Live tiles? Yeah, they have their place, but a driving force to help Microsoft steal marketshare away from Android and Apple it most certainly isn’t.

And while critics seem to love where Microsoft is going, the market hasn’t echoed that sentiment with their wallets.

Despite its best efforts, consumers are largely ignoring Windows Phone 7 and are either going iPhone or Android. And as a latecomer to the smartphone game, Microsoft is aware that they desperately need to play catch-up, and quick.

Together, Microsoft and Nokia are planning on spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help accelerate sluggish Windows Phone 7 sales. A few days ago, Paul Thurott outlined some of their upcoming marketing plans for 2012. One of the strategies that stands out is their plan to offer retail folks on the floor a $10 to $15 commission for each Windows Phone 7 device sold.

So it’s come to this, eh?

As TechCrunch writer Greg Kumparak pointed out, this is essentially an admission of failure, a tacit admission that Windows Phone 7 devices, on their own merits, simply can’t compete with Apple and Google.

Apple entered a completely new market when it introduced the iPhone. Nevertheless, iPhone sales took off right off the bat, and no, Apple did not need to pad the pockets of retailers to get them to hock iPhones.

Note the difference in strategy here.

Apple appealed to the consumer by presenting a best in class user experience, offering up a smartphone that completely trumped all other products on the market.

Microsoft, with its Windows Phone 7 strategy, isn’t appealing to the consumer, but rather to the retailer who it hopes will do what they apparently can’t do on their own – convince the average consumer to consider a Windows Phone 7 device.

Admittedly, Microsoft may be more prone to drastic sales measure given that its coming to the market so shockingly late, but that’s really a symptom of a larger problem that continues to plague Microsoft – focusing more on maintaining revenue streams than on the end consumer.

Microsoft had been in the mobile phone market for years before Apple and Google got involved, and if they can completely lap Redmond in the blink of an eye, it really does speak to a larger problem brewing inside of Microsoft.

Kumparak concludes:

By offering up a chunk of change for each sale — especially when it seems that no one else is — Microsoft is essentially saying “Yeah, we know you don’t really want to sell this. We know that we don’t really have any killer features yet. How about some cash?”

Find your killer feature, Microsoft. Don’t just buy love.

It’s no secret that iPhone owners on the whole are more loyal to Apple than, say, Android owners are to their devices. The end result is that iPhone owners generally stick with the iPhone for subsequent smartphone purchases. That doesn’t happen by appealing to the pocketbooks of retail salespersons.

It happens by appealing to the end user.

Commenting on the matter, Andy Zaky a few weeks ago penned a thoughtful article highlighting the many reasons why Apple is the most “undervalued and underappreciated large-cap growth company in America.”

When it comes to the stock market, it’s not so much a game of “how much money are you making now” as it is a question of “how much money will you be making in the future?” This dynamic explains why shares of Microsoft have been languishing over the past 5 years; even though revenues have recently set all-time records, investors remain wary of Microsoft’s ability to grow at an appreciable rate.

But Apple is a different story entirely. Save for the last quarter, Apple has continuously smashed Wall St. expectations every single quarter over the past few years. And what makes Apple’s earnings rise all the more impressive is that it’s revenue is already substantial. Put simply, increasing earnings by 45% when you make $28 billion a quarter is profoundly more challenging compared to a company with quarterly revenue of $350,000. Nonetheless, Apple’s revenue growth the past few years has surpassed the expectations of even the most bullish of analysts.

And yet, Apple’s amazing growth seems to be wholly ignored by business pundits who seemingly place more faith in mysteriously sourced rumors in Digitimes than they do in cold hard numbers. In Apple’s most recent quarter, the company reported a growth rate of 121.94%, its highest growth rate in over 6 years.

“Yet, one would never know this by listening to CNBC, Bloomberg or reading the average article from The Street.com or Business Insider”, Zaky points out. “Instead, the only stories you will see are ones that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.”

For example, CNBC likes to trout out Apple’s declining iPod sales, even though that segment of Apple’s business only contributes 4% to Apple’s bottom line. Yet that somehow supersedes the news that Apple’s iPhone sales are growing much faster than the overall smartphone market. Indeed, business pundits have a decidedly pessimistic outlook on all things Apple, so much so that even when Apple products are absolutely destroying a market, these bozos are quick to point out that Apple’s products are bound to tumble eventually.

There’s an unfortunate and constant kernel of hypocrisy that anyone who closely follows shares of Apple is undoubtedly familiar with. For years, investors were quick to put a damper on Apple’s prospects citing the company’s need to find new revenue streams outside of the iPod. But Apple was able to do just this with the iPhone and subsequently the iPad. Yet for some ungodly reason, the pundits at CNBC now decide to harp on iPod sales that, as Zaky points out, don’t play a significant role in Apple’s quarterly earnings anymore. At the very least, you’d think that they’d be smart enough to focus on more pressing issues that make them seem at least marginally aware of the topics they’re covering. And sadly, these are the very same talking heads America listens to these days for financial advice.

We’ve also seen a similar dynamic in the way analysts and business pundits view and interpret the pricing of Apple products. If Apple’s pricepoints are high, analysts are quick to claim that Apple needs to lower its pricing as to gain a foothold in a particular market. If Apple’s pricepoints are low, analysts are quick to question if Apple’s margins will be large enough to really have a significant impact on their bottom line.

Unfortunately, many of the financial gurus tasked with covering Apple look at the company through a lens that obfuscates what really matters – that Apple makes a shit ton of money every quarter and is poised to grow its earnings at a rate that is unprecedented for a company as large as it.

In late 2007, Apple traded at $200 a share after reporting $3.93 in EPS on $24.5 billion in revenue. Turn the pages to 2011 and it’s an entirely different company. In just four years, Apple’s earnings have grown 600% to $27.68, and its revenue skyrocketed 341% to $108.2 billion. That’s the most explosive 4-year growth rate of any large-cap company on the entire S&P 500.

Yet, one wouldn’t know this given the stock’s very sluggish performance, extremely depressed valuation and the media’s permanently negative sentiment on the stock over the past few years. The stock is now trading at an extremely low 13.1 trailing P/E ratio. We’re talking about a valuation level that Apple hasn’t seen in nearly a decade – this despite the fact that the company grew its earnings 82% this year which is the highest in over 7 years. We’re talking about a valuation that is more than 10% lower than the lowest point during the financial crisis.

Zaky next points out that while Apple has increased its earnings by 600% in just 4 years, Apple shares have only increased by 81%.

So maybe all of Wall Street is asleep at the wheel and every company is undervalued.

Not exactly.

The P/E ratios of companies like eBay and Amazon are all higher than Apple’s. And this in spite of the fact that Apple’s recent growth is the highest in company history. Earnings are on the rise, and with a huge ceiling for growth, one can only scratch their head at the buffoonery that drapes the less than nimble minds of Wall Street who can’t see the true value of Apple.

Apple is now trading at the S&P 500 average valuation of 13x despite growing its earnings at a pace that is higher than the top 100 S&P 500 stocks and higher than 90% of the stock listed on the index. By pricing Apple at $363, the market is saying that Apple is worth no more than the average stock. 66% revenue growth and 82% earnings growth isn’t valued at all. Neither is Apple’s $100 billion cash (including fiscal Q1 2012) nor its entire balance sheet for that matter. In fact, Apple is now valued below the average stock trading on the NASDAQ-100 which suggests that the market believes that it is better to hold the NASDAQ-100 (QQQ) than it is to hold Apple from a valuation perspective.

The point of all this, Zaky says, is to illustrate the extent to which share of Apple are undervalued. Consequently, Zaky asserts that the market’s blindness to the reality of Apple’s financials can’t go on indefinitely and that Apple’s inexplicable period of P/E compression will come to an “abrupt end.” After all, Zaky points out, if we assume an even mild growth rate for Apple of 50%, the stock will have to rise substantially just to maintain its shockingly low P/E ratio – to around $577. And if Apple’s P/E ratio should actually rise to appropriate levels, well, then Apple investors might be dancing in the streets.

Put simply, Apple has nowhere to go but up.

Each approach, naturally, has its own advantages and disadvantages. Apple’s history of boneheaded app store rejections is well-documented. At the same time, iOS users don’t need to worry about malware-infected apps that download executable code from remote servers and steal all sorts of personal information. Android, meanwhile, lets every app under sun into its playhouse and the results can sometimes be detrimental.

Recently, we highlighted that Android malware is up 472% since July. But there’s another problem festering within the confines of the Android Market – scamware.

Sure, iTunes is fraught with scamware, but it’s to a much lesser degree than what one experiences on Android. To wit – and perhaps it’s been fixed since – but a few months ago I was using a friends Dell Tablet (don’t ask) and they asked for help downloading the Groupon app.

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem”, I explained.

Or so I thought.

Sifting through a never ending maze of squatter-ware, it ultimately proved impossible to download, or hell, even find, the official Groupon app.

In a similar vein, Electronista a few weeks back pointed out that a sleazy developer uploaded a series of crapware apps under the developr name “Rovio”, to purposefully mislead consumers looking for apps from Rovio Mobile, the purveyor of the immensely popular series of Angry Birds apps.

The developer was naturally taken to task for his crapware by consumers but refused to refund any monies.

Google’s Rito Meier acknowledged the issue and took action along with staff. Electronista saw the developer’s titles being individually removed over the course of Monday afternoon, and as of 2PM Eastern had removed the fake Rovio entirely as a publisher. The company hadn’t entirely eliminated problems as a whole, however, as a company known as C Chase Apps has posted a fake Tiny Wings that hasn’t been affected.

As the popularity of mobile games continues to skyrocket, along with the potential for profit, so too does the increase in scams unleashed upon the Android Market. While Google advises users to be on the lookout for scamware by paying attention to questionable descriptions and poor reviews, I for one feel that this type of onus on the user should be as painless as possible. It’s hard enough filtering out some of the crap apps from the worthwhile apps on iTunes, but when you throw purposefully misleading apps into the equation, well that’s just another layer of complexity that most consumers would rather not deal with.

Of course, Apple isn’t immune to this problem despite its gatekeeping ways. There have been a few instances where overtly copyrighted material has made its way into the iOS App Store – a counterfeit Nintendo Mario game easily comes to mind.

But at least Apple has a framework in place to fend off such attempts at swindling the end user. The Android Marketplace, in contrast, remains a wild west environment where anything goes and problems are dealt with after the fact as opposed to working to prevent them in the first place.

Just last week, Google removed yet another 22 Android apps from the Android Marketplace. The apps in question were free downloads meant to resemble popular apps such as Angry Birds. Once downloaded to a user’s device, premium SMS messages would be sent without a user’s consent or knowledge, costing them a lot of money in the process.

via Electronista

Say what you will about the Android vs. iPhone debate, but there’s simply no denying that the chart below is pretty jarring. Stainpakingly compiled by Michael DeGusta of The Understatement, the chart maps out the update history of various Android devices and iPhones.

A common problem that has plagued Android devices is that not all models are upgradable to the latest OS. Sometimes carriers stand in the way and sometimes a particular device’s hardware just isn’t up to snuff. In contrast, the iPhone, going all the way back to the original, was able to run the current version of iOS even 3 years after debuting. Curiously, some Android devices are even 2 major OS versions behind when they’re released!

DeGusta writes:

Other than the original G1 and MyTouch, virtually all of the millions of phones represented by this chart are still under contract today. If you thought that entitled you to some support, think again:

• 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
• 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
• 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
• 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
• 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
• 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
• In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
• At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.

In Google’s zeal to get Android everywhere, they are sacrificing usability and hamper Android users’ ability to enjoy the latest and greatest the Android OS has to offer.

The difference here between Google and Apple could not be any more stark. Google is preoccupied with getting Android into as many people’s hands as possible, and if that means some users will be using an antiquated version of Android, well that’s just the cost of doing business. Apple, on the other hand, puts the user experience first and foremost. It would never occur to them to continue selling iPhone devices that could only run extremely old versions of iOS.

From security issues to the quality of apps developers will write for Android, the chart above really crystalizes the inherent problems of Android.

In other words, Apple’s way of getting you to buy a new phone is to make you really happy with your current one, whereas apparently Android phone makers think they can get you to buy a new phone by making you really unhappy with your current one.

DeGusta has much more detailed analysis on his research over here. It’s very insightful and definitely worth poring over.

Siri, by all accounts, is the top feature Apple seems to be touting in the newly released iPhone 4S. Siri, some people claim, will bring AI to the masses and will, in fact, serve as a viable personal assistant for iPhone users.

Yesterday, I was discussing Siri with a friend who thus far found the feature somewhat underwhelming. More than anything, this friend found Siri’s inability to answer a wide array of questions frustrating. In short, he found Siri limited and not that different from other voice recognition services he had used in the past.

And to a certain extent, I had to agree. I gave Siri a few test runs myself and found mixed results. After getting past some of the more basic questions – i.e What time is it in Australia? – I asked it a few questions that might typically come up in an ordinary course of conversation.

First I asked, “How old is Larry Bird?” After a few seconds it came back with the right answer.

So far so good.

Next I asked, “Who directed The Rock?” Again, a few seconds it came back with the right answer – Michael Bay.

It was time to up the ante so I then asked, “Who was the main star in Back to the Future?” And to that, it had no answer.

The short of it is that Siri is, in many ways, a limited feature. But because the types questions users can ask Siri are limited to a small subset, Siri is able to accomplish the tasks it’s capable of carrying out remarkably well.

To that end, Jeff Wofford writes that it’s precisely Siri’s modest ambition that makes the feature so valuable.

In a nutshell, here’s what it’s capable of:

Interact with the calendar.

Search contacts.

Read and write messages (text and email).

Interact with the Maps app and location services.

Forward search phrases to certain pre-defined data providers (Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Finance, Yelp, Wolfram|Alpha, or Wikipedia).

This is still an impressive and—most importantly—wildly useful set of functions. But it is a limited, focused set. And that’s what makes me think Siri’s “AI” may actually work.

Right now, most of the reports regarding Siri center on the quirky and funny messages it delivers in response to offbeat questions and commands like “Talk dirty to me” – to which Siri responds with a message about needing to clean.

Over the next few weeks we’ll have a better grasp on the utility of Siri and if it’s positioned to be more than just a novelty feature that makes for a cool demo but not something one might use during the ordinary course of a day.

With that in mind, Siri is still in Beta and will inevitably become “smarter” as Apple is able to build up a database of common questions and requests and tailor the software accordingly, much like how Google has done so brilliantly with its search engine.

So while Siri’s functionality may be somewhat limited for now, that may ultimately prove to be an integral part of its future success.

A reliable, albeit limited, Siri is a feature users are comfortable with, and more importantly, one they can trust.

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech is largely considered one of the best graduation speeches in recent memory. Interestingly enough, I recently showed the speech to a friend of mine and it wasn’t long before she had tears streaming down her face, so touched she was by Jobs’ inspirational story.

Truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure what triggered her reaction, but after reading what billionaire Richard Branson had to say bout Steve Jobs, things make a little bit more sense.

He was a truly great businessman but more than that he was an inspiration to young people, entrepreneurs, inventors, designers, early adopters, budding musicians, and people with disabilities who discovered with Apple’s devices a way to engage with the world.

So many people drew courage from Steve and related to his life story: adoptees, college drop-outs, struggling entrepreneurs, ousted business leaders figuring out how to make a difference in the world, and people fighting debilitating illness. We have all been there in some way and can see a bit of ourselves in his personal and professional successes and struggles.

He inspired with his direct message “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” And yet, despite all his success – he never forgot what was really important in life and was a much loved family man. My thoughts are with Laurene and his family. He will be sorely missed.

Jobs wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his life. He didn’t travel the beaten path. And even after he achieved success with Apple, he was humbled in a serious way when he was kicked out of the company he helped co-found. But he picked himself up by his bootstraps, persevered, entered new businesses, and ultimately found his way back to Apple in a homecoming story that couldn’t have been scripted by even the most talented of writers.

Steve Jobs, in many ways, embodies what’s possible when excuses are thrown on the window and replaced with a strong work ethic and a big imagination. Jobs’ death evoked so much emotion not only because his creations have influenced generations and transformed industries, but also because he was the embodiment of the American dream. A self made man who made it big by the beat of his brow.

He succeeded, he stumbled. He was passionate, persuasive, and at the same time an admittedly flawed yet unapologetic leader. He learned from his mistakes. He inspired others, and though that was accompanied by a legendary temper, he raised the bar higher for himself, those around him, and even other companies.

So as Branson writes, Jobs is relatable on a number of different levels. Not to be too dramatic, but he represents the notion that we’re all capable of greatness.

“Because the ones crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

A week ago, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, which despite housing a significant number of improvements, provoked yawns from a number of pundits and even technology enthusiasts who saw the update as nice, but nothing special.

It seems that many were hoping for a larger screen iPhone with a tapered design. Not so much because anyone thinks the current iPhone screen is too small, but rather because the web was inundated with case moldings suggesting Apple was planning to overhaul the iPhone 4 factor. And so the rumor mill began operating at full throttle, with reports that Apple would release two iPhone models this Fall – an iPhone 4S along with a iPhone 5 with a new form factor and larger screen.

But Apple’s iPhone event came and went and all we got was a measly iPhone 4S with an A5 chip, an amazing camera, voice recognition, iOS 5, and 1080p HD video recording.

And still, analysts and pundits alike weren’t impressed.

“This is a decent upgrade”, they’d write, ” but we’re really waiting for the iPhone 5. What we really wanted to see was a new form factor and LTE support”

I don’t know what they’re smoking, but whatever it is, perhaps I need to partake.

One has to wonder if the rumors surrounding a larger screen iPhone 5 got so out of control that the iPhone 4S inevitably became a psychological letdown – simply by virtue of its name. Some people, it would appear, are more focused on what Apple’s calls its next-gen iPhone than on what the device is actually capable of.

What’s more, some people get so enthralled with abstract features that they blindly assume makes a product better. To that end, John Gruber chimes in on Apple’s decision to maintain its 3.5-inch iPhone screen.

Now, maybe you would prefer a 4-inch screen. Or maybe a 4.5-inch screen. And maybe someone else would prefer a slightly smaller 3.25-inch screen. That’s not how Apple rolls, especially with iOS devices. There is no doubt that some people would prefer a bigger screen. But nor is there any doubt that many other people would not. I wouldn’t. I like to see things get smaller, not bigger. Bigger is not necessarily better. Apple decided on the optimal size for an iPhone display back in 2006. If they thought 4-inches was better, overall, as the one true size for the iPhone display, then the original iPhone would have had a 4-inch display. It’s not like 4-inch screens are harder to make, or use some sort of new technology. If anything they’re surely easier to make, as the pixels are less dense.

Apple releases significant iPhone upgrades every year, and yet for some people, these upgrades have to be uniquely revolutionary to warrant any applause. This year, it was quite apparent that Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone had to arbitrarily feature a new form factor for some people to view it as a serious upgrade. Changing features and including new ones just to be different, without any rhyme or reason and in some cases added benefit, may be how some companies operate, but Apple’s products are thoughtfully designed with the end-user in mind. It pays no attention to fads and could care less about blindly marking off boxes on a feature checklist. At the end of the day, Apple isn’t going to release an iPhone with a 4.7-inch screen just because that’s what HTC does.

Consumers don’t need a funky new form factor as an impetus to upgrade on a yearly basis. Only moronic analysts do.

To a large degree, we as consumers, even those of us who can’t wait to open up and play with the iPhone 4S, are a spoiled bunch.

Think back a few years. Not too far back, but before the iPhone roamed the earth.

How often did people back then upgrade their phones? Usually when the phone they had stopped working.

The whole notion of a yearly smartphone upgrade was ushered in with the iPhone. The mere fact that each successive iPhone release prompts consumers to abandon perfectly workable devices that are only a year old is a testament to the allure of Apple products and that Apple’s yearly iPhone upgrades are substantial, no matter what the critics might say.

And the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Apple on Monday announced that it received over 1 million iPhone pre-orders in just 24 hours. That’s nearly double the amount they processed for the iPhone 4 last Summer.

I suppose that in some parallel universe unbounded by the rules of logic and common sense, the iPhone 4S can be viewed as a lackluster upgrade.

Good money, however, says that Apple has another hit on its hands.

Apple may soon be axing both the iPod Classic and the iPod Shuffle according to a recent report from TUAW. The article doesn’t relay much substantial evidence aside from the tried and true argument that iPod sales are slumping and that iPod sales as a whole only account for 8% of Apple’s total revenue.

Further, the only iPod model that continues to see any success is the iPod Touch. Devices like the iPod Classic and Shuffle, in contrast, certainly aren’t selling like hotcakes. Consequently, this year may be the last year you can pick up one of those iPod models so you might want to do that sooner rather than later.

Obviously we can’t divulge our source, but it is NOT an analyst. Most of us listen to analyst predictions with the proverbial grain of salt (or bag of salt). We feel pretty confident that Apple will soon discontinue the shuffle and classic, and we see few changes coming for the iPod touch — unless you’re super excited about it being available in white. The nano will then become Apple’s lowest-end iPod (we’ve heard nothing about a price drop, however) and the iPod touch will remain a premium iPod with its current form factor intact.

This, of course, isn’t the first time we’ve heard a rumor to this effect. Back in February, supply of the iPod Classic was running low, prompting many to ponder how many more years Apple’s trusty ole’ device had left in the tank.

The larger question here, though, is if Apple should axe the Classic and the Shuffle.

We don’t think so.

Sure, the Classic and the Shuffle aren’t best sellers any more, but they undeniably fill a niche in the MP3 player market. On one hand, the Classic draw in music aficionados who absolutely need as much storage space as possible. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the iPod Shuffle is appealing to people who aren’t music fiends and are simply looking for an easy to use MP3 player for commuting and activities like exercising.

These two products, therefore, not only serve a role of serving a subset of music-loving consumers, they keep people in the Apple brand. Every iPod Shuffle or Classic sold is yet another iTunes user. Besides, and as we’ve written previously, the Classic is appealing to the hardcore music lovers out there, and it’s nice to have those folks on your side.

Adding more speculative fuel to the fire, remember that Steve Jobs this past March responded to a user email regarding the iPod Classic:

The email read:

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!!!

And Jobs’ reply,

We have no plans to.

Sent from my iPhone

So yeah, Apple’s upcoming media event mentioned nothing with respect to the iPod, but we think it’s because the iPod doesn’t warrant a media event these days. Marginal upgrades, if any at all, don’t need stage time and can be made quietly in the background without stealing attention away from Apple’s true workhorse – the iPhone.

In answering the question, the report relays that Cook was formerly the man behind the scenes that made Apple tick. While no one can compete with Jobs’ level of foresight and talent as a visionary, the following excerpts describe Cook as someone more than capable of running Apple. Jobs certainly wasn’t going to leave Apple’s future up in the air and it’s no coincidence that Cook has gotten the call to fill in for Jobs each and every time the Apple co-founder has had to take a leave of absence.

“Tim Cook is the person who really runs Apple,” one ex-Apple employee told PC Mag. “He’s very organized. Apple is such a seamless operation, and it’s all Tim Cook.”

Interestingly enough, though hardly surprising, a Steve Jobs deposition from 2008 had Jobs referring to Cook as an “ultra key executive.”

That get-it-done approach has clearly guided Cook over the last decade as Apple made massive changes (among them: getting into the mobile market, switching its MacBook microprocessors from IBM to Intel) and the company made it look easy. A lot of what Cook has done has allowed Apple to be very aggressive with iPad pricing, for example, leaving its tablet competitors with little room to stand out. Thanks to the company’s enviable supply chain and its popular retail stores, Apple can sell them for (relatively) cheaply, while still reaping handsome profits.

The one downside to Cook, if you can even call it that, is that he perhaps lacks Jobs’ uncanny ability to predict where the technological compass is going to point. But to be fair, what other CEO on the planet could ever match Jobs in that regard?

Besides, it’s not as if Jobs alone steered the Apple ship. While Jobs of course had final say about the company’s trajectory, Apple’s course was no doubt fueled by Apple’s brain trust coming together and, more often than not, reaching a mutually agreeable consensus.

While Cook is not nearly as outspoken as Jobs, Apple fans should be reassured that Cook is as passionate about Apple as anyone and isn’t hesitant to fire a few barbs at the competition. Pre-iPad, Cook would routinely bash the entire Netbook category only to have Apple utterly decimate it with the arrival of the iPad. More recently, Cook scoffed at the lineup of Android-based tablets looking to take on the iPad, calling them “vapor” because at that point no Android 3.0 tablets were even available in stores.

The aforementioned ex Apple employee further chimes in:

I like Tim Cook a lot, but I don’t see him as that visionary guy. Someone within the organization will become the future visionary person. There are a lot of power struggles going on at Apple right now.

Who’s to say, but we’re somewhat skeptical.

First and foremost, Jobs is still alive and not out of the picture. For whatever reason, people are taking Jobs’ resignation as if he up and died. Not only is he alive, but well-sourced reports suggest he’ll remain actively involved in the company, albeit in the role as a chairman involved in the company’s long-term product strategy.

Second, Jobs commands so much respect at Apple that it’s more likely than not that Apple employees will respect Jobs’ presumably handpicked successor as CEO. Besides, Cook’s previous selection as interim CEO of Apple didn’t result in any internal power struggles as far as we’re aware of.

Third, Cook isn’t masquerading around as a visionary. He has his strengths and he will play to them. Apple has a deep bench of talented designers, executives, and engineers that will work together to plot Apple’s future course.

And fourth, many of Apple’s upcoming products are already mapped out and it will be up to Cook and co. to implement them seamlessly and successfully into the marketplace.

Apple’s product strategy for the next couple of years is no doubt in place, and in the short term, Cook’s Apple will look very similar to Jobs’. Anyone hoping the transition could lead to Flash on iOS or less secrecy from Apple’s Cupertino base can pretty much forget it.

The reality is that any changes at Apple won’t be evident until Jobs’ input at the company is wholly removed from the company. And even then, the reverberations, if any at all, resulting from the absence of Jobs won’t be felt for years.

For time time being, Apple has a new CEO and if the past is any indication of the future (and it always is), Apple is in fine hands. We have no doubt that Tim Cook is more than qualified to lead Apple to even greater heights.

via PC Mag

While Steve Jobs will reportedly remain actively involved in Apple’s product strategy, and we certainly hope that he is around for a long time, the day will inevitably come when Jobs is no longer involved at all with decisions at Apple. When that day comes, and again, hopefully it won’t come for a long time, many folks are wondering how Apple will fare. Will the company be able to continue on its course of innovation, releasing trendsetting new products that help define technologies for a generation? It’s a tall order to fill, but given the way Jobs structured Apple we’re inclined to believe that Apple is in a position to thrive not only for the next 2-3 years, but for the next 10 years – regardless of whether or not Jobs, Tim Cook, or even Scott Forstall.

You see, Jobs at Apple didn’t just usher in innovative new products like the iMac, iPod, and iPhone, he helped create an environment where those products were conceived and brought to market. To that end, Jobs helped create an infrastructure that will arguably keep Apple on pace to continue churning out successful products for some time.

Last week, John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote:

Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole. The company itself is Apple-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Steve Jobs brought to questions like “How should a computer work?”, “How should a phone work?”, “How should we buy music and apps in the digital age?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a company that creates such things function?”

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

And so it goes.

Jobs has filled the ranks of Apple with people who buy into Jobs’ notion of what a company like Apple should be about. It’s not about the bottom line, it’s about creating products that can literally change the world. And sure, money matters, you’d have to be a fool to believe otherwise, but Apple’s brass firmly believe that if you focus on innovative products that customers love, the bottom line will take care of itself.

Looking forward a decade or two, it’s likely that Jobs’ legacy at Apple won’t solely be relegated to the products Apple released under his leadership, but will encompass a company that was able to remain on the vanguard of technology and the way people interact with consumer electronics even after he stepped down as CEO.