Cook is forgoing $75 million in dividends to which he’s entitled.

In a Thursday SEC filing, Apple announced plans to award a $2.65-a-share quarterly dividend on restricted stock units held by its employees. It’s a nice — and unusual — perk to offer (and one certain to cement employee loyalty in a very competitive talent arena), but Cook is passing it up.

From Apple’s 8-K:

At Mr. Cook’s request, none of his restricted stock units will participate in dividend equivalents. Assuming a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share over the vesting periods of his 1.125 million outstanding restricted stock units, Mr. Cook will forego approximately $75 million in dividend equivalent value.

That’s a lot of money to turn down. True, Cook is very well compensated — deservedly so, considering Apple’s performance — so he can obviously afford to forgo it. But, as best I can tell, he didn’t have to. 

So Cook truly did just walk away from $75 million. Which is remarkable for an executive of his standing in an era when entitlement, greed and arrogance are so often part of the job description. Which is not to say that he’s not reaping some benefits here. There’s a lot of mileage for Apple in a symbolic gesture like this, and Cook profits when Apple’s overall value increases.

Say what you will, but this was a classy gesture up and down. When was the last time you saw headlines about a successful CEO of a wildly successful company walking away from millions of dollars that he could have just as easily pocketed?

Clearly, Cook is focused on more important and interesting things than having the biggest yacht in the harbor.

That is the value of the annual pay package Mr. Cook was awarded when he was named Apple chief executive last August, about two months before Mr. Jobs died. Nearly all of the compensation stems from a grant of one million shares of restricted stock, valued at $376.2 million, based on Apple’s stock price at the time.

Mr. Cook’s 2011 compensation is the highest recorded in The Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO pay survey since at least 2006, when the Securities and Exchange Commission changed its rules for reporting executive pay.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

“China Mobile and Apple both have the will to strengthen cooperation,” Chairman Xi Guohua said, according to Bloomberg. “When there is more specific news, we will disclose it.”

The company reportedly indicated that it is unclear whether a deal will be reached this year. An Apple representative was not immediately available for comment.

However, sources have said that a meeting with China Mobile was among the stops CEO Tim Cook made during a China trip earlier this year.

With roughly two-thirds-of-a-billion users, China Mobile is the biggest carrier in the world, as measured by number of customers. The company’s current 3G network doesn’t work with today’s iPhone, but a next-generation iPhone could well work with China Mobile’s 4G network, which is currently in a few spots.

China Mobile has also applied to offer service in the U.S., Reuters said, but it is unclear how well that bid will be received.

From 16.8 percent to about 4 percent worldwide market share in a single quarter. That is a swift and ugly decline. What’s causing it?

Kindle Fire demand could be dropping off as customers postpone their purchases in anticipation of a new version of the device. Or it could be declining because the Fire was a really well-executed holiday play whose novelty has since worn off.

Or it could be that the iPad 2, which Apple continues to sell alongside the new iPad at a lower price, is winning over some of the same consumers that Amazon has been targeting with the Fire.

Or, because the number of units shipped isn’t the same as units sold, the dropoff in shipments in the Fire’s latest quarter could primarily be the result of a large inventory buildup in the product’s first months on the market.

At $399, the iPad 2 is still twice the price of the Fire. But it’s also $100 cheaper than the new iPad, and comes accompanied by the same vast app and content ecosystem, iCloud, Facetime and other slick features. And that may be discount enough to command the attention of budget-conscious consumers. Indeed, during Apple’s last earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said the iPad 2′s new lower price point was unlocking demand among price-sensitive customers.

If that’s the case, perhaps it’s unlocking demand among potential Kindle Fire buyers as well. It’s worth noting that during the same period, IDC claims that while the Fire’s share of the market fell to 4 percent from nearly 17 percent, the iPad’s share rose to 68 percent from 54.7 percent.

Could there be a correlation there?

Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes thinks there might be.

“The lower priced iPad 2 has seemed to offset some of the original threat of the lower priced Fire,” he says. “Many consumers seem willing to pay $399 for a feature packed tablet with a strong and developed ecosystem rather than $199 for a relatively underpowered tablet.”

Certainly plausible. Anecdotally, I know a few folks who had planned to buy the Fire, only to balk later and cough up the extra money for an iPad 2. Perhaps there are lots more of them out there. Your thoughts?

After falling to five to seven days from one to two weeks, ship times on the new iPad today dropped once more, this time to three to five business days. That’s a significant improvement over the wait time customers had to endure when the tablet first debuted in mid-March and a strong indication that Apple is working hard to ramp up production to meet demand, despite the supply constraints CEO Tim Cook mentioned during the company’s earnings call last week.

“The new iPad … was supply constrained last quarter for the full three weeks or so it was shipping,” Cook said. “And to give you a current view, we’re still supply constrained on the new iPad.”

But not nearly as much as it once was — in the United States, anyway. International shipping windows still aren’t as short as they are in the States. Apple’s online stores in the U.K. and other European nations still show iPad shipping estimates of one to two weeks.

[Image credit: Kominyetska/Flickr]

And so, on May 21 and 22, Samsung Vice Chairman Gee-Sung Choi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and their respective legal counsel will meet in San Francisco to discuss possible settlements to their metastasizing IP spat, and to draw up for the judge presiding over it “a candid evaluation of the parties’ likelihood of prevailing on the claims and defenses.”

While the talks are a welcome development in what is fast becoming the Hundred Years’ War of intellectual property battles, it would be naive to believe that they’ll actually result in a settlement at this point. The stakes are too high and the fronts in the battle too numerous; FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller observes that Apple and Samsung are suing one another in 10 countries, with more than 50 lawsuits pending. Hard to imagine Cook and Choi hugging it out after two days of chats.

And as much as Cook dislikes litigation, it’s clear that he’s even less fond of the of the sort of “slavish” design copying of which Apple has accused Samsung.

“I’ve always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it,” Cook said during Apple’s last earnings call. “We just want people to invent their own stuff. And so if we could get to some kind of arrangement where we could be assured that’s the case and a fair settlement on the stuff that’s occurred, I would highly prefer to settle versus battle. But the key thing is that it’s very important that Apple not become the developer for the world. We need people to invent their own stuff.”

If Samsung is willing to concede to that, then these two days of court-ordered settlement talks ought to go quite smoothly. But that seems unlikely, which means this battle will probably roll on for a good long time.

(Image The Joy of Tech)

More than a quarter of current iPad owners say the tablet is the first Apple product they’ve purchased, according to a new survey from the NPD Group. “iPad sales are growing much faster than any other Apple product has this soon after launch,” says NPD’s Ben Arnold. “In fact, one-in-five Apple owner households has one — nearly equivalent to the number that own an Apple computer.”

So the iPad is Apple’s newest ambassador? Not all that big of a surprise considering how well the device has been selling. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during its most recent quarter — that’s more than double the number it sold last year. More to the point, the newest model was only actually shipping during the last three weeks or so of the quarter. And, as Apple CEO Tim Cook noted during the company’s Tuesday earnings call, iPad supply was constrained at that time.

And sales to date have been fantastic.

“Just two years after we shipped the initial iPad, we’ve sold 67 million,” Cook said Tuesday. “To put that in some context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, and five years for that many iPods, and over three years for that many iPhones, and we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all of those products.”

So is it any surprise that newcomers to the Apple brand are increasingly being introduced to it by the iPad?

According to NPD, 33 percent of U.S. households — or 37 million — currently own Apple products. How large will that percentage be a year from now given the iPad’s sales trend?

Don’t worry so much. Apple doesn’t.

Remarking on the subsidy issue during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Tuesday, Cook dismissed it, essentially saying that the iPhone is so exceptionally profitable for carriers that they’re not likely to mess with it.

“From the carriers’ perspective, it’s important to remember the subsidy is not large relative to the payments across a two-year contract period,” Cook said. “Any delta between the iPhone and another phone is even smaller.”

Beyond that, there are a number of advantages to carrying the iPhone.

“A number of carriers have told me that churn from iPhone customers is lowest of any phone they sell,” Cook said. “That’s obviously a significant, direct financial benefit to the carrier.”

But the iPhone’s greatest advantage is this: It’s a device that customers want to use every day.

“At the end of the day, the vast majority of carriers want to provide what their customer want to buy,” Cook said. “That’s what motivates them. … The iPhone is the best smartphone on the planet to entice a customer who is currently using a traditional phone to upgrade to a smartphone. This is by far the largest opportunity for Apple and our carrier partners. It’s a win-win. All of these factors are missed in this discussion of subsidy.”

Well, anything can be forced to converge. … You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user.

– Apple CEO Tim Cook, on Windows 8 tablet-laptop hybrids

Apple has beaten Wall Street’s consensus estimates in 16 out of its last 17 quarters. Today it beat them once again.

Reporting second-quarter earnings after market close Tuesday, Apple obliterated recent worries that have dragged down its stock price over the past few weeks.

The company posted net income of $11.6 billion on revenue of $39.19 billion. Earnings per share were $12.30, far more than the $10.06 per share analysts had been expecting.

Apple said it sold 35.1 million iPhones for the quarter, up more than 88 percent from the year prior; 11.8 million iPads, up 151 percent; 4 million Macs, up 7 percent; and nearly 7.7 million iPods, down 15 percent. Big numbers — all of them. And save for lower than expected iPad sales, they beat estimates.

Analysts had expected Apple to report second-quarter earnings of $10.06 per share on revenue of $36.8 billion. And, on average, they had called for iPhone shipments of 31 to 32 million — 32 being the whisper number — iPad shipments of about 13 million and Mac shipments of around 4.4 million.

“We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.”

Guidance for the June quarter is a bit lower than expected with EPS of $8.68 on $34 billion in revenue as opposed to the $9.92 on $37.4 billion expected by analysts, but Apple’s guidance is typically comically low.

Apple shares, which closed down 2 percent at $560.28 ahead of earnings, have since spiked well over 7 percent to $602.

Notes from the earnings call

• Apple currently has $110 billion in cash, short-term and long-term securities. About $74 billion of that is held offshore.
• Expect Mountain Lion to ship in late summer.
• IPhone sales in the Asia Pacific doubled. The device is currently available in over 100 countries on 230 carriers.
• IPad channel inventory was about 2 million at the end of the quarter, which is below the company’s target range of 4-6 weeks of iPad inventory.
• 360 million cumulative iOS device sales.
• App Store has 600,000 apps, 200,000 of them specifically for iPad.
• Retail store revenues jumped 38 percent from last year’s first quarter to $4.4 billion.
• “The new iPad is on fire. We’re selling them as fast as we can make them.”
• This is the 24th straight quarter that the Mac has outgrown the broader market.
• Tim Cook says the lower-priced iPad 2 appears to have unlocked some education demand, but adds that it’s a bit early to make any big conclusions about the lower price change.
• Cook: “Just two years after we shipped the initial iPad, we sold 67 million. …It took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, and five years to sell that many iPods, and over three years for that many iPhones.”
• Cook:”But I’d also point out that the new iPad was supply constrained last quarter for the full three weeks or so that it was shipping and is actually still constrained.”
• Cook on tablet-laptop hybrids: “anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about tradeoffs, and there’s a danger of making tradeoffs to the point where what you have left doesn’t please anyone. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user.”
• Cook on iPhone subsidies: The size of the subsidy is not large compared to the sum of monthly payments customers make to carriers over the span of their contract. … Churn from iPhone users is the lowest of any phones in their portfolio and that’s obviously a significant benefit to the carrier. … iPhone is the best smartphone on the planet to entice a customer who is currently using a traditional mobile phone to upgrade to a smartphone.
• Cook on Qualcomm shortages: That’s a tough question to answer. We’re aware of the issue. But we don’t use 28 nanometer parts currently and we don’t comment on future products.
• Cook on patent litigation: “I’ve always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it. If we could get to a fair settlement, I’d prefer that to a battle. … We just want people to invent their own stuff. It’s very important that Apple not become the developer for the world.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120424/and-the-beats-go-on-apple-crushes-estimates-again/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:30:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=198654

Add another speaker to the stellar list for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference, which is taking place in a little more than a month: Aaron Sorkin.

For those who have followed the long and award-filled career of the well-known playwright and Hollywood writer, it’s an astonishing litany of success — from “A Few Good Men” to “The West Wing” to “Moneyball” — filled with more unusually clever lines than anyone has ever penned.

But, most famously for tech, Sorkin also wrote the screenplay (and also won an Academy Award) for “The Social Network,” about the rise of Facebook and its unusual co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The film caused a lot of controversy in Silicon Valley over its depiction of Zuckerberg as an evil genius of sorts, of course, but few can argue that it was not a corker of a movie.

We are excited to talk to Sorkin about that experience, as well as his take on the state of entertainment in the digital age. He’s about to debut a new HBO show in June called “The Newsroom,” set behind the scenes at a cable news show. It deals with the massive changes roiling through the media industry and it begins, natch, with a viral video.

Sorkin is also set to make his Broadway debut as a librettist for the upcoming musical “Houdini.” And he’s also working on another new movie, based on a book about the downfall of Sen. John Edwards, which he’ll adapt, produce and direct.

Sorkin will be joined at D10 — which will be held in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, at the end of May — by a litany of major players in tech and media, including: Apple CEO Tim Cook, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and many more.

And we still have more speakers to come, but until then, here’s the famous line from “The Social Network” — something about a billion dollars:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/you-can-handle-the-truth-aaron-sorkin-to-appear-onstage-at-d10/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-and-samsung-meet-to-mediate-comic/ http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-and-samsung-meet-to-mediate-comic/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:57:20 +0000 Nitrozac and Snaggy http://allthingsd.com/?p=198479
]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120420/apple-and-samsung-meet-to-mediate-comic/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20120417/apple-samsung-agree-to-settlement-talks/ http://allthingsd.com/20120417/apple-samsung-agree-to-settlement-talks/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:56:21 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=197358 A new and interesting development in Apple’s pitched patent battle with Samsung. The two sides have agreed to moderated settlement talks. According to a court filing today, within the next 90 days Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Gee-Sung Choi will participate in a settlement conference that will be overseen by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero.

Of course, participation in such discussions is in no way indicative of a pending resolution. As Oracle and Google have shown us, these things can pretty quickly head south, ending in a brutal courtroom battle.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120417/apple-samsung-agree-to-settlement-talks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120416/the-real-reason-tim-cook-was-at-valve-headquarters-comic/ http://allthingsd.com/20120416/the-real-reason-tim-cook-was-at-valve-headquarters-comic/#comments Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:47:33 +0000 Nitrozac and Snaggy http://allthingsd.com/?p=196898
]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120416/the-real-reason-tim-cook-was-at-valve-headquarters-comic/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/ http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:59:09 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=194947 The chatter in computer security circles last week and over the weekend was about the Mac. A weakness in Oracle’s Java has led to the infection of some 600,000 Macs with malware, creating the first known Botnet comprised of machines on that platform.

Naturally, Windows apologists, sick of being the target of a decade of malware-based ridicule, were quick to jump up and down and scream that the Mac’s newfound market success has made it the next natural target for malware creators.

One thing that has been lacking of yet is a course of action for the 1 percent of Macs in use that have been hit with the malware. Kaspersky Labs, which did a thorough analysis of the malware today launched a Web-based tool to determine if your Mac is among those known to have contracted it.

The tool checks the Mac’s UUID number against a database of machines known to be affected and tells you if you have it, and if you don’t know what a UUID number is, it shows you how to find it.

If your machine turns out to be among the anointed 1 percent who some say are the harbingers of a new apocalyptic phase for Mac security, there is a removal tool.

So now that we’re nearing the end of this kerfuffle, what can we glean from this incident on the state of Mac security? First off, it’s necessary, as always, to include a hedging statement. In the investing world we often hear the phrase “Past performance is not an indication of future results.” It means that unknown, unforseen circumstances can always bring about a substantial variation in a known and established pattern.

On the subject of security the pattern has been this: Occasionally, a vulnerability, sometimes nothing more than a proof of concept, sometimes something a little more threatening, such as this Flashback malware or the MacDefender one that occurred last year, appears and re-opens the discussion. After years of marginal market share, the Mac now represents a juicy new target for malware creators, and Mac users are in for a rude awakening.

Indeed, various pundits have been saying that some onset of significant serious trouble for Mac owners is just over the horizon. This indeed could happen. A new supervirus could emerge tomorrow that causes all kinds of unforseen troubles. But it hasn’t yet.

Windows still remains a target. As recently as 11 months ago, Microsoft’s own data showed that of the 420,000 Windows users who downloaded a then-new malware removal tool, those who had infections averaged 3.5 threats per machine. And of the top 10 threats seen at that time, seven were the result of vulnerabilities in Java, something you should probably consider turning off, whether your computer runs Windows or Mac OS.

As of today, for those 600,000 people whose Macs are infected, they’re averaging only one threat per machine.

One is still too many, especially if it’s a bad one. And clearly Apple can’t act like it’s impervious to security concerns, yet there’s no evidence that it is. Just slow. Some critics have said Apple didn’t respond quickly enough to this latest outbreak, especially in light of the fact that Flashback/Flashfake took advantage of a Java vulnerability that has been known for about a month. Apple clearly could have and should have responded faster.

Apple last year hired David Rice, a former U.S. Navy Information warrior, so it has at the top of its security team a well-respected executive with a history of thought leadership on the subject.

The current state and future of Mac security will be a topic I hope AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg ask Apple CEO Tim Cook about on the stage at D:10 next month. One hopes he’ll give us some visibility into the urgency or lack thereof with which Apple views the evolving threat landscape.

But if this is the worst that the malware creators can dish out, I still like my chances on the Mac. The apocalypse isn’t here yet.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-ceo-tim-cook-to-appear-as-opening-speaker-at-the-d10-conference/ http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-ceo-tim-cook-to-appear-as-opening-speaker-at-the-d10-conference/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:00:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=194743

Walt Mossberg and I could not be more thrilled to announce that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, will be the opening-night speaker at our 10th D: All Things Digital conference.

It will be Cook’s first appearance at D, as well as his first time being onstage at an event not run by Apple or for investors since he was named CEO last August.

Since then, Cook has increased the enormous progress made under the late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, with the iconic Silicon Valley giant putting out a number of new and innovative products and also becoming one of the most valuable companies on earth.

(Of course, Jobs had made a half-dozen always memorable visits to our stage over the last decade, the last of which was in 2010 at D8.)

So we are looking forward to hearing Cook’s perspective on where the industry and Apple is going, and perhaps to get a glimpse into what makes its new leader — who is also a longtime Apple vet — tick.

And Cook knows a lot, to be sure.

Before he was named CEO, Cook played a critical role as COO at Apple, responsible for worldwide sales and operations from its supply chain to sales activities to service and support globally. Cook also ran Apple’s Macintosh unit.

Before Apple, he worked at Compaq, Intelligent Electronics, and even spent a dozen years at IBM.

Cook joins a D10 speaker list that is full of major players in tech and media, including: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, as well as many more.

(And we still have more speakers to come.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-ceo-tim-cook-to-appear-as-opening-speaker-at-the-d10-conference/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120402/apple-tv-on-the-outside-same-old-tv-on-the-inside/ http://allthingsd.com/20120402/apple-tv-on-the-outside-same-old-tv-on-the-inside/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:34:04 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=192012 Apple might end up making a really great TV set. But if Tim Cook ends up giving you the same TV programming you’re already paying for, at the same price, will you pay a premium for his box?

That’s the scenario Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente sketches out in a new note. He figures that Apple could certainly come up with a cool piece of hardware — he imagines one that looks like a “large-scale iPad” — that would tie together the Internet with Apple’s existing suite of iOS apps and services.

But DiClemente doesn’t think Cook will be able to break open the traditional cable TV bundle. Which means that if you watch TV on Apple TV, it’s going to look a lot like the TV you’re already watching now. And it will cost the same to get that stuff to your set.

DiClemente is a media analyst, not a hardware guy, and his report focuses primarily on the reasons it will be so hard for Apple — or anyone — to truly disrupt the TV programming/distribution business. But here’s some of his speculation about the box, which is similar to other industry guesses:

• He doesn’t think it’s coming in 2012.
• He thinks it will use Apple’s Siri voice control as a “groundbreaking interface.”
• He imagines it could sell for $1,500.
• He thinks it could be “so much more than a TV — including gaming, video communication, content delivery, apps, computing and all the capabilities of the current Apple TV.”

All good, so far. But again, the problem will be when it comes to the TV programming part.

DiClemente argues, convincingly, that TV programmers don’t have any incentive to stop selling the bundles they’re already selling for big dollars (in seven- and 10-year deals).

The “affiliate fees” that cable providers pay for the bundles are now up to $30 billion a year, or about $30 per subscriber per month. And programmers aren’t going to do anything that weakens that revenue stream.

So whether Apple ends up working with the cable providers like Comcast and strikes deals that use Apple TVs in lieu of a cable box, or whether Apple works with the cable programmers like Viacom and uses Apple TVs for a cable-free “over the top” service, the result would be the same: Consumers would have to pay a big monthly fee for a big package of TV channels, most of which they wouldn’t use.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120402/apple-tv-on-the-outside-same-old-tv-on-the-inside/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/tim-cook-visits-china-and-brings-back-some-ideas-comic/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/tim-cook-visits-china-and-brings-back-some-ideas-comic/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:20:19 +0000 Voices http://allthingsd.com/?p=191782
]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/tim-cook-visits-china-and-brings-back-some-ideas-comic/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/apple-workers-put-tim-cook-atop-list-of-most-beloved-ceos/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/apple-workers-put-tim-cook-atop-list-of-most-beloved-ceos/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:25:18 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=191495 Tim Cook, the man Apple co-founder Steve Jobs hand-picked to be his successor, may never surpass Jobs in panache or vision, but as a leader, he’s picking up right where Jobs left off.

Indeed, after just 10 months, Cook already ranks as the country’s top-rated chief executive, based on sentiment within the company. And not just in tech — across all industries.

According to the anonymous Apple employee rankings posted to careers community Glassdoor.com, Cook has a 97 percent approval rating among the rank and file. That’s the same cumulative rating Jobs had when he stepped down as CEO — and two points better than the rating given him in his final year in that role.

Not bad for a new CEO who’s following a guy with one of the most impressive legacies in tech.

Clearly, Cook, who worked closely with Jobs after joining Apple in 1998, is intent on hewing to the vision of his predecessor, while putting his own mark on the company as well — instituting a charitable matching program for employees, for example.

As Cook told Apple employees at Jobs’s memorial last October, “Among [Steve's] last advice for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what he would do. ‘Just do what’s right.’”

And according to Cook’s employees, he’s doing exactly that. His 97 percent ranking placed him ahead of not only Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs and Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley, but Google’s Larry Page and American Express’s Ken Chenault, as well.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/apple-workers-put-tim-cook-atop-list-of-most-beloved-ceos/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120328/did-tim-cook-pay-a-call-on-china-mobile-to-talk-iphone/ http://allthingsd.com/20120328/did-tim-cook-pay-a-call-on-china-mobile-to-talk-iphone/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:33:40 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=190879 Apple CEO Tim Cook traveled to China earlier this week to discuss intellectual property issues and greater cooperation. As an Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD, “China is very important to us, and we look forward to even greater investment and growth here.”

But Cook’s trip may have had another purpose: Finalizing Apple’s long-in-the-offing iPhone deal with China Mobile, China’s largest wireless carrier. Sources say Cook visited China Mobile’s Beijing offices, and while they offered no details beyond that, it’s not much of a leap to conclude that he was there to talk about the iPhone, which is currently offered by China Mobile rivals China Unicom and China Telecom.

“We wouldn’t be surprised if Cook was exploring a deal to distribute the iPhone with China Mobile, Mainland China’s largest mobile phone carrier,” Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes said in a note to clients. “We believe that China Mobile could sell the upcoming iPhone 5 by C1H13, after a fall launch in the U.S.”

That seems a reasonable prediction. Certainly it’s in Apple’s best interests to sign a distribution deal with China Mobile. If, at long last, it was able to add the device to the carrier’s portfolio, it would gain access to an additional 120 million subscribers. That’s a massive addressable market, and one that Apple can’t ignore much longer.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120328/did-tim-cook-pay-a-call-on-china-mobile-to-talk-iphone/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120327/new-wifi-ipad-cleared-for-sale-in-china/ http://allthingsd.com/20120327/new-wifi-ipad-cleared-for-sale-in-china/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:00:34 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=190241 Apple’s new iPad has been cleared for sale in mainland China, and could debut there as soon as next month.

The China Quality Certification Center recently approved the Wi-Fi version of the device for sale in the country, granting it the Compulsory Certification necessary for Apple to sell it in China.

The company hasn’t yet announced a hard launch date for the new iPad in China, but if it follows a timeline similar to that of previous devices, we could see sales begin in mid-April.

Obviously, this is great news for Apple, which — despite an ongoing trademark spat over the iPad name — dominates China’s tablet market. In 2011, IDC estimated that the iPad captured 70 percent of it.

Hard to see that changing much this year, particularly with tablet shipments to China ballooning as they have been, and Apple’s growth in the country ballooning along with it. Commenting on the launch of the iPhone 4S in China during Apple’s first-quarter earnings call, CEO Tim Cook described demand as “staggering” and “off the charts.”

“We could not be happier,” Cook said. “We felt we were betting bold, as I think many of you would have thought if you would have known what we were doing. But as it turns out, we didn’t bet high enough.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120327/new-wifi-ipad-cleared-for-sale-in-china/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120326/apples-tim-cook-meets-with-chinese-officials/ http://allthingsd.com/20120326/apples-tim-cook-meets-with-chinese-officials/#comments Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:37:14 +0000 Loretta Chao http://allthingsd.com/?p=190110 Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook met Chinese government officials in Beijing Monday, a company spokeswoman said, as the consumer electronics giant faces a legal challenge in China to the iPad trademark and as it looks to further its surging Chinese growth.

A spokeswoman said Mr. Cook — who is on his first trip to China since becoming chief executive of the Cupertino, Calif., company — “had great meetings with Chinese officials today.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120326/apples-tim-cook-meets-with-chinese-officials/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120322/apples-tv-remote-of-the-future-its-already-here-in-your-hands/ http://allthingsd.com/20120322/apples-tv-remote-of-the-future-its-already-here-in-your-hands/#comments Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:12:37 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=189179 It’s possible that, one day, Tim Cook will stand up onstage and show off a “real” Apple TV set — an integrated box/screen/entertainment device  – that will replace whatever’s sitting in your living room now.

Another possibility: Over time, Apple simply builds an Apple TV set right in front of us, in bits and pieces — so slowly that we don’t really notice it.

Take the remote, for instance. PatentlyApple has its hands on an Apple application for an “advanced TV remote” that would offer some cool features. Like the ability to automatically scan your other devices and figure out the right code to control them, instead of requiring users to use a combination of manuals and trial and error.

At least as important is that, while Apple’s patent, filed back in 2010, could be a standalone device, the application makes it seem much more likely that users will use their iPhones, iPods or iPads to control their TVs.

Which makes sense, because Apple is already offering a “Remote” iOS app that handles some basic functions for its existing Apple TV. That is: There’s a good chance you’re just a download away from owning a bona-fide Apple TV remote already.



This kind of incremental building may be even more important on the content side, which is the real key to an Apple TV: If it’s simply a very nice screen that offers the same content choices that TV viewers already have, then it’s just a very nice screen. And for years, Apple has been making attempts to wrangle different TV choices, at different price points, without much success.

But instead of one grand, sweeping video package, Apple may end up just cobbling together an array of offerings, piece by piece.

To wit: The latest refresh of Apple TV didn’t offer any new content, but it did make it easier for Apple users to buy the content that’s already there. Anyone with an iTunes account can subscribe to Netflix, and soon, Major League Baseball’s MLB.TV service, directly from Apple, without having to pull out a credit card again.

Netflix + iTunes + baseball games won’t make up a full suite of programming choices for most people. But now that Reed Hastings and Bob Bowman have agreed to let Tim Cook handle their billing for them, more media moguls will likely follow in their footsteps. Get enough of them in there, and you could end up with something really compelling.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120322/apples-tv-remote-of-the-future-its-already-here-in-your-hands/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120319/apple-sold-three-million-ipads-over-launch-weekend/ http://allthingsd.com/20120319/apple-sold-three-million-ipads-over-launch-weekend/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:32:25 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=187901 When Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company’s new iPad had a record launch weekend, he wasn’t kidding.

In an announcement published moments ago, the company said that it has sold 3 million new iPads since the device’s launch last Friday.

That’s triple the number of iPads it sold during the same period last year, assuming analyst estimates at that time were accurate. Though Apple never released an official first weekend sales number for the iPad 2, a number of analysts said their checks suggest the company sold close to 1 million units.

So, a threefold increase. Impressive. Sidenote: If you thought Apple made its dividend announcement today to cover up for slower than expected iPad sales, you’re waaaaay off.

And with a number of international launches in the offing, sales are still ramping up. Apple said today that it will debut the new iPad in 24 more countries on Friday, March 23, among them Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

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