Showing posts with label Cupertino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cupertino. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2013
Where Apple and Dick Tracy May Converge
NICK BILTON
Full Article:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/disruptions-apple-is-said-to-be-developing-a-curved-glass-smart-watch/
Dick Tracy had one. As did Inspector Gadget and James Bond. A watch that doubled as a computer, two-way radio, mapping device or television.
Though such a device has been lost to science fiction comics and spy movies of the era before smartphones, the smart watch might soon become a reality, in the form of a curved glass device made by Apple.
In its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., Apple is experimenting with wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass, according to people familiar with the company’s explorations, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they are not allowed to publicly discuss unreleased products. Such a watch would operate on Apple’s iOS platform, two people said, and stand apart from competitors based on the company’s understanding of how such glass can curve around the human body.
Apple declined to comment on its plans. But the exploration of such a watch leaves open lots of exciting questions: If the company does release such a product, what would it look like? Would it include Siri, the voice assistant? Would it have a version of Apple’s map software, offering real-time directions to people walking down the street? Could it receive text messages? Could it monitor a user’s health or daily activity? How much will it cost? Could Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, be wearing one right now, whispering sweet nothings to his wrist?
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies
October 6, 2011 | ISSUE 47•40
http://www.theonion.com/articles/last-american-who-knew-what-the-fuck-he-was-doing,26268
CUPERTINO, CA — Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his shit together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part, adding that Jobs will be remembered both for the life-changing products he created and for the fact that he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen. "This is a dark time for our country, because the reality is none of the 300 million or so Americans who remain can actually get anything done or make things happen. Those days are over." Obama added that if anyone could fill the void left by Jobs it would probably be himself, but said that at this point he honestly doesn’t have the slightest notion what he’s doing anymore.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/last-american-who-knew-what-the-fuck-he-was-doing,26268
CUPERTINO, CA — Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his shit together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part, adding that Jobs will be remembered both for the life-changing products he created and for the fact that he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen. "This is a dark time for our country, because the reality is none of the 300 million or so Americans who remain can actually get anything done or make things happen. Those days are over." Obama added that if anyone could fill the void left by Jobs it would probably be himself, but said that at this point he honestly doesn’t have the slightest notion what he’s doing anymore.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Apple plans ambitious new ‘spaceship’ campus
08.06.2011
Laura O'Brien
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/22100-best-office-building-in/
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has submitted plans to build a new 150-acre campus in Cupertino, California, saying it could create “the best office building in the world.”
Jobs presented the concept of the new campus yesterday at Cupertino City Hall.
Jobs said Apple's current headquarters, 1 Infinite Loop, only holds 2,800 people and as the company hires 12,000 employees, Apple has been forced to rent buildings in its radius. As a result, the company needs another building to augment this but still wishes to remain in Cupertino.
The planned 150-acre campus will be located on the original home of HP’s computer systems division.
Apple bosses have hired who they believe are the “best architects in the world” to create the campus and have used the experience they’ve gained when designing their retail outlets worldwide.
The four-storey headquarters will be a circular loop with a courtyard in the middle, with curved glass all the way around it.
”It’s a little like a spaceship landed,” said Jobs.
Apple will make the campus 80pc landscape and will enlist the help of a senior arborist from Stanford to plant more indigenous trees, including apricot trees.
Parking will be placed underneath the main building and within another structure to reduce the current surface parking by 90pc.
The primary energy source will come from Apple's own energy building, which uses natural gas and other clean sources. The company will use the city’s grid as its backup source.
Jobs said Apple will submit plans as soon as possible and will break ground next year. The building should be finished by 2015.
While planning permission hasn’t been granted yet, the council seemed enamoured by the Apple CEO and his plans. One said that calling the building spectacular “was an understatement.”
Another asked if Apple could supply a free iPad and Wi-Fi for residents, however, Jobs said he thinks Apple brings “a lot more than free Wi-Fi.”
Jobs said if he is unable to build this headquarters, the company would have to move elsewhere. This would be quite a blow for Cupertino, as Apple is its largest taxpayer.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
10 years later, Apple's 'crazy' retail gamble is a hit
Doug Gross
May 18, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/05/18/apple.store.anniversary/index.html
It started with one store at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia, just outside of Washington.
Ten years and more than 300 stores later, it's become a retailing venture unique in the world of consumer electronics.
The Apple retail store, the stylized and shiny public face of the Cupertino, California-based gadget giant, turns 10 on Thursday.
It's a marketing strategy that few other companies could pull off, analysts say -- one powered as much by Apple's heralded (some would say overhyped) focus on style and presentation as by its products themselves.
But as the 2000s were just dawning, it was far from a sure thing.
"Around the time Apple started to roll out, Gateway's products were going the other way," said Adam Hanft, CEO of marketing and branding firm Hanft Projects, referring to the PC makers (they of the cowhide-designed boxes) who eventually gave up on their own retail-store model in 2004.
"If you go back and look at what all the pundits said, they all thought Apple was crazy to get into the retailing business."
Until then, the consumer technology model was fairly well set. Hardware manufacturers made computers and other gadgets, which were sold alongside their competitors at electronics and big-box retail stores. Picking up the cost of overhead, and gambling that shoppers would patronize a store with only one company's products, was considered risky.
A decade of growth
By the end of the 2010 fiscal year, Apple had opened 317 retail stores, 233 in the United States and 84 in Europe, Asia and other countries, according to Ticonderoga Securities, which studies the company.
Apple stores across the world host long lines of acolytes -- er, shoppers -- with the retail launch of every high-profile new gadget, such as an iPhone or iPad. The stores earned roughly $3.2 billion, about 13% of Apple's total sales, in 2010, Ticonderoga said.
The model works, Ticonderoga analyst Brian White says, because it's an extension of Apple's overall model of keeping tight reins on their products and their image.
"Apple, as you know, likes to control their environment -- they do it with their PCs and other products ... because they think they can do it better," he said. "The stores look the same. They feel the same. They're generally in the same type of upscale areas. You can control the quality and the experience."
Some Apple stores, such as the flagship New York City store on Fifth Avenue, are even design symbols in themselves. That one, open 24 hours a day, is a distinctive 32-foot glass cube.
Apple declined a request to speak with someone for this article. A spokeswoman would not say earlier this week what, if any, plans Apple had to commemorate Thursday's anniversary and would not provide any Apple documentation about the history of the stores.
The company seems to definitely have something brewing, however.
Multiple reports have retail employees planning overnight shifts in advance of the anniversary, and black barriers arriving to hide ... well ... something.
The first store
In a 2000 video shown to Apple developers, CEO Steve Jobs strolls through the as-yet-unopened Virginia store, showcasing then-novel features such as the Genius Bar and nooks for children's activities.
With nary an iPod or iPhone in sight (the iPod was launched in October that year, with the iPhone following in 2007), Jobs introduced the concept that the stores would be more than just retail space.
"Literally half the store is devoted to solutions," Jobs says in the video. "Because people don't just want to buy personal computers any more. They want to know what they can do with them."
Then, Hanft said, there's the intangible appeal.
"People will almost invent reasons to go there," he said. "Apple is closer to a fashion aesthetic than a tech aesthetic. You walk in, and you would think it's closer to Prada than it is to Radio Shack."
The opening of that first Apple store was greeted with the zeal that's become commonplace when new Apple products are released.
"I went to this rave last night and had all this extra energy, so I decided to come here," Chris Barylick, who was first in line after showing up six hours before the store opened,told tech blog CNET at the time.
Praise, criticism and "The Simpsons"
For Apple critics (and what critics attack their prey more lustily than Apple's?), that's the point. They say the stores are merely clubhouses catering to Apple fans' blind loyalty to the company.
"If you don't believe me, go into an Apple store," Simon Mills of London's Daily Mail wrote last year in a sweeping anti-Apple piece titled "Why I hate Apple, the infuriating cult making people smug bores."
"You will hear very little conversation and absolutely no laughter at all. Instead, you'll see lines of cult followers passively standing in front of screens, their faces riddled with the anxiety and discomfort of someone terrified they are behind the technological times."
Even "The Simpsons" took some jabs when the animated family paid a visit to the "Mapple Store."
"It's so sterile!" a starry-eyed Lisa exclaims as she enters. Homer marvels at a "myCube," a glowing device "fueled by dreams and powered by imagination," according to the haughty employee behind the "Brainiac Bar."
"What does it do?" Homer asks. The employee's response: "You should ask yourself, 'What can I do for it?'"
Analysts predict that as long as Apple maintains steady, targeted growth with the stores, they'll continue to succeed with them. Emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil are obvious next steps.
"It's only going to get bigger," said White, who travels regularly to China and said "Apple fever" got hot in earnest there with the release of the iPad.
Hanft agrees, as long as Apple sticks to the model that's worked so far.
"They could get greedy. They could move into markets that can't support them. That's the risk."
He also said that if "brand dictator" Jobs became less involved, someone at the company could decide to put other products in the store (now, it's just Apple and a handful of approved accessories). That, Hanft said, could water down the stores' appeal.
But, at least for now, he expects the surprise success to continue into the next decade.
"You have to give them credit for not just defying the skeptics, but basically creating a new retail model," he said.
May 18, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/05/18/apple.store.anniversary/index.html
It started with one store at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia, just outside of Washington.
Ten years and more than 300 stores later, it's become a retailing venture unique in the world of consumer electronics.
The Apple retail store, the stylized and shiny public face of the Cupertino, California-based gadget giant, turns 10 on Thursday.
It's a marketing strategy that few other companies could pull off, analysts say -- one powered as much by Apple's heralded (some would say overhyped) focus on style and presentation as by its products themselves.
But as the 2000s were just dawning, it was far from a sure thing.
"Around the time Apple started to roll out, Gateway's products were going the other way," said Adam Hanft, CEO of marketing and branding firm Hanft Projects, referring to the PC makers (they of the cowhide-designed boxes) who eventually gave up on their own retail-store model in 2004.
"If you go back and look at what all the pundits said, they all thought Apple was crazy to get into the retailing business."
Until then, the consumer technology model was fairly well set. Hardware manufacturers made computers and other gadgets, which were sold alongside their competitors at electronics and big-box retail stores. Picking up the cost of overhead, and gambling that shoppers would patronize a store with only one company's products, was considered risky.
A decade of growth
By the end of the 2010 fiscal year, Apple had opened 317 retail stores, 233 in the United States and 84 in Europe, Asia and other countries, according to Ticonderoga Securities, which studies the company.
Apple stores across the world host long lines of acolytes -- er, shoppers -- with the retail launch of every high-profile new gadget, such as an iPhone or iPad. The stores earned roughly $3.2 billion, about 13% of Apple's total sales, in 2010, Ticonderoga said.
The model works, Ticonderoga analyst Brian White says, because it's an extension of Apple's overall model of keeping tight reins on their products and their image.
"Apple, as you know, likes to control their environment -- they do it with their PCs and other products ... because they think they can do it better," he said. "The stores look the same. They feel the same. They're generally in the same type of upscale areas. You can control the quality and the experience."
Some Apple stores, such as the flagship New York City store on Fifth Avenue, are even design symbols in themselves. That one, open 24 hours a day, is a distinctive 32-foot glass cube.
Apple declined a request to speak with someone for this article. A spokeswoman would not say earlier this week what, if any, plans Apple had to commemorate Thursday's anniversary and would not provide any Apple documentation about the history of the stores.
The company seems to definitely have something brewing, however.
Multiple reports have retail employees planning overnight shifts in advance of the anniversary, and black barriers arriving to hide ... well ... something.
The first store
In a 2000 video shown to Apple developers, CEO Steve Jobs strolls through the as-yet-unopened Virginia store, showcasing then-novel features such as the Genius Bar and nooks for children's activities.
With nary an iPod or iPhone in sight (the iPod was launched in October that year, with the iPhone following in 2007), Jobs introduced the concept that the stores would be more than just retail space.
"Literally half the store is devoted to solutions," Jobs says in the video. "Because people don't just want to buy personal computers any more. They want to know what they can do with them."
Then, Hanft said, there's the intangible appeal.
"People will almost invent reasons to go there," he said. "Apple is closer to a fashion aesthetic than a tech aesthetic. You walk in, and you would think it's closer to Prada than it is to Radio Shack."
The opening of that first Apple store was greeted with the zeal that's become commonplace when new Apple products are released.
"I went to this rave last night and had all this extra energy, so I decided to come here," Chris Barylick, who was first in line after showing up six hours before the store opened,told tech blog CNET at the time.
Praise, criticism and "The Simpsons"
For Apple critics (and what critics attack their prey more lustily than Apple's?), that's the point. They say the stores are merely clubhouses catering to Apple fans' blind loyalty to the company.
"If you don't believe me, go into an Apple store," Simon Mills of London's Daily Mail wrote last year in a sweeping anti-Apple piece titled "Why I hate Apple, the infuriating cult making people smug bores."
"You will hear very little conversation and absolutely no laughter at all. Instead, you'll see lines of cult followers passively standing in front of screens, their faces riddled with the anxiety and discomfort of someone terrified they are behind the technological times."
Even "The Simpsons" took some jabs when the animated family paid a visit to the "Mapple Store."
"It's so sterile!" a starry-eyed Lisa exclaims as she enters. Homer marvels at a "myCube," a glowing device "fueled by dreams and powered by imagination," according to the haughty employee behind the "Brainiac Bar."
"What does it do?" Homer asks. The employee's response: "You should ask yourself, 'What can I do for it?'"
Analysts predict that as long as Apple maintains steady, targeted growth with the stores, they'll continue to succeed with them. Emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil are obvious next steps.
"It's only going to get bigger," said White, who travels regularly to China and said "Apple fever" got hot in earnest there with the release of the iPad.
Hanft agrees, as long as Apple sticks to the model that's worked so far.
"They could get greedy. They could move into markets that can't support them. That's the risk."
He also said that if "brand dictator" Jobs became less involved, someone at the company could decide to put other products in the store (now, it's just Apple and a handful of approved accessories). That, Hanft said, could water down the stores' appeal.
But, at least for now, he expects the surprise success to continue into the next decade.
"You have to give them credit for not just defying the skeptics, but basically creating a new retail model," he said.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Apple snares Charlie Sheen as corporate spokesperson
Lucas Meppen-Negal
February 28, 2011
http://scoopertino.com/apple-snares-charlie-sheen-as-corporate-spokesperson/
Cupertino CA — Care for some passive-aggressive-schizo-paranoia to go with your Apple arrogance?
Leaping at the opportunity, Apple has signed the suddenly unemployed Charlie Sheen to be the new face of the company. His official title will be Presentation Czar.
At a press conference introducing Sheen, acting CEO Tim Cook looked like the cat that just swallowed the canary.
“When we see a problem at Apple, we fix it,” said Cook. “The fact is, Steve is on leave. That leaves us short on personality. Charlie’s self-centered, addictive behaviors — and his need to periodically implode — make him a perfect fit for us.”
“Fuckin’ A,” said an upbeat Charlie Sheen. “From what I can tell, there aren’t nearly as many diseased maggots in Apple as there are in the TV world. Plus, the Apple chicks are just frikkin’ hot.”
The deal is effective immediately, clearing the way for Charlie to present iPad 2 to the public on Wednesday.
Reports are that Charlie plans to take Apple product launches to a whole new level. “Steve had his bottles of water,” said an Apple event staffer, “Charlie has his bottles of Bud.”
“We just want Charlie to be himself,” says Cook.
And that he will. According to a source inside the Sheen camp, Charlie will spend most of the presentation dumping on Apple competitors in the most lurid terms. In a leaked script obtained by Scoopertino, he calls Android tablets “penny-ante piles of dung that only a lobotomy victim could love.” Focusing on the Motorola Xoom, he says “I wouldn’t wish that train-wreck of stolen ideas on my worst enemy — which is me.”
And what happens when Steve returns from medical leave?
“It just gets better,” says Cook. “I want to position them as the ‘dynamic duo’ of technology. Just imagine the power of two reality distortion fields working together.”
February 28, 2011
http://scoopertino.com/apple-snares-charlie-sheen-as-corporate-spokesperson/
Cupertino CA — Care for some passive-aggressive-schizo-paranoia to go with your Apple arrogance?
Leaping at the opportunity, Apple has signed the suddenly unemployed Charlie Sheen to be the new face of the company. His official title will be Presentation Czar.
At a press conference introducing Sheen, acting CEO Tim Cook looked like the cat that just swallowed the canary.
“When we see a problem at Apple, we fix it,” said Cook. “The fact is, Steve is on leave. That leaves us short on personality. Charlie’s self-centered, addictive behaviors — and his need to periodically implode — make him a perfect fit for us.”
“Fuckin’ A,” said an upbeat Charlie Sheen. “From what I can tell, there aren’t nearly as many diseased maggots in Apple as there are in the TV world. Plus, the Apple chicks are just frikkin’ hot.”
The deal is effective immediately, clearing the way for Charlie to present iPad 2 to the public on Wednesday.
Reports are that Charlie plans to take Apple product launches to a whole new level. “Steve had his bottles of water,” said an Apple event staffer, “Charlie has his bottles of Bud.”
“We just want Charlie to be himself,” says Cook.
And that he will. According to a source inside the Sheen camp, Charlie will spend most of the presentation dumping on Apple competitors in the most lurid terms. In a leaked script obtained by Scoopertino, he calls Android tablets “penny-ante piles of dung that only a lobotomy victim could love.” Focusing on the Motorola Xoom, he says “I wouldn’t wish that train-wreck of stolen ideas on my worst enemy — which is me.”
And what happens when Steve returns from medical leave?
“It just gets better,” says Cook. “I want to position them as the ‘dynamic duo’ of technology. Just imagine the power of two reality distortion fields working together.”
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Apple the new king of Silicon Valley
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/15/apple.apple
Google pipped - Apple the new king of Silicon Valley as market value overtakes hi-tech rival· Success of iPhone fuels huge surge in share price
· Fall in online advertising hits search engine's profits
Andrew Clark in New York The Guardian, Friday August 15 2008
Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino. Hi-tech rival Google is based only five miles away in Mountain View.
Photograph: Alamy
The sleek, touchscreen iPhone has proved so lucrative for Apple that the electronic gadgets manufacturer has unseated Google to become the most valuable company in America's cradle of technological innovation, Silicon Valley.
Queues outside Apple's stores are commonplace since the phone's launch a year ago as shoppers line up to get their hands on the prized device.
On Wall Street, the phenomenal popularity of the phone has fuelled a 44% surge in Apple's share price in 12 months. By the close of trading on Wednesday, Apple's market value had edged up to $158.8bn - a shade ahead of Google's $157.2bn.
Apple's predominance amounts to a shift in the balance of power in the hi-tech world. The company has repeatedly been able to eclipse rivals with its distinctive, easy-to-use designs. The iMac and the iPod continue to be firm favourites among laptop computer buyers and music fans.
Meanwhile, Google's once dazzling star has waned slightly as America's economic slowdown has eaten into online advertising and investors have wondered how the company can produce solid profits from expensive ventures such as the video-sharing website YouTube.
Scott Kessler, an equities analyst specialising in technology at Standard & Poor's in New York, said the twin fortunes of Apple and Google were central to the technological landscape: "These are the two companies most currently identified with the notion of innovation - not just in Silicon Valley or in this country but arguably in the world."
The milestone amounts to a reassertion of success by an older technological generation. Apple was founded by schoolfriends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 making it elderly in comparison to Google which has only existed for 10 years.
Experts say Apple's distinctive skill is its ability to reinvent itself with new products which are typically kept secret until the last possible moment.
"It's one of the few companies that has been able to internally develop a number of blockbuster products and killer applications," said Kessler.
Apple fans tend to attribute a large chunk of the company's success to the personal entrepreneurial instincts of Jobs, who is chief executive and is heavily involved in product development. When Jobs appeared to be gaunt and thinner than usual, Apple's stock briefly slumped last night before the company scotched rumours that he was ill.
While Apple and Google differ widely in their business models, they have a degree of personal overlap. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sits on Apple's board as a non-executive director. The companies are based barely five miles apart in a sprawling hi-tech corridor running south of San Francisco. Apple is in the town of Cupertino while Google is in neighbouring Mountain View.
Neither company offered any immediate reaction to the shift in supremacy. Apple did not return calls and a Google spokesman said: "We never comment on our stock price."
However, Apple has had few qualms about boasting of its prowess in the past. When the company's value overtook the computer maker Dell two years ago, Jobs sent out a companywide email reminding staff that Dell's founder had once predicted Apple's imminent demise.
"Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future," wrote Jobs. "Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today."
For Apple, the iPhone has provided an edge in creativity and convenience. When a 3G version of the phone came out last month, Apple sold a million of the handsets in a single weekend.
Google is comfortably the global leader in online searches but has seen slowing growth in "paid clicks" - the number of times users alight on lucrative advertisements. Google says this is because better tailored advertising has led to better quality, but less numerous, clicks.
Google's shares, which topped $700 late last year, have settled back to just over $500 - but the company's founders, Sergey Brin, 34, and Larry Page, 35, remain billionaires who travel the world on a customised Boeing 767.
The pair see conquering space as their next challenge and have put up a $20m prize to anyone who produces a privately financed spacecraft able to land on the moon.
Head-to-head
Apple
· Founded in a bedroom in Los Altos, California, by schoolfriends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976
· Recently settled a long trademark battle with the Beatles' record company Apple Corps, over use of the word "apple" to sell music
· Began as a computer manufacturer and has diversified into iPod media players, iTunes online music sales and, most recently, iPhone touchscreen mobile phones
· Apple's iTunes website has sold more than 5bn songs
· Annual sales of $24bn and profits of $3.5bn
Google
· Established by Stanford University graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998
· Based initially in a garage in Menlo Park, California
· Named after the word googol - which is the number one followed by one hundred zeros
· Has expanded from a powerful internet search engine into online applications such as word processing and spreadsheet tools, and owns the video-sharing website YouTube
· The company slogan is "don't be evil"
· Annual revenue of $16.6bn and profits of $4.2bn
Google pipped - Apple the new king of Silicon Valley as market value overtakes hi-tech rival· Success of iPhone fuels huge surge in share price
· Fall in online advertising hits search engine's profits
Andrew Clark in New York The Guardian, Friday August 15 2008
Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino. Hi-tech rival Google is based only five miles away in Mountain View.Photograph: Alamy
The sleek, touchscreen iPhone has proved so lucrative for Apple that the electronic gadgets manufacturer has unseated Google to become the most valuable company in America's cradle of technological innovation, Silicon Valley.
Queues outside Apple's stores are commonplace since the phone's launch a year ago as shoppers line up to get their hands on the prized device.
On Wall Street, the phenomenal popularity of the phone has fuelled a 44% surge in Apple's share price in 12 months. By the close of trading on Wednesday, Apple's market value had edged up to $158.8bn - a shade ahead of Google's $157.2bn.
Apple's predominance amounts to a shift in the balance of power in the hi-tech world. The company has repeatedly been able to eclipse rivals with its distinctive, easy-to-use designs. The iMac and the iPod continue to be firm favourites among laptop computer buyers and music fans.
Meanwhile, Google's once dazzling star has waned slightly as America's economic slowdown has eaten into online advertising and investors have wondered how the company can produce solid profits from expensive ventures such as the video-sharing website YouTube.
Scott Kessler, an equities analyst specialising in technology at Standard & Poor's in New York, said the twin fortunes of Apple and Google were central to the technological landscape: "These are the two companies most currently identified with the notion of innovation - not just in Silicon Valley or in this country but arguably in the world."
The milestone amounts to a reassertion of success by an older technological generation. Apple was founded by schoolfriends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 making it elderly in comparison to Google which has only existed for 10 years.
Experts say Apple's distinctive skill is its ability to reinvent itself with new products which are typically kept secret until the last possible moment.
"It's one of the few companies that has been able to internally develop a number of blockbuster products and killer applications," said Kessler.
Apple fans tend to attribute a large chunk of the company's success to the personal entrepreneurial instincts of Jobs, who is chief executive and is heavily involved in product development. When Jobs appeared to be gaunt and thinner than usual, Apple's stock briefly slumped last night before the company scotched rumours that he was ill.
While Apple and Google differ widely in their business models, they have a degree of personal overlap. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sits on Apple's board as a non-executive director. The companies are based barely five miles apart in a sprawling hi-tech corridor running south of San Francisco. Apple is in the town of Cupertino while Google is in neighbouring Mountain View.
Neither company offered any immediate reaction to the shift in supremacy. Apple did not return calls and a Google spokesman said: "We never comment on our stock price."
However, Apple has had few qualms about boasting of its prowess in the past. When the company's value overtook the computer maker Dell two years ago, Jobs sent out a companywide email reminding staff that Dell's founder had once predicted Apple's imminent demise.
"Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future," wrote Jobs. "Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today."
For Apple, the iPhone has provided an edge in creativity and convenience. When a 3G version of the phone came out last month, Apple sold a million of the handsets in a single weekend.
Google is comfortably the global leader in online searches but has seen slowing growth in "paid clicks" - the number of times users alight on lucrative advertisements. Google says this is because better tailored advertising has led to better quality, but less numerous, clicks.
Google's shares, which topped $700 late last year, have settled back to just over $500 - but the company's founders, Sergey Brin, 34, and Larry Page, 35, remain billionaires who travel the world on a customised Boeing 767.
The pair see conquering space as their next challenge and have put up a $20m prize to anyone who produces a privately financed spacecraft able to land on the moon.
Head-to-head
Apple
· Founded in a bedroom in Los Altos, California, by schoolfriends Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976
· Recently settled a long trademark battle with the Beatles' record company Apple Corps, over use of the word "apple" to sell music
· Began as a computer manufacturer and has diversified into iPod media players, iTunes online music sales and, most recently, iPhone touchscreen mobile phones
· Apple's iTunes website has sold more than 5bn songs
· Annual sales of $24bn and profits of $3.5bn
· Established by Stanford University graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998
· Based initially in a garage in Menlo Park, California
· Named after the word googol - which is the number one followed by one hundred zeros
· Has expanded from a powerful internet search engine into online applications such as word processing and spreadsheet tools, and owns the video-sharing website YouTube
· The company slogan is "don't be evil"
· Annual revenue of $16.6bn and profits of $4.2bn
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Will The iPod Kill Blockbuster?
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/12/28/apple-movie-rental-tech-media-cx_bc_1228apple.html
Apple's World
Will The iPod Kill Blockbuster?
Brian Caulfield 12.28.07
Burlingame, Calif. - Forget the cavernous big box stores that laid waste to the retail landscape a decade ago. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs' tiny iPod has turned his company into a category killer for the digital era--first wiping out music stores and now, potentially, the corner video store.
Starting in mid-January, the Cupertino, Calif., computer and gadget maker will take on Blockbuster and Netflix by renting movies from Fox on its iTunes digital media store, according to a report first published in the Financial Times earlier this week.
While older models of the iPod--and its low-end iPod Shuffle--can't play digital video, the gadgets now have a proven record of disruption, with customers bypassing record stores to tap into illegal distribution networks, along with Apple's iTunes music store, to fill the up their devices.
The result: Sales of CDs fell more than 30% to 614.9 million units last year from a peak of 881.9 million in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association. Once sprawling chains, such as Tower Records, have shuttered.
Apple, however, isn't the first major tech company to offer digital video rentals. Amazon rents movies to users of PCs and TiVos via its Unbox service. Microsoft is even offering digital movie rentals on its XBox 360 game console. Neither company, however, poses the same threat to DVD rental companies as Apple, which has an installed base of more than 100 million digital media devices that consumers carry in their pockets.
Since Apple first began offering video content in its store two years ago, Jobs has expanded the company's video offerings. The weak link: the AppleTV set-top box effort. Some industry observers estimate that the device has sold fewer than 1 million units since it went on sale earlier this year, so video rentals could surely revive the effort.
Despite Apple's movie rental push, Blockbuster and Netflix won't disappear tomorrow. They likely will continue to slug it out in the business of renting digital video discs. Blockbuster has moved to counter the threat from Netflix, which mails movies to customers who queue up their orders online, with a Web-based service of its own. Netflix, meanwhile, allows customers to rent digital movies for their PCs.
Still, their days might be numbered: The iPod has killed before. It will kill again.
Shares of Netflix sagged 2.19% to $26.85 in Friday trading. Shares of Blockbuster fell 1.03% to $3.86. Apple rose 0.40% to $199.37.
Apple's World
Will The iPod Kill Blockbuster?
Brian Caulfield 12.28.07
Burlingame, Calif. - Forget the cavernous big box stores that laid waste to the retail landscape a decade ago. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs' tiny iPod has turned his company into a category killer for the digital era--first wiping out music stores and now, potentially, the corner video store.
Starting in mid-January, the Cupertino, Calif., computer and gadget maker will take on Blockbuster and Netflix by renting movies from Fox on its iTunes digital media store, according to a report first published in the Financial Times earlier this week.
While older models of the iPod--and its low-end iPod Shuffle--can't play digital video, the gadgets now have a proven record of disruption, with customers bypassing record stores to tap into illegal distribution networks, along with Apple's iTunes music store, to fill the up their devices.
The result: Sales of CDs fell more than 30% to 614.9 million units last year from a peak of 881.9 million in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association. Once sprawling chains, such as Tower Records, have shuttered.
Apple, however, isn't the first major tech company to offer digital video rentals. Amazon rents movies to users of PCs and TiVos via its Unbox service. Microsoft is even offering digital movie rentals on its XBox 360 game console. Neither company, however, poses the same threat to DVD rental companies as Apple, which has an installed base of more than 100 million digital media devices that consumers carry in their pockets.
Since Apple first began offering video content in its store two years ago, Jobs has expanded the company's video offerings. The weak link: the AppleTV set-top box effort. Some industry observers estimate that the device has sold fewer than 1 million units since it went on sale earlier this year, so video rentals could surely revive the effort.
Despite Apple's movie rental push, Blockbuster and Netflix won't disappear tomorrow. They likely will continue to slug it out in the business of renting digital video discs. Blockbuster has moved to counter the threat from Netflix, which mails movies to customers who queue up their orders online, with a Web-based service of its own. Netflix, meanwhile, allows customers to rent digital movies for their PCs.
Still, their days might be numbered: The iPod has killed before. It will kill again.
Shares of Netflix sagged 2.19% to $26.85 in Friday trading. Shares of Blockbuster fell 1.03% to $3.86. Apple rose 0.40% to $199.37.
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