News/Rumors

Apple’s CEO: Apple has not lost its cool

During the interview at the All Things D conference in Palos Verdes, Calif., Tim Cook  was predictably more short-spoken on much-rumored topics.

He denied that the company lost its “cool factor” and insisted that some suggestions that Android was defending Apple in the mobile OS war because Android reached more unit sales, were not reasonable.

“For us, winning has never been about making the most,” said Cook. “We make the best phone, we don’t make the most phones.”

Moreover, he refused from comments on those that the company plans overhaul to Apple TV and the smartwatch commonly known as “iWatch.” Tim Cook confirmed that Apple  has sold more than 13 million Apple TV devices last year. But when asked to reveal Apple’s vision for the device by Swisher, Cook said: “I don’t want to answer that.”

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By the way, the CEO confirmed that there’s work on a overhauled iOS  and noted that Apple would be “rolling out the future” of the mobile operating system, as well as OS X at the coming World Wide Developers Conference.

When a number of legal issues was touched, Cook responded bluntly “We don’t use tax gimmicks”, thus denying any exploiting the tax system. Tim Cook also refused to confirm that the company  violated any antitrust laws and said: “We’re not going to sign a settlement that says we did something we didn’t do. So we’re going to fight.”

News/Rumors

Would you like a cup of coffee with Tim Cook?

Such a proposal you can find in charity auction site Charitybuzz: Tim is offering the chance to chat over coffee, and all it might cost is a charity donation — to the tune of $50,000. Charitybuzz is calling the item a “power meeting” that lets a lucky winner “nab one-on-one access to one of the most powerful figures in tech and business.” The meeting can run between 30 minutes and one hour.

The auction, which has an estimated value of $50,000, has 20 days left in its duration. The auction’s winner will be able to take a guest for coffee with Cook. The bid does not, though, include travel and accommodations.

Apple as an organization has a mixed record with charity. The company’s late founder, Steve Jobs, was reluctant to publicize his own charitable works when alive, which made some question whether Jobs even engaged in charitable giving. Notable Apple personalities have previously donated their time, designs, and money in the past, though, to a range of causes.

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Apple, Mac, News/Rumors

Tim Cook about iMac “significant shortage”.

During the Q&A portion of today’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about the number of product releases in the fall of 2012 and whether he wished Apple had done things differently.
Cook said:” Looking back, I would have delayed the release of the new iMac until 2013 to avoid some of the the delays that many customers experienced after ordering a new Mac. I don’t spend a lot of time looking back except to learn from it. If we could run it over, I’d announce the iMac after the turn of the year. We felt customers had to wait too long for that specific product.”
The problem is Apple’s new iMacs experienced significant delays in shipping, due to the thinness of the machine. The displays required a new manufacturing process along with advanced welding techniques, causing some customers to wait for weeks before receiving their orders. During Apple’s Q1 earnings call, Tim Cook admitted that the iMac was constrained for the entire quarter, resulting in a “significant shortage”.

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News/Rumors

Apple is hard at work on some amazing new hardware

Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company will announce some new products this fall but wouldn’t offer any specifics.
“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services that we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014,” he said during the company’s earnings call Tuesday afternoon. But apparently, he can wait.
Cook also addressed the reality of Apple’s stock performance as of late, apparently taking issue with Wall Street.
“We know we didn’t meet everyone’s expectations,” Cook said before the call moved on to discuss Apple’s financial particulars. Cook seemed to be referring to Wall Street analysts, who have been down on Apple in light of the appearance of slowing profit growth and increasing competition.

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Cook said that, while Apple’s share price might not be fully within the company’s control, Apple’s existing product pipeline, the strength of its ecosystem, and the potential for new product categories meant the company is on a solid path.

“The most important objective for Apple,” Cook explained, “is developing innovative products.”

News/Rumors

Apple to fire CEO Tim Cook?

Members of the Board of Directors is rumored to be secretly searching for a new CEO of Apple,Tim Cook, which was succeeded by Steve Jobs in 2011. Now Wall Street sources close to some Apple executives have indicated that the company is secretly trying to find a replacment for CEO Cook. According to the publication, the board of directors in Cupertino was allegedly pushed to the decision by the continuing stock price depreciation.
Shares of Apple last week fell below the psychological mark of $ 400 – to a level of $ 391.96. At the moment, shares of the iPhone’s manufacture are traded at $ 390.54 per share.
To date, Apple’s market capitalization is estimated at $ 368 billion. Thus, the company ceded the title of the most valuable corporation in the world – leadership was returned to the oil giant Exxon Mobil, which is estimated at $ 388.1 billion. In just six months, the market value of Apple, runned by Tim Cook, fell down by the $ 290 billion.

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Nevertheless, analysts are positive about the future of the company and recommend buying its shares. Thus, there is a hope for a return to growth. As a positive factor there is a high demand for the iPhone and iPad. Many also expect Apple to announce new and innovative products. According to the rumors, Apple is preparing a “smart” watch, iPhone 5S with a fingerprint reader, iPad mini 2, MacBook Air laptops with Retina display, and more.

Lets hope to hear some impressive sales numbers or some dramatic new tech announcement as that is what will either cement Cook’s position in the company or pave way for his exist.

News/Rumors

Judge rules that Tim Cook must participate for a testimony

The judge presiding over a government antitrust case against Apple’s iBookstore has ruled that CEO Tim Cook must testify in the case.

The ruling of U.S. District Judge Denise Cote means Cook will testify with the Justice Department for four hours, according to Reuters. Cote’s ruling aligns with the wishes of government prosecutors, who argued that Cook likely has relevant information about Apple’s entry into the e-books market.

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The government has already deposed 11 other executives at Apple, prompting the company to call the desire to involve Cook “cumulative and duplicative.”

Cote said his decision was greatly inspired by the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Because Jobs is no longer alive, the government is “entitled to take testimony from high-level executives.”

Apple was originally targeted in the antitrust suit along with a number of book publishers. But those companies settled with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid a trial, leaving Apple as the lone holdout.

The publishers, along with Apple, are accused of collusion in raising e-book prices. Apple offered publishers the ability to set their own prices on its iBookstore through the so-called “agency model.”

The deal marked a change from Amazon’s low-margin wholesale model, which lets retailers buy content in bulk and sell it at or below cost. Apple and publishers favored the agency model because it gave the publishers the ability to set their own prices and control what an e-book should cost.

For its part, Apple has denied the charges of collusion. But the company and its publishing partners did relent and allow retailers like Amazon to set their own e-book prices.

News/Rumors

Tim Cook may testify in ongoing lawsuit

Apple CEO Tim Cook may give testimony in the U.S. Justice Department’s suit against the Cupertino company, which alleges that collusion with major publishing houses led to the false inflation of e-book prices in the iBookstore.
The report, which comes from Bloomberg, notes presiding Judge Denise Cote set a telephone conference for March 13 after the DoJ requested in letter form for “assistance in setting a discovery dispute” over Cook’s deposition. The Department’s filing was not made available to the public.

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Of the original defendants, which included publishers Macmillan, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster, Apple is the lone holdout as all other parties settled out of court. Apple and the five publishing houses were accused of collusion to raise e-book prices through the so-called “agency model” that allows content holders to set their own prices on the iBookstore. In the pricing strategy, publishers are not allowed to sell their wares through other retailers under what is known as a most favored nations stipulation.

The agency model runs counter to the prevailing wholesale model employed by online retail giant Amazon, which lets resellers buy content in bulk and sell it at or below cost to drive sales numbers.

It was reported on Tuesday that notes from author Walter Isaacson, who wrote Apple cofounder Steve Jobs’ only authorized biography, would not be incorporated into the proceedings. The interview notes, as well as a possible testimony from Isaacson, were dropped from the case in last week.

News/Rumors

Apple and Beats CEO’s discuss music streaming service

“Apple Inc. has held talks with Beats Electronics LLC, the audio technology firm co-founded by influential hip-hop producer Dr Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, on a potential partnership involving Beats’ planned music-streaming service,” Poornima Gupta and Ronald Grover report for Reuters, citing “three people familiar with the situation.”

Lady Gaga introduces her new signarure in-earphone HeartBeats at MONSTER booth at CES 2010 in Las Vegas, NV on January 7, 2010. © RD/ Erik Kabik/ Retna Digital

Citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Apple’s chief of media Eddy Cue also joined the meeting, which was said to be “informational” as it covered a wide range of music-related topics including Beats’ “Project Daisy” music streaming service. The sources say that while Cook expressed interest in the service’s business model and future plans, no official deal was struck.

When outlining the “Daisy” subscription-based service to AllThingsD in January, Iovine let slip that he planned to meet with Cue “soon,” but offered no further details on the matter. During the same interview, the Beats chief executive said he pitched a similar idea to late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs in 2001. Jobs was supposedly interested in the concept, Iovine said, but “he didn’t want to pay record companies enough,” believing that the economics would eventually become more favorable.

Iovine, who besides co-owning Beats is chairman of music label Interscope-Geffen-A&M, has a long history with Apple and was one of the first industry executives to ink a deal over what would become iTunes.

Apple has been rumored to be working on building out some type of streaming music service that will compete with the likes of existing offerings from Rhapsody, MOG and Rdio. Some reports even claim an Apple-branded solution will launch by the end of 2013.

News/Rumors

Apple Executives need to hold 3x salary in stock

Apple Inc. in February reversed its stance on a corporate-governance measure related to executive compensation, implementing a new rule that executive officers must hold triple their base salary in company stock. The move, which hasn’t previously been reported, came even though a month earlier Apple’s board had urged shareholders to oppose a very similar corporate-governance measure proposed by a shareholder.
Apple has changed its corporate bylaws to require executives officers to hold three times their annual base salary in stock, with Non-Employee Directors holding five times their annual retainer and Tim Cook required to hold ten times his annual base salary in stock. The requirement for executives went into effect February 6th, while the requirement for Cook and the Directors went into effect back in November.

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Wall Street Journal reports: “Calpers discussed the new executive-ownership requirement with the Apple board before the meeting, according to Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance for Calpers, who declined to elaborate. The fund has long regarded executive stock ownership “as standard good practice,” she said. “It’s part of our conversation with all companies we engage.” Ms. Simpson said in an interview Wednesday that “there are other changes in the works related to executive pay.”
Proposal No. 5, an item that was voted on at the recent Apple Shareholder’s Meeting, would have required executives to hold 33 percent of their equity pay until retirement. Apple felt this requirement was too onerous and instead adopted stockholding requirements relating to base yearly salary.

The base salaries of most senior executives will be $875,000 for 2013, while Tim Cook’s salary will be $1.4 million this year. Non-employee board members receive a $50,000 yearly retainer.

News/Rumors

Tim Cook: Apple has no limits

There are a lot of rumors about the products that Apple will never make, whether it’s a larger iPhone or a smaller iPad, but according to CEO Tim Cook, there’s only one thing Apple would never do: put out a real dog.

“The only thing we’ll never do is make a crappy product,” Cook said in his speach at the Goldman Sach’s annual Technology and Internet Conference . “That’s the only religion that we have, that we must do something great, something bold, something ambitious.”
The CEO was originally scheduled to appear at the event later in the day, but reportedly rescheduled to early Tuesday morning in order to attend the State of the Union tonight. Cook was sitting next to first lady Michelle Obama.

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It should be noted that this is the second year in a row that Cook spoke at the Goldman Sachs Conference, but his appearance now comes at a very different moment for the company. Nowadays, the company is trying to hold on to its title as the most valuable company in the world and prove to investors that it has more innovative products in its pipeline.

“Innovation is something you work decades for building this experience,” Cook said, noting that he is very confident about the tablet and smartphone markets that the company is already in. “I believe more on a longer-term basis, all phones will be smartphones. People love to upgrade their phones fairly regularly,” he said. ” I see a market that is incredible to be in — maybe one of the best markets of all-time.”

For all of Cook’s talk, it didn’t do much to sway investor’s opinion. Apple’s stock was down by nearly 2% on the day after the event.