Apple's Secret Gameplan?
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Through the hook and crook of anonymous sources along the supply chain,
The Wall Street Journal
reported that
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
is testing an iPad with a smaller screen. Even assuming their reporting is correct, the Journal--and most other media outlets--left out an important caveat.
Apple is famous for throwing feints, misdirecting the competition. The company might very well be engaged in gamesmanship, trickery. To hear the Journal and Barron's tell it, though, Apple is simply and seriously considering the small iPad, in order to compete long-term with the likes of
Amazon
Apple, wrote the Journal earnestly in its lead, is looking "to broaden its product pipeline amid intensifying competition."
And who knows? That might even be true.
But this is the same company, mind you, which said for years it had no interest in tablets. How did that work out? And Steve Jobs was militantly opposed to smaller tablets, which he thought cheapened the experience. Was that misdirection, or is this?
Both the Journal and Barron's touched upon the fact that Apple often experiments with concepts they don't bring to market, but only
CNBC
(GE) - Get Report
mentioned the prospect that Apple is purposefully misleading the competition, a longstanding Apple tact that should not be so easily ignored.
At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.
Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page.
For his "Business Press Maven" column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
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