Tag: rsutcliffe
July 2019 The news of Jony Ives’ Departure from Apple to lead his own design company cannot, despite iCook’s comments, have a positive spin put on it for Apple’s future. Each industry, each profession, each discipline has its practitioners and its leaders. A few of these have iconic founders–people who made themselves the sine qua non of an entire school of thought and practice. Modern technology design has Jony Ive’s signature all over it. His designs for computers, pads, phones,…
It was the best of sheds… until it became the worst of sheds. Oh, wait. Introductory sentences structured that way are yesterday’s news. Well, what the Dickens… The Spy has a small shed used to store his garden technology–tools, fertilizers, a very few chemicals, pots, fencing, poles, rototiller, etc. All of it is low tech. Built some five and twenty years ago out of scrap lumber, the underpinnings have proven susceptible to rot, so he decided to replace it. The…
Why is it that supposedly hard-headed evidence-based fact-found business and IT decision makers seem so driven instead by emotional and personal considerations? Take the stock market, for instance. The one predictable thing about it is that it always overreacts, whether on the up or down side. Never has this been more apparent than lately, where every titbit of “news” sends it on a wild gyration, up several hundred points one day, down likewise the next, with no time or effort…
A Word or Two November 2015 Apple’s sales saga continues to flummox many pundits. They forecast earnings estimates too low or too high, and when they miss, they criticize–not themselves, but Apple–as if it were Cupertino’s fault they aren’t more prescient. The latest take on this is that because Apple’s iPhone sales generate so large a percentage of the total income, and aren’t breaking records by a very wide margin these days, the company is somehow in trouble, and…
by Rick Sutcliffe October 2014 iOS8 was introduced at WWDC with much hoopla but actually arrived with some problems, and has needed two updates since, the current one being 8.0.2. Also many users find it is too large to install without deleting a great deal of material from their iPuds. Hint: Use iTunes for the update. Given the usual spit and polish Apple puts into new releases, this whole episode seems odd, even a little Microsoftish–as if something has slipped there….
Apple’s stock continues to behave strangely, but with more explanation in recent weeks. Seems a couple of large hedge funds sold billions in Apple shares over a short period, driving the price down. More recently, another fund manager speculated on a stock split, which caused a short rally in the shares. Yet another wants to extract cash from Apple’s hoard into his own pocket. All these moves are both short-sighted and self-serving. Indeed, it seems to the Spy that any…
Some analysts are upbeat about RIM but the Spy doesn’t understand why. The new Blackberry and OS are too little and too late to make any difference. Colour this one more or less DOA, along with the readers’ choice of Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. Both the smartphone and large appliance electronic markets are over-saturated with brands that are no longer viable. Others have become downbeat about Apple. Well, the Spy can understand that the stock may have entered a more…
