Jobs chided, answers questions at shareholder meeting
By Ryan Block 
posted May 11th 2007 10:26AM
posted May 11th 2007 10:26AM
Yeah, we tend to think things like shareholder meetings are as boring as the next guy (well, the next guy who's not a stock broker, anyway), but Steve really took and dished out some heat at yesterday's get together.On Leopard's delay: "Leopard will be worth the wait. I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products." (Snap!)
On the iPhone: "A few of us have been using the iPhone a lot and if you wanted it back, you would have to pry it from our dead hands."
On iTunes movie rentals: "One never knows."
After being grilled by AFL/CIO on stock backdating: "I actually got my options at a higher price, but I didn't ask the company to reimburse me"
On Anderson's comments: "I've worked with Fred for many years and I think he's an awfully good guy, but I thought his comments were a little wrong."
Despite being lauded by Greenpeace reps for "A Greener Apple", he opined: "I think [Greenpeace] particularly depends too much on principle and not enough on fact. You guys rate people based on what people say their plans are in the distant future, not what they are doing today. I think you put way too much weight on these glorified principles and way too little weight on science and engineering. It would be very helpful if your organization hired a few more engineers and actually entered into dialog with companies to find out what they are really doing and not just listen to all the flowery language when in reality most of them aren't doing anything. That's my opinion."
It ain't easy being Steve.
Ah hah hah! That first one was classic! I wish I could be as witty as old Steve!
And way to stick it to those greenpeace hippies too.
Ahahaha.. yeah that was a classic joke.. Oh wait.. no it wasn't!
Not even remotely witty. It was actually a rather tired attempt at cleverness.
What's funnier is Microsoft made $14.40 BILLION from January 1st 2007 - March 31, 2007 mainly due to Vista & more importantly Office. If that's an easy cheque to write, I wouldn't mind having it in my name.
I was being facetious.
I've always liked Steve, but he was a big show off this time.
Leopard will be worth the wait? Developing great products takes time huh? Yeah about as much time as it takes to incorporate the newest Linux features into the Mac OS and put enough marketing spin on them to make them seem original. And someone like Jobs needn't concern himself with writing checks for these features like Microsoft does, since Linux is open source anyway. (Oh Snap!)
The newest Linux features? Virtual desktops have been an X (Unix windowing) feature for a long time (maybe 20 years). For the versioned file system, however, you'd have to look to VMS from the 60s. Oh, but the Mac has a whizzy view on top of it!
(by the way, I'm typing this on a Mac, and glad to see them providing good quality, accessible implementations of these features - it's criminal that no consumer OS has provided easy backup features - but the hype is a bit thick some times).
erm, i think you may have that the wrong way around, yes apple chose nextstep as the platform for osx which is based on unix but not linux, apple gives back to the open source community too, look at darwin project
No, not linux... BSD!
BSD license is where its at, take all the code you want and then hide behind the license as you make money off of your product.
No, not linux... BSD!
BSD license is where its at, take all the code you want and then hide behind the license as you make money off of your product.
Giving back to the community, Darwin? Please, yet another distro among many. Darwin is vanilla as it comes and provides nothing real tangible to the community. It just gives Apple some PR to try to feed us.
Job is getting too cocky
getting?
"Job is getting too cocky"
Getting? The man is an outright asshole, and only the fanbois licking his ass think otherwise. The man is full of piss and wind.
You guys are so smart with so many well thought-out opinions. Does is hurt to be amongst the rest of us?
It does hurt, buy only when one of you, while driving your Chevy Suburban, drinking coffee, eating a burger, checking your hair in the mirror, smoking a cigarette and trying to find the your favorite Christina Aguilera song on your ipod all at the same time runs one of us over, driving our smart little Hondas (and drinking Green Tea).
Interesting assumptions. I'm surprised you see anyone looking down your nose like that.
Good for him ripping on Greenpeace. They deserve it after their "totally not based on actual facts" report card for the industry.
Jobs is an ass. If Apple were to disappear tomorrow, what we we really be losing? A bunch of iPods. .Mac Pages?
Jim, you could say the same about every other company... so I guess my question is.. if you don't like Jobs, why did you even bother reading the article?
Because I love to see Jobs acting like child and taking immature potshots at Microsoft. It only helps reinforce was a baby he is. And it's because of his attitude that Mac market share will always be low. My point was that Apple contribution to the computing world have been very slim in the past 10 years. Hopefully, you don't me to explain that to you either.
a more interesting observation would be if Apple never exhisted. Comman and Conquer 2 style
and isn't it just as childish to bask in someone else's childishness.
we would have... even worse (is that possible?) microsoft products, as they would have no one to copy/compete against
@BandB
I'm not "basking" in Jobs immaturity. I'm stunned and appalled by it. Sorry if that wasn't quite clear to you. Cheers.
@Killian
"we would have... even worse (is that possible?) microsoft products, as they would have no one to copy/compete against"
Wow, very original line of thought. Let's see, Leopard's Mail.app has a to-do list....innovative.
BEGIN ENGADGET COMMENT
[Pseudo intellectual comment to make it look like I read the article here]
[link to my weblog here, which is why I posted the comment]
END ENGADGET COMMENT
Ooh, Ow! Touche, that jab on Greenpeace really hit home.
I'm no Greenpeace hater though. I think they are great when it comes to calling attention to threatened species and habitat.
But they hurt their credibility with the 'Green My Apple' campaign. And outifts like Greenpeace, credibility is their only currency and if they throw that away then they lose their effectiveness.
And the sad thing is, given Jobs' own background and personal philosophy, if they approached him differently they could have signed him on as a partner. Instead they chose to antagonize him with a sensationalist, fact-bending, publicity-seeking stunt.
But Greenpeace couldn't help themselves, can they? Well, that's the nature of all true-believer types.
I don't hate Greenpeace either, but Jobs nailed them to a T.
Why worry about what people SAY they're going to do (and never do), when you can look at what people ARE doing and praise/deride them based on that?
Green living is going to come in one fell swoop. It's about IMPROVING what we're doing now. Just look at ALL industries and economies, it's about evolution of the industry and practices, not about MASSIVE, un-tested, un-regulated changes in the fundamental business. No one will do that, but they will change one little thing at a time.
Apple's engineers take a lot of open-source projects that aren't quite ready for inclusion in a mainstream OS, improve them, and give back as much code as possible. KHTML is a great example of a framework that's been massively improved, and as a result, Apple, Nokia, and other companies have reaped the benefits.
There's a whole list of projects on Apple's public source website. I suggest you check it out before you dismiss Apple's contributions to Open Source.
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html
I know full well about Apple's opensource page and like I said... Apple has given back nothing real tangible to the community.
Can anyone just up and use this name? Then what was the point in me bothering to register the name "Tim"? If I had known there was no name checking I would've used something a bit more elaborate...
Jobs may be an a-hole but he is an a-hole with a vision for his company and he is right 88 percent of the time.
by the way I have been using Vista for the last week... is this some kind of sick joke? It's like xp with a skin on it. Sad.
Ouch, another cheap shot at Vista. Wow, that was easy.
Yeah. Greenpeace sucks. Yeah. Vista is XP with a skin. Yeah. I'm an iDiot. I worship a corporation. That's right. A corporation. And nobody, I mean, NOBODY, can tell me my corporation isn't BETTER in every way that ANY other corporation out there. That's why Greenpeace, which gave kudos to OTHER companies but not my beloved CORPORATION, sux.
Sincerely,
unbiased tea/coolaid drinker
P.S. Apple RULEZ!
Amen, speak it my brotha! (or sista!)
Re Vista cheap shot.
But it's true. Vista is like the revived Chevy Malibu.
Fancy new exterior but under the hood is a 35 year old iron-block pushrod V6 engine.
Aaactually, I'd say that's an incorrect analogy. Vista has a lot going on under the hood that the average end-user doesn't see.
I usually stay away from these cat fights, but I just thought I'd interject to simply say this:
My friend used to use Macs way back in the day (OS 7-8ish)and I used to tease the hell out of him. I called them Speak & Spells. I finally talked him into converting to Windows around 1998-1999. But that was then and this is now. Now I think I have to admit that I am a Fanboy. It took about 5 years of stray glances at OS X. Sneaking a peak here and there. Trying not to get caught. What sold me was a combination of the UI, the BSD back end, and the one think Linux, which I was running at the time, could never give me. Major application support. Now that I've crossed over, I see these arguments and I think, "Why bother?" I know how great a Mac is for me. As long as Apple is doing well enough to keep supporting and improving my platform of choice, I'll be happy. And as long as their profits continue to exceed those of any other PC manufacturer I don't think that will be a problem. I don't care if everyone uses it. Their market share is irrelevant to me. My friend still don't get it though. "I thought you didn't like Macs?"
"A shareholder from Vancouver, British Columbia asked why an Apple Store has not come to his city yet. “Patience is a virtue and your patience will be rewarded soon,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail."
THANK GOD. We've been waiting for bloody ages.
eh...
He can say what he wants about Greenpeace because he has Global Warming Boi (Gore) has his back.
--
He can talk because Apple is doing really important things in this area.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/
His frustration was that Apple wasn't getting credit for what they were doing (woo.. deja vu) and other companies were getting cred for what they said they would do.. which is worthless.
Global Warming Boi (Gore) has his back.
--
Okay now I'm just being a prick, but let this be a lesson to all the other geeks out there.
Saying an inside joke that only you get (as demonstrated by the fact that... he had to explain it) is hurting.
Rule of thumb. Geeks do it all the time.
"On Leopard's delay: "Leopard will be worth the wait. I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If so, then Microsoft would have great products." (Snap!)"
That's a funny comment considering that Microsoft helped save apple in the late 1990s by investing 150 Million in them. I guess writing checks can make dicks even bigger.
Okay, I was gonna stay out of this one... but, sometimes you read "stupid shiite" like this and HAVE to just say, "smack-you very much!"
Microsoft did not, out of the goodness of their hearts invest in poor little old Apple to keep them afloat. The $150 million cash injhection was a PAYOFF!!! Microsoft, on the verge of facing serious anti-competition and anti-monopoly inquiries, wanted a long nagging court battle to go away before they lost and lost their shirts at the same time.
You know, that little fact that they ripped off every aspect of the Mac OS to make Windows. Now, choose to look at that anyway you want, but it doesn't avert the truth. Microsoft paid to have Apple back off on the their copyright infringement litigation.
Now as for the rest of you asking what big of a difference the computing world would be without Apple, particularly in the last 10 years, well, let's review, working roughly backward in time:
- no facility to access TV or MP content over the web
- no legal facility to buy music off the web... also, another claimed flop by most of the Windows world when it was announced
- no HDD based PMPs or, at the very least, ones that are still only in their infancy and relegated to a niche market... recalling the fact that when Apple released the first iPod, no one believed it would be a product that sold because in the infinite wisdomm of the Windows world, no one wanted the things
- little to no integration of cameras into computers... yes, that's right, Apple put them in their laptops first and showed that there was a section of the market that considered that a valuable feature and followed that up by bringing the same system to their desktops
- little to no integration of bluetooth in computers in general... once again, Apple saw the viability of the technology long before other PC makers
- no Firewire or major move to digital video for the average consumer... this is an Apple technology after all
- little to no forward progress in bringing digital entertainment creation to the masses... iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand have all been widely acclaimed applications that have led to the virtual verbatim copying of their features and interfaces by Microsoft (the quality of those copies, of course, are subject to interpretation - mine is, they aren't very good).
- little to no integration of Lucent's infant technology 802.11, thus no Wi-Fi movement of the modern day... it was Apple that proved it's viability in consumer computer systems 3 years before it was ever an option in a mainstream PC, let alone in a PC as a standard feature
- no WYSIWYG, no typography
- no GUI... let us remember, while not strictly an Apple advance, Xerox was ready to scrap the project altogether and warehouse its results before Apple showed up to buy it and then adapt it to consumer computing
- no mouse... again, a technology that was going to be scrapped because no one accept Apple saw the potential of the device
- an infant peronal computing marketplace... Apple was a major piece of bringing that market into existence and was the early sustainer of keeping it alive and viable
But, I'm biased... I believe in looking at fact and I'm an Apple fan-boi.
Ciao!
interesting article... i think Jobs may be a bit cocky but has just about every right to be. who doesn't like an underdog story?
The comments on this article, though, sheesh... what a bunch of pissy little babies (on both sides of the fence.) why get so worked up over nonsense? - get a hobby.
Whatever Steve...just hurry and release the damn iPhone.
Hello plaidpjs,
Your post is full of lies and inaccuracies, it's sad, especially when you took the time to write so much. There's not much fact there, and your post reeks of someone who has been drinking Steve Jobs' kool-aid for so long, they've lost all sense of "truthiness."
LOL....
Show me the lies and inaccuracies. Prove what you say. Everything in that post is fact, the only exception being where the respective markets and technologies would be today without Apple doing what they did.
So, stfu or actually prove me wrong. Simply claiming I am means nothing.
I really think if Steve Jobs stepped down, I could get into the whole mac thing. Apple makes some cool products, but I cant stand Steve Jobs. He's way too cocky and arrogant. I refuse to support that guy and be part of the drones that follow his every command. Bleh.
I don't get why so many people not using Apple are constantly bashing Apple/Jobs for just being Apple/Jobs.
I used to radiate hate to Microsoft when I was using it because it affected me negatively on a daily basis from DOS 3.3 to WIN XP SP2. One of the reasons to make me switch to OS X in 2004 was that I never heard of any discontent Apple users, being not pissed by your computer was a concept that I didn't understand at that time.
Immediately after switching to Apple I stopped hating Microsoft because it didn't affect me any more. So why can anyone hate Apple or its management when you neither use it, nor does its tiny market-share affect you? Jealousy of the happiness of others?
There is so much anger in Windows-Users, I wonder where that comes from.
AJ
I've taken your post, respectively replaced a few words, and you have the same argument for Zune users.
"I don't get why so many people not using the Zune are constantly bashing Microsoft/Zune for just being Microsoft/Zune.
So why can anyone hate Microsofot or its Zune when you neither use it, nor does its tiny market-share affect you? Jealousy of the happiness of others?
There is so much anger in Apple/iPod-Users, I wonder where that comes from."
See what I did there? It goes both ways. For examples of what I'm talking about, look at the comments in http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=zune posts.
Well, o rly, since the Zune's features didn't arouse my interest I haven't been following any debates about it.
While I am sure there will be iPod users mocking the Zune, I haven't seen any from the deep of their hearts "hating" Microsoft for just making the Zune, although as I admitted I haven't paid attention to any discussions around it and won't start with that now.
And saying that my argument can be extended to other debates only emphasizes its validity in this specific case, right?
Personally I like having the choice in computer and entertainment "universes", Apple just consistently makes products for my needs, others may have different priorities. I don't see any need trying to bash companies for making products that other people happily want to use, as long as I find someone who caters to my taste. /shrug
AJ
Alex Jacobson : "Well, o rly, since the Zune's features didn't arouse my interest I haven't been following any debates about it.
While I am sure there will be iPod users mocking the Zune, I haven't seen any from the deep of their hearts "hating" Microsoft for just making the Zune, although as I admitted I haven't paid attention to any discussions around it and won't start with that now."
If you "haven't paid attention to any discussions" then how can you make an argument or statement for one side of the group? Like I said before, read up on the posts from http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=zune and other sites for a vast amount of examples; you'll see how much they dislike Microsoft/Zune from the "deep of their hearts."
plaidpjs: MS bought $150M of Apple stock at the time. This inspired great confidence in the media a time where Michael Dell's proposed solution for Apple's problems was to "close shop and return the money to the shareholders".
I have heard though that MS secretly shorted $150M worth of stock at the same time. For non-traders, this means that this was a zero sum game for MS - they couldn't win or lose anything no matter what the stock did.
Okay... please review this article, it is the first in a list of many that you can find through a simple search.
Pay SPECIAL attention to the second paragraph that explains both Microsoft and Apple had agreed to this influx as a settlement to their long existing litigation over Windows infringements.
http://news.com.com/MS+to+invest+150+million+in+Apple/2100-1001_3-202143.html
plaidpjs : "LOL....Show me the lies and inaccuracies. Prove what you say. Everything in that post is fact, the only exception being where the respective markets and technologies would be today without Apple doing what they did.
So, stfu or actually prove me wrong. Simply claiming I am means nothing."
Hello again plaidpjs,
"no facility to access TV or MP content over the web"
Incorrect, both CinemaNow & Movielink offered these services as far back 1999.
"no legal facility to buy music off the web."
Incorrect, Cductive did this as far back as 1996, with prices at 99 cents a song (sound familiar?) while others such as mp3.com, Goodnoise (now called eMusic) and even SONY did this in 2000.
"no HDD based PMPs..."
Remember the Creative Nomad? The same one Apple paid $100 MILLION to Creative to settle their dispute regarding the iPod stealing their interface.
A crap load of the rest of your "facts" start with "little to no integration" so I won't even need to bother with it, as you prove that Apple "borrows" existing technologies and packages it up in a pretty enclosure for simpletons such as yourself.
You can stfu now, biased iDiot.
First, you are angry and need to lay off the caffeine.
Second, let's review your little conundrum of facts.
- in reference to TV and MP content over the web: CinemaNow, while established in 1999, didn't bring any tangible service to market until 2002 and that was as a pay-per-view facility, it wasn't until 2004 that they brought "buy" content to their service and has not, to-date, sold as much as has the iTMS. MovieLink similarly, established in 2001, didn't bring buyable content to their service until late 2005. And, neither of the services allow for the content you pull off their respective sites to be used in any manner other than on your computer or a TV connected to your computer (except for the relatively recent edition of burning content to a DVD now allowed at CinemaNow).
The point, however, is that both of these companies have lingered in relative obscurity over the last several years. Most consumers have no concept that they actually exist, or at the very least a passible understanding of what they truly offer. That is not the case when it comes to iTMS and what Apple has been able to achieve in just the last two years with regard to TV and MP downloads (and they don't yet have ALL the studios on board in their endeavor, as opposed to MovieLink which was initially subsidized and owned by several major studios, or CinemaNow that has had studio support since the day they began)
Simply because these services exist does not invalidate my point, without Apple, those markets would still be lingering in obscurity and would still be trying to pass off the pure subscription/rental based model they both had up until Apple started making entry into the market. Amazing how that works, huh?
- Cductive, MP3.com, and the other music purchase/sharing sites that existed prior to Apple entering the market had nothing to do with the major record labels. They were strictly populated by the indie market, self-publishers, or illegally distributed content. Say whatever you want, but it wasn't until Apple brought the big five to the legal download table that that market was truly created. But, even if you want to give them some credit, where the hell are they now? Failing or failed... miserably!
- as to the Creative Nomad and Creative's case against Apple... well, I suggest you learn to read and go back and review what happened because it had nothing to do with HDD players. It was a patent ifringement case based on a patent that wasn't awarded to Creative until well after Apple had already captured the market and it was on a menuing/navigation system.
Oh noes, look who's really stupid... why, it's o rly!
And, as for your last block of text... hell yes they borrow technologies, every tech company does, but they also innovate and create new technologies which, unfortunately, several other companies do not. And, as for packaging for Simpletons, at least it's better then packaging for a@@ hats like yourself... because god forbid they did that and most of the technologies I mentioned wouldn't be where they are now.
802.11, bluetooth, GUIs, the mouse, WYSIWYG, typography... Microsoft didn't want to know about these things until well after Apple established their viability and that consumers really, really liked them. Whether or not they were in-house projects or not, without Apple, computing would be a much uglier landscape with less than wonderful advances in a lot of what defines general day-to-day existence as we know it!
Also, be sure to check out the document exhibits from the same time period in the Comes v. Microsoft trial, many of which detail the company's efforts to manipulate/misinform Apple and destroy Sun (and, by proxy, Java). A deal with Microsoft has, historically, never proven to be a good idea.
Jobs is an asshat.
Well plaidpjs, you wrote quite a long response, but it was pretty vacuous.
One minute it's "no facility to access TV or MP content or buy music off the web" the next it's "well X doesn't count because it doesn't satisfy Y," that's lame and trite.
You're the typical iDiot plaidpjs, when proven wrong, you start changing your tune and original connotation to help with your points (or lack there of.)
Enjoy writing another useless biased novel, or save yourself the embarrassment and stfu; then again, it was an entertaining read, no matter how devoid it is.
I have yet to change any tune, o rly. My original points are still valid.
What is truly vacuous is your attempt to negate an argument by throwing around insults. Funny enough, that is also the sign of a truly WEAK mind.
So, keep up the good work... it's truly entertaining to read someone's posts who is so unbelievably angry! :)
You have a wonderful day now!
Hmm, writing checks huh? Like MS did when they wrote a check to Apple to save them from death as the Steve took the helm again back in '97? He is awful cocky to MS when he owes the existance of his company to their ability to write a check.
Hello plaidpjs,
You are a simpleton, even when reading your own posts. Your original post insinuated that "no " was possible or existed before Apple presented it to you, then in your attempt at a rebuttal, you state "Most consumers have no concept that they actually exist" and "Simply because these services exist..." so you indeed have changed your tune and your points are no longer valid in their original connotation. You can revise your post if you'd like, but it doesn't change your original statement.
"Okay, I was gonna stay out of this one..." it seems you should have iGnoramus.
hahahahahaha... there's your insult stick again.
Too bad this board doesn't have an a@@hat ejector.
As for your "simpleton" reading of my original post. It was addressed at the markets as we now conceive them, not as they might have existed before Apple entered the mix. So, I'm sorry to tell you, but I've been saying the same thing then as I am now.
But, trust me... your screams of inadequacy are not going unheard. It's okay, o rly... let out the frustrated teenager that you harbor in your soul.
Buh-bye, now... have a nice day!
Plaidpjs,
Please be balanced.
- no Firewire or major move to digital video for the average consumer... this is an Apple technology after all
Apple didnt exactly drive USB, or Sata - and retained a royalty for Firewire that impeded its market penetration for too long - but a nice technology.
- little to no forward progress in bringing digital entertainment creation to the masses... iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand have all been widely acclaimed applications that have led to the virtual verbatim copying of their features and interfaces by Microsoft (the quality of those copies, of course, are subject to interpretation - mine is, they aren't very good).
Microsoft and others brought living room integration of media long before Apple TV.
Media Centre?
- little to no integration of Lucent's infant technology 802.11, thus no Wi-Fi movement of the modern day... it was Apple that proved it's viability in consumer computer systems 3 years before it was ever an option in a mainstream PC, let alone in a PC as a standard feature
Most PCs started with pretty standard 802.11 - not a bastardised standard.
- no WYSIWYG, no typography
Xerox anyone?
- no GUI... let us remember, while not strictly an Apple advance, Xerox was ready to scrap the project altogether and warehouse its results before Apple showed up to buy it and then adapt it to consumer computing
Dont confuse innovation and commercialisation - How many PCs exist?
For every example there are counterexamples - true, Apple make beautiful vertically integrated systems, but the PC ecosystem has provided diverse choice - and at a lower price point that Apple
Just be a little balanced.
Thanks.
Hello plaidpjs,
In reference to "It was addressed at the markets as we now conceive them, not as they might have existed before Apple entered the mix," where in your original post did you say that? Once again, you're changing your tune in a manner to assist with your point of view and lack of facts, albeit with slightly different wording now.
Also, Pete has addressed you here ( http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/11/jobs-chided-answers-questions-at-shareholder-meeting/comments/4928501/ ) don't forget to respond to him as well, but make sure you get it right this time, so you don't have to change your "meaning" later.
btw, adolescent plaidpjs, you may be able to get away with saying bad words like "ass" and not worry about getting the ruler.