There are thousands of Apple blogs out there, and God knows I’d be only another tiny drop in the fanboy bucket were I to go on too long and too strenuously here about my appreciation for (almost) all things Apple. But Apple Computer announced the results for its most recent quarter today, and I’m struck by my lack of prescience in selling the AAPL stock I held for a number of years (I bought it when Steve came back to Apple circa 1997; talk about putting your money where your mouth is).
In truth, the proceeds from that sale went to something worthwhile, so it’s not like I spent the money on hookers and blow. Even so, I avoid looking at AAPL’s stock chart. Suffice to say I get a lot of enjoyment out of using the company’s hardware and software, and I appreciate it even more after trying for the last two days to get my IBM T40 to work with my WPA-encrypted wireless router at home. I take it for granted that I can open up my MacBook and just be online with no more effort than it takes to select a wireless network from a pulldown menu.
And I enjoy Steve, too. Rumor has it he’s a real badass to work with and is sometimes not a very nice guy at all. But he gets to say stuff like this about his main rival in one of the biggest newspapers in the world:
Mr. Jobs declined to comment on Microsoft’s troubles with Vista, beyond noting that he thought Leopard was a better value. While there are multiple editions of Vista with different features at different prices, the top being the Ultimate edition, Apple has set a single price of $129 for Leopard.
With Leopard, Mr. Jobs joked, “everybody gets the Ultimate edition and it sells for 129 bucks, and if you go on Amazon and look at the Ultimate edition of Vista, it sells for 250 bucks.â€
I wonder, does having billion$ make comments like that sting less? Only Bill would know.
I learned this morning that Kevin might get a MacBook at his job. He’s a big Linux guy, and this past weekend he showed me some of the cool new features in Gutsy Gibbon. I’m way ready for virtual desktops to hit the Mac OS. Leopard comes out in three days, and I’m looking forward to having a look at it. My pal Greg has been using it for the last couple months and, while he seems to like it, he isn’t as excited about it as some of the reviewers have been. But he’s jaded.