Apple - page 68

Every few years, another writer who hasn’t followed Apple’s design heritage for very long decides to figure out where it comes from and why it’s been such a success. And every few readers, they end up talking with people extremely tangential to the process who haven’t been involved for at least 9 years. The latest is poor Daniel Turner, writing for the MIT Technology Review:

But the omerta that prevails at Apple proved too strong. Company representatives declined to speak with me, and sources only tangentially engaged with the industrial-design process said that they could not talk either. When I asked Paul Kunkel, author of the 1997 book AppleDesign, for tips on obtaining interviews, he laughed and said, “Go sit outside the design-group offices with a pizza.” What follows is as clear a picture of the Apple design process as we could get.

Which is to say, very out of date and filled with speculation. Don’t get me wrong — I think this as good a job as anyone could do analyzing Apple’s design group without getting behind the veil, but it’s nothing new to anyone following Apple long-term. I think it’s particularly telling that the writer couldn’t even get someone from Frog that worked on Apple products in the 1980s to speak on the record. A designer with no Apple ties had to step up.
Give it a read, though: It’s worth it just for the shocking revelation that Steve Jobs just might have a major impact on the final design of the company’s products. Huh. Couldn’t have guessed that!
The Secret of Apple Design: Technology Review
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: apple, design, innovation

We at Wired set off quite a catty-wumpus last week by reporting that one of the reasons PC World Editor in Chief Harry McCracken departed the publication was that a piece called “10 Things We Hate About Apple” upset the company’s publisher, who supposedly favored a pro-advertiser bent to editorial.

As if to deny such reports, the magazine has now posted the article and its lovey-dovey companion piece, along with a cryptic reference to its tortured origins that doesn’t quite mention what really happened:

By now, you may have heard something about a couple of articles we’ve been planning about Apple and its products. We sure have.

The article itself is pretty toothless: “5. Where’s the BluRay?” Ooooooo. I’m shaking in my boots. Can this really have ended a respected tech journalist’s career?
PC World – 10 Things We Hate About Apple
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: ethics, PC World

BusinessWeek released its list of the top 50 most innovative companies over the weekend, and, as usual, Apple won. This is the third time in a row. Now, far be it for me to knock any effort that names Apple the winner of anything, but I’m not terribly convinced by the methodology used to put the ranking together by BW and Boston Consulting Group. Surveying senior executives just seems so 1980s, and it inevitably means that quite shallow measurements are advantaged — flashiest product intros, most profitability attributable to new products, etc.

I mean, how honored can you be as most innovative in the world when Microsoft is No. 5? Or Sony moving up three slots to No. 10 in the year that they introduced the PS3 while Nintendo is at No. 39? Or Wal-Mart at No. 11 when Target’s down at No. 15? The entire index is suspect. Except for the part where Apple wins, of course.

Note to the senior executives of America: “Most Innovative” does not mean “hottest on the stock market.”

The 50 Most Innovative Companies [BusinessWeek]

Technorati Tags: apple, innovation

We’re down to just a month until Apple takes the wraps off what few unannounced features remain for Mac OS X Leopard. So let’s all sit back and revel in rumors of what Apple might do next, courtesy of AppleInsider:

According to the filing, different Dashboards could contain one or more of the same widgets and “state” information for a widget could be maintained separately for each Dashboard in which the widget appears, or it can be commonly maintained across all Dashboards in which the widget appears.

“Different Dashboards can be available or ‘owned’ for different users of a computer or other electronic device, such that each user can only access their own Dashboard(s),” Apple said in the filing. “A user can specify a Dashboard as being available to other users, if desired. A user can also specify, for any or all of the Dashboards he or she creates, whether other users are permitted to make changes to the Dashboard(s).”

Uh…sounds good!
Apple filing depicts interactive Dashboard cube interface [AppleInsider]

Technorati Tags: dashboard, leopard, mac os x

Wondering whether Apple’s public pledges of environmental responsibility would appease the company’s Green critics? Wonder no more. Greenpeace just publicly lauded the company’s suddenly forward-thinking stance on its own impact on the environment:

It’s not everything we asked for. Apple has declared a phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. That beats Dell and other computer manufactures’ pledge to phase them out by 2009. Way to go Steve!

But there’s always more to be done, of course:

But while customers in the US will be able to return their Apple products for recycling knowing that their gear won’t end up in the e-waste mountains of Asia and India, Apple isn’t making that promise to anyone but customers in the USA. Elsewhere in the world, an Apple product today can still be tomorrow’s e-waste. Other manufacturers offer worldwide takeback and recycling. Apple should too!

Either way, a big change. One other note: In all the excitement yesterday, I somehow missed that Steve’s environment made a public commitment to start using LED displays this year, all but confirming a long-standing rumor that upcoming laptops would soon transition away from LCD technology. All of which makes me extra-happy that I have held off on buying a new computer, eh?
Eh? Enh.
Tasty news from Apple! | Greenpeace International

Technorati Tags: apple, green, Greenpeace

PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit suddenly on Wednesday. According to our colleagues at the magazine, the sudden departure resulted from pressure to kill a story called “10 Things We Hate About Apple” that allegedly displeased CEO Colin Crawford. It’s pretty sordid.

The piece, a whimsical article titled “Ten Things We Hate About Apple,” was still in draft form when Crawford killed it. McCracken said no way and walked after Crawford refused to compromise. Apparently Crawford also told editors that product reviews in the magazine were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers.

Yikes. Good for you, Harry.
Epicenter – Wired Blogs

Technorati Tags: ethics, PC World

Weight Recycled as % of Past Sales. Credit: Apple

In a case of life imitating art, the Real Steve Jobs is following the Fake Steve Jobs’ green lead.

On Wed. April 11, Fake Steve wrote:

By the end of this year I want Apple to be known as the greenest company in the world — not just in tech but in everything. If we’ve got to make hydrogen-powered computers and iPods that run on solar energy, so be it. Let’s get this done.

On Tue. May 2, Real Steve wrote:

Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic chemicals from its new products, and for not aggressively or properly recycling its old products. Upon investigating Apple’s current practices and progress towards these goals, I was surprised to learn that in many cases Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors in these areas.

Some of the best Apple theorists just don’t write enough. That’s certainly true of Daring Fireball creator John Gruber, who makes an impact every time he posts a major essay, but doesn’t post all that many essays. In his newest missive, he deconstructs Steve Ballmer’s arguments against the iPhone. It’s a laudable effort. Check it.

Some of these pundits and analysts are morons. Ballmer, however, is a very smart man, but what he’s saying about the iPhone is going to make him look stupid if it’s successful. He clearly doesn’t get what makes the iPhone so appealing, and his dual obsession with the price and business users is baffling.

Daring Fireball: The iPhone’s Funny Price

Technorati Tags: iphone, ballmer

Apple loves to make big announcements on Tuesday mornings. Today, they reminded us that not all big announcements are created equal. Apple PR informed the world that — brace for it — none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs will kick off the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, June 11.

Don’t all of you wet your pants with excitement at once.

Apple did confirm that Jobs would show off a feature-complete version of Mac OS X Leopard, including whatever mystery functions got left out of the 2006 showcase, and the company will will distribute a beta to all in attendance. And that’s something to get worked up over.

Steve Jobs to Kick Off WWDC 2007

Technorati Tags: leopard, wwdc, Steve Jobs

Yes, this image of an EDIT: unfortunately misidentified man in a hoodie eating a piece of toast might well be the first image ever uploaded to the Internet from an iPhone. Remember this moment — I’m sure your grandkids will ask you about where you were when you saw the first iPhone picture.

It came from a set of two that got posted to Flickr, got marked private and finally got deleted. The EXIF data is interesting, but could easily be fraudulent — this is editable stuff. Still, I like this story, because it involves toast. A second photo, along with the EXIF data, is posted after the jump.

Technorati Tags: iphone, camera, rumor

The iPhone hype-tornado is blowing at full gale now. Best sign? The rumored problems with it change from day to day. You know how it is: Massively anticipated device is less than two months from shipping, but an anonymous tipster has uncovered a DISASTROUS design flaw! This time, MacScoop reports that it might be doomed by a slippery case! Look out! It might slip out of your hand, which would be a first for a phone!

Overall, our source found the iPhone awesome but he mentioned, as a sole negative point, that the material used on the device’s case makes it feel even more slippery than the iPod and will probably require the purchase of a protective skin or case so as to avoid unintentionally dropping it.

And we all know just how slippery the iPod is! Or something. This is too funny. Apple always ships its products without the rubberized handles or raised edges that Palm and some competitors do, but it seems to work out OK most of the time. My phone is covered in rubber to prevent slipping, but I’m STILL thrown it across the room. Sometimes, it’s about the person, not the product.

That said, MacScoop does report that the battery life of the iPhone is even better than anticipated. And that’s all I care about. If this thing can keep on ticking for hours and hours of talking and mobile web-browsing, it has a right to be the smuggest phone on the block. Sign me up.

iPhone’s true battery-life to surprise us – source | MacScoop
Via Business 2.0

Technorati Tags: iphone, slippery, speculation

In the Times, reporters John Markoff and Matt Richtel cast about for the motives behind Fred Andeson’s statement on Tuesday that he warned Steve Jobs about the legal and accounting ramifications of the controversial 2001 “executive team” options grants.

Markoff and Richtel say the statement against Jobs was “an extraordinarily sharp elbow” and a “shot heard round Silicon Valley.” Speaking to various analysts and observers, they speculate that Anderson may be contributing to the “legal cloud remaining over Jobs.”

There’s a couple of interesting tidbits. It reveals that Anderson, when serving on Apple’s board, volunteered to conduct an internal investigation into how the company handled options when the SEC first started investigating widespread backdating practices. He “did so at the time not because Apple was suspected of having a problem but because many major companies were trying to understand their practices in case they did face scrutiny or accusations,” the Times says.

Irish rock star Bono, a co-founder with Anderson of Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm, said: “He is a man to whom you would give the keys to your life and know it would be calmer, tidier and better organized every day he was in it.”

Another Elevation colleague, said Anderson had been” deeply hurt by insinuations from Apple that he was responsible for the option accounting problems.”

He said the comments by Mr. Anderson’s lawyer were an attempt to clear Mr. Anderson’s name and “set the record straight in a way that has not been possible because of the pending legal action.”

Apple’s board issued a statement of total support of Steve Jobs this afternoon. It follows ex-CFO Fred Anderson’s ass-covering letter yesterday claiming he was a patsy in the options backdating scandal. Apple’s board said:

We are not going to enter into a public debate with Fred Anderson or his lawyer. Steve Jobs cooperated fully with Apple’s independent investigation and with the government’s investigation of stock option grants at Apple. The SEC investigated the matter thoroughly and its complaint speaks for itself, in terms of what it says, what it does not say, who it charges, and who it does not charge. We have complete confidence in the conclusions of Apple’s independent investigation, and in Steve’s integrity and his ability to lead Apple.

Lots of good news for Apple in its latest quarterly report. The company’s on a roll. Not only are iPod sales up (10.5 million sold), so are Macs, especially Mac Books. Apple sold 1.52 million Macintosh computers, up 24 percent from a year ago. Reuters reports:

The results blew away Apple’s own forecast, which tends to be cautious, of 54 cents to 56 cents. Analysts had expected Apple to earn 63 cents per share, on average, on revenue of $5.17 billion, according to Reuters Estimates… Shares of Apple have climbed about 12 percent this year, after advancing 18 percent in 2006 and more than doubling in 2005, fueled by robust sales of iPods and redesigned Macintosh computers.

UPDATE: NYT:

No Charges for Apple Over Options – New York Times

Federal securities regulators said yesterday that they would bring no civil charges against Apple over the backdating of executive stock options. But they stopped short of removing the cloud that for nearly a year has hung over the company’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs.

… “Steve Jobs dodged a bullet,” said Mark C. Zauderer, a trial lawyer in New York specializing in white-collar cases. “This is another circumstance where the government is going after an easier target. It will generally shy away from situations where the evidence is ambiguous or subject to different interpretations.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we do but first allegedly manipulate stock option grant dates to make more money for ourselves. Or something. Former Apple CFO Fred Anderson and general counsel Nancy Heinen had civil charges brought against them by securities regulators relating to the back-dating of stock options to Apple leaders, including Steve Jobs, almost six years ago.

As you might expect, the cone of silence has officially been broken. Anderson, who settled with the Securities Exchange Commission today, went straight after his former boss Steve Jobs, as well as Heinen, the board of directors, and probably everyone reading this post, according to the San Jose Mercury News:

As for the responsibility for the backdating of an earlier grant in 2001 that was made to Anderson, Heinen and other members of Apple’s executive team, Roth pointed fingers at Jobs, Heinen and Apple’s board. Jobs and Heinen picked the date for that grant – and the board verified it – after Anderson warned Jobs that moving the grant date might result in an accounting change, Roth said.

Roth’s statement marks the first time that anyone has suggested that Jobs had reason to know the accounting implications related to backdating. Although Apple has acknowledged that Jobs knew that backdating was going on at Apple and that he picked some favorable dates, the company said he didn’t commit fraud, because he didn’t know that there were any legal or accounting implications with the practice.

Anderson “was told by Mr. Jobs that the board had given its prior approval (for the grant) and the Board would verify it. Fred relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled,” Roth said in a statement.

Heinen, of course, blames the Board. This is so sordid. If only Fake Steve Jobs could tell us what’s really going on… Oh, here he is!

He didn’t settle. He flipped. They played him and Nancy Heinen off each other. Made them both an offer. Nancy, being a lawyer, figured she’d be cute and reject the first offer and bump them to something better. Instead, Fred rolled. And now Nancy is going to trial. I just mailed her a pamphlet that shows you how to make a shiv out of a bar of soap.

All this stuff about how the Jobsmeister is off the hook? Fuggedaboutit. Fred is the Big Pussy Bonpensiero of the Apple crime family. He’s betrayed us. Note to Fred: I’d stay away from boats if I were you.

Zing!

Technorati Tags: back-dating, fake steve, fred anderson, steve jobs, Steve Jobs

Pete Doherty, the shambolic baby of a lead singer for the Babyshambles, is a Mac user. According to GeekSugar, Doherty, boy-toy of Kate Moss, chased paparazzi away by focusing the iSight on his MacBook on them and recording their activity on video. Kind of takes those fun surveillance-cam videos and photos from MacBooks to the next level, doesn’t it? Now they’re active security systems, not stealth ones. Wherever shall we go next?

Thanks, Angelica!

Technorati Tags: apple, isight, macbook, pete doherty

No, it’s not April Fool’s Day. A company calling itself IP Innovation, LLC, is suing Apple for allegedly infringing mid-1970s user interface technology that was patented filed on behalf of Xerox PARC in, ahem…1991. Ars Technica has a pretty comprehensive run-down of the situation. This is the best bit:

Xerox did get around to suing Apple eventually in 1989, prompting Steve Jobs to dismiss the company as an organization so dysfunctional that they “couldn’t even sue anyone on time.”

IP Innovation has filed at least 32 patent-related lawsuits over the last few years. I love the guts behind the name, don’t you? “We let others innovate, then we buy the patents so we can sue even more successful companies!” I understand that they’re soon going to go after GE for infringing on Prometheus’s patent on light. In all seriousness, I’m a tremendous admirer of the innovators at Xerox PARC. Unfortunately, I really doubt any of them wills ee a dime if this frivolous lawsuit strikes gold.

Apple sued over vague user interface patent [Ars Technica]

Technorati Tags: apple, parc, gui

Apple’s ex-CFO has cut a deal with the SEC in Apple’s backdated options scandal, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous sources. Anderson will pay a fine of $150,000 and repay about $3.5 million worth of options. The deal does not include an admission of wrongdoing, the WSJ says.
The SEC reportedly intends to pursue civil charges against Nancy Heinen, Apple’s ex-general counsel, who will contest the case, according to the WSJ.

The AP reports:

Cris Arguedas, a lawyer for former Apple counsel Nancy Heinen, said Monday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has informed attorneys in the case that it plans to file a lawsuit against Heinen alleging fraud in connection with two options grants. One involved a grant to Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs on Oct. 19, 2001, for 7.5 million shares and another involved a grant made to top executives, including Heinen herself, on Jan. 17, 2001.

“We do expect them to file against our client and we will be defending those charges because they are a misunderstanding of the activities of Apple,” Arguedas said.

I’m sorry, Dave. I can’t let you do that. AppleInsider has reams of photos taken at the National Association of Broadcasters conference last week in Las Vegas. Apple was out in full force: 3/4 Petabytes of storage space, 3 miles of fiber optic cable, 4 M2 Gb networks, 90 Xserves and 40 Xserve RAIDs.

Sadly, that config is not available for purchase from the Apple Store at this time. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: apple, nab, geekhead, xserve

Apple’s insistence on secrecy has many unintended consequences: Mac fans are hard to please, rumor sites do their best to steal information about unannounced products, and, most interestingly, it gets easy to forget that Apple is a company made up of real people with feelings and lives. That’s why this spectacular farewell to Cupertino written by Buzz Andersen, formerly the author of shareware app Podworks and for four years an Apple software engineer, hits me square in the left ventricle. There is love and life in Cupertino, folks:

Like the Macintosh team of old, I started out at Apple as a young engineer willing to subordinate my life (for a time) to something I was passionate about. When I left my first position at Apple (in OS X Integration) for a real engineering job in Pro Apps, I was eager to make the features I was assigned the best they could be, even if it meant putting in difficult hours to get them done on schedule. So I put in the hours. I worked evenings and weekends. I worked while I was ill. Even when I ended up laid up at home in the throes of what turned out to be mononucleosis (a condition, for those who haven’t had the pleasure, that lends itself more to constant unconsciousness than constant concentration), I sat in bed fixing bugs. And little by little, I burnt myself out.

<sniff>No, no, go on, Buzz. I’m not crying. It’s just something in my eye, that’s all.</sniff> That just killed me. Maybe I’ll see you on the other side, man. When the fighting’s through.
Apple: A Romance – Buzz Andersen
Via Digg.

Technorati Tags: apple, buzz andersen

A giant, five-story Apple retailer just opened opposite the biggest, swankiest plaza in Milan and look what they have displayed in the window — my crummy books!

The Apple stores here in the states won’t carry the books because they only sell “how-to” titles. We were told the decision went “right to the top.” We suspect you-know-who doesn’t like the jokey “Cult of…” titles. Clearly not a problem across the pond.

Gary Allen at IFOAppleStore reports:

The grand opening of the five-story Mondadori Multicenter in central Milan (Italy) was important enough for Apple’s CEO of Italy operations to attend, perhaps because the store includes a large Apple sales area. Enzo Biagini viewed the 1,200 square-foot space on the second level that includes displays of laptops, iMacs, MacPros and Cinema displays, as detailed in a story and photos on the setteB.IT Web site. The interior design includes white-painted walls and wood display furniture similar to U.S. Apple stores.

Check out the Genius Bar — now serving coffee and fine food!

(Ignore the HP kit in the pic below. Apparently the store sells all kinds of junk.)

Pictures by SetteB.it.

Sometimes, users of high-end, professional software despair when Apple buys the company that makes it. Stu Maschwitz, one of the founders of <a href=”https://www.theorphanage.com/”>The Orphanage</a>, a San Francisco FX studio responsible for Sin City, The Host, and a bunch of others, explains:

When you buy expensive software from small companies, you effectively become best friends with the development team. You know them by first names and you send them holiday cards. You have a folder full of emails from and to them. Apple, however, mistakenly applies the same strategy of black-box secrecy that works so well for iPods and iPhones to its Pro Apps division as well, cutting off developers from users and vise versa. I have struggled with this enough that my company, The Orphanage, no longer has any special relationship with Apple. It’s just too much of a one-way street. I can’t buy my bread-and-butter tools from someone who can’t conduct an open conversation with me (under NDA of course) about the future of the product.

Maschwitz’s post is about the new Color tool in Final Cut Pro, and though he has misgivings about what used to be a separate app from a small, friendly company going behind the Apple firewall, all in all he’s delighted with the outcome.

Silicon Valley’s hometown paper, the San Jose Mercury News, says Steve Jobs is unlikely to face criminal or civil charges in Apple’s options backdating scandal.

A close review of the events that led to the controversial grant reveals that the backdating emerged from a good-faith, although clumsy, attempt by Apple’s board of directors to reward its star chief executive for resurrecting a moribund company.

The Merc’s story details a series of stock grants given to Jobs by Apple’s board between 1999 and 2003. The grants were often generous (and one was a record breaker) but because of fluctuations in Apple’s stock price, Jobs’ grants were often underwater. Several times, Jobs gave the underwater grants back, and the board gave him new ones.

However, according to the Merc, Jobs sometimes spent weeks negotiating the price of these new options, which affected their value. Jobs held out for the lowest price, and sometimes the board backdated the options to keep their price low.

The upshot is that neither Jobs nor the board were very good at picking the right number of options at the right price. If Jobs had simply kept all his grants, instead of constantly swapping them for new ones, they would be worth considerably more:

… Last year, Jobs handed back to Apple 4.6 million of his restricted shares – worth $295 million – to pay the taxes on them. His remaining restricted shares are now worth about $494 million.

But given the rise in Apple’s stock over the past four years, even that turned out to be a bad deal for the iconic CEO. Had he held on to all of his options, they would be worth about $4 billion right now, even if the 2001 grant had been given the December date.

Reuters | Apple seen having upper hand in music negotiations:

NEW YORK, April 20 (Reuters) – When Apple sits for contract negotiations with the major record companies over the next month, it will probably seek further concessions from them on selling music without copy-protection software.

AppleInsider | Target stores to pick up Apple TV:

Big-box retailer Target is poised to become just the second third-party retailer to market Apple Inc.’s new Apple TV device at its brick-and-mortar retail stores, AppleInsider has learned.

Fortune | Inside China’s PC frenzy:

While MP3 players are everywhere, and imitations of an Apple iPod Nano go for about $50 (a two gigabyte model with a larger screen than Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) offers), if you want the genuine article you’ll get fleeced. For an 80 gigabyte black iPod like one Amazon sells for $330, one salesman quotes me a price of about $700. As for PCs, Apple’s presence here is minimal.