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2010-10-25 03:55:10
Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Sun Oct 24, 8:17 pm ET
Apple released a couple of new computers, showed off its upcoming operating system and launched an updated suite of applications this week. But it also did what Apple does best: Stay in the headlines.
CEO Steve Jobs began the week by joining in an earnings call with other executives, media and analysts, gloating about the company's latest record-setting sales: $20.34 billion in revenue and $4.31 billion in profit, including proceeds from 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 nillion iPads in the fourth quarter. Although sales of iPods were down 11 percent (with knowledge of a refresh coming in September), the iPhone's numbers soared 91 percent and Mac sales were up 91 percent.
Jabs From Jobs
In the course of the conversation, Jobs boasted that Apple products had outsold leading competitor Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices -- "I don't see them catching up to us in the foreseeable future," he said -- and played down the surge in phones powered by Google's Android operating system, pointing out the diversity of devices using the open-source system and the many ways manufacturers tinker with it, compared to Apple's closed, integrated system.
"In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide what's best for the customer, fragmented versus integrated," said Jobs, according to a published transcript. "We think Android is very fragmented and becoming more fragmented by the day ... We see tremendous value in having Apple rather than our users be the systems integrator." To make his point, Jobs noted that when Twitter launched its app for Android "they had to contend with more than 100 different vesions of Android on 244 different handsets."
For good measure, Jobs then took a shot at the rival manufacturers rushing tablet devices to the market to compete with Apple's iPad, noting the difference in quality between a seven-inch and 10-inch screen. "Apple has done extensive user testing on user interfaces over many years and we really understand this stuff," he said, according to the transcript. He dismissed the smaller devices as "tweeners," caught between smartphones and tablets. And then there's the 35,000 iPad apps ...
Thin Airs
Even as the dust was settling on that unusual move, Jobs was back in the headlines Wednesday with his familiar black sweater and jeans reaffirming the company's commitment to the Mac computers that put it on the map, with a revamped operating system called Lion, iLife 11 for media use, FaceTime Wi-Fi video chatting for the Mac and, not least, brand-spanking new thinner, lighter MacBook Air laptops.
The new Air, with a 13-inch screen, has a "younger brother," Jobs said, with an 11-inch screen, and both are 0.68 of an inch thick, tapering to 0.11 of an inch, and just 2.3 pounds, with Intel Core Duo processors. Jobs said the Air is twice as fast and duplicates the convenience of the iPad with instant activation, long battery life, 30-day standby, and solid-state storage with no optical or hard drive.
"We wanted to see what would happen if an iPad and a Mac hooked up," he said. But there is no touchscreen on the new computers, only a multi-touch capable trackpad. Jobs said it would be too ergonomically difficult to reach straight out to touch the screen for prolonged computer use, as opposed to the more media-oriented iPad.
The press wasn't as good for Apple later in the week, when the company had to scramble to fix a security flaw in FaceTime for Mac uncovered by MacWorld Germany: The applicaton automatically stored usernames and passwords on a computer and allows signing into the iTunes store from the application without a separate log-in. The company quickly redirected FaceTime users to a separate log-in.
One last piece of Apple news rounded out the week when, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said her kids aren't allowed to have iPods.
"I have gotten that argument -- 'You may have a Zune,' " the co-chairwoman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said she told her children. Asked if she had an iPad or if her husband owns a MacBook, Mrs. Gates said, "Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep." She added: "Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh. Go talk to Bill."