
Apple: The Most Absurd Question About the Company Yet
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- We all screw up on a regular basis.
I called David Einhorn a "hustler"
when I probably should have just said
. My camerawork on
this week's conversation with Pandora (P) co-founder Tim Westergren
left a bit to be desired, but majority feedback tells me it wasn't
that
bad and
the content
overshadowed my lack of technical prowess by miles.
All of that to say, I think hard before I go after somebody because a.) I want to get it right; b.) I realize I will make mistakes; and c.) nobody's perfect. However, if there was ever a time for
a barn-torching, enter the china store like a bull just released from a studio apartment in Spain
, this IS it.
Thanks to
follower
for catching
Bloomberg's
Betty Liu toss any
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
-related credibility she might have had out the slamming screen door in the span of just 4-5 seconds:
Yes. We must watch that again ...
Context. Right. To be safe, we should check for context. Here's the entire two minutes plus. Liu's incredible statement comes right about midway through:
There was no context. That's part of the problem. There's no defense -- none whatsoever -- for what Liu said there.
Is there a product that can "save" Apple?
Is she freaking serious?
Alix Steel threw together the only bit of sense in what was a largely brainless conversation when she legitimately questioned Tim Cook's ability to innovate beyond evolutionary iterations of Steve Jobs-conceived groundbreaking devices.
I hit that angle hard before it became a media obsession. I had no choice but to pull back a bit simply because Apple has
and the media got way ahead of itself with what really looks a lot like
an orchestrated campaign of hate toward Apple
.
I know
there is absolutely not some devious Apple hatred campaign underlying financial media coverage
, but when Liu makes such an absurd comment, she certainly doesn't help my case. In fact, after you watch her -- and that entire segment -- you could, as a perfectly sane and logical person, wonder if something is up.
Man.
There's really no need to bite back at the
Is there a product that can save Apple?
statement. It doesn't warrant a response; however, the larger issue it raises cannot continue to fly under the radar.
How can
Bloomberg
allow a story -- positioned as a news piece, mind you,
not
an opinion segment -- to get on the air with that type of question and zero necessary context? If Liu is ad-libbing, she screwed up. If somebody wrote that for her and she read it off of the teleprompter like a talking head, just as bad. And to support the whole thing with graphs and charts on Android/
Samsung's
market share and Apple's margins without discussing a.) the Android/Samsung strategies and b.) where Apple's margins have come from borders on dereliction of duty.
Tim Cook did a smooth-solid portraying things as they are
at Tuesday's Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference. As if he needs to remind the hysterical masses, he basically said,
This is who and what we are. This is what we do. Here's are acquisition strategy. Cash does not burn a hole in our pocket, no matter how much of it we have. And oh, by the way, want an "inexpensive" iPhone . . . buy last year's model
.
Still mind the noise that dogs Apple's stock, because, for better or worse, it's the real catalyst here. But, you're on the correct side of reality if you have the basic understanding that none of this noise and hysteria emanates from Apple. It's all manufactured externally.
These guys have their heads down as much as they ever have. And they sure as hell aren't, all of a sudden, in the business of managing to the stock price or telling people what they're doing next before they're damn well ready to do it.
Thankfully I'm not the only one injecting sanity into the conversation.
Fortune's
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
hits the smartphone on the touchscreen
when he says (to paraphrase),
Listen you mindless hacks, slow down ... We don't know what Apple will do next and, if it's a watch, we have no idea how it will be designed, priced or positioned
.
Didn't anybody learn from iPad mini? I hate to keep touting (actually, I don't)
my pre-mini prediction on CNBC
, but it's very relevant. Lots of junk was talked prior to that release and Apple, categorically, provided it wrong.
Apple sold more iPads last year than
Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) - Get Report
sold computers. And we have people coming on television, with a straight face, asking what can save Apple?
Heads need to roll.
--
Written by Rocco Pendola in Santa Monica, Calif.
Rocco Pendola is
TheStreet's
Director of Social Media. Pendola's daily contributions to
TheStreet
frequently appear on
CNBC
and at various top online properties, such as
Forbes
.









