Jackass of the week: across the pond edition

John Gruber has a dress down of Techworld’s hack job on Apple’s wireless security patch. I thought I’d follow in the same vein and go slay a jackass of my own. So here is my candidate: Jackass of the week: across the pond edition.

This article is pretty much a showcase for how to vent with anger about something or someone even if you don’t know much about the topic or if you don’t take the minimum amount of time to research the subject at hand (psst. Look here: Google – if that link doesn’t work cut and paste this to your browser http://www.google.com). Anyhooo,

Chris Ayres starts with the SEC investigation:

We’re not under investigation by the SEC or anyone else,” said Jobs, referring to America’s much-feared financial regulator. “[But] we did start our own investigation,” he continued. “We did discover some irregularities, and we’re, y’know, letting that investigation have it’s due course . . . and it’ll be completed in the not too distant future.”
..
But to anyone who has followed the script of any previous corporate scandal in the United States, it was deeply unsettling. For example: how could Jobs possibly know for certain that the SEC wasn’t investigating Apple’s accounts?

Well, let’s uncover what Mr. Jobs is saying. Presumably if they were they would send a notice to the company indicating that they are investigation. Its actually as simple as that. For example, when Mercury Interactive was notified by the SEC of an investigation when they received a Wells notice. Apple has not received a notice that the SEC is investigating them. Does that mean they won’t receive them? No. But Mr. Jobs is stating the current position.

Next paragraph:

Clearly, the implications of the Apple investigation, in terms of tax penalties, SEC fines, possible fraud charges and lawsuits, were potentially catastrophic. Hence the note sent out to clients by the Wall Street analyst Richard Farmer, of Merrill Lynch, which brought up the “potential risk . . . that Steve Jobs might be unable to continue as CEO of Apple”.

Here is something else that Richard Farmer said about this:

“Apple has already acknowledged grant ‘irregularities.’ The remaining question,” Farmer writes, “is whether Jobs was personally involved in the creation of irregularities at Apple or Pixar…we do not have sufficient factual informaton to make a conclusion.”

But why not use the juicier parts.

Some more paragraphs down:

Even better: customers seemed willing to put up with the often dubious reliability of both Apple’s computers and its music players, both of which suffered battery problems (another example, said critics, of the RDF)

Consumer Reports June 2003: Apple is #1 in repair history, satisfaction, and support.
Consumer Reports March 2004: Apple is #1 in repair history, satisfaction, and support.
Consumer Reports December 2004: Apple is #1 in repair history, satisfaction, and support.
So sayeth Consumer Reports:

“In this atmosphere of low expectations, Apple Computer has actually raised its support satisfaction for the desktop computers over the past three years to levels well above all competitors, while offering the most reliable desktop hardware,” the report says.

Consumer Reports February 2006:

First, Consumer Reports rates Apple “#1 in Tech Support” based on a survey of its readers. The survey covers data from September 2004 to January 2006. In other words, none of the new Intel-based products are included in that survey. It does show, however, that when you ask Consumer Reports readers about how they view Apple, they’re getting a quite positive result. Readers scored them 82 out of a possible 100, with the next closest being Lenovo at 69. That’s quite impressive.

Consumer Reports June 2006:

Consumer Reports survey respondents noted that most manufacturers provided dismal free tech support with two exceptions: Apple’s support for desktops and laptops and IBM (Lenovo) for laptops.

I am tired of googling (its so hard – this investigative journalism). iPod reviews here.

Just for added measure, page one ends with this bitch-slap:

The message was completed with iPod endorsements from two rock stars who don’t even do commercial endorsements: Bono and Bob Dylan.

Ahem: Bob Dylan Sells Panties. U2’s world cup ads.

Page 2 begins with a blistering attack on Steve Jobs’ integrity:

Jobs’s reputation as a 21st-century miracle man was completed by his refusal to take anything other than $1 in salary from Apple — enough to buy a single track on iTunes every year, leaving one cent change. Once again, however, the reality was very different: Jobs had in fact been given a $90 million Gulfstream V jet by Apple, and was getting extraordinarily rich (on paper, at least) from share options — the same options that would cause today’s looming crisis.

Hmm, the same options you say. These must be more uncovered options:

Apple has acknowledged its stock option inquiry involves some awards made to Jobs, although the grants were canceled before its chief executive realized any gains.

Bullocks to you for discovering these additional irregularities, Chris.

The bottom line, of course, is this: will the man who turned computers into gallery exhibits, and who revolutionised the way music is sold and consumed, end up being fired from the company he co-founded for a second time? Will he be ruined by something as idiotic as a rigged stock option, when his fortune is already valued at about $4.4 billion? Until Apple’s investigation is over, it’s impossible to say.

But in the meantime there is no stopping meaningless reporting on a string of things Apple related with personal insults, snide remarks, and guilt by innuendos. For example,

In the worst case scenario, Jobs, now married with four children (one of whom was born to an ex-girlfriend)

How is that relevant? Is this supposed to suggest something regarding Jobs’ character?

Jobs certainly appears undeterred — and the American press, so far, seems to be on his side.

Yes, but Mr. Jobs’ should be deterred by jackasses like you across the pond though. Thanks for carrying the banner of journamalism above and beyond the call of duty.

Parting words:

While Jobs’s movie downloading service was seen as half-hearted compared with the rival service from Amazon.com, iTV was immediately applauded as a huge breakthrough. “iTV stole the show”, declared the online edition of Business Week.

Dude! Half-hearted compared to Amazon.com? Do you know how to read or search using google? Amazon Unbox was universally panned. Tell you what, I won’t even make you search on google for reviews. Here’s a convenient link (PS dont hate me because I linked to my own blog – I know its blatant self-promotion).

Meanwhile, here are some suggestions on how to be a better journamalist. Finally, can I ask one thing? What exactly brought about this – PR? Need for hits? Pay-offs? Holding stagnant shares of competitive firms? Or are you just a jackass?

How many mistakes in this article?

Apple is corrupt (and dead).

Count the atrocities.

Real e-state 2.0

Will this

help or hurt these guys:

John Cook notes:

online real estate companies have raised more than $200 million in venture capital in the past two years
…
Here’s a quick story synopsis: Only the companies with the deepest pockets and largest audience will survive.

Redherring notes that online players are defiant (in denial?) over the impending housing bubble:

It sounds like spin, but web-based brokers ZipRealty and Redfin—as well as property information and service providers like Zillow and Inman—say they’ll not only survive the upcoming U.S. real estate downturn, but actually profit from it. Indeed, when the National Association of Realtors announced that existing home sales fell 11.2 percent in July from July 2005, online players put a happy gloss on the news.

Concludes one analyst:

“The softness in the housing market is going to challenge online sites because they are relying on customer demand to drive advertising revenue,” says Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence. His company predicts that many of the newest sites will collapse—only the ones that have the highest traffic and good backing, such as Move.com, Zillow, ZipRealty, and AOL Real Estate, will survive the downturn.

I predict mergers that’ll result in a web site named truziloredzip.

I, Cringely is on (to?) something

Robert X. Cringely notes an extra USB port on the iTV and runs with it. He might have run to fast to 2+2+2 is not 8. Robert X. – if that’s his real name (it’s not) – notes four things from his pulput:
1. Apple hasn’t said anything about Blu-ray
2. iTV has a USB port
3. OS X includes iChat
4. Apple sells iSight

#1 is basically a drive-by.
#2, 3, and 4 form the crux of Robert X’s argument that Apple is poised to do something with iTV that’s out of this world.

This is the heart of Apple’s emerging communication strategy. I was tempted to write “voice-over-IP strategy,” except that wouldn’t have been correct. For Jobs, this particular road less traveled is about video conferencing, not voice. VoIP is not grand enough, not experiential. If eBay can dominate it, Apple doesn’t want to be a part of it, and won’t be. Jobs will be much happier enabling a smaller audience to do multi-person chats on their HDTVs.

VoIP is replacing a $20 phone with a $1,000 computer. What Apple has in mind is creating an entirely new form of computing experience, but this time — because it will take place mainly on a TV and not on a computer — many users may not think of it as a computing experience at all.

Uhh. Okly Dokly.

Some minor observations: iSight uses firewire so an iTV with a USB is not going to help unless iSight switches to USB 2.0. Apple is probably not inclined to switch iSight to USB 2.0 since it presumably wants to sell iSights and not cede the market to third-party vendors.

Blackfriars says its only a matter of time that Apple gets into the LCD (HDTV?) market. And of course for the longest time now there have been rumors of a LCD+iSight built-in. So what does this all mean? I have no idea, but I am pretty sure it doesn’t imply what Robert X is proposing.

Some qualitative observations: the iSight in iTV thing goes against the Apple design grain. Each device is meant to do one thing and do one thing well. An iPod doesnt have a FM tuner and a voice recorder because that zunes with its main purpose: playing YOUR music. The Apple Airport Express does one thing: extend your wireless network. Adding multi-user chat to a streaming device and corrupting the passive TV experience with grandma creepily joining in during a commercial for Girls Gone Wild makes no sense. Besides, let me add another thing that Steve Jobs hates (in addition to ads and bat-crazy amateurish content): TV. Specifically, TV shows with ads. That’s why Mr. Jobs is selling TV shows instead of going the easier route and just adding a TV tuner with DVR-like functionality so you can attempt to skip the ads. The iTunes solution ($1.99 for ad free content) is clean & simple – in one word: like Apple.

Let’s leave the mutant feature-creep to Microsoft (XBOX360 = PS2 + DVD Player + Tivo + Slingbox + Akimbo + MobiTV + Sonus + DirecTV).

So in conclusion: Robert X. is making huge assumptions leading to misleading prognostications when the answer is quite simple and self-evident. iTV is just meant to the solve the last 10 feet problem and serve as the bridge between the content you purchase using your iTunes from any of your five authorized machines and watch the content just like you would another TV show: with a simple remote,  a bucket of wings and a beer (or two).