Boss Jobs And His Apple Mafia

U.S. Now Paints Apple as ‘Ringmaster’ in Its Lawsuit on E-Book Price-Fixing

In July 2010, Mr. Jobs, Apple’s former chief executive, told the chief executive of Random House, Markus Dohle, that the publisher would suffer a loss of support from Apple if it held out much longer, according to an account of the conversation provided by Mr. Dohle in the filing. Two months later, Apple threatened to block an e-book application by Random House from appearing in Apple’s App Store because it had not agreed to a deal with Apple, the filing said.

After Random House finally agreed to a contract on Jan. 18, 2011, Eddy Cue, the Apple executive in charge of its e-books deals, sent an e-mail to Mr. Jobs attributing the publisher’s capitulation, in part, to “the fact that I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store,” the filing reads.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Anti-trust?

That smoking gun email from Eddy Cue is extortion.

If we had an awake, aware, and active prosecutor, Apple would be prosecuted under the RICO Act.

Don’t bother with your techno-LOLbertarian fanboi whining in Comments about how “it’s Apple’s store.” You don’t know shit about the real world.

Apple Kills Latest Jailbreak

iOS 6.1.3 Update Kills Evasi0n iOS 6 Jailbreak

While we had heard that Apple was going to be plugging up the exploits used by the iOS 6.1 jailbreak, created by the Evadr3s jailbreak team, today’s release confirms the bad news. Apple has confirmed the bad news, even giving credit to the Evadr3s team for four of the six exploits that were patched up with the update.

Apple Versus Salmonella

Apple and Twitter

There is no way in hell Apple should buy Twitter. I feel so strongly about that, that I boldfaced it in red. Apple doesn’t like freedom of expression. They don’t know how to handle it (hint: leave it alone!). We’ve already seen over and over and over again how they bungle books. They don’t even allow people freedom in email. Can you imagine how they’d destroy Twitter by basically turning it in Disney Instant Messaging? The first social network for tots. The list of banned words would be epic. Not even “poopy” would get through.

The iBookstore Closes In On Barnes & Noble

Update: You can ignore this post. Nate over at The Digital Reader caught the flaw that went right by me. His post is correct.

Measuring the iBook market

If I choose a more conservative $9 average selling price and assuming a 70% share for the publisher then Apple’s iBooks generated about $1.3 billion in payments and grossed about $1.8 billion.

Barnes & Noble Reports Fiscal 2013 Third Quarter Financial Results

Third quarter consolidated revenues were $2.2 billion, a decrease of 8.8% as compared to the prior year.

And:

The Retail segment, which consists of the Barnes & Noble bookstores and BN.com businesses, had revenues of $1.5 billion for the quarter, decreasing 10.3% over the prior year.

I’m neither a math whiz nor a Wall Street wonk.

But if I’m comparing the correct numbers, the iBookstore has already surpassed Barnes & Noble’s print business and will soon catch up to its overall business on a per-quarter basis.

And Apple doesn’t have to worry about storefronts or money-losing hardware.

There’s a half a billion iOS devices out there. And the iBookstore is doing this with friction — the iBooks app must be separately downloaded, just like apps from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and others. (Although to be fair, I’ve been told there’s an Apple nag dialog that pimps the iBooks software, so this really isn’t a fair fight, is it?)

Take this post with a dose of salt. And check the Comments in case someone tells me I’ve got the wrong numbers being compared.

2008: The Funniest Steve Jobs Quote?

2008: Read My Lips: Apple Is a Netbook Maker

A recurring question among Apple watchers for decades has been, “When is Apple going to introduce a low-cost computer?

Mr. Jobs answered that decades-old complaint by stating, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

2010: The iPad is unveiled.

Yeah.

What’s also interesting in that New York Times link is at the bottom. Perhaps the first hint of the iPad?

Call It The iFob

Apple Said to Have Team Developing Wristwatch Computer

From dictionary.com:

fob
[fob] noun

1. a small pocket just below the waistline in trousers for a watch, keys, change, etc. Compare watch pocket.

2. a short chain or ribbon, usually with a medallion or similar ornament, attached to a watch and worn hanging from a pocket.

3. the medallion or ornament itself.

Last boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Cause Magic

Tim Cook speaking at the face-sucking vampire squid, Goldman Sachs:

Consumers want an elegant experience where the technology flows to the background. The real magic happens at the intersection of these, and Apple has the ability on all three of these spheres to innovate like crazy and really cause magic.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Magic is what it’s all about.

Doing something that astonishes, that delights, that is unpredictable.

It reminded me of a prior post, that shows magic is not limited to technology: My Holy Shit! List

Apple Versus Samsung: Why Samsung Is Winning

With the release this week of the Evasi0n jailbreak, I’ve gotten interested in looking at some of the things people would add to an iOS device to make it worthwhile.

It’s been an eye-opener and highlights the stark difference between Apple and Samsung.

Apple discourages jailbreaking. Samsung encourages it.

CyanogenMod founder joins Samsung Mobile, promises to make Android ‘more awesome’

Yes, Apple has hired hackers too:

Apple Hires iPhone Hacker Nicholas Allegra (@Comex)

But Samsung encourages hacking. A look at the various Samsung-related XDA Developers forums reveals Samsung participation over and over again.

And Apple? Silence.

Apple’s To-Do List

A start, not meant to be seen as comprehensive.

In order:
1) Move past “What Would Steve Do?” (see here)
2) Create a post-Steve identity
3) Acknowledge You Can’t Have It All*

Not in order:
1) Get rid of App Store duplicate listings (see here)
2) Multi-user accounts for iOS (or at least a Guest Mode)
3) Better iOS multitasking (come on, it sucks; you know it does)
4) Allow iOS on-screen keyboard/input choice
5) Enable iOS Desk Accessory-like apps**
6) Add microSD card slot to iDevices (you already know you’ll have to)
7) Make iTunes/App Store a platform (see here)

* Having it all stifles competitive creativity (see: IBM, Microsoft)

** Why is something like a calculator a full app you must launch? Doesn’t anyone see how fucking stupid that is? Anyone at all? Hello, Jon Ive?

Three Things For Today

Be insanely valuable

Think yourself as a customer. Would you buy your own product? Do you think that your product is the best product out there? If you answered ‘no’, stop right now and think what you are really doing. Stop wasting your time, but more importantly stop wasting your customers time.

Archos needs to heed that advice.