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Angela Ahrendts continues debut tour with employee Q&A, New York City Apple Store visits

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New Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts is continuing her Apple debut tour this week. The former Burberry Chief Executive Officer today toured through Apple’s many stores in the New York City area and she also held a question-and-answer session with select Apple Retail Store managers earlier this week week. Ahrendts today sent a memo with a transcript of some of the Q&A points to all retail employees, and a full copy of that transcript, sent in by a source, is below:

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Question 1: How can we become better ambassadors of the company as the face of Apple?

Answer: We are all ambassadors of the company and staying in tune with our message is key to our success. Be involved and be astute about what’s going on inside and outside of our stores. Look at Apple’s website every day, and browse the Apple Online Store on a regular basis. Experience our new marketing and advertising by watching our new ad campaigns. Be aware of our earnings results, and watch our key events, like WWDC. These are external messages our customers see and hear about our brand, so we must stay attuned to the things that engage and entertain them. Retail employees comprise more than half of our total Apple population. As you build relationships with our customers, you are also building loyalty to the company. I love the last line of our Credo,” We are at our best when we deliver enriching experiences that help owners of our products get more of our technology and of themselves.” You bring this to life and by doing this we get the brand out there in the most compelling way.

Question 2: What can the online store and the offline retail stores learn from one another and how are they connecting?

Answer: The online store and retail stores are already connecting and learning from one another. Cross functional teams are meeting and gaining incredible insights into the changing customer journey, and how together we can Convince, Care, Customize, and Contribute as one team. There is more and more party in the images and look between our offline and online stores. We must know that 80% of the time, our customer journey begins online and we must evolve to ensure we support this preference.

Question 3: What has touched and changed you so far? Have there been any growing pains since you’ve started?

Answer: What has touched and changed me so far is the brilliant balance between the creative and the commercial that the company has maintained as it has grown so dramatically. I was slightly concerned at first that as a right-brain/left-brain leader, I wouldn’t fit into a technology company. I have realized, however, there is an unbelievable culture here that values leadership, marketing, and customer skills as I do. Everyone has been warm and welcoming, passionate, and compassionate, so my only growing pains have been to learn how to quickly navigate such a large and complex organization.

Question 4: Tell us more about Angela, the person. 

Answer: Lastly, I am not sure if there are personal facts I can share that aren’t already in the public domain, but I’m so proud that my husband and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary next month. We have three amazing teens, two wonderful Bernese mountain dogs, and two beautiful rag doll cats who will soon make their journey to San Francisco.

Ahrendts ends her note to employees today by further reflecting on her first three months at Apple. “What an amazing 90 days it has been! I sincerely am honored to be here with you on this fantastic journey,” she told employees. These answers to employee questions come a few weeks after Ahrendts emailed retail employees regarding her start at Apple and some teases regarding her plans for the future of retail. Ahrendts has also been communicating with the public by way of frequent posts on LinkedIn. Ahrendts, as we first detailed, has also confided in select Apple executives and store managers in regards to her plans for the future of retail, which will focus on mobile payment technologies, a renewed spotlight on China, and a new end-to-end customer experience online and offline.

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In addition to the aforementioned memo, Ahrendts today took a tour of Apple’s New York City-area Apple Retail Stores. I noted on Twitter this morning that Ahrendts will be touring New York Apple Stores, and our own Seth Weintraub happened to be at the Grand Central Apple Store for his now almost-monthly Retina MacBook Pro repair session at the Genius Bar. Sure enough, Seth spotted Ahrendts in the store at around 3:00 PM, and he saw her greet the workers and learn more about the store for the next half an hour or so. In addition to the above photos, here are a couple of videos Seth recorded at the store of Ahrendts’s tour:

Seth says that “Ahrendts seemed genuinely interested in how the store worked and especially how it was set up.” This is, of course, a large departure from previous retail head John Browett, who seems to have mostly focused on cutting costs, laying off employees, and not apologizing.

Looking ahead, Ahrendts is overseeing various other new store openings across America, Europe, and China.

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Comments

  1. Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

    Pretty cool. Some nice tidbits here. She seems like a good fit for Apple and it’s customers. Hope Seth got his MacBook fixed!

    • William Brown - 10 years ago

      First question an Apple Retail Store manager gushed…. “How can we become better ambassadors of the company as the face of Apple?”

      Any non-Americans wanna puke? Or was this Store manager a 12 year old girl asking Justin Bieber a question?

      For the record I use many Apple products but Apple’s current predicament is purely of its own making. In its rabid crusade to lock all its products down to the nth degree its making them unusable. I’m on business using a MacBook Pro, I have another for personal use and a MacPro as the family computer. In Apple’s world I need to have 3 SEPERATE iTunes libraries to be able to listen to music on these computers. At a wedding recently everyone was sharing photo’s they’d taken via BlueTooth everyone that is apart from those with iPhones as Apple won’t allow it. I read eBooks on planes etc with Amazon I can read my purchases on just about any device going any iBooks I buy are locked to a handful of Apples products. I could go on and on and on. I dumped the iPhone for a Galaxy S5 and the iPad for a Nexus and couldn’t be happier. Apple needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        “Any non-Americans wanna puke? Or was this Store manager a 12 year old girl asking Justin Bieber a question?”

        Haha!!
        Yeah, sigh, what can I say?
        It does indeed sound like way too much ass-kissing to ask such a question, unless Ahrendts made it up herself.

        Doing something good for a company, that you enjoy working for is indeed inspiring and its not uncommon to feel that “energy and drive”.
        But people working in the store or on a factory line, how do you inspire them to feel this “energy”?

      • sally (@FedGoat) - 10 years ago

        @William Brown
        You sir, are a complete idiot.
        You should have bought Apples One to One program instead of thinking you knew everything about everything.
        You bought Over $3000 worth of computers and phones don’t have a clue how to use them.
        You have 3 SEPARATE libraries because you CHOSE to set it up that way.
        A family can SHARE an apple ID on multiple devices for purchases, but each person can have their OWN iCloud account. 5 minutes on Apples web site could have told you that.
        You could also log into your user account with each apple ID and download all the music from EACH of the 3 accounts so that all the content would be on that One user act.
        Now, understand that does NOT mean you get to sync someone else’s purchases onto your iPhone. It doesn’t matter who’s credit card was used. You signed up as 3 separate people so you have 3 libraries. That was YOUR CHOICE.
        The reason you can’t sync purchases made on some other apple ID to your phone that has its own apple ID is to prevent pirating. If I could hook my phone to ANY computer and absorb music/movies that someone else purchased, i would never need to buy anything ever again. I would just go around an absorb every single library I could.
        Apple has also announced that with iOS 8 and Yosemite that as long as you add the same credit card to all 3 of those separate accounts, all content will be available for all 3 users.

        Part 2: iBooks, duuuuuuh. No sh*t iBooks is for APPLE PRODUCTS. Why the hell would apple let samesung have access to its book store. However. The kindle app is available on Apple AND Non-apple products, so yes, if you aren’t 100% apple, USE SOMETHING THAT WORKS ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS…. how hard is that to comprehend. Never mind that as long as you are all apple, iBooks is better than kindle…

        Guess what, Apples maps don’t work on your LagWiz-will-get-one-OS-Upgrade-Maybe shitsung either.
        I bought a galaxy S4 when it first came out. Took that piece of junk back to AT&T 6 days later after seeing what a horrible piece of crap the S4 was. The S5 is no better. It still lags. It still won’t get android L (4.5?) for about a year or More after its released, If EVER.

        Apple has a way to share photos with other apple products using AirDrop. There is no need to tap that back of your iPhone to the back of another iPhone. If you want to share picts to virus infected android phones, you text them. Or, you create a SHARED photo stream, add 1000 picts ALL AT ONCE if you want, and share ALL 1000 of those photo’s with a simple link that you could group text, post on Facebook, G+, email, twitter or any other way you want.
        You know what else is awesome about a shared photo stream? You can share that link with anyone ANYWHERE in the world. They don’t have to be in bluetooth range. I can share 1000 photos with my family that is 1000 miles away. And that link can be viewed on a phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a desktop and it doesn’t matter what brand it is.

        The ONLY part of your comment that was accurate was the dumb PR question that no employee ever asked.
        How can we become better ambassadors … ya right….

        Sorry to rant but I see these dumb comments like this all the time. This one put me over the edge today because I’ve had too much coffee. Maybe I need to switch to Sanka, but maybe you should pull your head out and quit saying Apple is Doomed because the have some proprietary Apps.
        Maybe samsung should let me download the Note s-pen software to my iPhone/iPad so I wouldn’t need to buy a samsung product, I could just use my iPhone or iPad instead of buying their crap.
        While their at it, I would Love it if i could use half my storage and make my phone lag, so why don’t they let me download a touchwiz package to cripple my phone.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        Sally,
        How can you expect William Brown, to read that whole dissertation of yours, when you start off by calling him a complete idiot and then to proceed to lecture him in a demeaning manner?

    • William Brown - 10 years ago

      @André Hedegaard Petersen

      It always makes me smile when somebody defending Apple’s ‘No Choice’ policy feels the need to resort to personal insults in an effort to prove that its better than ‘having choice’

      I’m completely platform agnostic, my only requirement is the best possible experience.

      Regarding iBooks, I recently spent a month traveling around Turkey. I only had to charge my Kindle once despite it getting a huge amount of use. I bought 3 books using the kindles free inbuilt 3g. With an iPad I would have had to charge it daily with an expensive propriety cable then if I wanted to purchase any books I’d have to use the expensive hotel wifi (free wifi in Turkey is non-existent). Then to top it all off, looking at my last 5 ebook purchases 4 where more expensive on iBooks 1 was the same price compared to Amazon. The Kindle App is also a better choice for 100% Apple users as Amazon offers more books and its app is more mature in features. There are no daily/monthly deals on iBooks nor can you borrow/share ibooks. Also as I have already said I can read my Kindle books on pretty much every device going with iBooks I’m limited to the pokey screen on the iPhone the inferior screen (compared to my nexus7) of an iPad. So wheres the benefit of using Apple for ebooks?

      Again, photo sharing theres talk of Photo Streams which is all well and good but what happens if theres no connectivity i.e. like the wedding I was at in a country house hotel? I could have used the expensive WiFi but why? Even if there was connectivity why do I need to pay either a data charge or use some of my data plan to upload? and then again to download the photo’s I want? Every non-apple users was just using bluetooth? fast, safe and free. So wheres the benefit of using an iPhone?

      Shared Apple ID’s for multiple devices in the family sounds great so when I purchase the film “World War Z” my 10 year old son also gets to watch it on his iPad? Woot Woot!

      For the record I don’t buy any content from Apple. If I want music I buy the CD (which also gives me a hardcopy backup and loads of other benefits over iTunes) and then rip-it to the MacPro. What happens if I buy a CD on business and want to listen to it on my Apple device? I rip-it with the MacBookPro but my iDevice won’t sync it because it will only sync with the iTunes Library on the MacPro. I’d have to email the music files to my wife who would load them it on to the MacPro and sync it with with iCloud. I would then hopefully have access to an internet connection to download them. In the non-Apple world you’d rip it and bluetooth it direct to the device. Laughably Apple (with a straight face) claims it does this to prevent piracy. The real and more nuanced reason is that due to anti-trust laws Apple can’t force its users to to buy all there content from Apple. Apple try and circumvent this by making non-apple store purchase as frustrating as possible i.e you can only sync from 1 computer. Music company don’t require Apple to implement this in fact music is sold drm free. No other company forces you to do this just Apple. So in the example above the easiest thing would be to buy the music direct from Apple rather than emailing etc. So wheres the benefit of using Apple for music?

      I’ll say it again I don’t care what platform I use I just want the best experience. Apple’s problem is that its crippling its products to the point where they become unusable.

      • Emmett Dickie - 10 years ago

        I want to preface this by saying I do agree with what you’re saying about being platform agnostic. I have lots of devices from lots of companies, but I do end up coming back to these Apple gadgets more often that not.

        I’m going to counter (with friendliness) some of these points if I can.

        1. iBooks, I don’t buy anything from its store- but it is the most pleasant and highly polished reader application I have tried. I like the page turning, the highlighting gestures, the notes syncing etc. It, like iTunes, will also take 3rd party ePub files, so I do end up doing most of my reading from the platform without making any purchases from it’s store whatsoever. It subjectively works better to me than the (last time I checked) very DRM-locked Kindle service with it’s proprietary file format.

        2. No wifi network connection? Airdrop. Airdrop works ad-hoc, anywhere, and in a MUCH more polished and consistent (and “magical”) way than an ACL-based bluetooth transfer which may or may not work depending on phone model, file type, destination etc. And soon I will be able to Airdrop between my Mac and my iDevices (it works really really well). And if you really want to, you can always get a 3rd party app on the iPhone which lets you do such file transfers and then even go a step further and saving said photo to your camera roll to later be Photo Streamed (if desired, I tend to stay away from the current incarnation of iCloud photo sharing, but the iOS 8 implementation looks very nice).

        3. Shared Apple ID? Use restrictions. There are a lot of parental controls for limiting what iTunes store content can be downloaded based on its PG rating. Your kid doesn’t necessarily get full access to all movies, nor does he *need* to even know your password in the first place, or even be permanently signed in to yours, you could always sign in and out for him after placing the content you want on the device- it won’t disappear.

        4. Buying CD’s? Please look into iTunes Match. It is the best cloud based music solution for people with content they bought outside of the service I’ve ever seen. You pay $25 a year, and ALL of your music is treated like it was purchased from the iTunes Store. Whether it was ever purchased in the first place or not…. Also even without iTunes Match, there has always been an ability to “manually manage music” in iTunes to have it not automatically sync with any one iTunes library, and yes, when you do that you can get songs from multiple different computers without a problem. Also, as you yourself pointed out, all the music in the iTunes Store is DRM free. That is something that Apple pushed the record companies to accept because it was much needed functionality to drive it’s acceptance by the very large “well fuck you I’ll just keep pirating then if it’s the only way to download restriction free music” crowd.

        It’s definitely not perfect, but Apple’s solutions are still in most ways the best experience. Maybe not to you, but to a lot of people they objectively are. I get railing against some of the stupid things they come up with from time to time, but as these examples show, there are lots of unique solutions only available in Apple’s ecosystem. I could go on, but I just wanted to address the points you were specifically mentioning.

      • mazecookie - 10 years ago

        It seems most of your points were counted already by Emmett Dickie, but I will add my own thoughts.

        It is not Apple’s fault that you are so ignorant in learning what the technology you spend so much money on is capable of.

        “It always makes me smile when somebody defending Apple’s ‘No Choice’ policy feels the need to resort to personal insults in an effort to prove that its better than ‘having choice’

        I’m completely platform agnostic, my only requirement is the best possible experience.”

        Apple’s policy is not “no choice”, it is the best possible choice, you say your only requirement is the best possible experience, and it is.

        You talk about Kindle with 3g. Buy a 3g/4g iPad.

        Your Kindle is only capable of reading and downloading books, your iPad is working much harder, for many many things. Good luck reading your emails, browsing the web, watching movies, viewing photographs or anything else for that matter on your Kindle. They are two completely separate product categories.

        You can share iBooks for free very easily, again by using Apple ID switching.

        iBooks is available on iPads, iPhones, iPod touches and Mac’s. Plenty of devices available that are not “pokey” screens.

        As Emmett mentioned, AirDrop is a much smarter, faster, safer solution. Bluetooth is one of the most insecure, slow, outdated ways of connecting devices. AirDrop uses Bluetooth to discover devices, but then makes an Ad Hoc wifi network directly to the transferring devices, as it is superior in speed and reliability over Bluetooth.

        Pay data charge? Do you live in central Africa? Smartphones and tablet are made for use with the internet. If you want to use bluetooth over the internet, please go back ten years.

        As Emmett mentioned, restrictions? Parental controls are a great way of being a great parent.

        Sure, buy your outdated CD’s, but iTunes Match, if you bothered to look into any solution, stores all of your music in the cloud, automatically, and automatically makes it available on all of your devices. No syncing, no separate libraries. It is the best cloud based music solution.

        In a non-Apple world, you are correct. You would have to rip it, bluetooth it from your computer to all of your devices, and then re-rip it on every computer you wanted it on.

        In an Apple world, you rip it, and its on all of your computers and devices immediately. Oh, and the bitrate is improved, so your “benefits” like getting a booklet with lyrics, are inferior. Apple backs up your music and improves the bitrate to upto 512kb/s, most of the time improving the sound quality, by the way.

        You talk about syncing your phone with “one computer”. I hope you know what the world synchronise means. It means to mirror something. I.E, what is on your computer, with the device. If you go to another computer, your can mirror that too, but it will remove the other stuff, otherwise it wouldn’t be syncronised, see where I’m going with that?
        For god knows how long, you can use Manually Manage Music and Videos, you can drag and drop any data to any device on any computer it’s authorised. I don’t think I have synced for about 4 or 5 years.
        One device, multiple computers.

        Apple is crippling it’s devices to a point they are unusable? HA! Your comments are so laughable. You are a typical fool who thinks because they have spent a few hours getting frustrated with something, without looking or searching for a solution, you have the right to be ignorant and spew you pathetic drivel on public forums. Apple’s devices, if you did any research, are by far more feature rich, with a better user experience. But heck, I’m talking to somebody that doesn’t care to learn, enjoy using Android and I’m sure soon to be Windows. It suits you.

  2. Dan (@danmdan) - 10 years ago

    I’d love to ask her why as a former CEO did she, in effect, step backwards in status to work for someone else’s CEO ? What does she get from this move, what does Apple get ?

    • irelandjnr - 10 years ago

      Now she’s an executive at the biggest and best company on the planet who have change the world. Before she sold clothes.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        Selling clothes is only slightly better than selling sugared water :)

        Still, shes a woman, I’m very worried (As a shareholder) that a woman has come aboard of what is a male dominated company. (And males that had brought it to the status that it is now)
        I don’t think Apple needs to try to make some fashion statements, just great gadgets.

      • rahhbriley - 10 years ago

        Jesus @Andre Hedegaard Petersen, sexist much? She’s brilliant at what she does. Jump off a bridge.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        Rahbriley,
        Me jumping off a bridge does not help Apple in the “predicament” they’re currently in.

        Its ok to be sexist when its called for.
        Its ok for women to have any job they want, so long as they do it as well as men.

        Hiring a fashion girl that wears make up and a certain brand of clothes to look pretty, to suddenly taking care of Apple retail of a serious company is quite a big gamble.
        I’m really concerned, because I don’t want my stocks taking a dive because of her.

      • goodenglishgrammar - 10 years ago

        Yes, Apple needs to make great gadgets, that’s a given, but if you think that a device you wear on the outside (iWatch) doesn’t need to be fashionable to be successful, you’re crazy. As for a woman being in charge of retail, as a sexist shareholder, I’m surprised you didn’t say, “Well, women do know shopping….” I’m pretty sure Apple knows quite well who is buying what at Apple stores.

        As for fashion, there needs to be a leopard print iWatch band to go with the leopard print dress. There needs to be a neon yellow band to match the neon yellow running shoes. Etc…. Apple could rake in a fortune if they made the bands themselves (hence, I think, the Beats acquisition and their knowledge of selling dozens of different color headphones and textures). Hope they don’t outsource that part (selling the watch bands), they will make a fortune on mark-up of rubber and leather iWatch bands.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        goodenglishgrammar,
        Thanks for your view points :)

        I’m wondering if the iWatch will be quite unlike what we’ve seen before. Apple is a trend setter, so I’m hoping the iWatch will set a new trend too.
        As I said previously, the fashion world adheres to Apple, not the other way around.
        Thats why I doubt that a lady that oversaw production of large squared-banded handbags that is Burberry, is able to contribute anything of value to the fashion of for example iWatch.
        Luckily shes not hired for her design skills.

        Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps Apple needs a “face” for Apple retail, like a ditzy blonde that is a “face” for a rich man walking down the street.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        And another thing, usually at a company, after 90 whole days of your executive employment, you begin to show your value, such as increased production, alterations that save the company money, or something tangible.
        In her 90 days?
        Shes been to store openings, and is still talking as if shes only been there 1 week.
        So what exactly has this woman done/changed for Apple, that is “oh so wonderful” for consumers and the like?

        Agreed, Bowett was a huge mistake, that obnoxious snob, but at least he cut working hours, instigated bonuses for Apple employees and tried to do something.

        This one is just walking around in those awful ’70s glasses and speaking about company values that already existed before she started.

      • Emmett Dickie - 10 years ago

        @André

        I don’t even have the interest to build the whole case I have against what you are saying. But you are wrong. Also, Apple Stores are only responsible for something like 15-20% of the profits Apple takes in. They are not sales factories. They are functional showrooms that also happen to make a lot of money.

        Also I will direct you to a statement Tim Cook made a couple months back along the lines of “if you are only in on this stock to make money, you should get out”. There are values more important than any one particular quarter’s earnings, and shortchanging a very successful culture to make a quick buck does not pay off in the long run anyways.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        @Emmet,

        You know Emmet, I certainly hope that I am wrong and that you’re right. It would mean my stocks would be “safe” and I’d be enlightened.
        I guess only time will tell about this.
        As per Tim Cooks words, they’re very childish and stupid.
        Steve Jobs himself said something along the lines of “Our products are expensive and I’m here to make sure your stocks climb in value, so you can afford the gadgets” when speaking to employees.
        So theres quite a contradiction already there.

        In Tim Cooks time, we’ve seen the maps scandal, the hiring&firing of Browett (despite Tim Cook defending him). We’ve seen Scott Forstall withdraw massive amounts of his stock and then get “fired”. Lots of controversial nonsense. No new product categories, just more of the “same but updated” iStuff.
        Yeah yeah, we’ll see what the Iwatch is all about in a few months.

        As per the store, you’re probably right, there “income generating” isn’t so high compared to the online sales and B2B sales, but still, its big revenue and certainly generates enough to be able to open stores all across the world. Amazingly Ahrendt has time to visit these store openings, instead of being behind her desk and being productive!

        After 90 days, I want to see SOME kind of concrete benefit she has provided Apple!

        I hope I’m wrong and you’re right, but the track record so far says otherwise :)

      • Emmett Dickie - 10 years ago

        @André

        Fair enough. There have been some missteps, I can agree with that. I would just say that Browett was a total failure because he failed to understand that making Apple Stores even more ‘efficient’ did not and does not work in that environment. There are many big box sales factory retail environments already, the Apple stores work because they are not that way, it is the contrast in service quality that drives the interest for a lot of people to go there and spend so much money on the Apple products in the first place.

        You can’t improve things in that environment by ‘speeding them up’ or hollowing them out, it makes the whole company look by extension like they do not care about the small details that make the gadgets they produce so special in the first place. If you care about values for the sake of the value, you have to prove it by walking that walk.

        I think Angela is spending time in the stores so that she actually understands what she’s managing- which Browett didn’t, and he didn’t work out so well. You know what affects the bottom line? Making sure those stores don’t offend people and unhitched from reality, making sure they blow people’s minds and can continue to demonstrate why someone should want to spend 2X the money on the things they sell. That will keep your stocks higher than any small pointless incremental increase in the number of sales they can make per hour. That’s what online stores are great for, you know, where you don’t have face-to-face interactions.

        Angela hermit-ing out in her Cupertino office mandating impersonal depersonalized orders with no understanding of the actual mechanics of the operations of these locations would make her a female Browett, and again, he was bad news.

        Also remember antenna gate on the iPhone 4? That was under Steve, he was not perfect.

        What is it that you want? I get that you want to make some money, but you don’t seem to have any real idea how it is that would happen, just complaints about a few imperfections that can only be made in hindsight :)

    • rahhbriley - 10 years ago

      Is it that hard to speculate? She’s at Apple, the biggest brand in the world. She loves marketing, branding and customer experience. What company better to exercise those interest at? And I’m a huge Tim Cook supporter and want him to stay at Apple as long as he’s useful, but there’s only avenue to CEO of Apple, and that’s through 1 Infinite Loop (Address changing soon). I personally think she has that in the back of her mind as a possibility. Give her enough experience at Apple, and she could easily be its next Chief Executive Officer.

      Oh and Apple gets an amazing talent, to answer the last part of your questions.
      (Though I know you’d love to ask her, these are just some semi-educated guesses and thoughts.)

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        Angela as possibly the next CEO?
        A woman that knows so little about technology?
        She herself was apprehensive because she knows little. Sure she can market and all those other “soft valued” aesthetics, but Apple is a serious company in the tech industry.
        Fashioned is designed around Apple, certainly not the other way around.

        No, its better we get some foresighted, intuitive and technology wise people to lead Apple, not people off the streets thank you.

      • rahhbriley - 10 years ago

        It is one thing if you think she is unqualified, I disagree but you can have that opinion. But her being a woman has nothing to do with that. That is sexist, and no it is never called for to be sexist as you claim in your other response to me. If she’s unqualified she’s unqualified, but her gender has nothing to do with the qualifications. You are a tool.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        Calling me a tool because you disagree is way too teen like for me and says more about you than about me.

      • rahhbriley - 10 years ago

        I don’t call you a tool because I simply disagree, I call you a toll because you can’t separate your arguments and contentions about the person from her gender. And I stand by it. I haven’t called your arguments about her skill sets wrong, though I personally disagree with your assessment, I’m calling your gender bias completely and utterly misplaced as well as apart of a larger problem, of which, you are a tool. Did I make that clear enough? As a man, I’d expect you to be able to break that down. <– That is sarcasm, I don't actually expect you to be able to break down my argument or my sarcastic, misogynistic-matching tone.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        The reason dosen’t matter. If you’re calling me a tool (for whatever reason) then its simply not worth my time to have a discussion.

      • charismatron - 10 years ago

        Andre,

        Dear sir, you’re a sexist fucking idiot.

        Thanks for flagging yourself as a sexist fucking idiot, saving the rest of the Internet the trouble of having to wait around and figure it out for themselves. Kindly fuck off, keep on fucking off, and when you get back, fuck off some more, you sexist fucking idiot.

        You wear your fear of women on your sleeve, and your sexist nature is only equaled by your apparent insecurity. That small, is it?

        That is all.

      • André Hedegaard Petersen - 10 years ago

        @Charismatron,
        Nope, don’t lack anything as such, though I do worry about my Apple shares, hence the reason for my posts.

        If men make 1$ to every women’s 77c in the workforce, then why don’t companies just hire all women?
        Makes you think dosen’t it.

  3. David Ahrendts - 10 years ago

    Angela has a great name. :–)

  4. Max Tailor - 10 years ago

    Andre,

    Unfortunately it appears that even though you own Apple stock, you really have no idea how companies work. I find it a shame when people buy stocks and shares without having an appreciation of a company’s inner workings i.e. a companies mission and strategy.

    So, firstly, let start by looking at Apple’s mission. Apple’s mission can be described as “to make products that just work and offer the customer the best user experience”. As you can see, Apples mission can thus be subdivided into two parts that are independent but also co-dependent: to make products that work, and to offer the customer the best experience. For the latter, “offering the customer the best experience”, this includes an customers experience on the phone itself, but also includes (perhaps to a greater extent) the customers experience in store. This is where Angela comes into play. Angela was not employed for the making of products that work; she was employed for offering customers the best user experience in store. Her forte is marketing, branding and customer experience, as such, she fits in really well as Senior Vice President
    Retail and Online Stores. Apple were likely attracted to her because in the 6 yrs she was with Burberry, she grew the company value from $2Billion to $7Billion. She therefore has extensive experience in how to successfully market, brand and improve customer experience. This is why Angela is the best person for the job.

    As for your sexist sentiment, it makes me sad that there are still people like you out there in today’s society. I think you’ll find that women add just as much value to the workforce as men do, but unfortunately the prejudice of people like you undermines them from getting fairer wages/ career progression. You really need to reassess your gender bias, as it is really outdated and out of touch with society. Luckily, whether you change your sexist views or not, the world is increasingly accepting women’s contributed to society; a case in point is for example the fact that in 2012 Angela (the same one as above) was the highest paid CEO in the UK!

    Please try and educate yourself about a companies mission and strategy before a) buying stocks and b) airing out pointless drivel about your sexist sentiment.

  5. b9bot - 10 years ago

    Galaxy is outdated running old software. And you won’t see any updates either. You will probably get hacked or your device will crash because of malware. Enjoy that if that’s what you like. Sally gave you everything you need to make everything work but you like many are stuck thinking that Apple is closed and locked down when it’s not. Android and Windows is open alright, open to every virus, trojan, malware, hacker out there. 99% of Android software is infected with malware and is stealing data from you everyday. But you love that open stuff. You might as well broadcast your Social Security card number and bank accounts to the world because using that Samsung is going to give you that open capability that you love. Enjoy!