In the 21st century age of digital yellow journalism it has become increasingly difficult to segregate fact from fiction, astute analysis from absurd opinion.
Politics aside, there’s no better example than Apple, once a darling stock of the high flying variety, now reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Or, so it would seem if all you do is listen to news headlines and not bother to scratch the surface to find the facts.
Fact From Fiction
A recent Bloomberg poll highlights the obvious. Over 70-percent of respondents say Apple has lost its cachet as an industry innovator.
Samsung was praised for shipping 10-million Galaxy S4 smartphones in a month, while Apple was castigated for selling 5-million iPhone 5s in three days.
See how that works? Kudos to Samsung for shipping, while its pure criticism for Apple who actually sold more iPhones.
Some clown at Computerworld says it’s been 205 days since a big reveal from Apple. 205 days. That’s math, right? That’s proof that Apple doesn’t innovate anymore, right?
What would be more valuable to the discerning reader would be a simple graph or chart which points out the number of days between Apple’s major product announcements. A little research goes a long, long way. Try some, yellow journalists.
Search And Find
The search terms ‘apple product history‘ when entered into Google reveal a timeline of Apple products in Wikipedia.
The resulting table is rather detailed and long. Facts tend to be that way sometimes. But it is interesting.
Apple the innovator launched the original iPod in October 2001, but didn’t launch the next iPod until 2002, 267 days later. The iPhone was launched in June 2007 but the iPhone 3G didn’t show up for 376 days. How long after the iPhone was launched did the iPad launch? That took 1,010 days.
It’s as if those in the tech media expect Apple to launch a revolutionary new product every six months or so, yet Apple has never, ever, never done that. Is the problem that Apple cannot innovate, or is the problem that tech media pundits cannot count?
I’m going with what’s behind door number two, Monty.
Those examples are just a few facts which fly in the face of retarded commentary about Apple’s fortunes. Or, rather, misfortunes as stated by a growing cadre of yellowing journalists. Yet Apple continues to hold the lion’s share of profits in the PC industry, the smartphone industry, and the tablet industry.
The Stock Man Cometh
How about this one? Apple’s stock is actually up since Tim Cook took over as CEO (it’s been higher, but it’s still up).
Why Google’s stock is flirting with $1,000 a share is beyond my pay grade, but what you don’t hear about in the analysis of Apple’s new nemesis is how many billions Google has lost (I estimate about $15-billion in patents, Motorola purchase, development, et al) trying to catch Apple’s iPhone with Android OS and mobile advertising.
Google is so messed up these days that most of their mobile revenue still comes from Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and their own Motorola phone making division wasn’t used to create the newest Google Nexus model (think Samsung Galaxy S4 with a Google logo).
The Rest of the Story
When I was a kid I’d sit with my mom and dad at lunch as they would listen to Paul Harvey on the radio. Harvey, of course, was synonymous with the famous The Rest of the Story segments which dug below the surface of the headline hawkers for facts not always in evidence.
Paul Harvey is gone so if you want the rest of the story you’ll need to broaden your reading horizons and not take the face value of gloom and doom headlines from yellow journalists who thrive and feast on made up scandals, exaggerations, and sensationalism.
