The historical record will show that the era of Apple (AAPL) computers bearing microprocessors from Intel (INTC) began at 10:16 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 10, 2006. That was the moment that the Associated Press issued the following one-sentence NewsAlert:
"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils an iMac computer based on Intel Corp.'s chips, just six months after the historic partnership was announced between the two once-unlikely Silicon Valley bedfellows."
I've been a fan of the AP NewsAlert since my days as a newspaper reporter with a desktop wire-service feed. The AP sends these when something important happens in the arena of world affairs, the sort of thing that causes CNN and networks like it to flip on their "Breaking News" graphics: A government has fallen in a coup, an election has been won, a head of state has died, or one country has invaded another.
SURLY DAYS. It's the first time in my memory that a product announcement by Steve Jobs has caused the AP to send an alert -- especially since this development was fully expected. And it says a lot about the intensity of media attention Apple generates. When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action.
Half the fun in covering Apple is covering the coverage of Apple. The argument has been made that we in the press are a little nuts about Apple. It's a fact. The highs and lows of Jobs & Co. are so dramatic that the erudite prose practically writes itself. And I can't help but think something is wrong with that.
Take the way Apple was treated in 1997, when it was beset by sagging sales, a profound lack of product direction, and the onslaught of Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows. That summer Wired did a cover depicting the bleeding Apple logo surrounded by a crown of thorns with the headline "PRAY." Brilliant in its honest execution and frank assessment of the situation, it was for Mac-lovers a low-water mark.
LARGER THAN LIFE. From about the same time, I remember a one-panel cartoon that ran in Editor and Publisher magazine depicting an editor telling his staff something like, "Okay, let's get going on that story about how Apple is about to go out of business" -- while all those staffers look up from working at Apple machines.
These days, Apple is on a roll, no doubt about it. And much of the coverage is kind. The well-known tale of Apple's birth in a garage in Los Altos, Calif., nearly three decades ago, and its subsequent and improbable rise to prominence, has been retold so many times that it's as familiar as the story of Superman. And the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Apple's founding -- coming on Apr. 1 -- will no doubt spur an obligatory round of adoring retrospective media coverage.
How many different times has CEO Jobs been compared to the Prodigal Son? I find 501 hits combining those references on Google. Ejected from the company he co-founded after a 1985 boardroom confrontation, he returned more than a decade later and saved it from oblivion, only after coming out on top in his own boardroom coup. His biographical details -- the most recent ones concerning his biological parents -- have been parsed and examined every which way in search of clues to his strangely mystical gift for innately understanding what appeals to millions of consumers.
PRODUCT MANIA. When I see Jobs interviewed on TV, he remains so irritatingly on-message, reporters seem almost sorry to do their jobs and change the subject by asking an off-topic question, about his health, or about something unrelated to the message of the day -- say concerning the state of relations between his other company Pixar (PIXR) and Disney (DIS). He rarely opens up to publicly reflect on his life, which both deepens the mystery and heightens the curiosity.
That same secrecy and buzz carries over the Apple products. The speculative rumors put out by the enthusiast Web sites, some of which split the crosshairs dead-on, while others can't manage to land in the right hemisphere, add an extra layer to the media barrage. Fan sites can afford to speculate wildly, while mainstream media often struggles to cut through the confusing miasma and determine which rumors have legs, and which are worthless (see BW Online, 1/9/06, "Facts from the Apple Rumor Mill").
When the products see the official light of day, an inevitable collection of Monday-morning-quarterback stories unfold. They list which rumors didn't prove to be true, which ones appear to be applesauce, and which ones may yet bear fruit by the time Jobs next appears on stage. The products that do hit the market are almost presumed to be hits before a single unit has sold.
"MAC SALES WERE TERRIBLE." Where are the skepticism, criticism, and probing questions that other companies endure? Consider a glaring question I have about Jobs's Jan. 10 keynote at the Macworld Expo: Why did Apple's stock price soar so high? News about the Intel-based products was largely expected and so should have been largely factored into the price. Yes, Jobs disclosed that iPod sales had exceeded expectations in the December quarter -- selling 14 million units when most analysts had forecast sales of about 10 million.
But what about Mac sales? Sure, at 1.25 million units, they were ahead of the same quarter a year ago, when Apple sold just more than a million. Even as they rose, they missed some expectations, including those of Charles Wolf of Needham & Co., who observe that "iPod sales were terrific, but Mac sales were terrible."
Some people certainly delayed buying a Mac, knowing the Intel transition was imminent. Or was it that simple? "I can see people holding back on buying an Apple notebook," Wolf says. "But I don't see all that many people holding off on buying an iMac because of Intel. How many people in the iMac cutomer base really know or care about that?"
PR 101. Positive media attention is simply built in to a keynote of Jobs. I don't wish to portray the Mac sales figures as bad news. But if bad news needed to be announced, a good way to do it would be to add it to a Jobs keynote and watch it get buried by hot product news. That's straight out of Public Relations 101.
Meanwhile, all the glowing media attention can't help but affect Apple's stock price. After shares surged more than $4 (closing Jan. 10 at the strangely coincidental price of $80.86, a number that tech historians know is significant to Intel --- the 8086 was an early PC chip), the price rose an additional $3 and change on Jan. 11 -- breaking a record yet again.
Here's another good question: Why is Apple turning down Intel's marketing subsidies that go to other PC manufacturers such as Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and others? There are no "Intel Inside" logos on the new Macs, save for marks on the outer packaging for which Apple isn't being paid. A slick, new TV ad will promote the new Apple-Intel collaboration. But if Apple is leaving money on the table, wouldn't shareholders want some pointed questions asked about that?
PC-FILLED CUBICLES. And now that the Intel transition is officially under way, what does Apple plan to do about its long-unaddressed weakness in the corporate-computing market? I'm writing this column on a Windows-based laptop issued by my employer. When I see Macs in the corporate environment it's a rarity -- except maybe in art departments -- despite the fact that a Windows PC can't do much more than a Mac can. Does Apple have a plan to win some share inside big companies? Is it worth it try?
As great a company as Apple computer is -- I'm often as guilty as anyone of falling for the hyperbole -- the pointed, skeptical, analytical, dispassionate, and yes, uncomfortable questions about this unusually influential outfit and its unique, legendary, brilliant, and complicated chief don't get asked often enough. And they should be, more often than they are now. Great companies deserve nothing less.
Hesseldahl is a writer for BusinessWeek Online in New York
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