steve jobs

apple news / observatory / steve jobs — 13 Comments
25
Aug 11

Here’s to the crazy one

I was searching for the words to describe what I was feeling yesterday when word spread that Steve Jobs was retiring as CEO.

I was very sad, of course — for Steve, his family, the Apple community and the world in general. But I was also heartened by the extraordinary praise being pushed out by the mainstream media.

Then I realized that the most appropriate words for this occasion were written many years ago, with Steve’s enthusiastic approval.

The Crazy Ones commercial that launched the Think different campaign has always been one of Steve’s favorite ad moments. When the spot was first created, he spoke of how deeply it moved him. He has shared it at a number of Apple events. He was emotionally invested in it because he believed it captured the true spirit of Apple, explaining why Apple does what it does.

Interestingly, few have noted that it also captured the essence of Steve himself. Though the ad featured a series of those who changed the world through their “different” thinking, you could just as easily place this script over images of Steve at various points in Apple history:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
    The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
    The round pegs in the square holes.
    The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
    And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
    About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
    They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
    we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world…
are the ones who do.

Some believe that Steve wrote these words himself. That isn’t true, but he did contribute a few words — and they are arguably the words that best describe his contribution to this world:

They push the human race forward.

That’s exactly what Steve does. Sometimes we go kicking and screaming (“where’s the damn floppy disk!”), sometimes we’re just outright seduced (iPad), but “forward” is where we go.

Though Steve may one day leave Apple for good — remember, he’s still Chairman — his values never will. Innovation is now institutionalized at Apple. Tim Cook’s memo to employees today reaffirms this:

I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.

So on “the day after,” we can be heartened by two things: Steve is still Steve and Apple is still Apple.

There’s still a lot of pushing to be done.

apple / observatory / OS X / steve jobs — 6 Comments
9
Aug 11

How firing Steve Jobs saved Apple

I think it’s safe to say that Apple’s success story has now grown to mythic proportions.

And it deserves every bit of its myth-hood: two guys in a garage start a computer company that grows to become the most valuable company on earth. (Well, it will be soon. Move over, ExxonMobil.)

Every good legend has its heroes and villains. Playing the role of villains in this tale would be John Sculley and the Apple board for being so dumb as to actually fire Steve in 1985, setting off the company’s great decline. Steve’s return 12 years later — and subsequent astronomical success of the company — proves what a boneheaded move that was, right?

Steve’s buddy Larry Ellison sure thinks so. Commenting on HP’s firing of its CEO last year, Larry said, “The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs  many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.”

Even John Sculley, master conspirator, now says it was a mistake to drive Steve away.

Well, not so fast, fellas. Steve’s firing is actually the reason Apple rules the world today — though admittedly, the players could not have foreseen this at the time.

Steve was pushed out because, brilliant as he was, he wasn’t all that brilliant on the business side. He was costing the company a ton of money. There was a legitimate fear that if he didn’t leave, he’d literally run the company into the ground. It was heart-wrenching, but out he went.

In exile, Steve founded NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXT was an exciting new venture for him, but it was also humbling. He didn’t have zillions of dollars to burn, so he had to court investors like Ross Perot and Canon. Financially, NeXT was a constant struggle.

This was Steve’s remedial course in Business 101. Obviously he’d learned a ton by building Apple, but NeXT taught him new levels of responsibility. Now, in a world filled with computer companies, he was going to build a new one from scratch. He’d have to stretch budgets to keep innovating through the dark times. He’d have to keep employees happy and inspired. He’d have to create new partnerships. Steve’s business skills improved immensely as a result.

With NeXT, Steve would experience something he’d never really known before: failure. At least failure in the sense that his beautiful new computer didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The press paid attention, but they wrote about a struggling NeXT, not a smashing new success. At some point, Steve would be forced to give up on the hardware and concentrate on what really made NeXT special: its software.

And so, when Apple found itself floundering, desperately in need of a new direction for the Mac OS, they bought NeXT. This gave them the technology to build Mac OS X, and it also brought Steve Jobs home — a more mature, business-savvy, fire-tested Steve Jobs than had ever walked the halls of Apple before.

If Apple hadn’t sent Steve into exile in 1985, there would have been no NeXT. Mac OS X would have been very, very different. And Steve himself would have been very, very different.

You only have to listen to Steve to appreciate how this experience changed him. In his speech at Stanford’s commencement in 2008, he said:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Things worked out pretty well for Steve personally too. It was while at NeXT that he met his wife and started a family.

And so, a hearty thank-you to John Sculley and the Apple board for chasing away the one man who could save the company. In the process, you set the wheels in motion to re-create the company — and re-create the man.

apple news / observatory / OS X / steve jobs / technology — 21 Comments
2
Aug 11

The hidden message in Lion

Look a little closer at Lion and you’ll see a secret message from the highest levels of Apple:

During previous medical leaves, Steve was still running the show. This time, he’s stepped back to allow others a larger role. Get used to it.

Honestly, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion when (A) Steve has always been intimately involved in approving the design and function of OS X, and (B) a few of the more visible decisions in Lion look nothing like the Steve we know.

After using Lion for a couple of weeks, three apps in particular make me miss Steve’s touch:

1. iCal. Not to beat this dead horse (see earlier post), but the design sense of the new iCal is just totally out of character for an OS that otherwise defines elegance and simplicity. Steve is a purist. He doesn’t compromise. He sends designers back to the drawing board over and over until they get it just right. This is purely a design decision — and it looks like someone else’s decision.

2. Address Book. This app suffers a double whammy. It shares iCal’s design tackiness, then ups the ante by taking a leap backwards in functionality. We used to see everything Address Book had to offer — individuals, groups and contact info — within a single view. Now we have to jump back and forth between views to see it all. Totally unnecessary over-design. Totally not Steve.

3. Launchpad. This is a beautiful idea, only half-baked. Maybe even quarter-baked. Launchpad automatically configures itself with icons for every app and utility in your computer — including apps you’ll never use and apps you didn’t know you had. I don’t consider myself an app junkie, and my icons numbered over 200. A total mess. But it gets even worse: if you delete an icon, you delete the app itself. (Fine for apps you’ve purchased from the App Store, which can be re-downloaded — unacceptable for apps you’ve purchased elsewhere.) If you want to tidy up, good luck. You can delete icons of apps purchased from the App Store (which deletes the app as well), but Lion won’t let you delete the icons of apps you bought elsewhere. Fortunately, there’s a perfect little free utility called LaunchpadCleaner that allows you to get rid of icons without trashing your apps. I used it and deleted 179 icons that were making Launchpad unusable. How could Apple possibly offer Launchpad without this kind of functionality built in? Likely because someone else was playing the role of Steve for this performance.

Between his current medical leave and the fact that one day (hopefully far, far in the future) it is inevitable that he steps down as CEO, Steve would be irresponsible not to be transitioning certain responsibilities to others.

So this isn’t a criticism as much as it is an observation. Steve-level perfection can only be expected when Steve himself is making the decisions. Talent runs deep at Apple, but different people will see things a bit differently — and their decisions will sometimes raise our eyebrows. Lion is our sneak preview.

Put a little more Steve in your Lion: To strip iCal of its leather, go here. To do the same for Address Book, go here. To easily configure Launchpad, go here.

 

observatory / steve jobs — 8 Comments
6
Jul 11

Good riddance, “iSteve”

The universe has been set right again.

The legacy of Steve Jobs — master of simplicity and champion of good taste — will no longer be tarnished by a badly named biography. The book’s original title, iSteve: The Book of Jobs, is out. A vastly superior title, Steve Jobs, is in.

Whew, that was a close one.

In just five words, that original title managed to be cutesy, gimmicky and arrogant, all at once. It was hardly a fitting choice for a book of importance.

Though several articles deride the iSteve title this morning, it seemed to get away scot-free back when it was revealed. I almost felt guilty publishing my allergic reaction. Almost.

The only mystery to me is: how did iSteve ever become official in the first place? Not only was it gimmicky, it came years after Wozniak had already published his iWoz book.

Fortune reports that the original title can be blamed on Simon & Schuster’s publicity department. However, a world-renowned author like William Isaacson normally gets the final say in such matters.

As the story goes, the title was only changed after Issacson had second thoughts (meaning he did approve it in the first place). Absent in this scenario is any suggestion that Steve Jobs had an opinion — and you know how likely that is. Even if Isaacson had been granted autonomy in this project, surely he would at least sought out Steve’s counsel.

So I suspect the real story is a bit more convoluted than the one told by Fortune. Unfortunately, we’re not likely to discover the truth until some guy in Simon & Schuster’s publicity department publishes his own life story.

apple news / creative / iMac / observatory / steve jobs — No Comments
23
Jun 11

Sean Connery vs. Steve Jobs: post-game wrap-up

I don’t usually talk about Scoopertino over here. That’s just for fun, whereas this blog is devoted to matters of supreme galactic importance.

However, this week Scoopertino hit some kind of weird global nerve that’s worthy of a mention — since it says something interesting about human nature and reveals interesting attitudes toward Steve Jobs.

In case you’re not familiar, this week’s Scoopertino story was about Steve Jobs trying to recruit Sean Connery for an iMac ad in 1998 — and Connery replying with a blistering letter of rejection. Within hours, Connery’s imaginary dissing of Steve Jobs became a top worldwide trend on Twitter, getting more tweets than Wimbledon. From there it became a story in The Telegraph, Washington Post, Huffington Post and many more.

Most eye-opening, though, were the thousands of comments that appeared in all these places.

First and foremost, they reveal how easy it is to fool people. Keep in mind, this was not a “hoax” as it came to be described. It was a joke put up on a fake news site that’s clearly labeled as a fake news site.

It was when people started to spread the Connery letter alone, out of context, that things got out of hand. This also doesn’t speak too well for humankind’s perceptual abilities, since this letter was literally filled with language and visuals that were dead giveaways.

Second, a great number of commenters were clearly hoping and praying that the story was true. They were totally high on the idea that someone would so rudely put Steve Jobs in his place. Some proclaimed that their admiration for Sean Connery just reached a new high. And when they found out the whole thing was fiction, many said that they wished it were true.

Yikes. A little pent-up hostility there?

What makes Scoopertino fun (we hope) is that it exaggerates reality. Honestly, we never imagined anyone might actually want to live in that reality.

Well, the joke’s over now. Everything’s back to normal. James Bond has no hard feelings. But I did hear that Q is livid that Apple stole his whole iPhone idea…

apple / apple news / apple store / observatory / steve jobs — 1 Comment
15
Jun 11

Apple loses a good one

Ron Johnson is one talented man.

After turning Target into what it is today, he was largely responsible for taking Apple from zero retail stores to a phenomenally successful global chain of over 300 today. That’s one hell of a resumé.

Honestly, I was shocked to hear that Ron was leaving Apple to become CEO of J.C. Penney. That’s because I couldn’t imagine anyone in his line of work having a better gig. He makes boatloads of money, which will become tanker-ships of money as his stock and annual vesting continue to pile up, and he runs what is widely considered  the gold standard of retail, selling the world’s coolest products.

That’ll teach me to impose my values on someone else’s life.

But now that I’ve read more about Ron’s decision, I do get it. It’s been an exhilarating ride, but he’s eager to try his hand at being Number One. As many will testify, it’s not easy working under Steve, and one has to follow his own dream.

It was pretty cool that J.C. Penney’s stock jumped up over 10% on the news of Ron’s hiring. And why not. For a retailer sorely in need of an excitement infusion, Ron represents the ultimate upgrade.

The analysts’ reactions seem to be 100% positive on Ron and J.C. Penney, as they should be. The quotes from all parties involved are super-positive, as they should be.

Of course, nobody can predict how these things will really play out. The only thing we do know is that it’s pretty darn tough to instill new values in an old organization. It takes  vision, talent, energy and rare leadership skills.

One of J.C. Penney’s board members referred to Ron today as “the Steve Jobs of retail.” Great sentiment, but (a) Steve Jobs is actually the Steve Jobs of retail, and (b) Mickey Drexler was already nicknamed the Steve Jobs of retail a while back. (We may just have to let them fight it out.) We know that the Apple Stores would never be what they are without Ron, but we also know that the Apple Stores reflect Steve’s minimalist tastes and assorted obsessions.

Being a brilliant retail thinker doesn’t necessarily make one a great CEO. Entirely different skill sets. But I had the pleasure of engaging with Ron for a brief period, and from my experience I think he has a good shot at winning the hearts and minds of the J.C. Penney family.

What happens to the Apple Stores without Ron? Fortunately, there’s a huge difference between inventing an idea from scratch and taking over an existing organization. The Apple Stores are now a well-oiled machine, and the lines for this job opening may be as long as the lines for iPad 2. Hopefully they’ll find someone who’s a good match for the Apple culture.

So happy trails, Ron, and a big thanks for making retail history at Apple. You deserve this opportunity. I don’t think I’ll be shopping at J.C. Penney anytime soon, but I promise to keep an open mind.

apple / observatory / steve jobs — 5 Comments
14
Jun 11

What makes Apple really, really different

A strange thing happened to me last week right after I read an article about the App Store banning a category of apps.

I started having flashbacks.

I’m not talking about the side-effects of my college-age psychedelic experiments. (Those episodes come and go, no external stimuli required.)

It’s just that this article got me thinking about various “decision moments” I’ve witnessed over the years while working with Apple and others. Once the swirly colors went away, I realized what it is that really sets Apple apart from the rest:

Morals.

[Brief pause to allow Apple detractors a bout of uncontrollable laughter.]

I’m not saying that Apple is moral and other companies are not. I’m saying that every company acts according to its own set of morals — and Apple’s morals are not at all typical.

In a global competition of technology giants, Apple remains the most human of the bunch. In fact, one could easily argue that Apple has become the world’s most valuable technology company precisely because it is so human.

Apple puts the customer experience above all else. That’s why it it cares so much about design and simplicity. That’s why it insists on controlling both its hardware and software (I’m talking to you, Flash.) That’s why it built the Apple Stores, where it could meet customers face-to-face and provide post-purchase care. And yes, that’s why it enforces standards for apps in the App Store.

That last point is a sticky one, because a lot of people gripe about Apple imposing its arbitrary standards upon people who should have the right to do as they damn well please. Apple is indeed running the App Store according to its own moral code — exactly as it runs the rest of its business.

You can either view that as more evidence of Apple’s uncontrollable lust for Big Brotherly power, or you can be happy that Apple is “doing the right thing” — providing both quality and freedom from malware.

The fact is, Apple has become one of the most amazing success stories in business history, and it’s done that in the most human way — by sticking to its morals.

For those who believe Apple’s values are dead wrong, that’s tough to swallow. For those who see Apple’s values as a reflection of their own, it’s a thing of beauty.

apple / apple news / iMac / iPad / iPhone / iPod / itunes / mac / observatory / steve jobs / strategy / tablets / technology — 3 Comments
7
Jun 11

WWDC 2011: the morning after

Ah, the joy of software. This really is the stuff that makes Apple Apple, and it was fun to see such widespread improvements in one fell swoop.

As usual, some random day-after thoughts.

Mac OS X

Full-screen apps. This is a personal favorite. Can’t wait to see it in action. I currently use full-screen with all apps that enable it, and always appreciate the focus it brings. We’ve got the screen space — it’s a shame not to use it all.

Auto-Save. I look forward to not repeating some of the more humbling failures of my past. Turning the window title into a pop-up menu to access past versions is a nice touch. Being able to copy and paste from old versions is even nicer.

The feature count. Poor Lion. Only 250 new features. Leopard had 300.

Lion power, kitty price. $29 is amazing. Snow Leopard was the aberration at $29, compared to all the $129 Mac OS X upgrades before. But there was a reason for that — Snow Leopard’s changes were mostly in the plumbing. Lion is as rich an upgrade as any upgrade in history, but the price stays remarkably low. Why? My guess is that (a) Apple wants to move the entire base forward, because (b) there is far more money to be made down the road with a new foundation. I’m not being cynical, it’s just good business. The more people shopping in the Mac App Store and purchasing future iCloud capabilities, the merrier.

Space travel. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of the current log-in star field and Time Machine theme. It wore out its welcome a long time ago, so I expected it to be replaced — but not by another space scene. Apparently, now we have a galaxy image. Apple has always delivered simplicity and elegance, and the space thing always felt like someone else’s idea of “cool.” Can’t we just pick our own backgrounds?

iOS

Feature count, revisited. Only 200 new features in iOS, compared to Lion’s 250 features. Obviously it’s harder to fit new features in a smaller screen.

The big payoff. To excite the crowd, Forstall showed off a slide stating that Apple has paid developers a total of $2.5 billion. It’s a great number until you do the math with the slide right before: customers have downloaded 14 billion apps from the App Store. Let’s see … 2.4 billion divided by 14 billion … that’s about 18 cents an app. Obviously, this says a lot about how many free apps are downloaded.

Notifications. Yippee! At last! It’s interesting that Forstall first confessed that there are problems current notifications, and then said, “We’ve built something that solves some of the problems…” Some?

Safari Reader. One of my favorite features. People may accept that ads pay the bills, but the ultimate reading experience will always be an ad-free zone.

Reading List. Love it. File away an article to be read later, and have that list appear on all your devices.

The geo-fence. Probably my favorite new term from the show (and very cool feature). In telling how Reminders work, Forstall talked about setting up a geo-fence around Moscone, so when he left the building he’d get a reminder. Hopefully, by winter we’ll have geothermal fences.

Camera. Despite talk about the quality of the iPhone camera, I rarely use it. One reason is the damn shutter button on the screen. Sorry, it’s awkward and just not the way we’re accustomed to using cameras. Using the hard Volume Up button as a shutter button makes me an instant fan. Photo-taking is also way improved by the new editing capabilities.

iMessage. It was presented as working across all iOS devices. What about the Mac? Wouldn’t I want to text people while I’m stuck at my desk?

iPhone 5 clue. With iOS 5 coming in the fall, the obvious conclusion is that it will come hand-in-hand with iPhone 5. I can hang in there that long.

iCloud

Demoting the PC. What a great example of Steve Jobs’ ability to simplify in the boldest way. He said they were demoting computers to be just devices, and moving the center of your digital life to the cloud. You get it in a second. And what PC company CEO on earth would say they’re “demoting” one of their biggest moneymakers?

Facing facts. When promoting iCloud, Steve paused to say: “Now why should I believe them? They’re the ones who brought me MobileMe … MobileMe was not our finest hour.” Say what you will about Steve, he dares to be honest.

DropBox killer? Nope. At least not yet. And I’m glad, because DropBox remains one of the greatest Mac utilities ever created. DropBox far out-iDisked iDisk, and its makers deserve to be rewarded, not obsoleted.

What about Me? Obviously the me.com site will ultimately be the icloud.com site. Do we still want me.com email addresses (did we ever?). Does the “me” word really have a place in the iCloud concept? We’ll soon find out…

Documents in the Cloud. Not the shortest name Apple has come up with. But it does have that “gorillas in the mist” meter going for it.

iTunes Match. Huge question mark. No one seems to know if this is a way to subscribe to iTunes versions of the songs you already own, or if your $24.99/year allows you to download the higher-quality versions of your songs to your own computer forever. So $24.99 is either one of the world’s great bargains — or not.

Antiquities. On one of the slides appearing behind Steve Jobs is a stack of CDs. Damn, they’re hideous. Did we ever actually use those things?

AAPL is down. It dropped five bucks yesterday. Down another $3.50 as I write this. Call this “iPad Syndrome.” Remember the industry’s reaction to the original iPad? “Just a big iPhone.” “No surprises, no new breakthroughs.” “Apple’s first dud.” The stock dropped. In broad strokes, just about everything we saw yesterday was “expected.” However, what’s expected can be the start of a whole new world. Like iPad.

The prognosticators. Not that we need to be reminded to take people’s opinions with a grain of salt, but… John Gruber’s pre-WWDC idea was “Think of iCloud as the new iTunes.” In fact, he’s still describing it that way after the show. It’s a good sound bite, but not totally accurate. In truth, iCloud is exactly what Steve Jobs said: the new hub of your digital life. Yes, that includes your iTunes content, but it also includes the things you create. For now, that includes the documents you create in iWork, but that capability will no doubt expand. iCloud is about your whole life — documents, photos, contacts, calendars, etc. — not just your entertainment. The Cult of Mac’s “exclusive” was obviously absurd, yet was quoted by many blogs and news services. They said iCloud would not be hosted in Apple’s new data center after all, but instead would reside on your Time Capsule (purchase required if you don’t already own one). Somehow it never struck them that Apple was signing contracts with the music companies for the rights to do something new with their music, not just store it on a personal hard disk.

All in all, good show. Let’s do it again sometime.

advertising / apple / creative / iPad / observatory / steve jobs — 6 Comments
10
May 11

Apple ads vs. the fleeting state of cool

You are so damn fickle.

Sure, you love your Apple ads today. (Like this one for iPad 2.) But history shows you’ll not only lose interest in the near future — you’ll be embarrassed that you ever liked them in the first place.

That’s just the nature of the beast in the ad world. What rates so high on the Cool-o-Meter today looks dated within in a few years, and gets unwatchable a short time after.

And it’s not just you. The whole world grows weary of these things. It’s as if the taste and values of millions evolve in unison.

Great casting becomes miscasting. Great acting turns into amateur hour. Ads shot by acclaimed directors, adored by audiences the world over, become faint memories.

Sadly, there is no fountain of youth for advertising. Most ads wear out their welcome about as fast as you can say “Newton.”

The problem, of course, is that everything on this earth starts getting old the moment it’s born. (Except you, of course.) Every new thing — from music to movies, from books to neat little devices — gets more sophisticated. It helps raise the collective sophistication of all of us.

We gain a new appreciation for the new and a new disdain for the old.

What brought on this little outburst? To be honest, I was just looking through my “favorite ad” archives and being amazed that I ever thought some of them even remotely good. And it wasn’t just me, it was you too. Unbelievably, many of them have slipped from super-cool to outright embarrassing.

At least we don’t have to go on public record about what ads we think are cool. Steve Jobs does. Every time he approves an ad from Apple (and he does approve every single one), he’s saying “here’s one I really like.”

Here’s one he really liked some 30 years ago for the Apple II. I, for one, am very glad he grew up.

apple / iPhone / observatory / steve jobs — 11 Comments
2
May 11

Apple’s double-edged sword of silence

Any good musician will tell you that what you don’t play is as important as what you do play.

Filmmakers have milked the pregnant pause as long as there has been film.

Apple, as we well know, is a big believer in silence as well. In fact, the most intense buzz actually begins when Apple says the words, “no comment.” That’s merely the cue for rampant speculation to begin.

But hey, this is part of the fun. Apple has relied on secrecy for years, all to build anticipation for the moment when Steve Jobs gets on stage to pull the curtain once again.

However, Apple is also enamored of another kind of silence. They tend to shut down when things take a dark turn — as they did with the iPhone antenna issue, or the more recent iPhone location-tracking issue.

Unfortunately, these are the times when people most need to hear something. Anything.

In talking about the location-tracking flareup the other day, I used the analogy of air travel. It’s horribly frustrating when the pilot keeps passengers in the dark about a long delay, but he relieves all the pressure by simply getting on the PA system to acknowledge the problem.

I get — and totally appreciate — Apple’s explanation that these are complicated issues, that they need time to understand what’s happening and formulate the proper response. They certainly need to be thoughtful. But the airline pilot doesn’t need to understand all the reasons why that airplane is blocking our gate before he tells us we’ll be delayed. It’s common courtesy. It doesn’t make passengers gleeful, but it does quell the mass rebellion in the cabin.

In both Antennagate and Locationgate, Apple could have done the same thing — acknowledge the issue and promise to tell us more as soon as they are able.

The Apple of old might have been able to get away with the silent treatment. But this Apple is different. As the biggest technology company on earth, it’s become a huge, juicy target. By going silent when negative issues arise, they gain nothing — they only encourage the image of arrogance and unresponsiveness. It’s just not necessary.

Last week, Apple came up with yet another way to play the silence card. They announced that the white iPhone is finally shipping, but failed to mention one little detail. It’s a tiny bit thicker than the black iPhone.

(Update, May 3: I fell into an embarrassing trap, and I have to take it like a man. With so many sites reporting that the white iPhone was thicker than the black one —with photographic evidence — I assumed it was true. Not. Consumer Reports stepped up to the plate with a micrometer to put the rumor to rest. So … never mind. I’ll be more vigilant next time.)

This isn’t the kind of thing you shout in a TV commercial. But it is the kind of thing you note in a press release — spinning it to show how cleverly Apple overcame the engineering challenge. To say nothing, and leave it for others to discover, is just asking for another black mark.

(Phil Schiller went on record this morning to say the thicker white iPhone story is “junk.” Interesting, because that doesn’t exactly match up with the photos. Anyone have a micrometer?)

Maybe Apple should tweak their policy on silence a wee bit. It’s inevitable that the brand takes a hit now and then. It’s just a shame when the damage is self-inflicted.

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