Apple picker On Monday, the Czech translation of the book will hit the counters of Czech booksellers The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs from journalist Yukari Iwatani Kane, who tries to portray how Apple works after the death of Steve Jobs and how things go downhill for him. Jablíčkář for you in cooperation with the publishing house blue vision offers the book at a special price for 360 crowns with free postage.
The event for Jablíčkář readers ends next week, you can order the book for the aforementioned special price The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs directly on the website of the Blue Vision publishing house. The printed version of the book has 444 pages, and in it you will find journalist Kane's view of the current situation of Apple, which, according to her, is doomed after the departure of Steve Jobs.
There is also an electronic version in preparation, which will be published by Christmas, but before that, Jablíčkář will offer you a competition for a printed version of the book The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs. If you are lucky, you can have an extra gift under the tree, or you can insure the situation and buy the title now at a discounted price.
Below, for illustration, we attach the last sample from the book. You can also read previously published chapter excerpts Distortion of reality, Ghost and Cipher, Dancing on the water lily leaves a Revolt. The current excerpt is from the Holy Grail chapter.
In the end, Apple didn't even have to worry about Samsung pulling all the attention.
Despite all the hype, the launch of the Galaxy S4 turned out to be a total fiasco. The one-hour burlesque, complete with a live orchestra, ended in disaster. The show opened with a video of a little boy wearing a bow tie around his neck tap-dancing from his house to a Rolls-Royce to bring a new phone on stage. From start to finish the entire production was horribly off. Samsung was simultaneously trying too hard and trying too little. Master of Ceremonies, Broadway star Will Chase looked like he wanted to run off the stage as his jokes and banter didn't sit well with the stunned audience. JK Shin, the executive who headed Samsung's mobile communications division, strode into the spotlight with his hands raised triumphantly above his head. He demanded as much admiration as if he thought of himself as Elvis or Steve Jobs. But when Shin opened his mouth to start bragging about the new phone, he seemed awkward and clumsy.
What made Samsung believe that bombastic Broadway burlesque, the inclusion of hackneyed characters and out-of-place dialogue will help sell their new product? Although the Tony Award-winning director was listed in the credits, the production was orchestrated down to the smallest detail, including the actors' socks, by Samsung executives in Seoul. Their lack of understanding of modern American culture was egregious, especially one of the scenes towards the end where several women were having a bachelorette party. They were all clutching their Galaxy phones, worried about damaging their drying nail polish, joking about marrying the doctor, and casting glances at the shirtless gardener.
"Handsome," Chase said as he escorted them off the stage. "I think you girls are clear."
The presentation wasn't even over and Samsung was already facing an attack. Many people criticized him for his regressive view of women.
"Scary Samsung," read a thumbs-up headline on the page The Verge. "How the Telephone Presentation Devolved from Broadway Tinsel to Sexist Disaster."
"It rarely touches me," wrote tech blogger Molly Wood. “But Samsung's long parade of 50s stereotypes of women in the middle of a whole host of bad stereotypes just turned me off. That it was a presentation of the phone? You didn't even notice.”
Despite the head start Samsung got through TV ads, the presentation showed it still has a long way to go before it can claim Apple-like icon status. But regardless of the awkwardness of the whole event, in the end, no difference was noticeable. The Galaxy S4 sold almost twice as fast as the previous model. Sales reached ten million in the first month, putting Apple on the defensive.
Apple no longer had a new product to compete with Samsung's latest device, so it dealt with the situation in the only way it could - asserting its superiority through a marketing slogan.
“Here's the iPhone. And over there is everything else.”
Apple's woes deepened. Despite Cook's front-row seat at the State of the Union, doubts began to surface about the firm's patriotism. A year back when New York Times published a series on Apple's impact on the US economy in its iEconomy branch, the paper accused Apple of moving manufacturing jobs overseas and putting pressure on the middle class. One of the quotes was given special attention in the article because it was very self-righteous.
"It's not our job to solve America's problems," an unidentified executive told reporters. "Our only responsibility is to make the best product possible."
The article caused such a stir that the company felt obligated to produce a study specifying the amount of American jobs the company helped create as a result of its success. According to its findings, Apple helped create or support the creation of more than five hundred thousand jobs, ten times the number of people directly employed.
New York Times they continued to dissect Apple relentlessly. A few months earlier, the newspaper published another big revelation, which related to the fact that the company evades tax obligations by setting up so-called shells (shell office, pre-established company) in Nevada and abroad, where tax rates are much lower than in California. This accounting technique, called a "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", is described in detail by the newspaper - it talks about how Apple diverts profits through Irish subsidiaries to the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Without this tactic, Apple would have had to pay $2,4 billion more than the $3,3 billion it paid in 2011. At a time when state coffers were running out of money and federal programs were being cut, tax evasion was something unimaginable from big companies.
By the time the articles won the Pulitzer Prize in April 2013, the idea that Apple had evaded billions of dollars in tax liability and contributed to the country's economic decline was a constant conversation piece across the States. In one interview for BloombergBusinessweek The Cooks asked about Apple's obligations to the US.
“I feel I have a responsibility to create positions,” said the executive. “I think we have an obligation to give back to communities, to find ways to do that … and not just in the US, but abroad. I think we have an obligation to create great products that can be recycled and are good for the environment. I think we have an obligation to create products that contain a higher good.”
As inspiring as that response sounded, Cook's claim about Apple's higher interests wasn't as easy to square with revelations about the company's tax evasion. How exactly could a "double Irish and hollandaise sandwich" serve the greater good?
