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Everything you need to know about Apple's CEO

Tim Cook was appointed CEO in 2011 when Steve Jobs stepped away from the company as his health worsened. Cook was handpicked by Jobs to be his replacement, having served as a close friend of Jobs during their entire career together.

A graduate of Auburn University with a degree in industrial engineering, Cook earned his Masters from Duke University’s School of business. Prior to joining Apple, Cook spent 12 years at IBM, then served as the Chief Operating Officer of Intelligent Electronics. He then had a short stint at Compaq.

Cook first joined Apple in 1998 after being recruited by Jobs. Cook remarked in a commencement address at Auburn University that, five minutes into his interview with Jobs, he knew he wanted to join Apple. “My intuition already knew that joining Apple was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for the creative genius,” he remarked.

At Apple, Cook started out as senior vice president of worldwide operating. He served as interim CEO in 2009 while Steve Jobs was on medical leave. In 2011, Cook again stepped in to lead day-to-day operations while Jobs was ill, before ultimately being named CEO permanently just before the death of Jobs.

Cook has been very outspoken on a variety of social issues, including the need to protect user data and privacy, as evident by his vocal refusal to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen. Cook has also voiced his displeasure with controversial legislation that enables LGBT discrimination in a handful of states in the United States. Likewise, Cook has frequently called on the United States Congress to pass LGBT protection legislation. He became the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2014, as well. Cook has led Apple in the San Francisco Pride Parade in recent years.

View all Tim Cook-related articles below:

For many, issues watching YouTube on Apple TV

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Owners of the Apple TV set-top box around the world took to Twitter to complain about an unknown issue affecting the device’s ability to stream YouTube clips through the Internet section of the main menu. According to reports, attempting to play any YouTube clip produces this error message:

No content was found. There is a problem communicating with YouTube. Try again later.

It would appear that some sort of backend issue is to blame, but it is inconclusive. The problem persisted since the past couple days; with a bunch of posts over at the Apple Support Communities indicating it is widespread. One poster claimed an Apple representative advised him to contact Google because this is “a YouTube issue.”

It seems to be particularly bad in Japan, Australia, Canada and various European countries, including the United Kingdom, Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, Denmark, Romania, Argentina and Croatia.

Not all users in the United States seem to be experiencing this issue, although some do. Resetting a router or the device will not help. Likewise, performing a factory restore to the latest 4.4.4 firmware did not do the trick for another poster. Some users are only able to see the videos in their History. Are you having same issues with your Apple TV? We would love to hear from you in the comments.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b4mlFqq6pQ]

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Survey: Stellar iPhone sales help Apple beat Android in the United States

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Apple announced monster sales of 37 million iPhones yesterday for the holiday quarter that spanned 14 weeks and ended Dec. 31, 2011. It’s a 128 percent unit increase and 133 percent revenue increase, annually, and enough to knock Samsung off the No. 1 spot it briefly held in the previous quarter. However, it appears that the popularity of the iPhone 4S also helped Apple thrive over Google’s platform, especially with Android backers such as Motorola Mobility, HTC and Sony Ericsson reporting disappointing results.

According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech (via Reuters), iPhone sales gave iPhone a lead over Android in smartphone sales in the United States. Specifically, Apple’s share of the U.S. market during October to November of last year doubled from 22.45 percent a year ago to 44.9 percent. Meanwhile Google’s Android smartphones dropped from 50 percent to 44.8 percent in the same period. Kantar’s global consumer insight director Dominic Sunnebo:

Apple has continued its strong sales run in the U.S., UK and Australia over the Christmas period. Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.

Another way to look at iPhone numbers: The iPhone business generated $24.42 billion revenue. During the same quarter, all of Microsoft raked in $20.89 billion revenue. In fact, all of Apple’s holiday-quarter revenues and profits were two times higher than Microsoft’s.

Yet another look at iPhone numbers: Apple sells more iPhones in a day than babies born.


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Report: Apple starts hiring chip experts in Haifa, Israel

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Following our in depth report last night on Apple turning its Anobit purchase into a permanent Israeli  presence, a new report in Hebrew by Israeli daily business newspaper Calcalist says Apple is looking to open a research center in Haifa by the end of February.  This follows its acquisition of NAND flash technology provider Anobit for a reported $390 million. The facility is said to be located at the Matam technology district south of the Haifa city, right in the neighborhood of Intel, Microsoft and Philips who also run R&D centers there.

The company reportedly received “several hundred resumes” for various engineering positions. Specifically, Apple is seeking hardware engineers in chip development with strong emphasis on electrical circuits, analogue and hardware testing and verification. The publication learned that Apple’s new research center in Israel is not related to the Anobit acquisition. In fact, Anobit employees are not expected to participate in the activities of the Haifa research center.

The Yedioth Ahronoth Group is also behind Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most widely circulated newspaper publishes Calcalist. The paper reported in December of last year that Apple dispatched its Vice President of R&D Ed Frank to investigating possibilities of an Apple-run development center in Israel. Apple joins other Silicon Valley firms that operate R&D facilities in the country, such as chipmakers Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, Internet giants Google, Yahoo! and eBay, software makers IBM and Microsoft and China-based handset maker Huawei.


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More on Apple’s Anobit acquisition: Team remains in Israel (for now), headed by notable chip VP

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During the question-and-answer section of Apple’s blowout Q1 2012 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook let out a widely known fact from within the company: Apple Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield is now in charge of the team that comes from Anobit, an Israel-based SSD company that Apple acquired earlier this month. Cook also said Apple is integrating Anobit’s talent into Apple’s current workflow. Cook did, however, leave out some crucial details about Anobit’s integration into Apple.

We have some of the missing details, below:


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Tim Cook sends congratulatory email, plans to ‘discuss some exciting new things going on at Apple’ at Town Hall tomorrow

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Following today’s blowout numbers, we just received word that Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a short email to Apple employees congratulating them both on a record setting holiday quarter and starting 2012 with the launch of a groundbreaking initiative for education with iBooks 2 and iPad textbooks.

Perhaps most enticing, Cook told everyone to report to Town Hall tomorrow either in person or through their AppleWeb online portal at 10 a.m. PT to discuss “some exciting new things going on at Apple.” Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs typically held such meetings following major product launches like the iPad and iPhone.

Cook’s last all hands email was sent just one week ago and discussed Apple’s supplier responsibility report.

Today’s email from Cook is pasted below:


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Apple posts record results for holiday quarter: 37.04M iPhones, 15.43M iPads, 5.2M Macs and 15.4M iPods

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Chart via

Apple had another blowout quarter this holiday and set records across the board.  iPhones, which many estimated optimistically at 30 million, leapt to over 37 million to create the biggest quarter ever.  iPads crossed 15 million for the first time, and even Apple’s venerable Mac line crossed 5 million units for the first time (likely helped by the popular MacBook Air lineup). iPods, if you needed a downside, were off by 20-percent —which is not terrible, because Apple did not upgrade most of the iPods available last Christmas.

Apple recorded revenues of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share.

(Click to enlarge)

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

The full press release follows, and do not forget the live blog coming shortly.


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AAPL reaches all-time high of $429 a share, market cap closes in on $400B

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With an announcement tomorrow in New York City and an earnings call on Jan. 24, Apple Inc., has reached an all-time high of $429.47 per share on today’s market, and it closed at $429.11. Being up more than four points today, Apple is continuing to close in on a $400B market cap and sits at just $398.70B at closing.

Apple is expected to have had a record breaking Q1, which will be reported in an earnings call with CEO Tim Cook on Jan. 24. With the help of holiday sales, some analysts predict Apple sold 5 million Macs and around 30 million iPhones.

Tomorrow’s media event in New York City also added to today’s stock frenzy. Apple is expected to make a major announcement in the textbook industry. There have been many reports that Apple made the necessary partnerships with publishers, and may even launch its own textbook creation tool — which Ars Technica called a “GarageBand for e-books.” Apple teased the event as an education announcement. Per usual, 9to5Mac will be covering both events. Tomorrow’s event begins at 10 a.m., so stick with us for coverage. Any final predictions?


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Adam Lashinsky’s look ‘Inside Apple’ profiles iOS head Scott Forstall as Apple’s ‘CEO-in-waiting’

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Fortune Senior Editor-at-large Adam Lashinsky’s upcoming book about Apple’s inner workings titled Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works” is bound to become controversial. Unlike Steve Jobs’ authorized biographer Walter Isaacson, Lashinsky did not have direct access to Apple’s leadership team, employees nor did he have Jobs’ cooperation. Nevertheless, the author has deep connections so his book draws from this expertise, focusing on Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs, current CEO Tim Cook, design chief Jonathan Ive and head of iOS software Scott Forstall (pictured on the right). The young executive (43) has managed to accumulate power, and he now wields tremendous influence at Apple due to his iOS division contributing to as much as 70 percent of Apple’s total revenues. As such, Forstall is seen as Apple’s next CEO once Tim Cook steps down, which probably will not happen until 2021 if he is to vest his 1 million stock shares awarded last August. Here is how one source described Forstall in Lashinsky’s upcoming book, according to Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

He’s a sharp, down-to-earth, and talented engineer, and a more-than-decent presenter. He’s the total package.

Lashinsky conceded and explained:


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AAPL passes all-time high of $427 a share, market cap closes in on $400B

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An interesting occurrence happened this morning: In a run up to Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings call, and amid a steady flow of 2012 Consumer Electronics Show announcements where Apple traditionally does not exhibit, the company’s share reached an all-time high by passing $427 a share for a market valuation of $398 billion (Exxon Mobile is at $408.86 billion). As noted by Fortune’s Philip Elmer-Dewitt, the company passed the $426.70 mark it hit briefly one day in mid-October

Interestingly, several analysts boosted their iPhone estimates for the December quarter. Goldman most notably upped their iPhone estimate to 31 million quarterly units, up from the previous 30.2 million estimate. Needham significantly increased their previous 28 million units projection to 32 million units.

By the way, the Apple iPhone turned 5-years-old today. On this very day five years ago, Steve Jobs took the stage at MacWorld Expo to announce the original iPhone. The rest, as the saying goes, is history…


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Adam Lashinsky’s look ‘Inside Apple’ will be released on Jan. 25

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Fortune Sr. Editor-at-Large Adam Lashinsky spent the last few years digging deep inside Apple looking for what makes Apple, Inc., tick. Fortune ran a bit earlier this year in a cover story called “How Apple works: Inside the world’s biggest startup,” and it holds up as a fascinating read. The full version of the book, “Inside Apple,” is tabulated at 240-to-272 pages and hits stores Jan. 25. It is currently available for pre-order at $16.92 for the hardcover or $12.99 for the Kindle version and $17.92 for the Audio version.

INSIDE APPLE reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.If Apple is Silicon Valley’s answer to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author will introduce readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run The Company Someday he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.

Lashinsky also interviewed Walter Isaacson Dec 14th (posted last week) which turned into an interesting conversation. The two authors, who were both deep diving into Apple, shared notes —so to speak.

One subject we are looking forward to learning more about is Apple University. Lashinsky originally laid it out like this:


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Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer takes charge of retail division as search for Ron Johnson replacement continues

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The Grand Central Terminal store opening had Steve Cano and Bob Bridger in attendance

Until November 1, 2011, Apple’s widely successful retail branch was headed by Ron Johnson, J.C. Penney’s new CEO. Since announcing his leave in June of this year, discussion has run ramptant in regards to the successor of Apple’s vital retail division’s leader. Under Ron Johnson sat three central executives responsible for the upkeep and success of Apple’s retail business: Jerry McDougal, Vice President of Merchandising; Bob Bridger, Vice President of VP of Real Estate; and Steve Cano, Senior Director of  International Retail Operations.

In early November, a report claimed that Steve Cano was tapped as the successor of Ron Johnson, but Apple quickly shot down this report and provided comment to 9to5Mac on the situation:

The search for a replacement for Ron Johnson continues, and Apple has nothing to announce about this subject at this time.

With Apple yet to announce a successor for Ron Johnson, the above comment still stands true. Apple has been actively searching for a new retail chief and according to a report from August, Apple has been working with world-renowned executive search firm Egon Zehnder International to find their new retail chief. At this point, it also appears that Jerry McDougall and Bob Bridger won’t be running Apple retail as neither of them are running the retail show right now.

So, who is running Apple retail? 
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Japan rumor: LTE iPad 3 coming in summer 2012, LTE iPhone 5 in Fall (UPDATED with statement from NTT DoCoMo)

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UPDATE [Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 8:50am ET]: Carrier NTT DoCoMo has issued an official statement addressing the Nikkei Business report, included at the end of the article.

According to the Japanese blog Macotakara, which relayed a Nikkei Business story, Apple is gearing up for a 2012 release of both 4G LTE iPhone and iPad on NTT DoCoMo, the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. According to the machine-translated article:

NTT DOCOMO releases iPad for LTE in the summer of next year and releases iPhone for LTE by autumn.

The Fall 2011 timeframe for a 4G LTE iPhone 5 sounds right as it’s about a year since the October 14 debut of iPhone 4S. The carrier’s president Takashi Yamada and vice president Kiyoyuki Tsujimura allegedly met with Apple CEO Tim Cook mid-November to discuss the deal. They reportedly “agreed in principle” to sell both the next-generation iPhone and iPad. The executives apparently pinned down the rules of the game at the meeting, including order commitment.

Despite the rumor-mill insisting that Apple was readying a 4G LTE iPhone, the company’s management downplayed the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution radio technology because the current crop of 4G LTE chips are not fully optimized for low power consumption on mobile devices. Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said on an April 2011 earnings call:

The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.

The Wall Street Journal reported mid-November that negotiations with carriers in Asia came to a standstill because Apple was requiring iPhone sellers to commit to too large a volume. Additionally, NTT DoCoMo wanted to control what software goes on users’ iPhones, a concession Apple was unwilling to make.


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Arthur Levinson named Chairman of Apple’s Board of Directors, Disney CEO Bob Iger joins the Board

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Apple has announced that Arthur D. Levinson, former CEO of Genentech, has been named as Chairman of the Board and will continue serving on the audit comitee. Apple has also announed that Disney’s CEO Bob Iger has joined the Board. Tim Cook commented:

“Art has made enormous contributions to Apple since he joined the board in 2000. He has been our longest serving co-lead director, and his insight and leadership are incredibly valuable to Apple, our employees and our shareholders.”

After Steve Jobs stepped down from his role as CEO, he became the company’s first Chairman. Levinson has now taken Jobs’s seat, after the inspirational founder passed away October 5, just a day after the company’s team of executives announced the iPhone 4S at a media event in Cupertino. Since 2005, Levinson served as co-lead director with Andrea Jung. Levinson has been known for pushing Apple to allow third party applications into Apple’s platform and guiding Jobs through Apple’s antenna problems with the iPhone 4.

In 2009, Levinson was forced to resign from Google’s Board of Directors. Levinson was serving on both Google and Apple’s Board, and once Google and Apple began moving into the same space, he was forced to resign from one Board. Consequentially he chose to be part of Apple.

Bob Iger is currently the President and CEO of Disney, and is joining Apple’s board and will serve on the audit committee. Iger and Jobs had a close relationship with one another while Jobs served as Chairman of Disney/Pixar’s Board. Tim Cook commented:

“Bob and I have gotten to know one another very well over the past few years and on behalf of the entire board, we think he is going to make an extraordinary addition to our already very strong board. His strategic vision for Disney is based on three fundamentals: generating the best creative content possible, fostering innovation and utilizing the latest technology, and expanding into new markets around the world which makes him a great fit for Apple.”

Press release after the break:


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Steve Jobs wanted Apple to become a carrier prior to iPhone release

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nOdc5knf-M]

Computerworld/IDG reports that wireless industry pioneer John Stanton (founder of of Western Wireless, VoiceStream wireless and former CTIA chairman) worked with Steve Jobs prior to the launch of the iPhone on becoming a carrier using unlicensed spectrum…

Stanton, chairman of venture capital firm Trilogy Partners, said he spent a fair amount of time with Jobs between 2005 and 2007. “He wanted to replace carriers,” Stanton said of Jobs, the Apple founder and CEO who died Oct. 5 after a battle with cancer. “He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision.”

The one that got away…
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Gartner: iOS down, Android doubles share

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The delayed iPhone launch gave Android vendors additional three months to gain market share whilst negatively affecting Apple, sending shares down ten percent over the past month. Worry not, though – strong iPhone 4S launch and price reductions for both the iPhone 4 and 3GS models are seen as catalyst enabling Apple to regain lost share from Android manufacturers during the current quarter.  Also, remember Apple is still taking more than half of all smartphone profits.

The gist of today’s report from Gartner pegged Apple’s share of the global smartphone market at 15 percent on sales of 17.29 million units, a 21 percent annual increase. But the smartphone market grew at an even faster clip so Apple actually recorded a decline from the 16.6 percent in Q3 2010 on sales of 13.48 million units. Android, meanwhile, has gone from 25.3 percent in Q3 2010 to 52.5 percent in Q3 2011, more than doubling its market share. Together, iOS and Android accounted for more than two-thirds of all smartphones sold (talk about duopoly).

Apple is also under pressure as quarterly iPhone sales decreased compared to the 20.34 million iPhones shipped during the June quarter. Principal research analyst Roberta Cozza said some consumers “were waiting for a rumored new iPhone and associated price cuts on older iPhone models; this affected U.S. sales particularly”.

Gartner believes Apple will bounce back in the fourth quarter because of its strongest ever preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after its announcement. Markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16 percent of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets.

iPhone 4S launches in India, the world’s second-largest market, on November 25. Pre-orders sold out in Hong Kong in 10 minutes and the online Apple Store is now offering unlocked iPhone 4S units. The company pledged to roll out the handset to a hundred carriers in 70 countries by the year’s end, the fastest iPhone roll out yet. Supply chain sources claimed Apple cut holiday quarter iPhone 4S orders, but analysts rushed to dispute that report. How does Apple fare in the whole handset market? Read on…


Source: Gartner (November 2011)


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See if you can guess (by smile) which of these Apple Execs just got a $60 million bonus

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A few Apple execs have been departing over the past few weeks which might lead some to believe that Apple could have a talent retention problem in the wake of the recent leadership transition.

Perhaps hoping to put that kind of talk to rest, Apple just dropped fat bonus stock on their heavy hitters according to SEC filings.  With Apple’s stock riding at 400-ish per share, the below bonus shares are certainly a great incentive to stay – worth $60 million/each at today’s value.

Bruce Sewell — 150,000 shares, 50 percent vest on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Jeffrey Williams — 150,000 shares, 50 percent on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Philip Schiller — 150,000 shares, 50 percent on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Peter Oppenheimer –150,000 shares, 50 percent on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Robert Mansfield — 150,000 shares, 50 percent on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Scott Forstall — 150,000 shares, 50 percent on June 21, 2013, 100 percent on March 21, 2016
Eddy Cue — 100,000 shares, 25 percent vest September 21, 2014, 100 percent September 21, 2016.

Strangely, there is no mention of Jonathan Ive who could be considered “on a different level” since Steve Jobs made him untouchable (though there have been rumors that he may want to retire).  Perhaps that’s why he’s the only guy without a big fat smile, above. (Ha, actually Apple isn’t required to file bonus paperwork with the SEC for Ive –

…Jonathan Ive, the company’s senior vice president for industrial design, whose position at the company does not trigger S.E.C. rules requiring public disclosure of stock awards.

– Because his role isn’t important to Apple’s well being?!)

CEO Tim Cook already has a huge bonus package (1 million shares) if he sticks around to 2021.
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Steve Cano to replace Ron Johnson as Head of Retail at Apple? (Update: Search ongoing)

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Update: The reporters at Bloomberg are somehow using us as a source for this false rumor.  We’ve contacted them to correct but they’ve so far left it untouched.  Our report comes from iFoAppleStore and CultofMac (below)

Updated from Cult of Mac: Apple has gotten back to us a statement, reading: “The search for a replacement for Ron Johnson continues, and Apple has nothing to announce about this subject at this time.”

Updated: 2: Apple wanted to make sure it was clear that no decision has been made yet and the Cult of Mac story is without merit.

Ron Johnson has only been gone a few days but rumors are already swirling that Steve Cano will be replacing the new JCPenney CEO as head of Apple’s retail business. Cult of Mac reports separately from an earlier post by ifoAppleStore’s Gary Allen which seems to indicate that Cano will assume the position. Here is the full statement as released by the Apple Retail Workers Union:

Statement regarding Steve Jobs and the future of Apple

by Apple Retail Workers Union on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:06am

The organizers of the Apple Retail Workers Union wish to express their condolences to the family of Steve Jobs. He was an inspiration to many, and will be regarded as one of the greats of our time. He followed his heart and did what he loved, which resulted in Apple becoming one of the greatest companies in the world. He surrounded himself with intelligent people who helped create technology that improved the way we live and share our lives.

With that in mind, we want to remind that while Steve and his teams created products and solutions to work “right out of the box”, Apple’s retail stores are still experiencing problems 10 years after launch. The messages we receive from workers illustrate a desire for improved compensation, consistent management policies and adherence to local, state and national laws. The feeling extends to the workers at Apple’s suppliers including Foxconn, Wintek, Samsung and others.

We wish much success to Tim Cook and Steve Cano, who will be leading Apple and its retail stores going forward. As word of our movement grows and workers become increasingly interested in finding solutions where management is unwilling or unable, we continue to take pride in the opportunity we have every day to provide our customers with enriching experiences. At our core, we simply want Apple to return to its roots and remind itself that their “most important resource… is our people”.

We can’t confirm that Cano has been promoted and in fact his role is still listed as Apple retail employee in Region XV. He’s certainly in the running, as one of Ron Johnson’s subordinates.

Cano started with Apple ten years ago as the manager of Steve Jobs’s local Palo Alto Apple Store. He then rose through the ranks…


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What is different about a Tim Cook Apple?

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It wasn’t much of a surprise when Tim Cook said “Apple is not going to change” in his letter to employees as newly appointed CEO following Steve Jobs’ resignation. Not long after that, we published a story about what we called Cook’s first “anti-Jobsian move”. Of course many questions arose surrounding how Cook’s sales and operations background may influence his leadership style, and how it might differ from Jobs.

Today we get a look at just how the company has changed under Cook’s guidance with the Wall Street Journal publishing a story detailing the moves the new CEO has made since taking over in August:

In recent weeks, Mr. Cook has tended to administrative matters that never interested Mr. Jobs, such as promotions and corporate reporting structures, according to people familiar with the matter. The new chief executive, 50 years old, has also been more communicative with employees than his predecessor, sending a variety of company-wide emails while addressing Apple employees as “Team,” people close to the company said.

According to the report, Cook was also behind a recent restructuring of the company’s education division, a move which split the business (which until now operated “fairly independently”) into a sales and marketing structure and incorporated it into the company-wide sales and marketing divisions. The restructuring will place additional responsibilities on Apple execs Phil Schiller and John Brandon.

Citing “former executives” and others close to the company, the WSJ claims Cook will also “be more open with shareholders” and note he’s expressed desire to meet with investors more often than Jobs. After Cook’s statement that he’s “not religious about holding cash or not holding it” during Apple’s earnings call last month, it’s not much of a surprise many expect the new CEO to be more open to stock buybacks or dividends as well.


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Apple misses iTunes Match end of October deadline

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As noted by MacRumors, Apple’s self-imposed end of October deadline has come and gone without the promised public launch of iTunes Match. The service will scan your local iTunes library and fingerprint songs in order to make them available for download (or was it streaming?) via iCloud to all authorized devices – for $25 a year flat fee, no strings attached. It’s unknown what’s behind this unusual setback. Could be last-minute backend issues that needed sorting out. Be that as it may, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for Tim Cook to keep a tight rein on his team now that the ultimate micro-manager is gone.

It’s worth mentioning, however, that Apple removed support for iTunes Match from the public release of iTunes 10.5 even though it’s been present in prior developer betas. iTunes Match resurfaced in iTunes 10.5.1 beta that was seeded to developers on October 11 and subsequently expired. Apple also last week sent notices informing developers their cloud libraries will get wiped out, another sign of an imminent launch.


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Isaacson interviewed Jony Ive in his bunker, here’s what came out with him

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The world’s most famous industrial design lab is found at the ground floor of Apple’s corporate campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California. It’s arguably one of the most closely guarded offices on the planet. Even Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson was asked to interview Apple’s leading designer elsewhere most of the time. But one day in 2010, Jonathan Ive took the writer for a tour inside his design bunker. It holds “the future for the next three years”, the Briton told Isaacson. According to the just-released biography, the facility is as cutting-edge as cutting-edge gets.

Nobody gets past the guards without special access cards. The office has heavy locks and tinted windows. It features metallic gray decor and has powerful boom boxes that pump out techno and jazz music for a bunch of designers developing future design ideas. Expensive prototyping equipment can be seen inside and various machines to apply paint and make countless foam models of future products are everywhere.

Jobs would often visit Ive’s design lab to actively participate in the design process and his artistic sensibilities were crucial for Apple’s design prowess, Ive said:

In so many other companies, ideas and great design get lost in the process. The ideas that come from me and my team would have been completely irrelevant, nowhere, if Steve hadn’t been here to push us, work with us, and drive us through all the resistance to turn our ideas into products.

Apple’s design guru also tells how they often obsessed over the packaging for Apple products:

Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging. I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.

But it wasn’t all peachy. The designer would at times get upset with his late boss for “taking too much credit”, which didn’t sit well with Ive’s introvert personality and especially his careful consideration to always put his team’s efforts first and foremost:


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Apple posts full video of Steve Jobs’ celebration at Apple’s campus

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Apple has posted the full video of the Steve Jobs memorial and celebration of his life at the Cupertino, California campus. The event was held on October 19th and was only streamed to Apple employees who were not physically attending the event. The full video can be viewed at Apple’s website.  Don’t come wearing any browser except for Safari.


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Jobs’ original vision for the iPhone: No third-party native apps

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vq993Td6ys]

Remember back in 2007 when Apple first told developers that to develop for the iPhone, they’d need to build WebApps for Safari? Well, that really was the plan. At the time, Jobs said:

The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps.

And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we’ve got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today.

The App Store came later and apparently as a reaction to jailbreakers and developer backlash.

The App Store nowadays is arguably the most vital app community on any platform, but Steve Jobs initially resisted the idea of users customizing their iPhones with third-party programs, later to become known as apps. The revelation is another of the many interesting nuggets to leak from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, which goes on sale Monday. According to the Huffington Post which obtained an early copy of the book:

Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs “half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” but, according to Isaacson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.”

Some other tidbits: Jobs informed Cook on a flight to Japan that “I’ve decided to make you COO”. Also, the initial lukewarm reception to iPad “annoyed and depressed” Jobs.

As for Apple’s seemingly unstoppable mobile application bazaar, Jobs – of course – would later embrace the App Store fully as it had become the central theme around Apple’s famous iPhone commercials featuring the “There’s an app for that” tagline. Upon releasing, the original iPhone immediately captured attention of the hacking community which had begun tinkering with the product. Soon thereafter, popular tweaks ensued which added more functionality to the device despite the lack of the official software development kit.


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Apple returns homepage to normal following ‘Celebrate Steve’ day on campus, buys RememberingSteveJobs.com

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Apple’s homepage returned to normal with the iPhone 4S headlining last night (US only atm). Apple had the Steve Jobs memorial picture up for two weeks following his passing.

There is still a Remembering Steve link at the bottom of the page which leads to the thousands of words of condolence taken from the millions of submissions following his death. In fact, it appears that Apple has purchased the RememberingSteveJobs.com domain.


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Swedish carrier: iPhone 5 will be “run over by the others” unless Apple adopts 4G LTE

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Tommy Ljunggren is senior vice president of Swedish wireless operator TeliaSonera and he’s got some “nice” words about mobile prospects of his valued partner, Apple. Ljunggren told Telecoms.com that Apple is no longer as relevant a factor in mobile as it used to be, saying the company is set for failure unless the next iPhone adopts chips that support fourth-generation cellular networks based on Long Term Evolution radio technology, being deployed by carriers around the world:

If you asked me two years ago I would have said Apple would be very important. But now it will be a bad mistake not to include LTE in the iPhone 5 as otherwise they will really be run over by the others. Apple are not unique enough and there is disappointment over the 4S – it was too small step for them.

He then slammed Apple over LTE, admitting that the current batch of 4G LTE chips consume too much power:

I don’t think Apple will decide if LTE will fly or not. My expectation is that in 2013/14 we will really see low-end smartphones having LTE as well. The big question is what frequency bands they will put in for smartphones. They will be true LTE smartphones – not the ones that the US has right now with two radios. These drain the batteries flat very quickly as they have one LTE terminal for data and a CDMA voice terminal. It’s basically a dongle and phone that they glue together. They work – just not for long.

Interestingly, this is the very reason Apple CEO Tim Cook dismissed a 4G LTE iPhone. Ljunggren, of course, is confused and here’s why.


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