back to article Steve Jobs was top of the flops, says Apple's Tim Cook

Amid warm fuzzy words about how popular and loved Apple is, how popular and loved Siri is, and the wonders of the iPad, Apple CEO Tim Cook, speaking at the D10 tech conference, dropped a few hints about the future of his Foxconn-rebranding company. He told Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher that he was "amazed" by what Apple's …

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  1. amanfromearth

    Situation normal

    Foxconn rebranding . check

    Fruity tech. check

    Reality distortion field. check.

    Nothing to see here, move along now.

    1. Seanie Ryan
      Mushroom

      Re: Situation normal

      Yes, this Birdy News Site manages to sagnate a bit more every day.

      How long before Anna gets her pink slip? Any chance of you "flopping", Anna, and doing an about turn on writing the same stuff every day. Stale. Stale. Stale.

      Dont need to admit you are wrong, just do it differently and we will take that as an admission from you.

      I am sure you can admit you are wrong.. havent seen it, but what do we know?

    2. E Haines

      Re: Situation normal

      I have to say I honestly don't get this "Foxconn rebranding" meme. If that's true, then pretty much every hardware company is an "[insert factory name here] rebranding" company, and should be referred to as such, unless they have their own factories, which they don't these days. If it's because of that story where Foxconn offered to design stuff for other companies, have you considered that Apple presumably hasn't actually taken them up on that offer? Apple seems to have their own engineers and designers--what, exactly, do you suppose they're doing? (Other than losing things in bars.) I mean, surely Sir Jony at least does something aside from galavanting around getting knighted and whatnot.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Situation normal

        Indeed. Watch the documentary film Objectified and you see all the facilities they have in house. They can produce prototypes of casing and all manner of things.

    3. LarsG
      Megaphone

      Oh, and one more thing!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Situation normal

      Have you heard the one about Jonathan Ives being offered a job at Facebook?

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: Situation normal

      It's worse than normal. It's boring. El reg used to have a cadre of writers who could inject wit into tech stories. Now all we get is cheap language designed to inflame trolls.

      <sigh> sic transit ..

      1. SuccessCase

        Re: Situation normal

        Yep Reg is coasting on cynicism. Previously I've called the writers here a bunch of mini-Hislops. These days that would be praise. If only they were so witty.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Situation normal

      I don't get this Foxconn rebranding jibe. Sure, if the Foxconn designed a product, built it, did all the software and Apple just stuck their badge on it.

      But Apple designed it, do the software and they prototype it in house too using their machinery. Once perfected they get a 3rd party to make it, which just happens to be Foxconn usually.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Visionary

    Apple needs a true visionary at the top now that Jobs has gone. A man with ideas of how we will all be living our daily lives in the future.

    They should phone Sir Clive Sinclair pronto.

    1. Steve Evans

      Re: Visionary

      Well that would certainly reduce the price of the next iphone!

      Not sure it would do it any other favours though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Visionary

        Two words:

        Lord Sugar

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Re: Visionary

          A Macbook with a 3 inch disc drive bolted on the side would hold some appeal, certainly.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Same ole Apple bullshite. Check

    Stop wasting my time with the lies and spin!

    Its shite. It will always be shite, and cooks a knob head.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Happy

      A visionary required, you say?

      Word is there's a guy from Seattle with stunning industry insights who'll soon be available.

    2. Antidisestablishmentarianist
      Trollface

      Trolly troll troll

      I'm sure you can find (nay even write!) some plug in for your favourite open source browser to block all articles or mentions of Apple. You'll be much happier, and the less rabid amongst us here will be too. That being said I do find a good troll entertaining - but please do try harder next time eh?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Remind me not to eat anything *your* cook prepares... :-O

      "It will always be shite, and cooks a knob head."

      Why does it cook a knob head (ouch!), and how did you find out about this disturbing-sounding activity?

      Is this something to do with cannibalism? Or is it merely some obscure new insult (a la saying that something does unnatural things with quadrupeds to mean that it's lousy or one hates it)?

      Or is it just that you inadvertantly showed us why grammar and capitalisation are important?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So long as they have...

    ... Jonathan Ive continuing his role, Apple are in good hands, at least design wise.

    It would be nice to see them open up a little more - less of the walled garden approach - but hey, only an idiot would deny they make some incredible products.

    Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of idiots viewing El Reg.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So long as they have...

      Not to mention the idiots who write comments about how incredible Apple's products are

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So long as they have...

        No different from the idiots that insist Google are open, or the fandoids that argue over whether Samsung or HTC is the bestest, or the morons that blather on about rectangles being patented. A fanboi is a fanboi is a fanboi, and recently the self righteous Googloids and freetards are more insufferable than the Apple ones.

  5. LinkOfHyrule
    Coat

    Foxconn-rebranding company.

    The Register is my favourite Out-Law.com re-branding company.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

      Over the last few months I seen many articles here that are 3 day old Metro drivel as well.

      For those who don't have to spend hours a day commuting to/from London (and elsewhere in the UK) the Metro is a free morning "News" paper (light on news) available at most railway stations.

      1. LinkOfHyrule

        Metro

        It's London's favourite kind of litter. Available from your nearest railway station floor or train carriage seat.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Out-Law.com-rebranding company.

      They don't just re-brand someone else's product, they enhance it by inserting spelling and grammatical errors...

  6. Mike Powers
    Trollface

    It's not "flipping", it's the "rapid shifting paradigm" of management

    I can just see the books and articles and podcasts about it now. "All the best work happens in the initial ten percent of time spent on something! After that you've just hit the point of diminishing returns! So you should totally change your mind about everything, every day, because starting fresh every twelve hours or so means you'll get *crazy* amounts of innovating done!"

  7. censored
    FAIL

    "We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia"

    Flipping to the polar opposite, and no-one having a clue that you've flipped, is NOT admitting you were wrong!

    Admitting you were wrong and that things have changed is a noble and much-underrated quality, especially in a leader. It's clearly one Jobs didn't have.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia"

      I had assumed that when spellchecking the speech, Cook's finger had slipped on his iThingy and picked "courage" rather than "capriciousness"

  8. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
    Coat

    D10 Tech conference...

    So, when Apple representatives are talking, would it be the "iD10-T" conference?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Foxconn-rebranding company.

    Dear Anna

    Please enlighten us all as to why you use the term Foxconn-rebranding company?

    Who designs Apple products, hum the bloke who just got knighted.

    Foxconn make the things, a Chinese company, and they are not alone, lots of other stuff get made in the ROC.

    So what is your point?

    Aimee

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Wow

      Down votes for asking questions.

      Rofl

      1. mccp

        Re: Wow

        "Down votes for asking questions."

        Probably because the answer is obvious - that El Reg has clearly decided that article 4 of its house rules (4. No trolling - it's OK to be provocative, but trolling is another matter.) don't apply to article authors, or that El Reg determines "Foxconn Rebrander" to be provocative rather than trolling.

        Whatever, it has become boring and trite.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Re: Wow

        From: aimee

        BCC: Prof Freud

        Hi Prof

        Hope there is enough bitching here for your survey, I love lab rats!!!

        See you Saturday at the barbecue.

        LoL (a la Cameron/Brooks)

        Aimee

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

      You're from USA, yes?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

        No not from USA, why do you assume that?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

          @Aimee: British and US (non existent) sarcasm and satire are very different. There's also no such thing as Chocolate Factory, so I don;t know why such a fuss about Foxconn Rebrander.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

      My guess is this is why. It seems to be working. <chuckle>

    4. hplasm
      Gimp

      Re: Foxconn-rebranding company.

      Turd-polishing comapany is already taken by Microsoft.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

    Foxconn snaps parts together, cheaply. They don't build anything without explicit instructions, so there is no Foxconn product to rebrand. Apple does all of their own design, they even design their own chips for the iPad and phone. All of their software is all Apple. You can dislike Apple's tech if you like, but it is absurd to write that they are not clearly the most unique PC and device designer in an industry dominated by Wintel knock offs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

      "Apple does all of their own design, they even design their own chips for the iPad and phone. ". Renumbering other people's products as your own is not designing chips.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @Anon 17:43

        Sorry moron, Apple DOES design their own chips. The A4, A5, A5X, etc. were designed by Apple, they are not "renumbered other people's products". Yes, they use an ARM core licensed from ARM, similar to how NVidia, Samsung and the many other ARM licensees start with the core and then do their own design with it. The only Android vendor not using off the shelf CPUs is Samsung. And before you say it, yes Samsung does fab Apple's chips, but no, they had nothing to do with the design. Just like how TSMC fabs Nvidia GPUs but had nothing to do with the design.

        Probably no coincidence that the two companies who do much more of their own design than the rest of the herd, Apple and Samsung, are also far and away the two most successful at selling both phones and tablets.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Anon 17:43

          > Apple DOES design their own chips

          If by design you mean select what cores to put in the SoC package then, yes.

    2. Turtle_Fan

      Re: There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

      Well, Foxconn themselves claim it ( see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/foxconn_international_phone_division/ ).

      Whether it's a tasty meme or not is a matter of preference, but in any case don't take it too personally.

    3. Kakes

      Re: There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

      How many "US Brand" products are made in China ? We happen to know who the manufacturers are for Apple but it'd be interesting to call say Bose, Levis, Garmin et. al. rebranding companies.

      I guess this article was either deliberately provocative or written by a moron (not that there's anything wrong with morons, just that journalism perhaps isn't the ideal career for them).

    4. Ilgaz

      Re: There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

      They do motherboards. Just stay away from them.

    5. Toastan Buttar
      Linux

      Re: There is no such thing as a "Foxconn rebranding company"

      "All of their software is all Apple."

      *cough* BSD *cough*

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Siri - popular?

    I don't know anyone with a 4S who uses it, 'cos it doesn't work very well. But then we don't live in the US, maybe that's it?

    1. Karirunc
      Stop

      Re: Siri - popular?

      Nod - only time I have seen Siri in action recently is by a nerdy type prompting her for some odd insanity. ANYONE differ??

  12. Ilsa Loving
    Megaphone

    Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

    It's supposed to be cute. Intel is called chipzilla. Scientists are called boffins. The Register does this all the time with various popular companies and concepts. Hell, El Reg coined the term Bulgarian Air Bags, which can easily be considered offensive. Yet for some reason people are only getting up in arms over Apple.

    Let it GO people.

    1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

      "Yet for some reason people are only getting up in arms over Apple."

      Not people, fanbois.

      "Let it GO people."

      A worthwhile plea, but one I'm guessing will fall on deaf ears.

      1. Darryl

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        Don't see many people bitching about the "Chocolate Factory" comments either

      2. Mike Flex

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        > A worthwhile plea, but one I'm guessing will fall on deaf ears.

        Perhaps they've got those awful apple earphones stuffed in them?

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

      Ilsa Loving: Precisely. So nicknames like boydroid, Web 2.0 adman, Big Blue, chair-flinging biz tyrant, Channel bullyboy, and others assigned to tech personalities are all OK - but pointing out that Apple's ever-so-shiny "magical" kit comes from the Foxconn factories that churn out the rest of the world's tech is a step too far.

      C.

      1. Alex Gollner
        Go

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        That's why you should keep using the name as long as it irritates your readers enough to post complaints.

        Weirdly it reminds me of a nickname from another site and another decade: The Great Satan of Haircuts...

      2. Arctic fox
        Trollface

        @diodesign I think that you can afford to take a very relaxed attitude to their..............

        ...........reaction to the "re-brander" meme, after all just think what the iPhans are doing for the site's click-rate every time El Reg winds them up like that. Oh, you have already, ok.

      3. toadwarrior

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        Most of those we hardly hear while a day hardly goes by without something about apple. Those of us without iphones or ipads are getting sick of it. Not so much because of the names themselves but the amount of apple shit posted here.

        If someone farts at apple it gets reported. Surely someone is doing something far more interesting to report on. Then you could take all of tim's comments from one conference put them in one article rather than an article per comment and fill the front page with other far more interesting topics.

      4. TeeCee Gold badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        More to the point, who the hell would want to retire trollbait that is so obviously this effective?

        Nothing cheers me more than to see the fanbois with their knickers in a knot over pointless trivia.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

          “More to the point, who the hell would want to retire trollbait that is so obviously this effective?

          Nothing cheers me more than to see the fanbois with their knickers in a knot over pointless trivia.”

          You’ve got a very good point – why bother trying to write decent news stories when you can use trollbait to get reaction?

          Personally, I don’t really care about any of the nicknames the El Reg use, even ones that I think are rubbish like ‘Chocolate Factory’. Actually, I’ll add a caveat to that, when they’re refreshed, when they’re being used over and over they just get tiresome through lack of originality.

          What’s of far more concern to me is the quality of the writing - and when there’s so much filler than relies on terms on trollbait as you call it, there’s trouble.

          There were three different stories about this Tim Cook interview on El Reg. None offered anything different to other reporting – not a huge issue in itself – but the effort doesn’t feel coordinated (e.g. Anna mentions Cook commented about Ping, the subject of Andrew’s story, so why not add a link to that story?).

          Worse, a lot reporting of these days is quite sloppy – particularly when about Apple, because the very mention of the company will get hits. As an example, in the story Iain wrote about the WWDC keynote, there was a claim that some are concerned about Apple coasting – and he linked to of that opinion. Now it’s obviously good that someone was referenced – however, this is *one* person (the CEO of Forrester). Has he made such pronouncements in the past about other companies and if he did, was he right? How representative is he of opinion? That linked article (rather amusingly) suggested Colony might be “stirring” things rather “analysing things rigorously”. So on one hand, we have an article that was ribbing an analyst for why he was talking about an article, whilst another, cites it as evidence that some folk genuinely feel Apple is coasting, rather than one person blogging for attention.

        2. foo_bar_baz
          Thumb Up

          @TeeCee

          Trollbait? Is that like trolling for trolls? Baiting baiters? Trolling baiters, or baiting trollies?

          aaaand back on topic ...

      5. amanfromearth

        Re: Why do people care so much about the Foxconn rebranding thing?

        @diodesign

        Except that there a difference between a nickname and a description. You are not using the phrase "foxconn rebrander" as a name, you are using it as descriptive text, and that is where the reg team are just plain wrong.

  13. Shonko Kid
    WTF?

    "best-selling phone in the world"

    Is it? Best-selling smartphone I could maybe buy, but 'phone'... I imagine there's a Nokia Series30/40 phone that sells more.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An unmentioned "feature" of Siri is..

    .. that it neatly provides a voiceprint of every user daft enough to use it - plus an activity log and a confirmed identity (via your phone S/N and Apple ID). Combine that with the emerging HD voice, and the SMS wiretap called iMessage (ditto for WhatsApp), and then realise this goes to a company subject to the Patriot Act.

    Google couldn't have done it more subtle.

  15. Ants V

    "It's not the voice recognition, it's the understanding, it's the AI."

    All well and good if you don't mind putting on an American accent every time you want to use the feature.

    I know (and understand) that pandering to those with regional accents is a secondary concern compared to getting it working for the bulk of the market, but they could do a hell of a lot better with the voice recognition.

    1. Toastan Buttar
      WTF?

      Re: "It's not the voice recognition, it's the understanding, it's the AI."

      "E....lev...en"

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "It's not the voice recognition, it's the understanding, it's the AI."

      @Ants V. So you're from Liverpool ?

  16. Desidero
    Terminator

    Tim meant "courage to say I'm wrong. when my boss changed position. and i was right. though less courage than to say, 'hi honey, i'm home early today - and for every day from here on out."

  17. Silverburn
    Flame

    Siri IQ boost?

    What he probably means Siri will now understand PROPER english and England.

    Because everyone knows that using PROPER english automagically entitles you to a few more IQ points and makes you appear more sophisticated.

    And a lot, lot cooler as well.

    Where's my "Rule Britannia" icon?

  18. toadwarrior

    All the english people complaining are probably common as fuck and barely understandable to most everyone. Once they learn the language they can complain.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Again using the correct English grammar

      "All the English people complaining are probably common as fuck and barely understandable to almost everyone else anyway. Once they learn how to use language correctly, then they can complain."

      I fear that the irony in your actual post was, perhaps, not intentional. Nevertheless, I chuckled.

  19. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    SIRI

    So it'll still be useless at understanding anyone other than a mainstream (whatever the hell that is) North American accent. Fail.

    Siri will be be smarter - not exactly a high target but would be very welcome. Most of the "smart" processing is off phone therefore upgrading this with steady improvements, in the way that search engines do this, is something that's very overdue. Some improvements on the phone side ought to be related to local content interaction.

    As for popular? I suppose in the first few days of the phone's usage then yes, it was probably the most popular new feature. The other major features such as the improved camera and display don't have the same initial impact but do have durability... siri, on the other hand was ditched by almost all users after the first "this is cool, let's show it off" phase of the first few days.

  20. Last Bandit
    FAIL

    Every time I ask ...

    Siri to do something more complicated than play a song, it informs me it can't because I'm not in the US. Turned what could have been a good feature into a pointless toy.

  21. Lallabalalla
    FAIL

    I think the "rebranding" point is....

    ...that quite a few people here aren't fanbois of anything in particular, they are technically-minded people who would like to read some intelligent reporting of actual news without having to decode their way through all the snide asides and cynical sneering.

    Idoits! Your'e reading the wrong website. Duh! This is El Reg we're talking about. You want straight reporting? Go read The Independent or something. Then, after you wake up again, get over yourself.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Wow! The Cupertino-based fruity company's fanbois have organised themselves into an upvote/downvote army! Is Thursday their designated day in the community or is Thursday the day Foxconn give to their employees for a day off?

  23. Jeff 11
    Thumb Down

    "Foxconn-rebranding company"

    Anna, this phrase of yours is downright stupid.

    If Apple were pick up an original Foxconn product and slap their own sticker on top, it would be accurate. But it's Apple who have designed the entirety of the software that runs on their devices, the entirety of their device exteriors' design, and they have architected how the hardware components go together. Foxconn ONLY builds the device.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Totally agree

      lets hear it from Anna please

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