I love how no it all reporters like yourself can imply that they know better than Steve Jobs how to run the company, it is spitefull clowns like yourself trying to start rumors to damage a company that is a benchmark in manufacturing.Get a real job and leave running major cap companies to quailfied people.

I love how know it all reporter/bloggers like yourself can imply that they know better than Steve Jobs how to run the company, it is spitefull clowns like yourself trying to start rumors to damage a company that is a benchmark in manufacturing.Get a real job and leave running major cap companies to quailfied people.

This is to Ed Morad.

How dare this writer have an idea or share his thoughts. It's dictators like you that leave the world in shambles.

There is nothing called "strategy" in this article. It is boring to read and devoid of anything of substance. Poorly written article. I am surprised these writers even get a place to write.

You sound ignorant and completely uninformed. Please never post another commentary ever again!

I think he's wrong about consumer buying habits related to ilife and snowleopard. I mean, why spend a month's worth of gas money to upgrade to a new OS or website builder? It makes no sense. Of course making sense isn't what we're strong at here in the U.S., but still, who the heck is dying to upgrade their ilife? It makes no sense to me.

You sound ignorant and completely uninformed. Please never post another commentary ever again!

It is people like bloggers/ reporters/ other professionals who use the product that big business (like Apple) SHOULD be listening to. Otherwise their products become useless to us, and we have no reason to purchase them- instant ticket to bankruptcy. Has the world really gotten to a place where consumers feel that they should not have the RIGHT to tell the companies they buy from what would be best for business by letting them know what the consumer wants? Business exists to serve the consumer- through serving the consumer they make money. That is the foundation of capitalism, and the ONLY way it will stay alive.

There is nothing called "strategy" in this article. It is boring to read and devoid of anything of substance. Poorly written article. I am surprised these writers even get a place to write.

I think he's wrong about consumer buying habits related to ilife and snowleopard. I mean, why spend a month's worth of gas money to upgrade to a new OS or website builder? It makes no sense. Of course making sense isn't what we're strong at here in the U.S., but still, who the heck is dying to upgrade their ilife? It makes no sense to me.

this is to anonymous

Ed morad has the right idea i mean apple is an innovator and basically Steve Jobs is a god. He sold products when there was no product he created a milti million dollar market for mp3 players. and he completely revolutionized the personal computer if it weren't for apple and Steve Jobs there would be no Microsoft. Apple creates and Microsoft copy's. always have always will look Microsoft is like 5 years behind apple so in five years mac os x leopard will be like vista two or something gay like that

who really cares about iLife? And their force fed OS upgrades are CrAzY they add very little new, except more annoying "Apps". How bout they actually create a good server OS, and policy based managment for their client systems, so enterprise would actually look at apple as an alternative.

Dunno - would like to see something instead of lame product upgrades, or "we are the greenest computer company" Tell that to all the people that buy new ipods ever year, because they broke their old ones...

this is to anonymous

Ed morad has the right idea i mean apple is an innovator and basically Steve Jobs is a god. He sold products when there was no product he created a milti million dollar market for mp3 players. and he completely revolutionized the personal computer if it weren't for apple and Steve Jobs there would be no Microsoft. Apple creates and Microsoft copy's. always have always will look Microsoft is like 5 years behind apple so in five years mac os x leopard will be like vista two or something gay like that

So HE is to blame for the coming enslavement!Hmmm

Of course it is time to upgrade iLife. With Office not doing well for Macs there should be a qualitiy alternative. iMac need an upgrade, too. Give me a good reason to buy an iMac over an iBook Pro. I don't mean just the price.

If the OS is "pure margin" then why not shock everybody and say the iMac and Mini are dead and that apple will only develop "cool" things like phones and laptops. And then during a "by the way" moment have Jobs come out and do a cartwheel on the stage and announce that Apple will sell OSX for all WinTel PCs currently "vista capable" and above. And then give away 5 free golden tickets in random boxes of Snow Leopard for a tour of the factory with the purchase of each OS and then have ironic and unfortunate happen to 4 of the guests and have clones of the Woz dancing and singing the rest of the guests onwards on the tour - eventually turning all of Apple over to Charlie and his grandfather of course.

None..

I think you are the mistaken one, without IBM there would be neither, both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were on the warpath, and both used what IBM had created.

The difference was Bill Gates thought corporately, and Steve Jobs thought personally. Microsoft was created to fill the cooperate software void. Where as steve jobs looked more towards a personal approach.

If mocrosoft was indeed the thief and apple indeed the creator as you said, then it would have been the PC hardware that would be made to run mac OS's. Microsoft came out with software first, and apple did everything possible to compete. It was not until the ipod and iphone came out that Apple gained a decent portion of market share.

Windows/Microsoft will for a long time be the software mainstream. The only real edge that Apple has is that its personable, but all that needs to happen is to have Ubuntu or Wine or some other LInux OS go more mainstream, and it will whipe apple out.

Please dont attempt to sound informed, you obviously are just a Steve Jobs junkie.

Overall very good ideas. But like every other blogger you make a big deal out of the iPhones price instead of ATT's monthly rate. The $80/mo bottom rate is still too high to ever make it a mainstream platform. The thing could be free and wouldn't matter.
That's why rumors of an iPhone nano are so appealing: if it comes with a no data plan but wifi it will sell gangbusters.
I'm sure Apple is already aware of that. Strange that so many bloggers aren't yet.

I love iMovie 08 and iPhoto. I would love to see both improve, but especially iMovie which has lots of room to grow.

Most of this posting is nonsense, especially the bit about the urgency of releasing Snow Leopard.
What matters about Snow Leopard is not when, but getting it right. Each of the Leopard releases has been less reliable than it ought, certainly not disasterous, but slightly flaky. Apple is overdue for a release that is pretty well rock solid and reliable, so we can again truthfully say, "It just works."
The bit I do agree with is the part about Mobile Me (which incidentally is still a truly pathetic name).

i think this article has many truth in it, it is important tt company r fortcoming (for their potential investor and share holders).

software definitely makes better inventory than hardware. apple web services r indeed giving problems.

The writer should have mentioned that what makes Snow Leopard so important is Exchange support. In order to make the corporate world converts (which I am) Microsoft Exchange capability is key. My IPhone does well and without it, I'd have jumped to a Blackberry. He's right by accident about the big SL.

This is to TimZilla:

Apparently you missed the period from 77-81 when Apple and its Apple II with VisiCalc had nearly 100% of the corporate PC market.

I was an Apple developer for about a decade until 2003. I love their products, their business model and the way they deliver what they promise. But I can't abide people who criticize others for offering fresh ideas.

The writer makes some good points that, among much else, make good sense given the current economy. If nothing else, Apple under Steve Jobs has been about both anticipating and adapting to change, including the competing demands among consumers.

The harsh criticism of the writer is most certainly unwarranted and, if nothing else, tends to justify the stigma attached to those of us who enjoy Apple products.

Put a lid on it.

to Ed Morad in particular...

it's know... not no... please go to grade school before insulting "no it all" reporters.

in general...

This article has some interesting points that I'm sure are being kicked around at Apple meetings. I think it's unreasonable to say that this article is the best thing since sliced bread, and I think it's equally unreasonable to say that the author has no idea what he's talking about.

Remember kids... insulting the author and/or his professional contemporaries has no affect on the validity of the article! That's a classic logical fallacy and something that we should leave to the politicians!

Personally... I thought this article was full of valid points that, when taken without personal bias, constitute decent business advice.

Cheers!

A Man

Waste of time, waste of space!
Apple will do what, what Steve and his managers decide, what they think is best for Apple. They are well qualified to do it, unlike you.
Journalists don't need to second guess Apple and try to appear smart. Anyone can speculate and it is just cheap fantasy.
Your job is to test and write about the products so it helps the readers to select what to buy. That is useful.
If you want to waste your time, why don't you try giving suggestions to Barack Obama and his cabinet to lift us up from the recession, I am sure they welcome your suggestions as much as we do.

The iPhone is cheap enough!!!! They need to stop lowering the price of the phone! It is not the reason people don't have it. People can afford the phone. Its the plan is whats stopping people! How stupid can you be? A one time $200 for your phone is fine for most people, considering your with it for 2yrs but the $100 a month to get a reasonable plan is killing people!

Steve Jobs isn't a "god", he's just very good. But really, he never capitalized as well as Gates did. Both are monopolists, just Gates is better at it. Jobs is amazing at getting end users fired up about his products. He's a great public speaker. He has a little bit of the asshole in him that's required to lead a corporation like Apple. But he's not a god. He makes missteps and miscalculations. Honestly, as a computer salesman and former iPod/cell phone salesman at a big box, a lot of people like Macs, and think they're cool. But with the economy the way it is, I've heard more people say "shoe-string budget" than I have in my previous 6.5 years of retail, and that's bad news for Apple.

If Apple wants to continue making the majority of their money on hardware during this crisis (as they do now), they need to lower their hardware prices. That might mean pushing the Mac Mini (and lowering the price from absurd to reasonable.) Ideally, it would mean a cheap iMac, even if it has to use a *gasp!* Pentium Dual-Core in it, or hell even an AMD processor. A 20" iMac priced at $749 would sell so amazingly well if they'd just do it. Quite a few people are replacing broken computers right now like you would a broken fridge: they don't want to do it, but they feel like they have to. Very few people are buying new PCs to increase performance. All the negativity surrounding Vista has made people feel like new isn't faster, and that they're fine with their XP machines.

I'm not as certain on how consumers would react to 10.6 or iLife '09. On one hand, the Mac Faithful will rush out to buy it. On the other, shoe-string comes to mind. As little as 6 months ago I wouldn't agree with this, but seeing how drastically sales at my store have changed -- and why people are buying -- really makes me pause. Times are tight, and they're going to get worse before they get better.

Just so you know the more you comment on this page the more traffic it will get and the more this blogger will get paid in the long run. If you don't like the content don't comment on it as it will only increase it's popularity and distribution.

Cheer's...

I notice that a lot of Apple users seem to be very critical of this blog entry. I would like to say to those of you that have spoken harsh words about Mr. Wilcox, stop making an idol out of Apple!
These types of blog entries are opinion pieces and each of us has a right to our own opinions. Each of us are also sometimes wrong. Personally I'm not in 100% agreement with Mr. Wilcox on the idea that the current storm could sink Apple's ship. Apple has almost 25 billion in cash and no debt. It would take a long time and a lot of missteps to sink the ship (not that it couldn't happen, but this current storm certainly won't single handedly do it).
It's difficult to tell what will actually happen, but I'd like to see Apple really pull into the mainstream and garner at least a %25 market share. That would be fantastic. I think Apple can do it too. Although at some point though, I believe that if Apple does not continue to gain market share, it will not be able to compete effectively with a small niche market. Other companies are getting behind Apple, because it's growing and they don't want to be left out. If that changes then many software companies as they once did will say, "We would develop for Mac if they had more users" and Apple will say, "We would have more users if developers made more software".
Without the support of Adobe and other companies the Mac would end up with a tiny market share and that would push it back to the brink of extinction.
That being said, I think Apple will do just fine and I'm certainly rooting for them (we need competition).

This "article" is poorly written and I really don't see how it gets posted online. I mean, the first point the writer addresses is that Apple needs to "fess up" about Mr. Jobs' personal life. Huh? That doesn't seem thought-provoking, insightful, or even vaguely intelligent, except of course for someone who is looking for more crap to shovel around in his blog...

Joe, great article. To those of you slating him for it, grow up. Apple needs to immediately come out with a statement regarding the health of Steve, and future successor planning. I am a shareholder in the company, and the continuing refusal to comment definitively about his health is an abrogation of responsibility towards all shareholders. If they continue this, someone, or several someones will go to jail. I love this company, but this is no time to forget that the shareholder is paramount to it's health. Steve, let the world know what is going on. If your not well, i'm sorry, but don't let the company fail because you can't admit a difficult truth. Keep up the good work Joe

"I'm guessing that Apple and its dealers are sitting on unusually high inventories after the slow Christmas selling season."

Uh - no. We sold out of our macbooks and all of our iPod touches. The nano's moved as expected. If there was softness in demand, it's was in our MacPro line. Many of our business clients are waiting till the new year.

This article is a lot of doom and gloom. We, as an independent dealer, have seen 11% growth when compared to last year and our holiday quarter was up nearly 6% above last year. (Thanks to those MacBooks).

In the past, our generic PC business contributed over 3/4 to our bottom line. In the past five years, our Apple offerings went from 15% of our revenue to nearly 35% and we're projecting steady growth for at least the next year.

I guess from where we sit, we give Apple and Co. cheers for 2008.

Waste of time, waste of space!
Apple will do what, what Steve and his managers decide, what they think is best for Apple. They are well qualified to do it, unlike you.
Journalists don't need to second guess Apple and try to appear smart. Anyone can speculate and it is just cheap fantasy.
Your job is to test and write about the products so it helps the readers to select what to buy. That is useful.
If you want to waste your time, why don't you try giving suggestions to Barack Obama and his cabinet to lift us up from the recession, I am sure they welcome your suggestions as much as we do.

Fess up about Steve Jobs's health. ask tmz / Officially launch Mac OS X 10.6 (aka "Snow Leopard".Immediately release iLife '09, or something like it. wah wah I want it now !!!/
Lower iPhone prices. Give me what i want and i dont want to pay for it.

short and sweet version
a know nothing talking about nothing

good job calling apple on its bs about jobs no show..........and to the groupie asshole suggesting you get a job ,its obvious your not a shareholder and know little or nothing about running a company.look where the stock has fallen in 2008.......

good job calling apple on its bs about jobs no show..........and to the groupie asshole suggesting you get a job ,its obvious your not a shareholder and know little or nothing about running a company.look where the stock has fallen in 2008.......

JOE, NICE ARTICLE. WELL WRITTEN. I COULDN'T AGREE MORE.

This writer is a cock. Release Snow Leopard? Give me a fucking break. Moron.

all these replies are why I do not allow public comments on my blog!

There are a lot of "paid shills" and just snarky jerk-heads that seem to spend a large amount of time responding to other people's bloggings.

I see this often when someone writes some fresh ideas plus interjects personal opinion and advice about what Apple should do as they move into the future.

I am not saying that this article was great, but a few fresh ideas were there. Something different than the same old plug-and play "news articles" that come out of the major Apple/Mac sites.

Also, the writer is just blogging on his blog! Quit acting like the guy is Harvard-educated and in the running for a Pulitzer Prize, just because you do not like (or you are paid to not like) the ideas the blogger put forth.

Here's to blogging outside the box!

"Apple needs to 'fess up' about Jobs' health"? I don't think so. Apple has already told us he recovered fine from cancer surgery, and then subsequently lost weight as a side-effect. Steve Jobs is exactly like me and Joe Wilcox: we're all going to die soon enough, probably sooner than we want. Given that, nothing noteworthy has changed in Jobs' health since the last we heard from the company. That is, nothing has changed other than the hysterical noise from the blogosphere, which isn't really a change anyways, is it? As a stockholder, I certainly don't want the corporation responding to every bit of pompous nonsense from eWeek and its peers.

No, Apple does not need to "'fess up", or follow any of the other silly advice in this posting. All they need to do is to continue doing what they're already doing, and ignore the bloggers. But they sure don't need me to tell them that!

Personally, I think the article was thought provoking. What more could you ask for?

A few things that should also be considered:

Apple is touting Snow Leopard as an OS which will better utilize multi core processors and the processing power of graphics cards. This suggests that new hardware, specifically quad core iMacs, are coming.

I'd much rather wait for a robust 10.6 than buy one that was rushed to market.

Steve Jobs clearly communicated to all subscribers to Mobile Me that this wasn't Apple's finest hour (I'd put it in quotes if I could find the email). I received six months of the service at no charge. Wouldn't it be nice if MS offered something similar to Vista users?

There are some good reasons for Apple to pull out of MacWorld. Their retail stores do a great job of bringing the products to the people. Apple's presence at MacWorld might well take attention away from the third party vendors who really need the attention. Pulling out will also allow Apple to release products when they are ready instead of having to get them out on the MacWorld schedule.

If Jobs is ill, he is quite likely waiting for a complete prognosis before announcing the fact. After the criticism for his failure to announce his fight with pancreatic cancer, the board of directors won't let him put it off for long.

The iPod Touch 2.0 can use VoIP. I also have it on my iPhone. I use Skype whenever I'm out of the country. Perhaps this is how Apple plans to avoid the expensive data plans (by the way, 6
Gigs for $100 per month isn't really all that expensive).

In really tough economic times, people tend to pay more to get more. Low cost/ low quality products don't do as well. Apple's prime directive should be to show the value of Apple computers to more people.

Those of us who use Macs will continue to do so. If Apple can continue to spread the word to the retail market, they will continue to grow. If they can develop enterprise solutions that really work well, they will thrive.

Actually, I don't want Apple to release 10.6 yet, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Those of us who run expensive, sophisticated software (e.g. Photoshop), plus a half dozen third party apps that we purchased as plug-ins, etc, are just finally getting everything working together with 10.5 to the point where we can concentrate on our work, and not on making our machines work. It's a pain in the neck every time there's an OS upgrade, for the user and for all the vendors who must adapt.
To demand a system upgrade just for the sake of an upgrade, when Apple has already announced that the next version will just be fine tuning anyway, is like a kid demanding another toy.
If you ask (pre-Vista) Windows IT guys why they stick with that dreary system, one of the things they will cite is that they OS doesn't change much. They know if they buy an application for their business, they'll get enough use out of it to justify the cost.
So I say NO to another Mac OS right now. Just leave it alone for a while, and use .7 though .9 (or higher) to continue debugging it. Some of us actually use these things to get things accomplished.
Sheesh.

I'm not sure if this author just wants to say the exact opposite of what everyone else is saying to be different, but nonetheless, this article is FULL of bad ideas.

You can't just LAUNCH an OS. It's time consuming. It hasn't even debuted yet. They've shown nothing of it. You actually think it'll be available in less then three months in working condition. This is the type of thing Microsoft would do.

"Immediately release iLife" . . . Look above.

"Celebrate . . . 25th Anniversary" . . . Please, do some research. Low Christmas sales? Where do you get your info from? While you are looking, it would be great if you'd search up what Jobs said about the 25th Anniversary . . . He doesn't care about it at all.

So suppose they announce that Steve really is sick. You think that's gonna satisfy anyone. Certainly not investors. Do you think they're going to accept any succession plan, either? It's like people got this idea in their head that nobody comes close to taking the place of Steve Jobs, because nobody is Steve Jobs. I can only say it's a lousy investment if one's company is based solely on one person and the company is considered to be in danger of failing if that person leaves.

Basically you want to hear the company say that Steve is fine, he really is healthy and you'd still have to believe they weren't lying. As long as Steve is thin, everyone is still going to doubt his health. If you don't believe, then even the truth isn't going to work. It's a darn shame that Apple is being burdened by this nonsense.

I see you're bringing out the old conventional wisdom that "Think Different" is grammatically incorrect. It is no more grammatically incorrect than phrases such as "Think Big" or "Think Small".

We are expecting an adverb 'differently', to modify the verb. In "Think Differently" we are being admonished to think in a different manner, to change how we are thinking.

But 'big' and 'different' are adjectives. The meaning of "Think Big" is to think about things which are big, or think in big terms, and similarly the meaning of "Think Different" is to think about things which are different, not to change the manner in which you think, but to change the subject that you are thinking about.

The beauty of the phrase is that it is unorthodox and attention grabbing because it is unfamiliar and even seems at first glance to be incorrect. Yet upon closer review, it is not incorrect as many claim, it is just different from what was expected.

That short two word phrase managed to be both a very apt description for Apple itself (especially in 1997), but also managed to evoke the same feeling of unexpectedness (and yes, perhaps at first 'wrongness') of considering a Mac purchase in an almost entirely Windows world.

But Joe, if someone doesn't have their story straight about a slogan that is over a decade old, how ever will we give any credence to their notions about events in the present day. ;-)

I always enjoy reading you Joe.

Apple already had a 20th Anniversary Mac. It was a failure. Do you want a repeat of that?

Not only is Steve Jobs at death’s door… his beloved mock turtleneck’s days are numbered as well.

(Photographic Proof)

The fashion press was stunned today to learn that the turtleneck, which has been a constant companion to Mr. Jobs for so long, was ill.

“I’m shocked. Just shocked. I have no words” says Julian Scravner, Senior editor of Karma Coverings. “I mean… all things must pass, but you can’t really ever prepare for news like this.”

http://neuroticnomad.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/steve-jobs-turtleneck-is-sick-too/

I've used Macs from the first day they came out and have owned 16 since.

Any of the authors "musts" would not influence me to buy something new or increase Apple's stock value.

Probably why Steve is Steve and the author writes about Apple. Thank you Steve for not listening.

> [iLife '08] is long overdue for upgrade

Yeah, four days overdue.

I thought this was quite a good, down to earth article, with lots of good business sense. I'm not a Mac expert yet, but it seems to me a quad processor iMac might be a good idea.

Well Joe, it looks like #1 has already come true. Steve has a hormonal imbalance, and should be better by summer. I'll let you check that one off your list, not that my opinion counts for much.

Snow Leopard is a gotta do, for the reason you mention, Windows 7. And it better work. Actually, they both better work, and I think they will. Both Apple and Microsoft are cleaning up their respective Leopard and Vista products. If OS X is truly the solid foundation I think it is, Snow Leopard can significantly differentiate itself from Windows 7.

Phil Schiller will need something sexier than that to talk about. MobileMe, iLife, more emphasis on the cloud. That could be enough, but a new piece of hardware could make his job much easier. You don't mention hardware, and your probably right. Most of your peers are talking about an iPhone nano, a big iPod touch, an new Mac Mini, even a new iMac. We'll have to wait and see on this one.

I don't see a cheaper iPhone as being any more important than cheaper notebooks. A cheaper contract from AT&T might be more beneficial. Apple has always tried to differentiate on quality and value, not price. With the new economic situation, that may change.

And one more thing. You forgot about it. Steve has always had one more thing to show. That tradition must continue.

Jesus Joe. You just can't catch a break. Say anything critical in the least and you get your ass handed to you.