The Real Cause of Apple's Maps Problems Today? Steve Jobs

People who say Steve Jobs wouldn't have released Apple Maps fail to realize that Jobs put Apple in a strategic hole on Maps to begin with back in 2007.

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Here's Why All the People Freaking Out About Apple's Stock Crash Need to Take a Xanax

There has been an awful lot of angst and hyperventilating about Apple‘s (AAPL) stock price movements in the last few days.

“Apple has now entered BEAR Market territory. Down 11% from its high” was one tweet I saw yesterday.

It sort of goes with the territory, I guess, when you’re the biggest company in the world with a market cap in excess of $600 billion that even small percentage moves in the price of the stock get outsized attention from critics.

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Apple's 10 Biggest Mistakes Since Steve Jobs Returned

Apple has made an almost perfect string of decisions since Steve Jobs returned to the company in the 90s. What are its 10 biggest mistakes over that time period?

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New Video: Trading Apple's Big Q3 Miss

Here's my appearance this morning on CNBC's Squawk on the Street discussing Apple's miss last night.



[Long AAPL]

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Apple Integrates Facebook and says 'Fool Me Once...'

As part of the WWDC keynote from a few weeks ago, one of the expected announcements which was included was Scott Forstall’s announcement thatFacebook (FB) would be tightly integrated into iOS 6 when it comes out this Fall.

The announcement was greeted with applause at the event and most of the tech media concluded this was great news and didn’t say another word about the issue.

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Apple TV Will be Revolutionary But It Won't Kill The Cable Companies

Apple TV is going to be huge and create enormous change to the industry. But it won't kill the cable companies.

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Tim Cook is Being a First Rate Tim Cook, Instead of a Second Rate Steve Jobs

Tim Cook doesn't have to be Steve Jobs. He just has to be Tim Cook. That's good enough.

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CNBC Video: Will Apple Hit a Target of $1650 by 2015?

My appearance from CNBC yesterday about Apple.



[Long AAPL]

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Why Apple Is Smart to Double Down on Siri

Apple‘s (AAPL) CEO, Tim Cook, spoke on Tuesday night at the All Things D conference about a wide range of subjects.


One area he was pressed on by Walt Mossberg was Siri, Apple’s voice-automated personal assistant that comes as part of the new iPhone 4S.

“When it works, it works really well,” said Mossberg. “But a lot of times, it doesn’t work.”



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Apple's Team Is Underestimated

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Apple(AAPL_) closed Tuesday under $570. A little earlier in the day, it touched below $550. In the days prior to its last earnings call in April, Apple shares hit a low of $555.

This recent swoon, after moving from $360 in November to an all-time high of $644, has brought out a chorus of Apple-worrywarts. They are saying this is just the start of a broader pullback. They're saying this is due to investors who are worried about carriers pulling their subsidies on future iPhones.

Any pullback in Apple shares also seems to bring out the concerns about whether the largest company by market capitalization can still keep growing.

The other day, I spoke with a good friend of mine who worried about Apple's stock that: "Steve's no longer there and their markets are brutally competitive."

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Why I'm Sick of All The Pundits Barking "Steve Jobs Wouldn't Have Done This"

It was inevitable that, upon Steve Jobs‘ death — after the requisite outpouring of emotion — the second-guessing would begin.


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Why Apple Should Buy Yahoo!

Yahoo! has a treasure trove of unique assets that could be used well competitively by Apple if it bought the Web company.

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Asking Al Gore About Apple's Board & How They Pick Talent

My two-part question to Al Gore from last month in Hong Kong.

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Steve Jobs Had No Business Being Successful When He Returned to Apple

Steve Jobs -- according to his track record to that point in his life -- had no business making Apple successful when he came back in 1997. That he did makes him all the more remarkable.

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Key Apple Executive Off Stock Grant List

By Eric Jackson, Senior Contributor11/09/11 - 06:00 AM EST


NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Last week, Apple(AAPL_) granted several key executives -- including Phil Schiller, Scott Forstall, Peter Oppenheimer, and Bob Mansfield -- large Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) grants that vest over five years.

They are essentially golden handcuffs that highly motivate these men to stick around in this post-Steve Jobs era.

One senior executive notably absent from the list is Jony Ive. I hope it doesn't portend Ive's departure. We'll see some SEC filing in the coming days or weeks about a similar grant to him.

Jony Ive is the key product and design person at Apple.

In Walter Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs, it's clear how important Jony is at Apple. Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, said of the special bond between Steve and Jony: "A lot of people in Steve's are replaceable. Not Jony."

Jobs held Jony in very high regard. He rescued Jony from the old Apple and convinced him to stay after Jobs came back to the company in 1997. Even though no one outside of Apple had heard of Jony then, the two men formed a special bond and collaborated together on the iMacs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads.

Jony's design lab in Apple's Cupertino headquarters is under lockdown from outside visitors. It's likely that today, in that lab, there are the products that will amaze us from Apple (in some form) for the next 15 years.

At the recent company-wide memorial for Jobs at Apple, Jony gave -- in my view -- the best speech about Steve.

Jony found it hard when Steve left the company before on his medical leaves. There's a story in Isaacson's book about how Jony met Steve at the airport in Silicon Valley after Steve returned from his liver transplant in Memphis. It's clear that Jony missed him, but was also bothered by the fact that many outside of Apple wondered if the company could be as "innovative" without Steve. Jony took it as a slight.

I hope that Jony now has his time to shine in the sun over the next several years at Apple -- along with all the other talented Apple executives.

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How Do Apple and Google Think of Talent Differently?

Being a hiring manager for Senior Talent at Google seems to be a much easier job than at Apple.  How would you known that Phil Schiller, Tim Cook, Jony Ive or any of the other managers were going to be so successful prior to them joining Apple?

Read the full Forbes post here.

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What Is Up With Eric Schmidt's Revisionist History of His Relationship With Steve Jobs?

Eric Schmidt has been doing the talk show circuit since Steve Jobs died insisting the two men were close friends. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

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Time to Apologize to Apple's Board

By Eric Jackson10/13/11 - 02:37 PM EDT


NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It's now been a week since Steve Jobs died. Tim Cook is nowApple's (AAPL_) CEO. Since Apple closed on Oct. 5 at $378, the stock is up 7.4% -- which is about 1.5% better than the Nasdaq. The company has announced its 4S version of the iPhone and rolled out its latest iOS 5.

Obviously, we won't know the true long-term ramifications of the loss of Steve Jobs to Apple for a long time -- maybe seven years. However, it's obvious that the company has managed the transition from Jobs to Cook rather successfully.

Shouldn't Apple's board of directors get some creditfor this successful transition?

A few months ago, there was a steady drumbeat of criticism directed toward the board from what Conrad Black would probably call the "corporate governance zealots." Readers know that I'm one of the bigger proponents of strong corporate governance. But I must admit, it's been puzzling to me some of the governance criticism directed to Apple in the last year. A few days ago, Reuters ran a story with the headline: "Apple's board needs to step up to new era." Here are some of quotes from several "experts" about how Apple's board needs to be changed in the wake of Jobs' death.

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What to Anticipate From Apple

From last week's RealMoney....

Stock quotes in this article: 

AAPL

, 

GOOG

Surprising most, Apple's (AAPL) stock has spiked since Steve Jobs announced he was retiring from the CEO role last Wednesday. It hass been ahead of the Nasdaq, Google(GOOG), and most other comparable tech names.

What's up?

Is the market that confident in Tim Cook? I don't think that's the reason for the move. It's partly because the uncertainty has now been lifted around the future leadership of Apple. (There was always the chance the board could have named a CEO out of left field, which the market had to discount for.)

It's also partly because the market is looking ahead to what the company might announce in September (or October at the latest). You should pay attention, too. Here's what is likely:

1. The new iPhone 5. We know this is coming. We know it will be better than the iPhone 4 (thinner, lighter, crisper). But might it have a few surprises beyond that? Probably, but  I don't think it will include a pre-paid option -- yet.
2. Clarification regarding the iPhone 4GS. We know this is coming, but what isn't clear is how this is exactly how it's going to be positioned to the market. The big open question centers on how exactly Apple is going to go after the pre-pay market in China and India (and other emerging markets). If they clarify that, there could be a big jump in Apple's price.
3. iCloud. I still think this is going to be huge and I'm not even talking about its music and movie rental aspect. Just the photo upload component could drive huge usage for Apple. This is an incredible frustration for most people. They've got their photos strewn around various services or still on their cameras. This could be a big boost for Apple.

That's what's expected. So what might be announced that isn't expected?

1. Perhaps a big partnership with Twitter that could help dip Apple's toe in social networking. We are expecting this, but the average user isn't. Ping hasn't done anything. Apple can and should do something in social networking and Twitter might be the right partner.
2. More stats on the growth of iPad apps relative to Google, Honeycomb and others. The gulf -- I expect -- is growing enormously.
3. More on AirPlay. Apple recently started pushing AirPlay in its U.S. TV commercials. This could be a precursor to an AppleTV push.

At the time of publication, Jackson was long AAPL.

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Putting a Price on Tim Cook's Value as Apple CEO

The case of Apple shows it is very hard to judge whether a corporate CEO is worth a lot of money or not.

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