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Posts tagged with "steve jobs"

Steve Jobs: “We Have No Plans To Kill The iPod Classic”

In the past months, several reports suggested Apple was in the process of discontinuing the iPod Classic line, which hasn’t been updated in years, to make room for the latest generation iPod Touches, Nanos and Shuffles. With stock running low in several Apple resellers and a lack of announcements at Apple’s September music event, many thought the iPod Classic was on its way out. The numbers, however, proved that in spite of old hardware, the Classic was the 5th most popular music player in the US in 2010. Rumors of new portable hard drives by Toshiba even suggested Apple might not discontinue the line, but bump its capacity to a whopping 220 GB in the same design. That hasn’t happened yet.

Now it’s Steve Jobs himself, in an email reply to a MacRumors reader, to confirm that Apple isn’t planning to kill the iPod Classic just yet.

Q: Hello, I’ve heard a LOT of speculation that Apple is looking to kill the iPod Classic because it wasn’t updated on Sept. 1st, and that a lot of people would rather Touch. The iPod Classic is probably the best iPod in the line. PLEASE DON’T KILL IT!!!

A: We have no plans to.

Sent from my iPhone

So there you have it. In his usual short-reply fashion, Jobs allegedly reassures a loyal Apple fan that the iPod Classic isn’t going anywhere. Discontinuing the line would indeed be a strange move on Apple’s part, considering how the iPod Classic is the only device that can enable owners of large music collections to carry around their libraries without worrying about space.

Steve Jobs Ordered By Court To Answer Questions In Class-Action Lawsuit

Steve Jobs has been ordered by a US Magistrate to answer questions in court in relation to a class-action lawsuit regarding the iTunes Music Store and monopolistic behavior by Apple. Bloomberg is reporting that yesterday US Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd authorized lawyers representing consumers in the complaint to engage in limited questioning of Jobs.

The limited questioning is quantified as two hours of questions and only on the topic of changes that Apple made to their iPod software in October of 2004 that disrupted RealNetworks’ Harmony software. Harmony enabled users to transfer songs purchased from the RealNetworks store, to the iPod. When it was released the software caused considerable controversy and Apple quickly accused RealNetworks of using “the tactics and ethics of a hacker” and in a subsequent iPod update Apple stopped the Harmony software from working with iPods.

The class-action lawsuit was filed by Thomas Slattery in 2005 and alleged that by requiring customers use an iPod to listen to music purchased from the iTunes store, Apple had violated federal antitrust laws as well as California’s unfair competition regulations. David Kiernan, who is representing Apple, said that “any deposition of Mr.Jobs would be repetitive, at best.”

[Via AppleInsider]

Bon Jovi Hates Steve Jobs For Killing Music with iTunes

Everybody loves iTunes, right? The user-friendly experience of clicking the buy button, the huge catalogue of artists and albums available on it (with The Beatles, too), the integrated environment with iOS devices and Macs. Everybody loves iTunes.

Actually, no. Bon Jovi hates it and he thinks Steve Jobs is “personally responsible” for killing the music business. Seriously, according to Bon Jovi the man just took away the magic of buying physical records and firing up your walkman. In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Bon Jovi went ahead with the following statements:

Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.

On a related note, Gutenberg is personally responsible for killing handwritten books. Oh, the magic of manually writing thousands of copies of the same book. And that Simjian guy? Man, he totally took the beauty of manually withdrawing cash away from me. Not to mention the insane operation by Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner: with the invention of lighters, he killed the pleasure of manually lighting my cigars.

Let me tell you something, Bon Jovi. This little thing you hate is called “progress”. Yes, the same progress that allows your guitars to be amplified on stage. So perhaps next time, instead of blaming Steve Jobs for a digital market revolution that came after years of research at Apple, you’d like to think about it and consider that if some artists still manage to produce their records, it’s because of the ease of use of digital downloads. [via Cult of Mac]

Former Apple VP Shares Thoughts on Steve Jobs→

Former Apple VP Shares Thoughts on Steve Jobs

Former senior vice president at Apple Jay Elliot shares some details and thoughts about Steve Jobs’ “modus operandi” in a recent article at Forbes. That’s an interesting read that, overall, seems to confirm what most people think about Jobs’ way of leading Apple to success:

Rare among corporate leaders, Steve has never made decisions based on a concern for market reaction. He simply is not influenced by whether investors and market analysts will think he’s doing the right thing. But the financial community has come to have confidence in him: his track record for making the right decisions is hard to argue with.

Now Steve is following the same frustrating modus operandi about the question of who will take over the helm of Apple should be be forced to step down for health reasons. Everyone who has ever worked closely with Steve knows that, for him, relinquishing control over any aspect of the company or its products is — well, difficult, to put it politely.

The key point, however, is this:

Over the years, Steve has generated a nearly uncanny ability to recognize talent and to recruit almost everyone he has ever set his eye on. The result is a team that inspires confidence for the future.

Many people still think Steve Jobs does everything at Apple from coding to design to marketing and app development, but they don’t understand Apple as a company is “simply” a well-oiled and functioning machine made of talented people.

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Missed the iPad 2 Announcement? Here’s The 60 Second Version

If you missed last week’s announcement of the iPad 2 and you don’t feel like going through the full keynote because a) your internet connection is slow or b) you simply don’t have time, fear not: we have a quick 60-second recap here – you know, one of those videos that highlights the key points of what Steve Jobs said on stage.

Sadly the video embedded below falls short on the “magicals” and “wonderfuls” Jobs usually hands out at every product announcement, but it really does focus on the key things unveiled on March 2. That is, the iPad 2 with thinner and lighter design, new processor and Smart Cover.

Oh, and don’t forget iMovie and GarageBand! Jobs was so thrilled to announce those apps. Video below. [via Business Insider]
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Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales Not So Small→

Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales Not So Small

Hey, remember all the fun last month when Samsung’s Lee Young-hee said that Galaxy Tab sales were “quite smooth” but everyone heard “quite small?”

Before unveiling the iPad 2 today the man in black and denim listed that early misquote – which was widely and officially corrected – as evidence to prove that the iPad’s competition was floundering.

I’ve never seen the Galaxy Tab break any headlines or get a full day’s worth of coverage. Misquote or not, I don’t exactly see Android tablets flying off the shelves either. And now they’ll have to play catch up. Again.

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Steve Jobs Almost Received An Honourary Knighthood

A former British MP has revealed to The Telegraph that Steve Jobs was close to being offered a knighthood in 2009 for his services to technology. According to the former MP, the proposal for his knighthood was blocked because Jobs had previously refused to speak at a British political event.

The former senior British MP told The Telegraph that he had nominated Steve Jobs for knighthood and that despite reaching the final stages of approval, was inevitably refused by Downing Street. He claims that they explained the refusal was based on Jobs’ refusal to attend an annual Labor conference, just his appearance at the event would have been a big political win for Gordon Brown.

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Apple’s Succession Proposal? Rejected

At Apple’s shareholders meeting today in the company’s Town Hall auditorium, a proposal to reveal Apple’s succession plan was rejected. For many months now, speculation has arisen that Apple should reveal its succession plans for Steve Jobs’ retirement (which, you know, is going to happen eventually) – but the company always refused to give out details, that are likely already in place, fearing repercussions in the management sphere with names of executives to succeed Jobs going public.

Apple COO Tim Cook took the stage today to introduce the board of directors, whose seven members – including Jobs – were reelected.

The most controversial shareholder proposal – that Apple adopt a detailed succession plan – was introduced about 20 minutes later. According to the representative of the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund who introduced it, Proposal No. 5 did not require the company to name names, she said, so management’s fears about the proposal were unfounded.

Apple has a succession plan for when Steve Jobs will leave, but they don’t want anyone to know just yet.

Steve Jobs: “We Created Subscriptions for Publishing Apps”

Following yesterday’s concerns in regards of Apple’s new subscription and in-app purchase policy for third-party publishers and developers, a MacRumors reader emailed Steve Jobs asking for clarification on the matter.

Yesterday, the developers of online reading service Readability announced that they would stick with the web platform as Apple rejected their iOS application that has a subscription feature, but it’s more of a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) rather than a “publishing” app. Readability aggregates articles saved from the web and displays them in an elegant and uncluttered view. Similarly, the TinyGrab developers (a screenshot taking tool) said they would soon cease App Store support because of the in-app purchase policy implemented by Apple. Read more