bpope’s blog

Today, Core77 highlighted a Businessweek article that commented on a rare talk that Jonathan Ive gave. The whole thing is pretty good, but one section really illuminated why he and Steve Jobs are on exactly the same wavelength.

Ive’s own commitment to the design process is precisely why, he said, if you don’t like Apple products, then you and he have a problem. Well, he didn’t put it exactly like that. In delicate Ive speak, this was, “We maybe would have a difference of opinion, but I can say it’s that way because that’s the way we wanted it to be. There’s not an excuse.”

So, this is at this point old news: SJ is out for at least 6 months, Tim Cook (COO) is in charge in the interim….awesome.  My question is about why Apple’s stock price has dropped so precipitously?

Stay with me on this one.  As I understand it, stock valuations are meant to be forward-looking.  That is, analysts take into account everything they can in the future of the company/industry and calculate the overall current valuation of the company based on how much money the company will make over its lifetime.  If that is the case, shouldn’t analysts already know that Steve Jobs will inevitably be stepping down, and probably sooner rather than later?  I mean, I would expect a small drop because Jobs is stepping down sooner than expected, but a huge drop?  That doesn’t seem quite as well reasoned to me.

Anyway, I’m not really confused that the AAPL price is dropping like it is, just expressing my disappointment that the market is so emotionally driven.

Ignoring the fact that some critical components are missing (e.g. the camera), this after-market case brings up an interesting point of design.

In the consumer electronics industry, more specifically at Apple,  industrial designers are starting to pay more and more attention to the interior of their products, too. To some extent this has been the case since the original Macintosh (Steve Jobs required that ribbon cables follow Apple’s rainbow color scheme). Currently “user serviceable” areas in the laptop lines are taking on more of Jonny Ive’s aesthetic.

To that end, I guess it’s obvious that the inside of the iPhone was not meant to be “user serviceable” but it will be interesting when the inside of the iPhone is just as impeccably designed as the ouside.  Oh, and the etching on the clear case is fugly, too.

addendum: as campo reminded me, the cables in the original macintosh ended up being generically colored because Jobs’ requirements were very expensive.  Nevertheless, you can tell where Jobs’ head was (and is) at.

Working at Apple had a few perks, among them testing out the new in-ear headphones. I haven’t been nice to mine at all and they’ve held up amazingly for six months. The sound quality is a amazing, even better than what i’m used to getting from my Bose in-ears. The biggest difference to me, though, is that the Apple headphones fit inside your ears like earplugs.  While the Bose headphones fit snugly, but do not isolate the user from the noises of the outside world. That means more music and less ambient noise.  Admittedly, that can be either good or bad. Actually, at times I find myself using only one of the headphones because I don’t like being entirely isolated from hearing the world around me. I would use the Bose headphones, but the silicone tips have a tendency to fall off and go missing, a problem that does not plague Apple’s offering.

As for the three-button remote, if you’ve got one of the new generation of iPods that it works with, I think you’ll love it. It’s not only helpful, but it is a remarkable feat of engineering. Also, for those of you with iPhones, the microphone and center button work like the current headsets. Anyway, I’d definitely recommend them. If you like the earplug fit, go out, buy a pair and keep my friends in their jobs.