Tag: apple

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Privacy and Profits

Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses privacy, profits and cars with NPR’s All Things Considered

“Privacy is a fundamental human right”. A short, but sweet and fascinating, NPR interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Cook goes onto to avoid discussing the likelihood of Apple Cars and expounds the advantages of repatriating corporate profits back to the US, something we can expect cash rich companies like Apple to start agitating for after the next Presidential election.

The interview, which is only eight minutes long, is well worth a listen as Apple positions itself against competing internet giants Google and Facebook over the topic of privacy.

 

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Apple in the mobile enterprise

Apple are defining the mobile computing world but not everyone is a winner.

“You wouldn’t say, let me go buy an enterprise car,” Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told Box CEO Aaron Levie at the BoxWorks conference in San Francisco this week . “You don’t get an enterprise pen to write with.”

Cook was talking about Apple’s position in the enterprise computing world, something conventional IT industry wisdom says isn’t the company’s strong point.

While this was true in the days of desktop computers and network servers, the arrival of the iPhone and iPad changed that. Suddenly Apple were driving business computing as staff from the Chairman of the Board down to the office junior started bringing in iOS devices.

Up until the iPad, the Bring Your Own Device discussion was a debate, once the tablet appeared any argument was over as all levels of businesses started bring their devices into the office.

One of the key arguments for using an iPad were the applications available and one of the most important applications in the early days was Evernote.

Sadly for Evernote, those early successes haven’t continued and now the company is being flagged as potentially the first billion dollar ‘tech unicorn’ to fail.

If Evernote does fail, it will show that even having a compelling product at the right time isn’t a guarantee for success.

Apple however is basking in its success and, as Cook points out, the shift to mobile is now defining business and his company is probably the best positioned to exploit that.

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Pain for the PC industry continues

The latest PC industry sales estimates show the PC era is well and truly over

After good relatively results last quarter, the numbers have turned ugly again for the personal computer industry with both IDC and Gartner estimating the sector’s sales have collapsed by 11% and 9.5% respectively.

Of the PC manufacturers Taiwan’s Acer is the hardest hit with Gartner forecasting a 20% drop and IDC a whopping one-quarter compared to last year.

Apple were the only bright spot with Gartner expecting the company to sell 16% more PCs than the previous year.

Lenovo remain the biggest global supplier of personal computers but the company suffered a six percent drop.

While it appears the end of Windows XP support gave the sector a reprieve last year, the end of the PC era is well and truly here. The key aim now for vendors is to find a way to shore up their margins as the market shrinks – it’s a bad time to be commodity player.

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Who will win the watch wars?

Traditional watchmakers are confident they can beat Apple

Our watches will outlast the Apple watch warns Montblanc’s CEO Alexander Schmiedt in an interview with Bloomberg.

Schmeidt is basing his view on his watches’ durability, “I don’t think that customers are going to be ecstatic to throw away watches in one to two years when the technology is obsolete.”

It’s a brave call and what Schmeidt’s views risk is that standard watches may become niches items. He could be right though and Apple’s watches might prove to be toys for technologist.

The market will decide.

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A series of weak links

Security continues to be a challenge for Internet of Things vendors

One of the ongoing discussions in the world of the Internet of Things are the security weaknesses in many devices that leave networks vulnerable to rogue devices or malicious hackers.

A good example of this is Craig Hockenberry’s post on his Furbo.org site on how bugs in Apple’s Bonjour software messes with networks.

While Apple won’t say what causes this issue – an ominous point in itself – Hockenberry surmises it’s due to older software in some devices that no longer have updates available, which is another problem facing the IoT.

On top of Hockenberry’s story, a piece in Threat Post reports the Open Smart Grid Protocol has serious security issues.

The writers of the package that’s installed on more than four million smart meters and similar devices worldwide decided to write their own encryption algorithm that has proved easy to break.

So the smart home which might feature both a slew of Apple devices and one of these exposed smart meters has a range of security holes that the occupier has no idea about. This hardly breeds confidence.

As the Internet of Things is rolled out, security is going to have to be at the front of developers’ and vendors’ minds. The stakes are too high for shoddy and ill thought out compromises or for vendors like Apple who rate secrecy over their customers’ security.

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Apple keeps ticking over

Once again Apple beats the market and shows the way to its competitors

Once again Apple keeps surprising the market with Apple second quarter results beating the analysts’ estimates roundly and putting the company on track to becoming the first US corporation to have a trillion dollar market valuation.

Coupled to nearly fourteen billion dollars in profit for the last quarter is that the company is looking to return $200 billion of cash back to shareholders.

A particular high point in Apple’s results are its China sales with the company showing seventy percent year on year growth, showing it’s possible for western companies to sell into the PRC.

Those results are from iPhone sales and, given the Chinese smartphone market is ruthlessly competitive, it puts the managers of all US and European companies on notice that there are no longer any excuses about not performing in the Middle Kingdom.

Another key takeaway from Apple’s results is the tablet market is limited with iPad sales down 23% compared to last year.

The question now is how big are watch sales going to be? It may well turn out that the Apple Watch is similar to the iPad – a market defining product but one that isn’t the company’s mainstay.

Regardless of how well the Apple Watch, the iPad or the iPhone’s Chinese sales perform next quarter, it’s safe to say Apple will probably break more records over the next year.

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Apple Watch shows us the limits of 3D printing and crowdfunding

Apple Watch shows us the limits of 3D printing and crowdfunding

Ahead of its launch the Apple watch has been criticised for its price and upmarket focus but the product shows what it costs to manufacture high quality goods along with the limitations of both 3D printing and crowdfunding.

In its Watch Craftsmanship videos Apple shows off some of the workmanship that goes into manufacturing the device and the Atomic Delights blog has a deep look at the processes and the design decisions behind the company’s choice of techniques.

What Apple’s series shows is that making top end devices is capital intensive and very, very hard. It also puts lie to the idea that raising a few thousand, or even million, dollars on Kickstarter will get a luxury item to market.

Greg Koenigin, the author of the Atomic Delights blog, gushes about Apple’s attention to detail and high quality manufacturing.

I see these videos and I see a process that could only have been created by a team looking to execute on a level far beyond what was necessary or what will be noticed. This isn’t a supply chain, it is a ritual Apple is performing to bring themselves up to the standards necessary to compete against companies with centuries of experience.

It’s clear Apple isn’t stepping back or making any compromises in making its mark on the watch industry, even though the entire global market for timepieces is less than one quarter’s income from the iPhone.

At the other end of the market the 3D printing revolution continues with Feetz raising $3 million for its customised shoemaking operation.

While Feetz is an impressive and quirky business with great promise it shows the rough-and-ready face of the makers’ movement and the businesses relying on 3D printing services, it’s a world away from the Apple Watch.

While both crowdfunding and 3D printing are going to have a massive effect on business and manufacturing, the truth is that other manufacturing methods are still going to be used by deep pocketed companies. Nothing is ever as simple as we think.

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