. He lacks star power which Jobs had. Jobs got 99 cent tracks with just a call or two. He broke a long standing tradition in music where LPs and CDs were sold as one thing. Cook wouldn't have a prayer of doing the same. Folks wanted to be able to say, "I know jobs." Far fewer people want to say they know "Tim Cook." Not zero. But nothing like jobs. Who would be able to curse like Jobs did at music labels to break the CD? A man with an MBA from Duke University? I think not.


They won't lose a bit operationally because that is who Tim is. But no heroic act will follow. Maybe they hire star players at lower levels but it is a logical conclusion that Apple will be a different company. As with Bill Gates, he failed to find another person like him. Jobs completely failed the "succession planning" here....

We should have a look at this post in a year to determine its validity or not

 

[FrantzM]

I am with Amir here .. Cook is no Jobs .. I am not saying that Apple will fail because of Jobs not being around; that I don't know, they may even become better ... People like Jobs are great to start a trend but you need careful and steady operators to maintain the course and grow. We'll see but again Cooks is as far from Jobs as two people could be... Not the same personality .. Not at all ...

 

[amirm]

I agree with that but heck the guy is taking over the shoes of one of the world's greatest icons so IMO time will tell and let's give the guy his due. He can't talk the talk like Steve but it is too soon for me to be judgmental

I am only addressing his capabilities in a narrow area Steve. And that is, performing miracles. It really was a miracle to get 99 cent tracks, from a company that just prior to that, was essentially advocating piracy with 90% of iPods at the time having music people did not own.

BTW Amir, are you saying Steve Ballmer is not the person to run Microsoft

I am saying he is nothing like Bill Gates. Microsoft is run like a decentralized company. At any one time, you may have three companies doing the same thing. We would have reviews with Bill, he would pick one as the best, and beat the crap out of the other two to force them to go and unify their efforts. Steve doesn't conduct technical reviews like that, nor does he act that way. Bill hired Ray Ozzie to be his replacement (by acquiring his company). But Ray was way too polite and did not engage across all the Microsoft businesses as Bill could. He left the company so there is no one now to do what Bill was doing.

I can't tell you how many meetings I went to where Bill said the Tablet was going to be big one day. He forced the organization to build a mobility team to focus on advancing that cause, including them building hardware. All of that was pushed by the wayside and new management lost their eye on the mark there and here we are. Like Jobs, Bill was not perfect but would have this sharp focus, and strong opinion and power to bring to bear.

I think operationally Steve is super strong. I suspect far better than Tim. He has near photographic memory and ability to look at a thousand numbers on a spreadsheet and find an error, much to the chagrin of the people who spent weeks producing said charts. He is charismatic in his own ways, and excellent in sales. But Bill was different and the company that has so many engineers with no place for them all to converge needed him.

 

[Steve Williams]

No one said he is like Jobs, Frantz and Amir. I certainly didn't nor will the world see his likes again however I do believe you are selling Cook and Apple short and time will be his best judge. To make blanket statements about such is only misleading and perhaps misguided.

Has anyone seen the preorder numbers for the iPad3?

As well rumor has it that a new Mac Book Pro will be released in the coming months that will be as thin as the Mac Air but far more advanced

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

And it was Jobs' personality that turned the buyers of Apple products into one of the largest fanboy-based loyalist groups of any company in history. I'm almost surprised that the iPhone 3G I bought several years ago didn't come with blinders. Maybe I got lucky it didn't.

 

[FrantzM]

Reread my post Steve... I don't know what will happen of Apple, i believe it will actually become an even more successful company but I don't know that for sure... repeating myself...

And frankly The Ipad3 would have sold its cool 20 million with my own self presenting it ... It says nothing , yet about Cook... Let's give him a few more years but I know you don't replace a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates that easily ask The guy from Coca-Cola who ran Apple to the ground before Jobs came back ...

 

[rblnr]

No one said he is like Jobs, Frantz and Amir. I certainly didn't nor will the world see his likes again however I do believe you are selling Cook and Apple short and time will be his best judge. To make blanket statements about such is only misleading and perhaps misguided.

Has anyone seen the preorder numbers for the iPad3?

As well rumor has it that a new Mac Book Pro will be released in the coming months that will be as thin as the Mac Air but far more advanced

Yes, let's wait and see. The product roadmap is likely set for the next couple of years. And while Jobs chose Cook to succeed him (and being that he was a pretty bright guy let's assume he chose so with good reason), there are more charismatic, product genius types around in the various divisions -- these all handpicked by Jobs. Is there a better industrial designer out there than Johnathan Ive? Scott Forstall is head of iOS and by all accounts a visionary-type, but also a bit abrasive (ring a bell?). They put Eddy Cue, who everybody is impressed with upon meeting, in charge of cleaning up MobileMe (which he did), and he now runs all the iCloud services. Known to be a relentless problem-solver -- he's the guy who ropes in content now. Let's see how he does on what became arguably Jobs' biggest challenge (creating a viable media ecosystem/getting content providers on board) What he may lack in Jobs' charisma, he gains in making a hundreds-of-millions-devices-out-there-that-work-together argument. Phil Schiller has been head of the Mac division for years and is highly respected. Ron Johnson obviously did a spectacular job with the Apple stores -- a retail visionary if you will. He's gone now, so we'll see how his successor does.

Point is, rather than try to replace one charismatic leader with another -- and there may be one or two in the pool -- it looks like a different structure was chosen (ok, perhaps by necessity). Maybe a super smart manager (who also has played a huge part in device margins/profitability while maintaining top quality) to keep all these personalities in relative harmony -- a working ecosystem again -- will work well. Don't see how anyone can make any judgements at this point.

And charisma alone didn't sell 55 million iPads (not including the iPad3) -- could be it's a pretty decent product that really does meet, if not a need, a deep want.

Rumor is that the whole computing line, desktops and laptops will be overhauled. The new gen of Intel chips come out in April/May which would be the natural time for Mac refreshes. Some are predicting Retina-like displays. We'll see.

 

[Steve Williams]

you and I are on the same page Bob

 

[rblnr]

Yep, don't see how any judgements can be made. Only thing we do know is first misstep Cook makes, real or perceived, will be jumped on by the wolves.

 

[JackD201]

And it was Jobs' personality that turned the buyers of Apple products into one of the largest fanboy-based loyalist groups of any company in history. I'm almost surprised that the iPhone 3G I bought several years ago didn't come with blinders. Maybe I got lucky it didn't.

iPhone 4 is the one that turned things around in my eyes. I thought the first ones rather sucked. I still prefer a QWERTY equipped phone for work and I want buttons not a touch screen.

That said, for everything else hardware wise, I don't see much competition and I've been looking with great interest.

 

[rblnr]

And it was Jobs' personality that turned the buyers of Apple products into one of the largest fanboy-based loyalist groups of any company in history.

The continued success would suggest it's the products more than the personality.

 

[Steve Williams]

rumor has it that the iphone 5 will come to market in the 2nd half of this year and will be a true 4G LTE

BTW, has everyone updated their iphone to iOS 5.1? If so you will notice that the icon at the top left of your screen has changed from 3G to 4G and that the ipad 3 has a 4G LTE antenna on selected models

 

[Steve Williams]

Tell me what other smart phone allows you to dictate your texts and emails, reminders, calendars notwithstanding how good Siri is in all other areas. This obviates the need for a keyboard for us guys with fat fingers Jack

 

[JackD201]

The 5's a comin'. That's why I skipped the rewards offer of my carrier for a free 4S. Hehehehehe.