| rss2email.ru |
 Удобные штучки  |  Автоинструктор безопасного вождения  |  Эквиумский бложик  |  Интернет-журнал СуперИнвестор.Ru  |
 |  TheAppleBlogNews, reviews, walkthroughs, and real-life application of Apple products http://theappleblog.com рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Mac 101: Target Disk Mode
Apple’s Target Disk Mode is an essential tool built-in to every Mac. It has become irrelevant simply because switchers today aren’t aware that it’s even there.
Apple’s primary document explaining Target Disk Mode covers nearly every Firewire equipped Mac beginning with the slot-loading iMac back in the PowerPC G3 days of 1999. Today, there are over 150 docs on Apple’s Knowledge Base that incorporate the use of Target Disk Mode in troubleshooting.
Apple obviously notices the trend that its customers are not using this powerful tool any longer. Two of Apple’s current Macs don’t even include Firewire (MacBook and MacBook Air) and this technology simply won’t work over USB.
Why would someone need this anyway? Let’s say you start up your Mac and nothing happens. There’s no login window and no boot screen at all. You hear the hard drive whirling around but that’s it. After inserting the Mac OS X disk, you can see the HDD is mounted and you only have two options. The first is to erase the disk for an OS reinstall and the other is to scan the drive for errors. Well, an error check doesn’t help and now you’re stuck with a non-booting Mac and a few important files that weren’t backed up.
On most modern Macs, pulling out the HDD and putting it in a 2.5″ external HDD enclosure will do just fine but you need those files now. All you must do is plug in a Firewire cable and connect the other end to another Mac with Firewire. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you must be lucky enough to have a spare Mac with Firewire laying around.
Once the two computers are connected, simply boot up the healthy Mac login. On the other computer, hold down the “T” key and hit the power button. With a little luck, the previously non-booting machine’s HDD will appear on your functioning Mac’s desktop. Voilà, you can now successfully copy those files to your working Mac and run the dead machine to an Apple Store.
Target Disk Mode is a powerful utility that can really help out in a bind. What other users for it have you found?
Переслать - Apple Conference Call: The Non-Boring Stuff
Apple’s excruciatingly boring conference call for the third fiscal quarter has come and gone, but if you didn’t listen, or couldn’t stay awake, here are the top 10 items of interest (to me).
1) Apple’s Fab Four: Revenue Breakdown by Major Product
Sure, the iTunes Store earned over a billion dollars, and other hardware and software accounted for about $2 billion this quarter, but so what? That’s what the iPad earned in its debut quarter, or about one out of every seven revenue dollars. The “three-legged” revenue stool just became a four-legged comfy chair.
2) Not surprisingly, Apple announced the hundredth million iOS device (iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch) was sold sometime in June. RIM announced the same thing for BlackBerry OS in June, but what’s interesting is that RIM has been selling the BlackBerry since 2002. The first iOS device, the iPhone, went on sale in June 2007.
3) A new record was set for revenue, but not the $15.7 billion Apple earned for the June quarter, though a record it was. This Thursday, Microsoft is expected to report earnings of $15.27 billion. Can you hear the chairs whizzing through air in Steve Ballmer’s office?
4) A new record was set for Mac sales, some 3.472 million Macs sold during the June quarter, up 33 percent year-over-year. The Mac not only out-paced the growth rate for PCs, around 20 percent, but saw insane growth in Europe, 46 percent, and even more insane growth in Asia, 71 percent.
5) “Antennagate” came up once directly, and once tangentially. First, iPhone 4 returns continue to be “less than the iPhone 3GS,” and for that “specific issue” they are “extremely small.” Second, Apple is projecting a $175 million “free bumper” deferral to revenue for the holiday quarter.
6) Apple execs continue to ignore and obfuscate regarding the threat of Android, saying only that the iPhone is “growing substantially faster than the market.” Well, Google is allegedly activating 160,000 Android phones a day, and growing substantially faster than the iPhone, around 93,000 a day over the last quarter.
7) Speaking of that iPhone growth issue, once again, when asked about exclusivity and AT&T, Apple execs said, “we won’t get into what we will or won’t do, but we’re very happy to be with AT&T.” I swear I heard teeth grinding.
8) More than 60 million people visited 293 Apple Stores last quarter, spending $2.68 billion. They purchased, among other Apple things, some 677,000 Macs. That’s about one out of five Macs sold, and “about half” of the buyers had never previously owned a Mac.
9) Apple now has $45.8 billion in cash, enough to pay for the Olympics in Beijing, bailout Greece, buy Warren Buffet, or every Apple fan’s dream, Nintendo.
10) On the issue of the iPad cannibalizing the Mac, it was suggested instead that a kind of “synergy” could happen. Looking at the iPod, it was “felt the iPod created a halo for the Mac,” as “iPod volumes took off, you see a dramatic change in Mac sales back in time.” And people thought Apple forcing the iPad to be tethered to a computer was a mistake.
And just in case the iPad does cannibalize Mac sales,”it’s great to have a lower share.” Seriously, that’s what was said in response to another question about the iPad and Mac sales. “If the iPad cannibalizes PCs, then that’s fantastic for us, because there’s a lot of PCs to cannibalize.”
Who knew Apple losing the PC wars could have been so fortuitous.
Переслать - Apple Q3 2010: Record Mac Sales
Anyone who thought the Mac is dead needs to think different(ly). Apple sold 3.472 million Macs last quarter, along with 3.270 million iPads to sync them with. Out of sync, maybe, were iPod and iPhone sales, but for Apple it was another quarter for the record books.
For the third fiscal quarter, Apple reported revenue of $15.7 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 EPS. It was a new record, besting last year’s holiday quarter of $15.68 billion, and nearly doubling the $8.34 billion from a year ago. Steve Jobs, no doubt rolling on piles of greenbacks, sent the expected exultant press release from his iPad.
"It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple's history with iPhone 4," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year."
Regarding the iPad, 3.27 million were sold last quarter, a staggering number when you consider that it may equal the combined sales of all Windows Tablet and Slate PCs in 2010. Even better, concerns that the iPad might negatively impact Mac sales appear to be thus far refuted.
Apple sold a record 3.472 million Macs in the third quarter, up 33 percent from 2.603 last year, nearly double the 1.734 million Macs sold just four years ago. Laptop sales, bolstered by new MacBook Pros and MacBooks, were 2.468 million, up 41 percent over last year. Desktop sales were 1.004 million, a positive change of 18 percent from last year. While the redesigned Mac mini was released late in the quarter, it will have negligible impact going forward. As Steve Jobs has said, Apple is a “mobility” company, and a 70/30 split between laptops and desktops last quarter exemplifies that trend.
Another clearly evident trend is flattening iPod sales. Apple sold 9.406 million iPods in the third quarter, versus 10.215 million last year, a decrease of 8 percent. Although unit sales were comparatively weak, change in revenue was up four percent. This is due to increased sales of the iPod touch with its higher average selling price, which is also good news for the viability of the iOS platform.
As for the iPhone, Apple sold 8.398 million, compared to 5.208 during the same period last year, a 61 percent increase. So much for the “Antenngate” controversy so far, though a real issue appears to be channel inventory weakness. With a shocking ship time of three weeks at the online store, and repeated delays of the white model, Apple appears to be having serious problems catching up with demand for the iPhone 4.
Expect that issue to come up at the conference call today, which TheAppleBlog will be covering. We’ll be bored, so you don’t have to.
Переслать - How-To: Use Firefox Home for the iPhone
Last week saw the arrival of Firefox on the iPhone, but not as we know it. Mozilla’s new app, known as Firefox Home, is not strictly a browser — instead it brings your desktop browsing session direct to your iPhone.
The free app from Firefox, which now joins Opera as a browser company with a presence in the App Store, brings a user’s search history, saved passwords, bookmarks and open tabs to an iPhone or iPod touch. This harmony between multiple devices is made possible due to a Firefox desktop add-on from Mozilla dubbed Firefox Sync. As the name suggests, the free-to-use Firefox Sync add-on synchronizes all of a users browsing data, from multiple devices — making it readily available in the cloud, wherever a Firefox browser is installed.
But how can you get your Firefox browsing data, be it from a PC or Mac, on your iPhone? Our guide shows you how.
Getting Started
The first thing you are going to need to do is download the application from the App Store.
Install The Add-On
When you open up the companion application the first thing you will be asked is whether you have a Firefox Sync account. If you do, then you can go ahead and select the appropriate option to proceed. But for those who don’t have an account you will need to head to a computer to get going.
When at your computer (in my case a PC, as I tend not to use Firefox on my Mac) open up Firefox and navigate to Mozilla’s sync add-on page. Follow the on-screen prompts to get the add-on installed and restart the browser.
Set-Up Sync
When the browser restarts a pop-up will prompt you to begin the setup process for the now installed extension. As you are new to Firefox Sync you will need to select ‘I’ve never used Sync before’. Selecting this will begin the sign-up process. The sign-up process is a typical one made up of a few simple steps. You will need to provide a username, password, email and a 12-character secret phrase.
With all your sign-in credentials in order you will then need to name your device, for example ‘My Windows 7 PC’ or ‘My Mac Mini’. Taking a few seconds to name your device correctly is an important step for later use, as when you have multiple sync’s in place it’s an easy way to see what data is from what device.
Once all the data has been added, the sign-up process will be completed. You will now find a new ‘Sync’ option in your browser under the Tools menu. A sync of your data is automatically made once a day, however this new menu will show you specifically when a last sync was made, in addition to allowing you to make a sync take place manually.
Back to the App
Now all the settings are in place, it’s time to try the application. Select ‘I Have A Sync Account’ and enter the same login information, including your secret phrase, that you just entered on your computer.
When logged in you will see four options: Search, Tabs, Bookmarks and Settings. The Settings page will let you sign-out, refresh your synced data and see what data is being sync in the cloud. As expected, the Bookmarks, Search and Tabs pages show a listing of any bookmarks, history or open tabs you have from your last sync. Sadly Firefox’s application is lacking in one browsing essential — an address bar. You can’t manually input a URL, therefore using the search tool seems to be the most effective way to navigate around, allowing access to any pages in your history.
And that’s how you use Firefox Home on your iPhone.
Thoughts On Firefox Home
Why Mozilla decided to take this route for its mobile application is unknown, especially considering Opera’s success in getting Opera Mini approved and on the App Store, address bar included. However, despite its flaws, the app does have some value. Take this example — you’re about to head out but want to continue working on a few things while on the move. Mozilla’s app makes this a fairly easy and instant reality, allowing you to pick up where you left off, tabs intact. How often this scenario would arise to be of great benefit to someone is unknown, but the option sure is nice.
While using the app a few things were noticed; the pinch to zoom, like Opera Mini, isn’t quite right. If you have a lot of data to sync, it can take a little while. Finally, unlike the full desktop sync service, the mobile version is not compatible with private servers.
Firefox Home is available to download for free from Apple’s App Store now. Have you tried it, and if so, what are your thoughts on this ‘browser companion’?
Переслать - First Look: Filemaker Go
Filemaker, an Apple subsidiary, has now brought its signature database solution to iOS devices. Filemaker Go, a new app for the iPhone, and Filemaker Go for iPad can run databases locally or act as a client to Filemaker databases that are hosted on the desktop or server version of Filemaker Pro. Filemaker devotees should be thrilled with the ability to run existing databases without modification on their iPhone or iPad.
Filemaker Go is not meant to create database solutions on its own, but rather to access and update an existing database. You still need to create the database schema and design the layouts on the desktop application Filemaker Pro and then move them to your iPhone or iPad. You can load the databases by transferring them in iTunes, emailing them as an attachment to an account that is set up on your device, or by clicking a web link to download the file directly. If you run the database locally, you can transfer it back to your desktop computer via iTunes. Filemaker Go can also access a database over the network and thus makes a fantastic mobile client to a hosted, multi-user solution.
In the demonstration that I saw last week, Filemaker Go performed like a champ when opening desktop databases. By using pinch and zoom and smart zoom on input fields, it was actually pretty easy to use existing database without any modifications. The controls have been adapted to iOS in a really smart way so that the touch UI works very well on existing layouts.
Scripts run on Filemaker Go without modification. There are a few functions from the desktop application that are not available in Filemaker Go. Some are obvious, like printing script steps that just will not work on an iPhone or iPad. There are a few other features like charts and snapshot links (both introduced in Filemaker 11) that have not made their way into the Filemaker Go app yet. You can find more details in the Filemaker Go Development Guide.
I am really excited about the potential of Filemaker Go. The only downside for me is the decision to split the app into an iPhone version and an iPad version. The higher price for the iPad version is tough to accept when there is no difference in functionality. I would have much preferred a universal app that I could buy once and use on both my iPhone and my iPad. That said, even the $40 for the iPad version, while high for an app, seems very reasonable for a great mobile client for Filemaker when you compare it to the cost of a desktop license.Filemaker Go requires iOS 4.0 or higher on the iPhone. Filemaker Go for iPad requires iOS 3.2 or better. Because the file format has not changed since Filemaker 7, Filemaker Go can run databases created on any version of Filemaker from 7 on up to the current 11. You will need Filemaker 10 or 11 to host a network database that can be used by Filemaker Go. Filemaker Go and Filemaker Go for iPad are available today for $19.99 and $39.99 respectively.
Переслать - Apple Mobile Video: Stuck in the Future
A new, very entertaining trailer for “The Expendables” came out last week and I had to show it to my wife. After work, I fired up YouTube on the TiVo but I couldn’t find it there. Anyone who has used YouTube on a TiVo can tell you how horrible it is to search for anything using that remote. I was disappointed but I had other options.
I grabbed my iPad, fired up the YouTube app and did a search. Nothing. Now I was getting mad. I went to Google on the iPad and did a search. I found the YouTube video on a dozen or so sites but YouTube didn’t have an Apple-friendly version available. Other sites had their own videos but they were all flash versions.
I’m now about 45 minutes into this and I’m loosing it. I use DownloadHelper and Firefox to grab a mp4 version of the trailer off of YouTube and save it to my desktop. I open it up in QuickTime and created an Apple TV version. I then synced it to my iPad in iTunes. After finally being able to show my wife the trailer I throw my Apple friendly version up on YouTube.Why didn’t I just sit her down at my desktop to watch it? Well, I don’t have external speakers and it’s not as casual as watching it on a big TV or an iPad.
This seems to happen to me quite a bit on the iPad. I see a video at work, I want to show it to someone when I get home, only to find out I can’t, without using a desktop or notebook. If I could just watch flash videos, 90 percent of these issues would be avoided. I usually try the TiVo route first but that’s only because it’s connected to the big screen. With all the different gadgets I own, I still have to use my Mac Pro to watch a simple flash video. There has to be a better way.This got me to thinking about what I really want in an Apple TV. If Apple would make its device just a 1080p video unit that could have videos thrown to it using an iPad or iPhone as the remote, that would be a good start. Next, give me flash video. I don’t want games or flashy website intros, just flash-based videos. I fear Apple is too proud to ever back-peddle on this and that may force me to seriously look into Google TV. HTML 5 may be the future but I’m stuck here with my device in my hand, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
Переслать - iPad to Launch in 9 More Countries
Apple has announced that on July 23 the iPad will be available in nine more countries, but more accurately, eight countries and a special administrative zone.
On Friday, the iPad goes on sale in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. While not all localities have announced pricing, the 16GB Wi-Fi model will cost 499 € in the new European countries and NZ$799 in New Zealand. If you can find one, that is.
Insatiable demand continues to hamper Apple from getting the “magical” into every pair of hands that wants one. For the U.S. and Europe, the Apple Store online currently shows a shipping delay of seven to ten days for all models. This has been the situation since the U.S. launch of the iPad in April, which ultimately forced the delay of the first international launch to late May for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
If it seems like a questionable business decision to launch the iPad in yet more countries when demand cannot be currently met, there may be hope for an increased supply. Everyone’s favorite Apple rumormonger in Taiwan, DigiTimes, reported earlier this month that iPad orders to manufacturers “surpassed two million units for July.”
On June 22, Apple announced the iPad had sold some three million units in 80 days, or roughly at the rate of about a million iPads per month. If production has been significantly increased, it seems possible that additional launch countries could be added even before shipping times showed improvement.
Hopefully we’ll find out tomorrow during Apple’s quarterly earnings report and conference call. I expect the company will announce as many as five million iPads sold to date. To put that number in perspective, sales estimates for all Windows Tablet PCs combined in 2010 range from three to five million.
While that’s good news for stockholders, as well as those interested in the success of the platform, for those residing in one of the countries launching on Friday, the advice remains the same. Get up early and get in line or be hitting refresh online at the Apple Store.
Переслать - 5 Useful Mac Utilities
Notational Velocity (Free)
Notational Velocity is a minimalist note-taking app with an emphasis on keyboard navigation. One of the interesting UI elements is that the search bar, besides being a search bar, also serves as the mechanism for creating new notes: You just enter a new title and hit enter. Also, it can sync with SimpleNote for iPhone and iPad.
Cinch ($7)
Usually, Windows users are trying to copy OS X features, but Cinch does the opposite by porting Windows 7′s Aero Snap feature over to OS X. It runs in the menubar and resizes windows based on where you drag them. Dragging to the side makes a window take up half the screen, and dragging to the top makes it take up the entire screen.
F.lux (Free)
F.lux bills itself as “better lighting for your computer.” It accomplishes this by gradually dimming your screen’s brightness and making your screen “warmer” by tinting it. You feed it your time-zone and what kind of lighting you have (i.e. fluorescent, incandescent) and it adjusts your monitor’s tint and brightness based on what time it is. I’ve been using it for a few weeks, and it’s hard to go back. The change was a bit jarring at first, but I’ve grown to like it.
BetterTouchTool (Free)
BetterTouchTool extends the functionality of Apple’s multitouch trackpads and Magic Mouse by letting you customize and add new gestures, such as five-finger swipe on the trackpad, or pinch-to-zoom on the Magic Mouse. You can assign these gestures to either a keyboard shortcut or an application.
CapSee
A small and simple utility that just flashes a bezel notification when you hit the caps lock key, preventing you from accidentally hitting it. (Though this probably isn’t as effective as just looking at your keyboard when you type).
Know of any Mac utilities you couldn’t live without? Tell us about them in the comments.
Переслать - iPhone 4 Attenuation Only Half the Story
Something about Apple’s press conference yesterday just didn’t sit right with me. Apple has put up a page with videos of various other smart phones displaying the same type of behavior when griped in a certain way. It also has put up a page where its explains its $100 million dollar testing facilities it uses for testing reception and signal in various conditions, just to let us know how much the company cares. Steve Jobs said that they love us. They seem to be doing the right thing by giving out the free bumper cases, but how they explained why the cases are needed in some instances didn’t quite cover everything. Attenuation is only half the story.
Way back when, a couple of lifetimes ago, I was a Radioman in the Navy, and as part of my education and advancement requirements I had to study antenna and wave propagation theory. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to over-simplify this to the point where real engineers might get a headache if they continue on, but here goes anyway.
Radio signals traveling through the air look like waves if drawn on paper. These waves travel at a constant speed, the speed of light, so to send more waves through on a signal, the waves must be smaller. The number of waves traveling along a signal is referred to as hertz, and the size of the wave is its wavelength. The antennas used to generate and receive these waves need to be the right size, and the right shape. Back when I was in the Navy, we were transmitting waves that required a 35 foot whip antenna because we were transmitting in the High Frequency (HF) range. As the frequency of the wave gets higher, the size of the waves and the antenna used to transmit and receive them become smaller, and more precise.
Cell phones operate in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) frequency range, so the antenna that they use is much smaller than lower frequency transmissions. The iPhone 4 has two antenna that wrap around its case, one for cellular use and the other for Wi-Fi and bluetooth. The two antennas are separated by the small gap in the lower left hand side of the case, which Apple has identified as the antenna’s most sensitive part. This is true, in part because of the attenuation (or “blocking of the signal”) when you put your hand over the gap.
The other part of the equation that Apple is not talking about is that while your hand doesn’t make a particularly good medium for radio waves to travel through, it does make a fairly good electrical conductor. When you place your hand over that gap, you are actually bridging the two antennas together and making a larger antenna. A larger antenna that is not the right size for the frequency of AT&T’s cellular network, and the bars drop right off.
I don’t have the equipment on hand anymore to test this, but the video below, linked to by an expert on antennas (via Daring Fireball), seems to show the behavior I would expect. At around the 1:30 mark, a key placed over the gap drops the iPhone 4′s reception down from five bars to one, and the narrator says that eventually there will be no signal at all. When the key is removed, the bars return.
The free bumpers solve both problems for the iPhone 4. They prevent the antenna gap from being bridged by anything conductive, and they give a little more room between the antenna and your hand, to help with attenuation. Unfortunately, the bumpers do not address the actual design of the antenna. It may be possible for Apple to move the antenna gap to a different spot on the phone in future revisions of the iPhone. For example, why not put the antenna at the top of the phone where people are less likely to hold it? As answered by AntennaSys in the link above, physical placement of the antenna is mandated by the FCC. If bridging the antenna gap is the problem, it may be possible to move the gap to the bottom of the phone, but since that would change the shape of the antenna, I’m not sure if that’s possible or not. Anandtech has a beautiful solution using Kapton insulating tape, which makes the iPhone look like it’s been plated in gold. If Apple were to add a layer of insulation to the iPhone, that might alleviate the symptoms.
I’m not the only one who thought that Apple’s explanation seemed lacking. TidBITS writer Rich Mogull has a very detailed article where he draws a similar conclusion. If you’d like to know more about the issue, I’d suggest dropping his article into Instapaper. If you’ve got any ideas about the iPhone 4′s antenna “situation,” I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Especially if anyone can reproduce the key trick from the video.
Переслать - Four Business Tips From Apple & Steve Jobs
This morning, Apple hosted a press event which included a 45-minute Q&A session with CEO Steve Jobs. (Watch the video.) Jobs, who returned from a vacation in Hawaii to host this conference, was pretty open (i.e. he was spinning a little less and was fractionally more candid.) During the conversation with reporters, Jobs shared some interesting observations and anecdotes about Apple, his relationship with customers and of course the iPhone 4 debacle. When looking over my notes I saw some nuggets of wisdom which I feel are universal, regardless of how you may feel about Apple, Jobs and the company’s response to the iPhone 4 debacle. I have edited and clumped together some of Jobs’s responses for ease of reading.
Jobs on Solving Hard Problems
The best ideas win here at Apple. We have healthy debates in this company. We debate how to tie shoe laces and we even debate about what great is. We're an engineering company, we think like engineers and scientists, and we think it's the right way to solve real, hard problems. We try to have our cake and eat it too, we try to have great design and great performance. If you look at our products, that's what we deliver. We are working really hard and we can’t run really faster. There are cars in the parking lots at all hours, people have cots in the office.
Lesson #1: Hard problems are solved by hard work and no compromises.
Jobs on Software & Apple’s Edge
When someone owns a primary technology and you use it, they are eventually going to beat you on it. In the computer business, we quickly realized that we didn’t have to make processors and hard drives. Instead it was the software that was the most important thing. We are pretty good at making software for iPods, PCS and the cloud and making them work together.
And while others like Palm pioneered, we knew software was the primary technology for the phone business. We brought that software to the phone business in a way we'd never seen before. One of the things we did was make the process of updating your software an order of magnitude easier than it was before. We can frictionlessly distribute those updates… everybody's copying Apple now, but we're the first to do that in a practical way.
Lesson #2: Knowing your core competence and building on it is key to success.
Jobs on Customers
We care about every user and we are not going to stop till every customer is happy. When you love your customers, nothing is off the table. But we want to be data driven. There are some things we know that we did learn here. One thing is how much we love our customers and how we are going to take care of them. And when we succeed users reward us by staying our users. That is what drives us. When people are criticizing us, we take it very personally. When users have a problem, it is our problem.
We were stunned and upset and embarrassed by the Consumer Reports stuff, and the reason we didn't say more is because we didn't know enough. If we'd have done this event a week and a half ago, we wouldn't have had half the data we have today. We take care of our customers. We appreciate them and we don't take them for granted. I get a lot of email, and my address is out there. I can't reply to all of these emails but I reply to some because they’re our customers, and I want to communicate with them.
Lesson#3: Regardless of your business, it is always has been, and will always be, about happiness of the customers.
Jobs on Investors
There are some customers who are happy. There are some customers who are not happy. And I apologize to them and we try and make them happy. We want investors who are in it for the long haul and are for the character of the company, not investors who just saw some news cross the wire and invested in the stock. (This was in response to a question regarding if he would apologize to investors who lost money as the stock declined.)
Lesson #4: Paying attention to short-term thinking (and thinkers) is only going to keep you relevant for a short time.
Переслать - Open Thread: Did Apple Do Enough to Make Antennagate Go Away?
Apple is offering buyers of its iPhone 4 a free case to address the reception issues caused by the antenna’s placement on the handset, despite the fact that Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a press conference at the company’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters this morning that the antenna problem had been blown out of proportion, and that the majority of users appeared to have no issues with reception on the device. Om live-blogged the news conference if you want to catch up on the details.
Although Jobs said that the number of complaints was relatively low (just one half of one percent), he added that Apple “wants to make all its users happy” and therefore the company is offering free “bumper” cases that cover the spot on the phone’s exterior that is said to cause the antenna issues when it is held a certain way. Our own Kevin Tofel would likely agree with this strategy. Apple will also offer a free refund within 30 days of purchase if a user is not completely satisfied, Jobs said, and will waive the normal “restocking” fee in such cases.
The Apple CEO also said that the company has sold more than 3 million of the new phones in 3 weeks, and noted during his presentation that Apple engineers had found antenna-related issues with a number of other smartphones, including the BlackBerry Bold from Research In Motion and the Droid Eris from HTC. And Jobs reiterated that the company’s engineers had discovered during their tests that the software being used to display signal strength on the new phone was not correct — or as he put it, “we screwed up with our algorithm.” The latest OS update fixes that problem, he said (which is a separate issue from the grip-related antenna problem).
Some users who talked about the Apple news on Twitter and elsewhere said that the antenna issue was a tempest in a teapot, and that the company had handled it as well as it could have — but others said the offer of a free case was a cop out, and that Apple was trying to sidestep a serious issue with its phones. What do you think? Let us know by answering our poll, or by posting a comment.
Meanwhile, here’s a video of the humorous “Antenna Song” that Apple played before its press conference started:
Переслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6893&u=24004&r=311667163 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
