Support NeoGAF

[snack]

So... is AAPL going to plunge in price now?

 

[chaostrophy]

Elaborate.

If not apple, then who? Microsoft?

Yeah, why not. Microsoft doesn't get the adoration that Apple does because they haven't bothered to carefully cultivate a brand identity. But they have created a versatile OS that runs on hardware of my choosing, not theirs. That takes serious engineering muscle. Apple can't or won't. Apple's chief innovation was to condition people through marketing to surrender control of the hardware they own. A hugely damaging trend to set.

 

[LyleLanley]

So... is AAPL going to plunge in price now?

Probably not much more than it already has, I think rational people understand that Apple is in a good position and it has smart people running it, even without Jobs.

 

[Polari]

sadly enough, this probably means his health is deteriorating and that he'll die soon.

Indeed. He doesn't seem like the sort of man that would resign unless he absolutely had to.

 

[wolfmat]

I never saw this, that's amazing. It's like the eXistenZ Macbook.

More like the 'Naked Lunch' MacBook.

 

[Technosteve]

After Jobs, who's the next auteur? I say no one

 

[Big-E]

Have never bought an apple product but his influence was large.

 

[numble]

Apple's chief innovation was to condition people through marketing to surrender control of the hardware they own. A hugely damaging trend to set.

That wasn't Apple's chief innovation by a longshot.

 

[Phoenix]

But didn't you also state that Wednesday's volatility was born on by the anticipation of Jobs' imminent news? That subsequently affected the performance of a majority of other stocks in the exact same manner?

Nope, I didn't say anything about any other stocks being effected in the same manner. The beta is a measure of how AAPL moves with the market, the indices. If the market is moving in a positive direction, the beta tells us that AAPL will (in the long run - not on any one particular day) be moving in a positive direction.

What is know is that Tim Cook was elected CEO by the board *before* the announcement was made, not after. This news leaks out to the market, it always does and AAPL's stock moves as a result. On a positive news day there is a HUGE dip in AAPL stock about mid day which is recovered in the afternoon. There is an outlier at about 11AM of a large volume of selling that is not traditional for the normal volume on the stock. Historical analysis has shown that this generally represents information that a leak or 'sufficient information for strong supposition' is available so that some people sell. The Sprint news came out before 11AM and this is a strong positive signal for AAPL so why is the stock declining around this time with a huge volume spike?

 

[hyp]

For introducing iPhone this man will always be a legend to me.

word. i practically creamed my pants during the epic keynote.

 

[LCfiner]

Yeah, why not. Microsoft doesn't get the adoration that Apple does because they haven't bothered to carefully cultivate a brand identity. But they have created a versatile OS that runs on hardware of my choosing, not theirs. That takes serious engineering muscle. Apple can't or won't. Apple's chief innovation was to condition people through marketing to surrender control of the hardware they own. A hugely damaging trend to set.

oh brother. such a small minded POV


Apple’s chief innovation was in recognizing that design matters. that ease of use matters. that user interaction matters.

No other company has made so many different products that attempted to improve the user experience and make things easier to use for people.

 

[Polari]

Probably not much more than it already has, I think rational people understand that Apple is in a good position and it has smart people running it, even without Jobs.

Perhaps. The next five years are going to be pretty challenging for Apple, with the move into the cloud and the Android onslaught. Losing Jobs is a huge blow, he's single-handedly responsible for the Apple of today.

 

[scorcho]

Nope, I didn't say anything about any other stocks being effected in the same manner. The beta is a measure of how AAPL moves with the market, the indices. If the market is moving in a positive direction, the beta tells us that AAPL will (in the long run - not on any one particular day) be moving in a positive direction.

What is know is that Tim Cook was elected CEO by the board *before* the announcement was made, not after. This news leaks out to the market, it always does and AAPL's stock moves as a result. On a positive news day there is a HUGE dip in AAPL stock about mid day which is recovered in the afternoon. There is an outlier at about 11AM of a large volume of selling that is not traditional for the normal volume on the stock. Historical analysis has shown that this generally represents information that a leak or 'sufficient information for strong supposition' is available so that some people sell. The Sprint news came out before 11AM and this is a strong positive signal for AAPL so why is the stock declining around this time with a huge volume spike?

actually, my point was that other stocks seem to mimic Apple's hour-to-hour performance on Wednesday, as do the major indicies. granted, i don't have an MBA and haven't studied the stock market to any extensive degree, but i'd assume that Apples performance on the day doesn't seemed timed to Apple-specific news and just followed the ebbs and flows of the market as a whole.

 

[StuBurns]

oh brother. such a small minded POV


Apple’s chief innovation was in recognizing that design matters. that ease of use matters. that user interaction matters.

No other company has made so many different products that attempted to improve the user experience and make things easier to use for people.

That's been the big thing having used Apple's products has shown me. It's true you don't get the choice of hardware, and you pay more, but to me you get the best software and the best looking hardware. I think a lack of hardware variation is a small price to pay for the benefits.

Saying that, I do have a Windows PC for gaming too.

 

[Phoenix]

Perhaps. The next five years are going to be pretty challenging for Apple, with the move into the cloud and the Android onslaught. Losing Jobs is a huge blow, he's single-handedly responsible for the Apple of today.

I would say that he is single-handedly responsible for the culture of innovation at Apple today. Its up to Tim and company to keep that going and to keep the bar raised so that they don't start coming up with crap. Jobs hasn't written a line of code, he hasn't manufactured a device or designed a device. He has created an environment where he is very hard on anything getting out the door from a user experience and usability perspective, but he himself didn't really create any of the products.

 

[Draft]

Now that HP is dead, his work is over.

Rest well, Steve Jobs. You've done the world a huge favor.

 

[LyleLanley]

Perhaps. The next five years are going to be pretty challenging for Apple, with the move into the cloud and the Android onslaught. Losing Jobs is a huge blow, he's single-handedly responsible for the Apple of today.

Don't get me wrong, Jobs was a huge part of what made Apple what it is today but I think he, along with the rest of Apple, has prepared the company for this day. His previous leaves of absence have shown that Tim Cook & co, are more than capable of handeling this. When he left Apple in the 80's the company was left in the hands of people who didn't know what they were doing with the company, I don't think the same is true about Tim Cook at all.

 

[Hexadecimalt]

Wow. You'll always remember where you were when you heard this news.

What the fuck.

I was there when Steve Jobs resigned

Time to bring back the colored eMacs.

I'LL NEVER FORGET WHERE I WAS WHEN STEVE STEPPED DOWN.

...As if millions of Gizmodo editors cried out in terror, and were silenced.

wow this is like tech 9/11

really intense crazy stuff -- too much to process right now

These are hilarious and this whole thing is pretty interesting from a tech perspective.

On a personal level, I hope Jobs is able to still enjoy the time he has left without too much suffering.

 

[Angry Fork]

I hate Apple but Jobs deserves all the respect he gets. He's a visionary for sure.

 

[krypt0nian]

The man literally changed the world. Quite a phenomenal legacy.

 

[LJ11]

Err irrational market theory? Sounds like you're referring to efficient market theory.

 

[upandaway]

Thank god I glanced at the internet (I'm at the army right now). Holy shit.

This timing is ridiculous. The future is like a weird blurred picture of gray over white.

 

[Polari]

I would say that he is single-handedly responsible for the culture of innovation at Apple today. Its up to Tim and company to keep that going and to keep the bar raised so that they don't start coming up with crap. Jobs hasn't written a line of code, he hasn't manufactured a device or designed a device. He has created an environment where he is very hard on anything getting out the door from a user experience and usability perspective, but he himself didn't really create any of the products.

It's all his vision though. Everything Apple has produced has been exactly the way Jobs wanted it. Programmers, designers were just his tools. If you don't believe me, look at NeXT and the computers they created. They're still very much in line with Apple's design principles today, from the hardware to the operating system. Google has loads of top programmers and designers. Microsoft has loads of top programmers and designers. What they're missing is a guiding vision, pulling it all together. I think there's a lot to detest about the man, but he's definitely irreplaceable.

 

[JJDinomite]

A modern legend, a visionary, and a great man. Apple will never be the same without him.

 

[Phoenix]

actually, my point was that other stocks seem to mimic Apple's hour-to-hour performance on Wednesday, as do the major indicies. granted, i don't have an MBA and haven't studied the stock market to any extensive degree, but i'd assume that Apples performance on the day doesn't seemed timed to Apple-specific news and just followed the ebbs and flows of the market as a whole.

That, of course, would be more akin to efficient market theory. Let me grab something to eat and I'll lay it out in more detail. One of the major issues is that there wasn't much market movement today over ally - the indices being roughly 1-1.2% off their starts. It really matters which stocks you're looking at and what their beta's are. If you pick a lot of closely beta'd stocks they will all generally follow similar market movements and when you see some fluctuation its normally some other signal from a different market that has caused that one player to deviate.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Apple’s chief innovation was in recognizing that design matters. that ease of use matters. that user interaction matters.

Apple's chief innovation was practically inventing usable personable computing. Apple II.

Jobs will go down in history as one of the top entrepreneurs of all time. He is up there with Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Gates.

 

[Daft_Cat]

Sad to see this happening around the same time as Jack Layton's surprise resignation (and ultimate death). I know they're not related, but they both seem to be going along similar trails. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for both.

Unfortunately, as most other posters are saying, this likely means the worst. I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up to some very bad news within the next couple days.

Hope I'm wrong.

 

[LCfiner]

Apple's chief innovation was practically inventing usable personable computing. Apple II.

Jobs will go down in history as one of the top entrepreneurs of all time. He is up there with Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Gates.

well, that too but I didn’t want to go back that far.

also, don’t forget Ping!

(no, let’s forget Ping)


on another note, it’s very stupid but Josh Topulsky’s ridiculous impersonation of Tim Cook as GW Bush hawking iPhones is cracking me up.

 

[StuBurns]

Anyone know if the iPhone shipped 10M units in the first year? At the end of the conference Jobs said that was their goal for the first year.

 

[kehs]

Ever since I saw that ted talk about algorithms used to hide money exchanges, they always pop into my mind when I see "news" like this. I'm guessing Apple top level people just moved a shit load of money around.

 

[chaostrophy]

No other company has made so many different products that attempted to improve the user experience and make things easier to use for people.

I'm just not convinced that their products actually are easier to use though. Last time I interacted with an Apple product was when I bought my wife an iPod a couple of Christmases ago...and iTunes would not recognize it. There was some kind of strange bug that surfaced because of multiple iPods attaching to the same computer and user account. I have never had trouble like that with my Cowon or SanDisk mp3 players, that also functioned without the additional step of installing dedicated software. I know plenty of people who use Macs, and they do have technical issues. Of course Windows machines can fuck up too, but honestly ease of use seems like a wash to me. The perception of ease of use is more about the brand identity conditioning people who buy into it to be more forgiving of the products when they trip up.

 

[Phoenix]

It's all his vision though. Everything Apple has produced has been exactly the way Jobs wanted it. Programmers, designers were just his tools. If you don't believe me, look at NeXT and the computers they created. They're still very much in line with Apple's design principles today, from the hardware to the operating system. Google has loads of top programmers and designers. Microsoft has loads of top programmers and designers. What they're missing is a guiding vision, pulling it all together. I think there's a lot to detest about the man, but he's definitely irreplaceable.

It all depends on whether or not you believe that you can inspire others to be great and get them to perform at an exceptional level. I believe Jobs was that type of leader, someone who didn't just say "build me this" but who brought others up to that level where THEY would start to demand 'better than crap - not just ENOUGH to go to market'. A huge example of this was the original .mac which was shit in Jobs eyes. He believed that it actually damaged the reputation of the company and he shit canned the people responsible for it. The people who came afterwards had to step their game up to be at that level and that product team came up with iCloud.

It would be a failure of Jobs if he couldn't impart his desire for greatness onto Tim and others. I personally believe that after Jobs' original screw up with Scully he learned his lesson - that just getting a good CEO isn't enough. You have to groom someone to succeed you and impart your values on them such that a lot of your soul and spirit become their natural state.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Anyone know if the iPhone shipped 10M units in the first year? At the end of the conference Jobs said that was their goal for the first year.

http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/06/apple-sold-10-million-iphones-in-2008/

By using some fairly interesting IMEI collection, the folks at Mac Observer have found that Apple sold 10 million iPhones in 2008, reaching and potentially surpassing Steve’s original stated goal

 

[LyleLanley]

It would be a failure of Jobs if he couldn't impart his desire for greatness onto Tim and others. I personally believe that after Jobs' original screw up with Scully he learned his lesson - that just getting a good CEO isn't enough. You have to groom someone to succeed you and impart your values on them such that a lot of your soul and spirit become their natural state.

I really think that with Tim Cook, and possibly more importantly Johnny Ive, the company will be fine and will continue to prosper.

 

[StuBurns]

http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/06/apple-sold-10-million-iphones-in-2008/

Cool, thanks. I have no doubt that's very impressive objectively, but it's 1% market share in a year doesn't seem that much really.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Cool, thanks. I have no doubt that's very impressive objectively, but it's 1% market share in a year doesn't seem that much really.

Yeah, things were a lot different back then. Its hard to remember sometimes. I haven't thought about '07 to '08 iPhone in a long time. The majority of my experience/perception of the iPhone is from a pre-Appstore era. Even now I'm extremely extremely cynical and skeptical of "apps." I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Crazy how times have changed, certainly.

 

[StuBurns]

3G was my first, I don't think I've ever used the original, but an iPhone without an AppStore just seems alien in concept to me.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

It was cool, it had a Download manager. But the files you downloaded couldn't be played with the iPod app so you had to use this kind of awful media library thing called dTunes. And whenever there was a link to a file in a webpage in the browser it would completely break the webpage to put a huge "download this file" button in place of the link.

 

[entremet]

People forget that the original iPhone was selling out at a 500/600 dollar price tag. Insane when you think about it.

 

[wolfmat]

Yeah, things were a lot different back then. Its hard to remember sometimes. I haven't thought about '07 to '08 iPhone in a long time. […] Crazy how times have changed, certainly.

You know, it's really crazy how fast shit changes these days. News from a week ago is basically prehistoric. That used to be different. I blame the internet.

 

[Bboy AJ]

We still aren't moving fast enough, IMO.

People forget that the original iPhone was selling out at a 500/600 dollar price tag. Insane when you think about it.

Not really. Hence the price drop. I was one of the elite that got the iPhone OG. The 3G iPhone crowd is terrible. That's when grandmothers and proles got their hands on it. Disgusting.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

We still aren't moving fast enough, IMO.

Mhmm.

 

[Tobor]

3G was my first, I don't think I've ever used the original, but an iPhone without an AppStore just seems alien in concept to me.

Heh. I remember when the App Store launched, that would be a good thread to dig up.

 

[Reagan's BR]

Wow! I hope he is doing ok!

 

[marrec]

You know, it's really crazy how fast shit changes these days. News from a week ago is basically prehistoric. That used to be different. I blame the internet.

I love how the Resignation of Steve Jobs is giving people existential crisises.

 

[Bgamer90]

3G was my first, I don't think I've ever used the original, but an iPhone without an AppStore just seems alien in concept to me.

Same here.

I had an iPod Touch a few months after it released. So I dealt with iOS pre-App Store.

For some reason though I just don't really remember how it was. It wasn't even that long ago. So weird lol.

 

[wolfmat]

I love how the Resignation of Steve Jobs is giving people existential crisises.

No existential crisis here. I'm just saying. I noticed that in the last two years or so, this seemed like a good opportunity to bring it up as a sidenote.

 

[marrec]

No existential crisis here. I'm just saying. I noticed that in the last two years or so, this seemed like a good opportunity to bring it up as a sidenote.

Well as a sidenote, I don't think the acceleration of the news cycle is a bad thing, this next week is going to seem LOOONG and next weekend everyone will look around and say 'It's only been a week since Jobs resigned?!'

I don't see much discussion of it in this thread but any idea of why he resigned? It was unexpected to say the least. Maybe it's his health?

I wouldn't say it was unexpected, we all expected it to happen sometime this year. Now, on a Wednesday night in August? Probably not...

Why? His health is running down and he's one of those guys who has to take work home with him (To say the least).

 

[Josh7289]

I don't see much discussion of it in this thread but any idea of why he resigned? It was unexpected to say the least. Maybe it's his health?

 

[Tetraeon]

You guys know the drill. Stocks go down because of Steve's resignation. Said stocks are purchased by wary market watchers. Come September, Apple's next 'groundbreaking innovation' will boost the prices again. Said purchasers sell.

Don't get me wrong, it's sad to see such an influential man who has practically been the face of Apple (and who helped shape the company's meteoric rise to success) resign, but I think it's going to be a refreshing change for the company.

Either way, I wish him the best in his battle against cancer. He'll need time to recover, and I'm glad to see that he's keeping his foot in the pool, per-se.