Actually I believe Apple made out like bandits in the early 00's - I distinctly remember Steve saying that while other tech companies were cutting jobs (HP for example) Apple would innovate through the recession and come up with products people would want to buy (iPod came soon after). Last year they had record profits despite the world being in the middle of a massive recession...
Wishful thinking doesn't make it true....
Actually they're not. AppleTV (an iAnything if ever there was one) has been pretty much DOA until recently - Xserve was killed due to lack of sales - (you'd think the corporate fanboys in Hollywood and New York would have lapped those up?!)
How is this still debated? Not everything Apple touches turns to gold. Your meme is defective.
Only if you're just considering software - which is missing half the equation. It's funny that when comparing devices the only thing that's looked at is the hardware spec (cpu, ram, camera etc) but when talking about devices we seem to only look at software (iOS, Android, etc) - but the device is only usable as a whole and a closed model really can accelerate the development of a well-integrated device, hardware and software.
BTW open source projects seem to be good as product seeds but it generally takes a closed model to finish them off to a usable state. The web is rife with stories of unusable (or undocumented) open source projects. It's the exception that turns into something good - and I'd hazard most of those are projects that started off closed and were converted to open source.
You mean like the 90's?
While watching Fox News the other week while waiting for a doctors visit (I wouldn't ordinarily choose it) an insight struck me. Fox News (and conservative media in general) plays the patriot card both ways. When Repubs are in power - they're portrayed as valiantly trying to help the little guy while un-american agitators (i.e. democrats) try to undermine them. When Dems are in power - they're portrayed as out of touch elitists with too much sympathy for foreign ideas while right-minded partriots (i.e. repubs - though nowadays tea baggers) try to take back America.
That's all it seems to be. Perhaps obvious but it was a revelation to me at the time.
Hmm - but I would argue that Office has been able to phone it in for the past 15 years - and so where has Elop learned to handle to difficulties of a real market place? And even though we know Microsoft is rife with infighting I doubt anyone messes much with the Office division - so he wouldn't have got many hard knocks there either.
Still seems like an odd choice.
Gruber, is that you?
A big difference between suspicion and knowledge.
We suspect those products are in development - but who knows when they will be released.
The imminent arrival iPhone 4G is now well known. That makes a big difference to people's purchashing plans.
I don't think so. I think Apple (and Steve Jobs) are ruthless about killing what they see as legacy tech. And they're pissed at Adobe for dragging their heels in adopting the new Cocoa APIs for UI development.
I think Apple (rightly or wrongly) have decided their mission is to drag the tech world kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
I guess you've not heard of the iPod Touch? And Apple is just practicing the Serenity Prayer:
"God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference."
App Store - something it can change. The Web - something it can't. It knows the difference.
Robert.
I think what's changed is that since it released OS X (with its Darwin underpinnings) Apple is straddling thing open/closed worlds and so makes the argument more difficult to make.
Microsoft is clearly proprietary.
Linux is clearly open.
Apple is somewhere in the middle.
The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine
