Tick tock. Apple invited the Fair Labor Association to inspect and report on work conditions at Foxconn’s Chinese factories, and now we have the report. There is lot of red meat in it for everyone on all sides of the issue to point to and get lathered up about — a foul, sticky substance that the media and blogsphere is excreting with vigorous abandon.
Apple’s CEO is here, there and everywhere of late, most notably atop a new survey showing employees have given him a 97 percent approval rating. His popularity probably hasn’t been hurt by recent announcements that it will investors a cash dividend and buy back shares. Yes, it’s a very good time to be Tim.
How does the other half live? Apparently rather poorly because 49 percent of American households don’t have a single Apple product and that’s worse than a day without sunshine, a lot worse. On the brighter side, more than half do and a highly evolved subset thereof proudly claims five or more Apple-branded widgets in their homes.
Yes, Mac Blorge is a great resource, but it’s but one dish in the grand buffet that is Apple Mac web universe. Who do we read? Here’s a two score enumeration of the Mac websites that deliver and shape the news the “the rest of us” are drawn to daily, like technological moths to the flame.
Apple has been telegraphing this move quite literally for years, though the release of the Mountain Lion beta has given the effort and rumors fresh legs. What began as monster icons several years back has gained OS-level hooks that are visible in the latest developer preview release of OS X 10.8. Retina display arrived first on the iPhone, then iPad and now it’s coming back to the Mac.
Linux is everywhere, except the desktop in any meaningful way. You can find variations of Linus Torvald’s creation running inside phones, automobiles, vending machines, satellites and, well, just about anything that requires a computer to control other systems. Thankfully, however, it can’t be found inside our Macintoshes, but it might have been otherwise if Steve Jobs had gotten his way back in 2000.
Who doesn’t like a nice hot shower? Generally speaking, that tops out at about 120 degrees fahrenheit. Coffee at that temperature would be tepid at best. However, Apple’s new tablet computer at any temperature above 98.6 degrees is apparently cause for alarm. The problem for the haters this time around is that the words hot, temp, warm or tepid really don’t go well with “gate” or inspire fear, uncertainty or doubt.
Lying liars and their lying mouths full of lying lies. Since it was revealed that his hugely popular The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs monologue was riddled with lies, Mike Daisey has consistently said his work isn’t journalism and shouldn’t be held to that factual standard. However, a co-worker that helped stage the production says Daisey insisted playbills unambiguously state “This is a work of nonfiction.”
As if AAPL wasn’t attractive enough. Investors will indeed will be getting their hands on a significant slice of Apple’s massive $100 billion cash stash. The company anticipates shedding about 10 percent of that this year via stock dividends and Tim Cook, Peter Oppenheimer et al also say that another $10 bill will be used to buyback stock.
So, investors will soon be getting their hands on Apple’s massive cash stash? That would stand to reason, yet the company that Steve Jobs cofounded, molded and led to domination has a habit of thinking differently and, given the extended nature of their deliberations, you’ve got to wonder what CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will actually announce.
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