Cook, new products, Apple and WWDC - New Zealand Herald

Apple and the Press

Tim Cook has been CEO of Apple for over a year now, and has been subject to a lot of examination lately. It's assumed the CEO will keynote this year's World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco on the stage former (and late) CEO Steve Jobs so relished, and this is almost invariably the forum for launching new stuff.

I know at least one person going to DubDubDeeCee and I will talk to her afterwards (if you are going, I am interested to talk to you, too, so if you'd like to talk about it after, please get in touch).

You never really know what's going to come out, as Apple is so super secretive, but when the totally new iMac shape (still current, after some gentle form tweaks and a move to aluminium) came out a few years ago, it surprised everybody. That level of surprise is almost impossible these days - both the leaks and the levels of scrutiny have ratcheted up dramatically since then. On the back of that, it's widely expected that new MacBook Pros are a cert, at least in the 15-inch variety, iPhone 5 comes next, and new iMacs with new CPUs are possible.

People also hope for some kind of announcement on the Mac Pro: a new model or will it be deleted? But there have been no leaks about that at all. For months.

Apple used to invite journalists but that hardly happens any more - I have, to my great regret, never been to an Apple event, but I really hope to go. One day ...

Apple has a strange relationship with the press. When you try and control a relationship so stringently, mutual trust normally becomes a casualty, and Apple is extremely cautious with any kind of contact that may get out of hand. As an example, I love this passage from CNN Money: "In February of this year, a group of investors visited Apple as part of a 'bus tour' led by a research analyst for Citibank. The session started with a 45-minute presentation by Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer, and the 15 or so investors who attended the session were treated to Apple's unique brand of hospitality: They met in a threadbare conference room in Apple's Town Hall public conference centre at the 4 Infinite Loop building in Cupertino, California, where the refreshments consisted of "three stale cookies and two Diet Cokes," in the words of one participant."

All de rigueur for Apple, I'm afraid. But that's when things changed. What really shocked the investors, as it was so unlike the Old Regime of Jobs, was that CEO Tim Cook popped into the room about 20 minutes into Oppenheimer's talk, sat down quietly in the back, and he listened. He didn't check his email once. He didn't interrupt.

Those three things are all completely the opposite of the late Jobs' self-absorbed manner.

Cook later answered all their questions in a straightforward manner.

People think Cook's an excellent CEO. eWeek gives ten reasons why, starting with the seamless transition from Jobs to Cook with no lag for uncertainty and disquiet.

There may be a sea change at the top, but it hasn't so far led to anything perceptible to the more peripheral characters who need to deal with Apple.

I haven't met Cook (I didn't meet Jobs either), but so far I appreciate his honesty and the fact he's brought some humanity back to The Inc.

Before becoming CEO, Cook strengthened Apple's cooperation with its contract manufacturers in China and took it as a personal blow when the New York Times ran a prominent article critical of the working conditions in China at Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that assembles most of Apple's products. The exposé painted a bleak portrait of the lives of workers in the factories. To be fair to Apple, plants like this manufacture virtually all the products we buy in the West, not just Apple's, but the schadenfreude seemed to single out Apple in particular to carry the can, as this wonderful Joy of Tech cartoon aptly illustrates (thanks to Paul Stower for pointing this out).

It seems staff morale is still high at Apple, but so far under Cook's watch, no dramatically new product has been released - the iPhone 4S might be much better than the iPhone 4, but it's basically an upgraded smartphone. So all eyes turn back to that WWDC keynote (June 11, with the keynote scheduled for 10AM US Pacific Time).

As I have written before, a new MacBook may be the departure-from-form we've all been hoping for, and iOS6 and Mac OS Mountain Lion may also at least have their availability definitively announced. But who knows what else?

Cook, hopefully. Recently, he gave a rare interview which has ramped up the general speculation even more, although inevitably some of this comes from reading between the lines.

Cook sounds a bit modest and unassuming, but almost anybody is by comparison to Steve Jobs - and even by comparison to Steve Wozniak, these days. I have even read about how modest Cook's house is, by Silicon Valley magnate standards anyway. But his All Things D appearance presided over by Apple sycophant (in my opinion) Walt Mossberg was in front of a live audience and preceded by a gospel choir and a marching band, I kid you not. To Cook's credit, his opening words were "I would have never agreed to follow that act if you had told me."

It's a fascinating interview despite the shenanigans.

The AppleBitch blog (excuse the name, not my fault) has indulged in this along with many others, but this site often carries good, informed opinion. Besides, I like its attitude: "What makes us so special? Our opinion does. If you don't like it, contribute to the discussion, or bugger off," which kinda succinctly nails the zeitgeist of opinion blogs, don't you think? And please do note that Mac Planet is also an opinion blog, and not 'journalism'.

Reassuring to the faithful, Cook said that 'not accepting things good or very good, but only the best' is embedded at Apple.

"I'm not going to witness or permit the change of that."

But if your burning question was whether Apple was going to merge the toaster and the refrigerator ... no. As Cook told AllThingsD "That's not what is coming next week."

Phew.

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BlackBerry accepts its touchscreen future - New Zealand Herald

When Research In Motion chief executive Thorsten Heins unveiled a prototype of the new BlackBerry 10 phone this week, it lacked a feature that has kept legions of users loyal to the platform: a physical keyboard.

At the BlackBerry World expo in Orlando, Florida, he showed off a sleek touch-screen device that more closely resembled an iPhone or Android smartphone than the keypad-equipped BlackBerrys of old.

While RIM still plans to produce models with keyboards, the demonstration was the biggest signal yet that the company was shifting to a touch-screen world.

RIM, which is counting on its redesigned BlackBerry 10 line-up to reverse a sales slump, faces a quandary. Smartphone users have embraced virtual keyboards, evidenced by Apple and Google accounting for more than 80 per cent of the market.

Even so, taking away RIM's physical keypad removes a feature that distinguishes it from the competition.

"Some will lament it, but others will embrace it," said Nigel Hughes, a vice-president in charge of sales at SteelCloud, which builds BlackBerry-compatible security software and hardware for customers such as the US Department of Defence.

"It's a recognition that the future is without a keyboard."

RIM could use a boost. Sales at the Waterloo, Ontario-based company tumbled 25 per cent last quarter, with US revenue plummeting more than 50 per cent. And RIM's share of the smartphone subscribers shrank to 12 per cent in the period, making it a distant third in the industry, according to ComScore. Google's Android operating system accounted for 51 per cent of the market, while Apple's iPhone had 31 per cent.

The iPhone's debut in 2007, followed by Android devices a year later, showed that users were willing to embrace phones without a keyboard.

While RIM made a foray into the touch-screen market in 2008 with the BlackBerry Storm, most of its line-up kept the keypads. The Storm was criticised for buggy software and was outsold by the BlackBerry Curve and Bold models, which both feature keyboards.

For Mousser Jerbi, a longtime BlackBerry fan, the new prototype's lack of a keyboard is a deal killer.

Jerbi plans to keep his current BlackBerry Bold rather than upgrade to the touch-screen phone. The keyboard makes it easy to tap out emails - something that sets the old BlackBerry apart from a sea of iPhones and Android devices.

Jerbi, who runs corporate sales for Groupe Tunisie Telecom, Tunisia's biggest wireless carrier, is sceptical the new model will catch on with loyalists. Even the name "BlackBerry" evokes the device's black keys, which resemble seeds.

"Getting rid of the keyboard is risky," said Jerbi, who once tried switching to an iPhone, only to switch back. "Especially for the email user, the BlackBerry experience is very good."

RIM began releasing the prototype to developers this week, saying it would be representative of the device's hardware - even if the final design is different. Features, such as word prediction, will make it easy for BlackBerry fans to adjust to a touch screen, Heins said.

Scrapping the physical keyboard from the initial BlackBerry 10 device will put it in closer competition with the iPhone and Android models, such as the Samsung Galaxy S. That could be tough for RIM, said Stephen Beck, a managing partner at the technology consulting firm CG42 in Wilton, Connecticut.

"If you're forcing a migration to non-keyboard, you're going to get people asking, 'What's the best of breed of those devices?"' Beck said. "Given the momentum of iPhone and Android, that's going to be a tough argument for RIM to win."

Michael Clewley, director of handheld software product management at RIM, reassured BlackBerry World attendees that the company will eventually offer something for everyone with the BlackBerry 10 operating system. That may include slide-out keyboards, as well as traditional keypads.

"RIM has always had a wide range of devices," he said yesterday. "We're dedicated to having a form factor that fits your needs."

- Bloomberg

By Hugo Miller

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