The Back Page - Apple Death Knell #48: Sometime in 2006, Steve Jobs Will Fall from Grace
by - December 21st, 2005
The odds are that Steve Jobs will suffer a fall from grace sometime in 2006, or so says USA Today writer Kevin Maney. It's this sort of thing that is precisely the reason I created the Apple Death Knell Counter, or at least one of the reasons; the idea was always to chronicle all of the predictions, proclamations, and prognostications of Apple's impending doom so that we, as observers, could have a paper trail of those death knells to follow long after we would have otherwise misplaced them.
Take Mr. Maney's prediction: "Sometime in 2006, Steve Jobs will probably get hosed. That's not so much a prediction as it is playing the odds. Nobody in America gets such a long ride on the oh-we-sooooo-adore-you bandwagon."
That's just silly reasoning, and those words shall live on in the ADKC as Death Knell #48 so we can point and laugh.
In any event, the title of this column from Mr. Maney, 2006 could be year that Apple CEO Jobs falls off pedestal, is a misnomer designed to get eyeballs. Really, it's a generic 2006 predictions piece, more of which will be cropping up the closer we get to January 1st.
In it, he predicts mundane things like Google sparking enough fear in Redmond to galvanize an otherwise moribund Microsoft, RSS will be big (a year too late on that one), and the long-awaited arrival of a real digital living room.
The part about Steve Jobs merely anchors and footnotes the piece, with the vague prediction being that what goes up must come down, including the one and only head of Apple.
On the face of it, of course, that's true. Apple will eventually stumble to some degree or another, and the iPod will eventually become a has-been. Predicting that for 2006, however, is ballsy at best. More likely, it's wishful thinking. Apple is firing on all cylinders, and I personally think the company's star is still (re)rising.
I'd be less desultory in my assessment of this Death Knell if Mr. Maney offered a real reason other than "odds are," or if it wasn't so specific in its time reference (sometime in 2006).
Mr. Maney wrote, "And finally, there is Apple's Jobs -- tech's celebrity superstar. He seems due. Maybe he'll humiliate a bumbling underling on stage at Macworld, unleashing a torrent of stories saying Jobs is the Lord Voldemort of managers. Or someone will discover malicious spyware hidden deep inside iTunes.
"The only sure thing is that society, as if striving for equilibrium, will then knock Jobs as far down as we boosted him up. It's just what we do, no?"
BORING! Let's see some pizazz if we're going to go in this direction! Something like, "In 2006, Microsoft will finally figure out how to put the Netscape on Apple, and take over the digital media device market by [insert some clever prediction here], thus putting Apple's snotty CEO back in his place of head of a cult-like, niche computer maker."
That's a prediction!
Still, with it becoming harder and harder to find a good Apple Death Knell, it's nice to get something to have fun with.
began using Apple computers in 1983 in a high school BASIC programming class. He started using Macs in 1990 when the Kinko's guy taught him how to use Aldus PageMaker, finally buying a Power Computing Power 100 in 1995. Today, Bryan is the Editor of The Mac Observer, and has contributed to the print versions of MacAddict and MacFormat (UK).
You can send your comments directly to him, or you can also post your comments below.
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Observer Comments
I was looking at the Death Knell archive and noticed that Robbie E. "predicted" a move to Intel back in March of '05. Of course rumors had been flying for years and Apple themselves had been planning it for years, but you gotta give him credit for parrotting the rumor at the right time. Dontcha? Huh? Maybe? Just a bit?
Wed Dec 21, 2005 5:47 pm Subject: Google ain't gonna help MS
Obviously, Maney doesn't know his history. It happened to Jobs 20 years ago when he was booted from Apple. He is a much smarter and resourceful man than he was then. Since coming back to Apple he has had the vision to reinvent the Apple environment when things get a little stale. Look at the evolution of the iMac, Power Mac, iPOD, and Apple's cache of software offerings. He has forced Adobe, Microsoft, Creative, Real, Dell, and the many other to take a hard look at how they do things. It frustrates everyone that he is one step ahead of them, but my bet is he will remain there as long as he remains interested.
Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:39 pm Subject: Death Knell Pool?
QuoteZhtazarth wrote:
Is there a betting pool at TMO for who will be #50? Enderle, perhaps? or RC? Maybe it will be some unknown pessimist who will be very surprised to receive such an honor.
That's an interesting idea, though it would be too easy for me to control it.
I actually have #49, too, but am late getting it posted.
Bryan - TMO
Heh, I wrote Mr. Maney the other day, commenting on his article and saying this: "...become known as the Apple Death Knell and wondered if you tried to apply for that? I am afraid it doesn't apply, though, but in case you are interested, it is actually quite fun to read:)"
How wrong one can be! It did apply.
He responded that the headline was written by someone else and that he was disappointed by it, and that happens often in newspapers, I know, working for one myself - as a cartoonist, not a journalist, though.
Anyhow, he had never heard of the death knell, but I guess he is very much aware of it now:)
Poor lad! I mean, he was nice enough to respond, wasn't he?
Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:58 am Subject: RC's internet privileges. . .
Quotealgr wrote:QuoteHis bet is that Steve J (and Apple) will do something that bombs.
He did - that cell phone. Apple is strong enough to move past it.
You must have a funny definition of "bombs". So far, despite the poor reviews, the ROKR introduction has exceeded sales as compared to the RAZR.
I have the ROKR, and while there are lots of areas that need improvement, it's still the best phone on the market for some of the things it does well...specifically for me, speaker phone and iTunes.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I was looking at the Death Knell archive and noticed that Robbie E. "predicted" a move to Intel back in March of '05. Of course rumors had been flying for years and Apple themselves had been planning it for years, but you gotta give him credit for parrotting the rumor at the right time. Dontcha? Huh? Maybe? Just a bit?
Even a broken clock gives the correct time twice a day
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