Rip Ragged

Here are a few things that will NOT happen this week.

People who work inside the beltway will not understand anything that goes on outside the beltway. Therefore, every decision that is made by them and their underlings in your state can be statistically counted on to be wrong at least 75% of the time. This has not changed in over 100 years. There is no reason for it to start now.

Apple will not announce the iPad this week. That’s for WWDC (or shortly after). After you see the iPad, you’ll look for a Fisher-Price label on every netbook you ever see.

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Rob Endele wrote a column. I’m linking it because I’m honestly too bored to read the whole thing. I scanned it. No cities or technologies, but massive life form readings – mostly monocellular.

I think he’s on Apple’s payroll. If I ran Apple, I’d have him right out in front telling all my competitors there’s nothing to worry about. Think about this. If you’re running a company where rapid innovation and the ability to change directions on a dime are the keys to success, you want your competitors to be fat, dumb, and happy. You’d want them to think you’re fat, dumb, and happy.

If you go read Enderle, it’s all the other companies who are the innovators. Apple has given up; Steve Jobs doesn’t care anymore. I can’t think of a more useful lullaby for Apple to sing to Microsoft.

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iPod sales are down year to year. I read that on a financial site.  When you couple this with His Enderleness whooping about Apple losing their competitive edge, it sounds like hard times coming for Apple. I don’t buy it. Here’s why.

The iPod only holds Steve Jobs’ interest these days as a cash cow. Have you seen the new Shuffle? It’s dinky. It’s too DAMN small. It’s small enough to be incorporated into the temple bars of a pair of RayBan Wayfarers.

I’d buy a pair, if they had 2 Gigs.

In other words, the iPod concept has reached this stage: The iPod is a component. Every company that makes sound equipment is finding a way to incorporate iPod into their systems.

The iTunes store is the way music is purchased on planet Earth.

Mission accomplished.

The entire rest of the tech world is fighting over the market share iPod/iTunes doesn’t own like medieval serfs scrambling for table scraps. They are only each others’ competitors. In the dungeon you can hear the keening and wailing and gnashing of teeth where the RIAA are being tortured by their lost opportunities.

Master Jobst Fimil is on to something else entirely.

I’ll bet the last beer (a Henry Weinhard’s Blonde Lager) Tim Cook hasn’t lost a moment of sleep worrying about iPod sales.

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There’s something big coming from Apple. Soon. It will be introduced by Tim, Phil, and the guys. Steve Jobs is going to fade back a bit even after he comes back to work. He’s seen that the visionary figurehead is a two-edged sword. I’ll bet he moves to chairman of the board and gives the CEO title to Tim Cook soon.

Of course, I have a digital video camera on my desk with which I have never successfully taken a video or copied it to my computer. So who the hell am I?

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