Apple finding it hard to stay humble
Many companies have filed earnings reports this week, and Apple is having a hard time staying humble about their successes this past quarter.
“Everyone is feeling the bite this year,” says Tim Cook, acting CEO of Apple. “Even the portable media market has been extremely hard hit. Zune sales are down more than 50%, you know. And iPod sales were hurting too. Yep, iPods were only up 3%, so we totally know what Microsoft is feeling right now.”
Tim Cook, Peter Oppenheimer and others are trying to keep things professional, but some in the organization aren’t holding up so well.
“I guess Johnson [Apple VP of retail operations] called a VP over at Microsoft and offered to trade him Microsoft shares for Apple shares, one for one. Then he was all ‘oh, wait, our stock is worth, like, five times as much as yours.’ ” Cook told us. “So then he offered to trade him used iTunes gift cards for Microsoft stock, one for one. We told him that was in bad taste. Funny, but in bad taste.”
“It’s not easy,” said Phil Schiller. “I mean, I’m no Steve Jobs, but how many people do you think tuned in to my Philcast after the event? How many people downloaded it, put it on their iPods, and watched it a few times? And all I was doing was announcing some changes to iWork and iLife Now, how many people here even know that Steve Ballmer gave a keynote at CES? That’s right, nobody. Still, we try to act like we’re just one of the boys.”
“And then there’s the OS market,” says Jonathan Ive. “Have you seen Windows 7 yet? Let’s just say the ‘I’m a mac, I’m a PC commercials aren’t going anywhere when that comes out. Hey, I saw a joke written on the side of a toilet stall the other day: ‘How many Windows developers does it take to make Vista not suck? Give up? They can’t, they’re all too busy appearing in commercials with washed-up comedians!” We waited for several minutes while he regained his composure. “But seriously,” Ive continued. “Snow Leopard, even with its minor, tune-up changes, is going to rock harder than Windows 7 could even imagine.”
And so we left the Apple Campus1, a sense of optimism in our hearts and tears of pride in our eyes. Whatever economic turmoil lies ahead, we know that Apple will remain strong and solvent, even if we can’t personally afford anything they produce.
- without armed escort for once, which was kinda nice. [↩]
I can’t believe I commented before Sue.
Next time you see Jony Ive, explain to him the difference between the contraction and the possessive—it’s only his native tongue.
We repaired Jony’s grammar for him.
Let’s all sing the song together: “If you want it to be posessive it’s just I-T-S, but if you want it to be a contraction it’s I-T apostrophe S! Scalawag!”
Sorry, Ace. Sleeping on the job.
I can has Snow Leopard plz. Kthxbai.
Nate, you forgot to tell us what key to sing in. That’s why I sounded so awful.
Now let’s sing this song (in the key of X):
“There’s no leopard like Snow Leopard, like no leopard I know…”
Everything about it is appealing……