What goes down must come up.
And vice versa. Yes, it’s this week’s Macworld piece, which asks “Isn’t it weird how Apple’s fortunes have turned?”, “Who wants Michael Dell’s advice?” and “Game controller??? OMG!!!!”
Can Apple survive another great quarter?
That’s the question the Macalope poses in this week’s Macworld post. Also, see if you can spot the horny one’s favorite joke. It has to do with Steve Jobs.
MacBook sales crushed by netbooks
Ha-ha! Of course not.
Apple laptops sales units are up 7% quarter-over-quarter and 34% year-over-year. Laptop revenues are up 11% and 23% respectively.
Back to you, Robin Harris.
STOP IT.
This will come as no surprise to many, but Megan McCardle is an idiot (tip o’ the antlers to Michael J who linked to the Macalope’s piece below in comments there).
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet.
What does McCardle then do? Why, play doctor, of course. And on the Internet! It’s the double play of stupid!
But what seems more likely? That Steve Jobs is suffering from a “hormone imbalance” that has sent his weight plummeting and requires a leave of absence, or that his delay in treating his pancreatic cancer while he messed around with woo “alternative therapies” for nine months gave it time to metastize? Pancreatic cancer is nasty, nasty stuff. I don’t think we’re going to see another comeback this time.
Read that last line again. The Macalope has no funny retort, no snarky comeback to that. He is simply aghast at your ghoulish lack of sensitivity and boorish inclination to provide a medical opinion you yourself admit you’re unqualified to give.
Steve Jobs has never managed–or from what I understand, even much tried–to build a robust corporate culture that could be self-sustaining without his presence.
Great. Now we’ve established that not only are you unqualified to provide medical opinions, you’re also unqualified to provide management opinions.
What is it exactly you do?
Jackass of the year
By The Macalope and has no comments yet.
Just don’t even click on it. Really. Steve Jobs = Apple, Jobs dying, Apple dying, no one else at Apple can find their ass with two hands.
Money quote:
So, any chance that [News Corp. number 2] Peter Chernin might have an interest in running a failing computer company?
Failing. Really. He wrote that.
For a unicorn chaser, you can read what the Macalope wrote yesterday about Tim Cook on Macworld, which is supported by this Money piece (tip o’ the antlers to Daring Fireball).
UPDATE: If you’re visiting from Megan McCardle’s post at the Atlantic, please read the response here.
Gone, baby, gone.
New piece up at Macworld covers Jobs’ leave of absence and the iPhone nano rumors.
Passive/aggressive iPhone bashing
By The Macalope and has 2 comments.
InfoWorld’s Bill Snyder has it down.
So, let’s see if the Macalope has the story straight. Tremendous douche makes questionable iPhone app, screws up the implementation, spamming his customers, and the conclusion we’re supposed to draw is “Don’t believe the iPhone hype! It’s a bad platform for developers!”
Until you get to the end, of course, when Snyder makes sure to note:
Don’t mistake this post for a knock on Apple or its platform.
Oh, Bill, how could we possibly do that?! What with a title like “iPhone apps: Fool’s gold for developers?”?! And a subheading like “Selling mobile apps on Apple’s iPhone App Store may seem like a surefire recipe for success. It isn’t.”?! And a section heading like “Lots of iPhone users, but no revenues”?! And another one like “Limitations in the iPhone make great apps harder to deliver”?!
Instead, see it as a cautionary tale and adjust your expectations and strategy accordingly.
Uh-huh. Basically, just ignore the title and headings of this story. I don’t even know why they’re there! They were just in the template I use!
Don’t bother emailing Snyder or commenting (or, really, even clicking through) to complain. The Macalope already knows what his response will be: “Sorry if you got offended.”
Piling on
OK, there’s bitching and then there’s primo grade-A bitching.
Macworld Already a Bummer, With or Without Apple.
“Worst. Macworld. Ever.” said one attendee after the Tuesday keynote. “This sucks.”
This displays little more than a lack of proper historical perspective. Gil Amelio ring any bells? Please, let’s not review the tape, people. It could get ugly.
It also displays a lack of proper verbiage. More correctly, the attendee should have said “Worst. Macworld. Expo. Keynote. Ever.” as he or she could not have been to the showroom floor yet.
Also, there’s all the drinking. We’re not nearly done with that.
This year’s keynote was an epic yawner.
Personally, while the keynote obviously lacked the big announcements of recent years, the Macalope found the iLife demonstration to be awesome, and the crowd seemed to agree.
No new iPhone.
Please. No serious analyst thought there would be a new iPhone.
No new iPod.
iPod? Nobody at all thought there would be new iPods.
No new iMac, and — despite lots of pre-show hype, rumor and buzz — no new Mac Mini.
Yes. A bunch of people thought there might be a new Mini and maybe a new iMac. But did Apple in any way shape or form lead anyone to believe there would be? No. This kind of sentence construction is designed to make you think that it’s somehow a failure on Apple’s part that they didn’t deliver an iMac or a Mini. It’s not.
You can be disappointed that Apple didn’t announce more (and, don’t be mistaken, the Macalope is) but you’re just being a tool if you’re claiming to be disappointed because Apple didn’t announce specific items “everyone said they were going to announce”.
The keynote also ended with a thinly veiled insult: Tony Bennett singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” — surely a goodbye middle finger to International Data Group, which owns Macworld Expo.
Of course it seems to be a middle finger if you’re the kind of person who sees everything through the prism of motives that appeal to your high-school Heathers mentality. The horny one actually thought it was a nice send-off.
Was it a great keynote? Well, no. Phil Schiller actually did a great job delivering it. Has anyone watched CEOs from other companies? They’d be lucky to have their keynotes delivered by Schiller, let alone Jobs. Apple followers are spoiled.
The problem is he just didn’t have that much to announce. But expecting pie-in-sky items like new iPhones and iPods is just jackassery in the third degree.
The Macalope will have some more thoughts on the keynote in his piece for Macworld on Thursday.
ADDENDUM: The Macalope, while not shy about profanity, doesn’t usually point it directly at a silly pundit, but in this case he’s going to make an exception for this:
Topping it off was Tony Bennett, who came onstage and belted out a couple of songs nobody under 60 knows.
Well, a pleasant fuck you to you, Mathew. The Macalope is well below 60 and was utterly thrilled to see a legend like Tony Bennett singing classic songs. Unless you go to Vegas frequently, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see someone whose name will go down in history as one of the greatest performers. And so far everyone the Macalope’s talked to has raved about it.
Don’t be a dick.