Rip Ragged

Three or four days ago, somebody (maybe Forbes or Philip-Elmer DeWitt) typed that Steve Jobs is still heavily involved in the goings on at Apple. You know, even though he’s home convalescing, he’s still the actual CEO. This is precisely what he said would happen when he decided to take some time off. He said it. He announced it. The Master told everybody – the punditbots, the fundtards, Tim and Phil and Jon – that he wasn’t relinquishing control of anything, just handing the day-do-day decision making to Tim Cook.

This isn’t news.

In spite of that, it is being reported around the echosphere as though it’s some kind of dogdamn revelation.
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If you keep close tabs on the innertubes, you’ll know that the Palm Pre is coming. Nobody is announcing when, but it will be pretty soon you can bet. And when it comes, the iPhone is in trouble. The iPhone has over twenty-thousand applications. The iPhone is making inroads into enterprise markets. The iPhone is the standard against which all other smartphones are measured.

The Palm Pre, by comparison, doesn’t actually exist. It’s a press release. The Palm Pre is a Photoshop® image on sites friendly to mockups of actual things.

Let’s look at some things that actually exist that are not slowing the growth of iPhone sales: Android, Blackberry Storm, Recession, Blackberry Bold, Blackberry Curve, smartphones from Nokia, LG, Samsung and what-have-you.

Now this Palm Pre, which doesn’t exist, is a threat.

That’s just stupid.

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And for those of you who missed it, a few years ago Master Jobst Fimil said something that still rings true today: “[They] don’t have to lose for us to win.” He was talking about Microsoft, but it applies to all of Apple’s “competitors.”

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“Competitors” is in quotation marks for those who are just arriving.

Apple does not have competitors. Apple builds and sells a computer, a mobile phone, a portable media player, a set-top box for web access to video and audio media, and the software that runs it all.

A competitor would have a similar list of products. There are none. Those who compete in individual categories are scared and confused and trying to compete in other categories. Microsoft tried to compete with the iPod and the iTunes store. Nokia is trying to do the music store (like Microsoft before them). RIM is trying to imitate the AppStore. Dell keeps toying with competitive devices (mp3 player and MePhone). Each time one of these “competitors”  branches out of their core competency they dilute their expertise; they spend money that should have been spent on R&D within their core competency. They lose ground.

These other companies don’t have to lose for Apple to win. Apple has to lose for them to win, though. Apple has 3.0 E10 USD in the bank. That’s a three with ten zeroes and a dollar sign. Apple could buy Mozambique and have money left over for lunch. Apple might (maybe) have a slowdown on account of the recession, but they aren’t going to be in trouble any time soon.

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There are going to be multiple models of the iPhone:

It will come in 8, 16, and 32 Gb versions; with and without 3.5″ drives; with and without thinsulate lining, fourteen popular colors, optional ribbed sides and reservoir tip.

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There’s a twitter worm. There’s an easy joke there, somewhere.

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Texas has noticed the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. It’s about frigging time somebody did.

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Now. Rock.