Steve Jobs and Apple assiduously court the image of being a step above. Here are three quick signs of Apple looking like a Banana Peel for slipping up and being, in a step, on their behind.
1)Martha Stewart was sent to prison for doing some relatively low value insider trading. Whats going to happen to Steve for approving millions in backdated stock options ? In these days of Sarbanes-Oxley, CEOs who claim ignorance of the implications and/or law should be like washings on my neighbours clothesline – hung out to dry.
2)Computerworlds Mike Elgan has a well reasoned piece on how Steve and Apple broke all their own rules on announcing iPhone and some rather risky consequences . Now Apple may be targeting a broader market span or may be able to add more features in the next 6 months before launch; but I am inclined to see this now as Humpty Dumpty-like pieces, impossible to put back together.
3)Everybody in IT knows about those Apple ads in which a hopelessly Nerdish PC Guy takes on a regular Mac Joe and is completely bested by the vastly superior ease of use of the Apple. Well our family just experienced the Apple Anti-ad. We were trying to show an iPhoto slideshow. Five of us supposed IT experts (me included with some heavy use of Apple and Mac/OS back in 1999 to 2000 to my credit) could not get the slideshow to go back and forth with a mouse click. Nor could we figure out how to change the display time in seconds for each image. Finally we got to discover the pleasures of the Jobs-decreed one button mouse as our right button clicks, double clicks, Option+Click and other gestures(some censored for this report)went for naught. If enough other Apple users or converts run into anti-ease-of-use experiences like this – Apple will be slipping into the slime that is Truthiness.
Now Apple obviously has much going for it; but it certainly does not need to litter its path with slip-ups like these.
(c)JBSurveyer 2007
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