When you’re number one in a market, the pressure is always on to somehow remain on top, or even expand the difference between you and number two. Apple has to worry about that primarily with the iPod and iTunes. But since both are so far ahead of the rest of the market, it doesn’t seem […]

If you can believe Microsoft, they frequently put groups of users in little test rooms — or some sort of testing environment — and expose them to the new features in a product. By gauging their reactions, they decide whether those capabilities deserve to go into production. Now if you look at Microsoft’s shipping products, […]

So here’s the deal: Whenever Steve Jobs doesn’t emerge from his office or subterranean hiding place for a few weeks, the rumors about his health begin anew. Certainly his expected lack of visibility at the forthcoming Macworld Expo, where marketing VP Philip Schiller is slated to deliver the keynote, fuels the speculative files still further. […]

You’ve heard it time and time again. Apple won’t enter the low-cost PC market because they don’t want to produce “junk.” Steve Jobs said that himself as recently as the last phone conference with financial analysts in October, when asked whether Apple planned to release a netbook. Since then things have changed in the marketplace, […]