Apple PR has sprung into “damage control” mode after Tim Cook uncharacteristically fired verbal shots at Microsoft yesterday — reportedly telling a crowd in Ireland that Microsoft’s attempts to create “hybrid” laptops is, “deluded.”
What is being claimed is that Cook didn’t mean to say “deluded” at all, but instead “diluted” — which is still a diss, but without the insinuations that the good folks at Microsoft are a few sandwiches short of a picnic if they think the Surface will ever be a hit.
According to a report, Apple later “walked back the quote,” which, to my non-PR mind, sounds a whole lot like something you’d read in Nineteen Eighty-Four (you know, that book Apple once told us it would never be like.)
In all seriousness, it may have been a simple communication issue, but it’s still somewhat surprising that Cook would slam a rival company in the way that he did. Coming at the end of the sentence, “[The Surface Book is] a product that tries too hard to do too much. It’s trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It’s sort of…,” it also makes a whole lot more sense if Cook meant to say “deluded” rather than “diluted.”
Apple and Microsoft have taken plenty of potshots at one another over the years, but ever since Apple became the planet-straddling giant it is today, it’s been a whole lot less likely to pass judgement on other people’s products — leaving that sort of thing to the likes of Samsung.
Maybe this is the start of a tougher-talking Tim “O.G.” Cook?
Source: Business Insider
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
25 responses to “Apple PR springs into action following Cook’s Microsoft diss”
“it also makes a whole lot more sense if Cook meant to say “deluded” rather than “diluted.””
I somehow always thought he said diluted since, in my opinion, it fits so much better to what he was talking about. Trying to do everything at once, diluting the strengths with weaknesses, it’s also much more apple like to say something is diluted rather than deluded. But maybe that’s just me
Yes, “diluted” makes much more sense. How would a computer be “deluded”? One might say that a computer is “deluded” when it allows a trojan horse to infect its system. But in this case, “diluted” is the right term, for the reason you state, just as Jobs might’ve said Apple’s product lineup was diluted when he returned to the company and slashed lots of Apple projects so the company could concentrate on doing a small number very well.
Apple has one product they just cut shipments on (iPhone) Tim cook knows the future and it does not involve Apple. So he takes potshots..this typed from my SP4m3 (a real computer) not some bobo ipad
yet you care enough to comment on an apple site.
For quality and reality field purposes
And because you don’t have any taste.
Taste = spending way to much on inferior Apple devices? So I can be fanboi too?
There’s a video on another site and they compared the Pencil to the Microsoft Pen. The Pencil performed better in terms of latency, which people that rely on a stylus for long periods of time becomes a big issue. An iPad is a real computer too, it’s got all of the characteristics of a computer. It’s just designed specifically for tablet use so you can use it easily with one hand while holding it with the other. And Windows 10 still sucks.
The Surface Pro m3 model? Come on, that’s barely a processor. The A9X kicks that thing, at least the iPad Pro can do 4K video editing, I wouldn’t use the SP 4 m3 to do 4K video editing.
Cut shipments? Where did you read about cutting shipments? And exactly what were they cutting shipments of?
Either way, they are certainly selling better than the Windows phones, which have non-existent sales.
The IPad Pros availability is already being pushed back as many of the models aren’t shipping until the end of the month.
Go troll somewhere else.
Have you ever uses a SP4m3
A: NO ..as you obvious don’t own one, are a fanboi and hey do not have them out at MS store.
Do I need to use an iPadPro?
A. No, I own an ipad Air (in bag rarely used) and it uses the same limited IOS that is basically a consumption platform with less display than my SP4m3 and does not have Enterprise grade facial detection nor can it run VMs or even have a decent file system
Did you say m3? as in the intel m3? m3? real computer? with an m3? ahhahahahha
Fanless perfection and blows every Apple device out of the water
You’re half right.
It does blow.
Like the new steve jobs movie?
I assure you my i5 is better then your M3 and my fans are silent, I don’t know if you have any real knowledge but Apple pioneered silent computing.
Your i5 runs XARA flawed OS
Watch out he has a real computer, really blows Apple products away
Your real computer her well behind my i5 macbook, your real computer behind an iPad, your real computer only just comes above my phone …
Personally, Apple rarely takes potshots directly, this is their first time which means they see surface book as a threat.
It’s a threat on certain levels, but for some markets it’s not. The professional market that relies on Thunderbolt I/O, it’s not a threat. Microsoft lacks Thunderbolt support and there are a LOT of professional audio, music creation and video production that relies on Thunderbolt that can’t even look at the Surface Book. I’m sure the chip set is more expensive for Thunderbolt support. I think that’s probably what Apple’s waiting for so they release their SkyLake versions of the MacBook Pro/Air.
Indeed and that applies to all products but FYI, the professional market that relies on thunderbolt is pretty small in the scheme of productivity. the world is not made up of creatives and that is why Windows PC combined irrespective of declining sales still sells more than Macs
Thunderbolt is not a key defining feature, unless you are well versed with tech, everyday people has no clue what thunderbolt is and thus why it will continue to be a niche product
Do you know why Apple product sells a lot, it is more about perception and customer expectations about innovation, and that is the issue here, Surface Book generated a lot of buzz for Microsoft even from diehard Apple fans, the likes which was usually enjoyed by Apple and that is a threat, trust me.
This isn’t going to turn out well for Tim Cook or Apple shareholders. Apple is making too many enemies on Wall Street and this will only reduce Apple’s stock value even more. Even if Apple sells 10X as many iPad Pros than Microsoft sells Surface Pro 4s, the iPad Pro will be labeled a failure and the share price is going to hit rock bottom. Tim Cook should ignore any rival products and say nothing about them. Anything Tim Cook says or does is going to be blown out of proportion so he should simply stay in the background.
I didn’t hear him say it but…Many Americans tend to pronounce ‘t’ as a ‘d’. Hence ‘diluted’ could well sound like ‘deluded’. For example, tomato becomes tom-A-do; Ritalin becomes Riddlin. Many Americans will tend to put the stress on the second syllable, so you hear de-LU-ded; whereas in England or Ireland you are more likely to say DI-luted.
I’m glad the word was diluted, not deluded. Hearing the demeaning ‘deluded’ was a TC quote made me think he was a bit off the mark.
Now, he’s guilty only of being misquoted or, at worst, needing a PR statement to walk back a mistake.
Don’t quite understand why people would be shocked at Tim Cook dissing Microsoft… Steve Jobs famously once said in an interview with PBS in 1995 “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.”
Regardless of “diluted” or “deluded”, but I bet he himself regrets the comment. It was an unnecessary diss if that’s what he meant. Satya’s Microsoft isn’t Apple’s enemy anymore, like Ballmer’s was.