Advice for Mr. Cook

Photography

No more iconoclasts.

Apple reports its earnings for the Christmas quarter today.

If ever there was a company which has peaked, looking to a low or no growth future, it is Apple. The easy money in the stock has long ago been made. Oh! sure, it may be another blow-out quarter predicated on sandbagged earnings estimates, but wither here? It’s the next quarter which matters, not the last.

There is no reason – other than the occupant of the corner office – that Apple should not continue growing. One oft quoted line from Steve Jobs on his deathbed is “Don’t ask what Steve would do”. Dead wrong. Apple needs to ask this all the time, the core belief being that you give people what they need, not what they want. Apple’s pipeline of Jobs’s ideas is quickly running dry and its tedious and boring iPhone refreshes – 70% of revenues – are complacency redefined, while Samsung eats their lunch with better/bigger/faster devices. You can talk all day long about Apple’s wonderful ecosystem, but if I cannot make the screen out you know where you can stick it.

Oh! well, Apple put my son thorough Harvard, class of 2025. His descendants will have to look elsewhere. The latest rumors have Apple providing a low margin, overpriced TV set (will not move the needle on earnings) or ‘wearable computing’ – please. Forget about what is really called for. An Apple Camera.

Meanwhile, here, in a couple of words, is my advice to Mr. Cook’s deaf ears:

Disclosure: No AAPL positions.

Dummy

Photographs

A stroke of luck.

I was mooching around North Beach, the Italian section of north east San Francisco, and chanced on an interesting clothing store. All the help was busy so I sneaked into the workroom in the back and Pow! There it was. All I did was press the button.

Nikon D3x, 35mm AF-S f/1.4 Nikkor at f/1.4, ISO 800. The Nikkor may lack the raw resolving power of the 35mm Sigma equivalent at full bore, but it holds up nicely here.

The Saloon

Photographs

No yuppies allowed.

The Saloon on Grant Street in San Francisco’s North Beach lays claim to being the oldest bar in the city, having survived the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fire. Built in 1861 it’s definitely a down at heels, drinker’s blues bar, and the locals look askance at strangers. I swear the temperature dropped ten degrees when yours truly stepped inside for a look around. I attribute this climatic change to my newly acquired black felt cap allied with a somewhat less than new Belstaff biker jacket which gives me a real Bad A look.

My best guess was that a candid snap or two might find me leaving with my teeth in my hand, so I asked the pretty radical barkeep if it was OK. The English accent immediately consigns one to the cadre of nutty eccentrics, with condescending acquiescence following, and the man grudgingly agreed.


Sign heaven.


We are all essentially alone.

Nikon D3x, 35mm AF-S f/1.4 Nikkor at f/2.