When you say "I had a bad feeling when the iPad Mini came out - it was clear Tim Cook was second-guessing Steve on both design and "diversifying" the product line, trying to appeal to a wider market" then you're saying Tim Cook had Apple design, develop, produce and bring to market a new device in less than one year. That's crazy talk. After Jobs stepped down as CEO he continued to be involved in major strategic decisions at the company.
Wall Street investors are responsible for market swings. There are AAPL sell offs and there are APPL buying binges. This is a huge company with tons of assests in the bank. When investors and analysts determine that "innovation" means making televisions, and Apple doesn't give them televisions, then AAPL drops in value. They play a short-term game.
Apple plays a long-term game. They re-invent a techology niche and year-by-year improve and build on it. Their strategy has worked and practically every other competitor is always challenged to keep up.
Today's news is Tim Cook following Steve Jobs' vision with first steps to some move production back to America. Let's hope this is part of Apple's long-term plan and they find success in this effort too.
From Oct 2011:
When Steve Jobs met with President Obama earlier this year he made this case strongly. From Walter Isaacson's new biography:
Jobs went on to urge that a way be found to train more American engineers. Apple had 700,000 factory workers employed in China, he said, and that was because it needed 30,000 engineers on-site to support those workers. 'You can't find that many in America to hire,' he said. These factory engineers did not have to be PhDs or geniuses; they simply needed to have basic engineering skills for manufacturing. Tech schools, community colleges, or trade schools could train them. 'If you could educate those engineers,' he said, 'we could move more manufacturing plants here.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-herscher/engineering-is-the-way-to_b_1031672.html
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