After 20 years away from hands-on development, I'm now learning Swift thanks to the excellent free training in iTune U (thanks, Stanford U!) and the free language books from Apple. I find it powerful and nicely concise due to its automatic inference of types and automatic memory management.
Apple's recent open-sourcing of Swift could lead to broader adoption at Universities, even if they don't have Mac hardware. (... once Swift compilers & IDEs are available on other platforms)
Paul Hegarty is the best instructor, bar none, that I've seen in thousands of hours of attending and teaching classes in programming skills -- spanning 59 years.
One problem, however is that Swift is a young language that is evolving rapidly ...
Apple, IBM, educators, publishers and the open source community must assure that their content keeps pace with the Swift language evolution!
Still, Swft is less than 2 years old and, I suspect, has better acceptance than any other language at that young age. For Example CoBOL took 10 years:
I agree that it can take many years for a new language to become 'mainstream' and COBOL is a good example showing that evolutionary period. But you chose COBOL for your example? Really? Have you ever programmed in COBOL? Perhaps, like me, you actually have used COBOL which is why you used it as an example...
However, I can't think of any programming language I would more like to forget and relegate to the dustbin of time than COBOL! Have you forgotten the tedious monotony of coding DATA and PROCEDURE divisions, typing up thousands of 80 column punch cards to accomplish the simplest of tasks and the gruesome agony of manually re-sequencing your card deck after it accidentally dropped on the floor while trying to load it all into the card reader hopper (where several cards would be guaranteed to get mangled going through the high speed reader)? Arggg! [Sorry for the 1960’s COBOL flashback!] :-)
John Gruber: How do you manage as the chief mofo in charge of this? How do you manage the enthusiasm that you clearly have for Swift and, what to me seems like a sincere belief that Swift is the way forward — with the necessary conservativeness that you need so that there still has to be a lot of Objective-C written? How aggressive can you be about putting teams on, “Sure, go ahead and do that in Swift”?
Craig Federighi: People here are idealistic yet really pragmatic, and I think you see that as an Apple characteristic in many, many elements of what we do. And so, teams know, what the nature of what we’re trying to get done in their area in any given year, the nature of their code base, whether Swift is the right answer for them, or where it’s the right answer. Even teams where, for one reason or the other, they can’t jump right on Objective-C — or rather Objective-C conversion to Swift now. They then use Swift heavily for writing all their unit tests, which is great because then at least as they’re introducing new APIs, they’re experiencing their own APIs in Swift and then … sort of eating their own dog food in that regard. We do have some constraints internally which we’re addressing, but because we … I mean, it’s something in our closet a little bit, but we still support running 32-bit apps on the Mac. And the 32-bit runtime doesn’t actually support Swift right now. And so, what that means is that if we implement a framework that’s available to 32-bit code, we actually can’t write it in Swift. If that code, if that framework is used across iOS and OS X — as many of our frameworks are — that introduces a little stumbling block as well. So teams recognize what’s practical and what’s not practical and find ways to use Swift wherever they can. There’s no shortage of enthusiasm.
I read many criticism on Tim Cook. In my humble opinion he is a great leader who dares to think ahead. Under his leadership Apple not only makes big profits but is caring about the environment and people as well. Name any other tech company that has the guts to do the same. Same rights for everyone independent on who you are. Sounds very progressive to me and by setting this new standard, I hope many companies will follow. Wall Street has never understand Apple so why bother. They show time after time again investors were wrong. And if Apple doesn't beat record after record, I'm still proud on their forward thinking and hope someday the critics might too. I'm no native English speaker so I do apologize for the typos.
That's all good and dandy. And that's why Cook should resign and head up the largest Non-Profit company in the world. That's his calling. He has no business leading the biggest and baddest company on the face of the earth.
Has it occurred to you that without Tim, Apple would not be " the biggest and baddest company on the face of the earth." Please, just give it a rest.
Even though sog35 comments are inflammatory I do think there is some truth to it. Tim's skill is logistics, and he is amazing at logistics, but usually what makes you good at logistics makes you not that good as a CEO. To be great logistically you have to have a healthy fear of risk. And your entire job is to mitigate that risk. But as CEO especially of a culture like apple it requires crossing the rubicon, burning the bridges kinda risk. And you do see that he has been tepid about all sorts of things. Like why he hasn't killed off certain products. Like why do they sell 6 different versions of the ipad (I'm not talking about customization like hard drive space but different versions). It's super confusing to the customer he could just simplify it small, medium, large. There are other examples were he should just risk it but seems to fear it to much.
No sog has just bought into the Wall Street meme that Apple deserves its low PE because it's just a hardware company and all hardware companies have low PE's. So he wants Apple to pivot on a dime to anything that's not hardware (last week he was all gung ho on Apple buying Time Warner, today he says Apple should have bought Twitter) in the thinking that will change how Wall Street values the company.
The fact is Apple excels at hardware and software that's tightly integrated with that hardware. I agree that they need to get better at cloud services (hence why I've said Cook should hire someone to run Apple's cloud services as Cue isn't cutting it) but it's not Apple's core competency. There are ways to monetize the user base without veering off into things Apple isn't very good at. All that will do is cause the things they are good at to suffer which in turn will make users less satisfied and possibly result in fewer sales.
I do agree with you though on the iPad comment and I think the issue there is Tim Cook is more hands off letting his SVPs make those kinds of decisions. And Phil Schiller is someone who seems obsessed with upselling and having devices at all these different price points. So the iPad 2 and original iPad mini stuck around longer than they should have because marketing thinks they need to have a product for a specific price point but they can't sacrifice margins. 16GB devices exist to get you to spend $100 more for 64GB. Once they have enough people locked in to 64GB (and using most of that space) they may upgrade 16GB to 32GB but I wouldn't be surprised if instead they upgraded 128GB to 256GB instead to see how many 64GB owners they can get to spend $100 more. There's plenty of margin to play around with at the high end and it would increase ASPs. I'll bet this fall we see 16 > 64 > 256.
Well, was a great operations guy. Jobs was quoted as saying Cook was not.
The watch does sort of seem like a Cook thing though.
it does NOT seem like it would have been a Jobs thing.
if Jobs were alive and well, I think there would be something that we do not have now.
i don't think Cook has that forward vision, at least not as products do.
Like what? Everything Jobs introduce had existed before. Sure you can say Apple's implemtation was better. But you could also say Jobs was just better at marketing so it seemed like everything he announced was mind blowing even if it wasn't.
Sog, you have obviously no clue what you're talking about here, so please confine your god damn rants to something that makes sense.
Polluting every thread with this kind of talk makes you look like an idiot even in threads where you have a point.
huh? This topic about the slow adoption to Swift is exactly my grip about Tim Cook. He is always too little too late. And Swift is another example.
There is no 'slow adoption' of Swift. No development team in their right mind would bin years if good code for no reason. That includes Apple.
The only reason you keep droning on about Tim Cook is because you lack the maturity to own your investment decision. Last year Cook told you that if you don't like the way he runs the company then sell your shares. You didn't, so grow up and take responsibility for yourself.
Even though sog35 comments are inflammatory I do think there is some truth to it. Tim's skill is logistics, and he is amazing at logistics, but usually what makes you good at logistics makes you not that good as a CEO. To be great logistically you have to have a healthy fear of risk. And your entire job is to mitigate that risk. But as CEO especially of a culture like apple it requires crossing the rubicon, burning the bridges kinda risk. And you do see that he has been tepid about all sorts of things. Like why he hasn't killed off certain products. Like why do they sell 6 different versions of the ipad (I'm not talking about customization like hard drive space but different versions). It's super confusing to the customer he could just simplify it small, medium, large. There are other examples were he should just risk it but seems to fear it to much.
Another example of not taking risks by Cook was continuing to sell 16GB iPhones. That is 100% based on being afraid of lower margins. Those kind of moves make Apple look like a short term thinking company instead of being visionary. Sure you make more profit selling 16GB phones but customer satisfaction suffers and services revenue suffers also (less space to buy stuff)
And yet you were one constantly defending that decision and practically calling anyone who criticized it a cheap bastard who should go Android. You screamed about how much money Apple would lose and how margins would suffer blah blah blah. Now that your portfolio has taken a hit all of a sudden none of that matters.
As a developer I do understand the obstacles Apple is facing when moving
from Objective-C to Swift. However, these obstacles are not aligned
with the marketing message that Swift is the great new invention and
that everybody should be using it. All the app developers I know
are facing the same struggle to use Swift all the way, which means in
practice that for iOS development we are still sticking to the ugly and inefficient
ObjectiveC until Swift has stabilized
So in 12months it could be a very different story?
Reading developer blogs and the like (plus my own amateur attempts) it seems one of the biggest sticking points has been dealing with the swift's type safeness and the abstract data blob. I wonder if Apple hit the same roadblocks internally with swift. It would seem like Apple could put some work into swift native data handling libraries like JSON, SQL and the like and it would have a real lift in swift use in shipping code.
As a developer I do understand the obstacles Apple is facing when moving
from Objective-C to Swift.
@cropr, as a new Dev who is learning Swift but does not know Objective-C, I'm interested in hearing about the shortcomings of Swift that more experienced developers like you see. It'd give me some situational awareness.
After 20 years away from hands-on development, I'm now learning Swift thanks to the excellent free training in iTune U (thanks, Stanford U!) and the free language books from Apple. I find it powerful and nicely concise due to its automatic inference of types and automatic memory management.
Apple's recent open-sourcing of Swift could lead to broader adoption at Universities, even if they don't have Mac hardware. (... once Swift compilers & IDEs are available on other platforms)
Paul Hegarty is the best instructor, bar none, that I've seen in thousands of hours of attending and teaching classes in programming skills -- spanning 59 years.
One problem, however is that Swift is a young language that is evolving rapidly ...
Apple, IBM, educators, publishers and the open source community must assure that their content keeps pace with the Swift language evolution!
Still, Swft is less than 2 years old and, I suspect, has better acceptance than any other language at that young age. For Example CoBOL took 10 years:
Too little too late. Swift is a great idea but again Cook is late in implemented it. How many free passes will this incompetent CEO get? Another example of a half-assed project.
Any intelligent reasoning as to why Swift is either "too late" or "half-assed"?
Some people with a half-assed knowledge of Swift, might think the project was half-assed too. However, it was announced right from the initial presentation that the language was going to be fluid for a couple years or so as it was not done being developed. It was possible to program with it and compile, the caveat was that if you used version 2.6 and compiled it with compiler X, then you had to stay with that combo.
We should here at this June's WWDC if the language is complete, or where it's at. In the meantime, it's risen to be a VERY interesting language... passing a lot of older languages.
After 20 years away from hands-on development, I'm now learning Swift thanks to the excellent free training in iTune U (thanks, Stanford U!) and the free language books from Apple. I find it powerful and nicely concise due to its automatic inference of types and automatic memory management.
Apple's recent open-sourcing of Swift could lead to broader adoption at Universities, even if they don't have Mac hardware. (... once Swift compilers & IDEs are available on other platforms)
Paul Hegarty is the best instructor, bar none, that I've seen in thousands of hours of attending and teaching classes in programming skills -- spanning 59 years.
One problem, however is that Swift is a young language that is evolving rapidly ...
Apple, IBM, educators, publishers and the open source community must assure that their content keeps pace with the Swift language evolution!
Still, Swft is less than 2 years old and, I suspect, has better acceptance than any other language at that young age. For Example CoBOL took 10 years:
I agree that it can take many years for a new language to become 'mainstream' and COBOL is a good example showing that evolutionary period. But you chose COBOL for your example? Really? Have you ever programmed in COBOL? Perhaps, like me, you actually have used COBOL which is why you used it as an example...
However, I can't think of any programming language I would more like to forget and relegate to the dustbin of time than COBOL! Have you forgotten the tedious monotony of coding DATA and PROCEDURE divisions, typing up thousands of 80 column punch cards to accomplish the simplest of tasks and the gruesome agony of manually re-sequencing your card deck after it accidentally dropped on the floor while trying to load it all into the card reader hopper (where several cards would be guaranteed to get mangled going through the high speed reader)? Arggg! [Sorry for the 1960’s COBOL flashback!] :-)
I chose CoBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) because there were many programming languages at that time in computer history -- all vying to become the standard for the future ... This is not too dissimilar from the environment into which Swift was introduced. US Government pressure (mandates ?) resulted in broad acceptance of CoBOL in US business and government.
Yes, I have programmed in CoBOL starting with the !BM 1401 in the early 1960s -- then programming and teaching CoBOL 68-Extended on the IBM 1410 in the late 1960s. My last encounter with CoBOL was in the mid-1980s part of a bid for 10 LANs including 100 Motorola 6800-based computers (Corvus Concepts -- basically Mac IIs with large screens). We won the bid and successfully installed the systems at Ft. Leavenworth.
The big advantages to CoBOL were that it was easy to teach/learn -- and once learned you could read and understand anyone's CoBOL program.
The disadvantages of CoBOL were many as you pointed out ...
I didn't see this personally, but one of my co-workers at a unit record installation told the story:
It was a hot muggy day in NYC -- and the windows were all open in the Data Processing Department -- but it was still hot even on the 40th floor ... A tab operator had finished sorting the time cards for the weeks payroll ... He grabbed the first stack of ~3,000 time cards to take them to another machine for further processing ... Well, he tripped as he was walking by an open window ...
As a developer I do understand the obstacles Apple is facing when moving
from Objective-C to Swift. However, these obstacles are not aligned
with the marketing message that Swift is the great new invention and
that everybody should be using it. All the app developers I know
are facing the same struggle to use Swift all the way, which means in
practice that for iOS development we are still sticking to the ugly and inefficient
ObjectiveC until Swift has stabilized
So in 12months it could be a very different story?
Reading developer blogs and the like (plus my own amateur attempts) it seems one of the biggest sticking points has been dealing with the swift's type safeness and the abstract data blob. I wonder if Apple hit the same roadblocks internally with swift. It would seem like Apple could put some work into swift native data handling libraries like JSON, SQL and the like and it would have a real lift in swift use in shipping code.
As a developer I do understand the obstacles Apple is facing when moving
from Objective-C to Swift. However, these obstacles are not aligned
with the marketing message that Swift is the great new invention and
that everybody should be using it. All the app developers I know
are facing the same struggle to use Swift all the way, which means in
practice that for iOS development we are still sticking to the ugly and inefficient
ObjectiveC until Swift has stabilized
So in 12months it could be a very different story?
Reading developer blogs and the like (plus my own amateur attempts) it seems one of the biggest sticking points has been dealing with the swift's type safeness and the abstract data blob. I wonder if Apple hit the same roadblocks internally with swift. It would seem like Apple could put some work into swift native data handling libraries like JSON, SQL and the like and it would have a real lift in swift use in shipping code.
If Swift is to become a serious backend language then it will need type safety. The likes of IBM get nervous around scripting languages that are free and easy with typing. That's why Python now has an optional type checking module and Javascript has precompilers to support types. I like the direction that Swift is going in, and I'm waiting to see if the open source moves increase its popularity. God knows it's time to put Java to rest.
I haven't made the switch over to Swift yet either. I feel it's only just got to the point where it's stable enough to be taken seriously. But I'm still in no rush. Will probably make the switch sometime this year though.
So in 12months it could be a very different story?
Reading developer blogs and the like (plus my own amateur attempts) it seems one of the biggest sticking points has been dealing with the swift's type safeness and the abstract data blob. I wonder if Apple hit the same roadblocks internally with swift. It would seem like Apple could put some work into swift native data handling libraries like JSON, SQL and the like and it would have a real lift in swift use in shipping code.
If Swift is to become a serious backend language then it will need type safety. The likes of IBM get nervous around scripting languages that are free and easy with typing. That's why Python now has an optional type checking module and Javascript has precompilers to support types. I like the direction that Swift is going in, and I'm waiting to see if the open source moves increase its popularity. God knows it's time to put Java to rest.
I use a lot of Python in the back end of my websites and I don't care a lot about type safety. Decent unit testing is of course essential.
Even though sog35 comments are inflammatory I do think there is some truth to it. Tim's skill is logistics, and he is amazing at logistics, but usually what makes you good at logistics makes you not that good as a CEO. To be great logistically you have to have a healthy fear of risk. And your entire job is to mitigate that risk. But as CEO especially of a culture like apple it requires crossing the rubicon, burning the bridges kinda risk. And you do see that he has been tepid about all sorts of things. Like why he hasn't killed off certain products. Like why do they sell 6 different versions of the ipad (I'm not talking about customization like hard drive space but different versions). It's super confusing to the customer he could just simplify it small, medium, large. There are other examples were he should just risk it but seems to fear it to much.
Another example of not taking risks by Cook was continuing to sell 16GB iPhones. That is 100% based on being afraid of lower margins. Those kind of moves make Apple look like a short term thinking company instead of being visionary. Sure you make more profit selling 16GB phones but customer satisfaction suffers and services revenue suffers also (less space to buy stuff)
Wall Street has ALWAYS had issues with Apple -- even when Steve Jobs was at the helm.
The irony of what you are writing is that Apple grew into this giant company with a huge pile of cash under the leadership of Tim Cook. Not even under the guidance of Steve Jobs did the company grow in this way.
The issue is not with Apple but with Wall Street. The guys simply do NOT understand the company. The business model is simple enough -- much simpler than Google's -- yet it seems incredibly complex when you listen to Walk Street analysts. Every time I read their advice ("Apple should do this...") or recommendations, I scoff. They just do NOT get the company. I find it remarkably bizarre. There is a history of disruption and success from 1995, with a clear road map and a narrative (even the name change away from Apple Computers should give a clue, yet Wall Street persists counting iPads and Macs as if Apple is like any other PC manufacturer). They have multiple interviews of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Johnny Ive; they have plenty of articles and books, where the company philosophy, goals, and DNA are spelt out ever so clearly, yet Wall Street rehash the same platitudes year in year out.
DED is so right about the lazy unimaginative naysaying analysts: the iPod? Just another player; the iPhone? Nice gadget, but too little too late in a market that Apple knows nothing about; the iPad? A fad that people will not buy and that will disappear in a year or so; iTunes? People will NEVER download songs to own them -- they would rather purchase CDs -- it's a doomed business; Apple TV? How can it compete against the others already out there; the watch? They will only sell a few hundred thousands at the most; and so on.
On top of being an IT director, I also enjoy teaching IT to a secondary pupils. Everything I told and forewarned my students about Apple (many of them are passionate about Samsung or HTC, and are strong PC gamers) has come to pass. When they get heated in a technical argument (not taking my 30 years of experience into account), I just smile and say: "ok. We will see, won't we? This is going to happen, and this will happen" (as mentioned earlier, Apple's business model is simple enough and their philosophy is clear). When it does, they come back to know more (many of them are now Apple users).
If you are frightened about Apple shares, perhaps you should sell yours and grab something safe.
But if you want to be part of something insanely great, then own the shares with pride, support Tim Cook who is doing an incredible job, and tell others how Apple keeps changing things for the better.
Comments
The watch does sort of seem like a Cook thing though.
it does NOT seem like it would have been a Jobs thing.
if Jobs were alive and well, I think there would be something that we do not have now.
i don't think Cook has that forward vision, at least not as products do.
However, Swift is still very new. If Swift is changing you don't want to use it for something you'll have to go back and rewrite.
However, I can't think of any programming language I would more like to forget and relegate to the dustbin of time than COBOL! Have you forgotten the tedious monotony of coding DATA and PROCEDURE divisions, typing up thousands of 80 column punch cards to accomplish the simplest of tasks and the gruesome agony of manually re-sequencing your card deck after it accidentally dropped on the floor while trying to load it all into the card reader hopper (where several cards would be guaranteed to get mangled going through the high speed reader)? Arggg! [Sorry for the 1960’s COBOL flashback!] :-)
The fact is Apple excels at hardware and software that's tightly integrated with that hardware. I agree that they need to get better at cloud services (hence why I've said Cook should hire someone to run Apple's cloud services as Cue isn't cutting it) but it's not Apple's core competency. There are ways to monetize the user base without veering off into things Apple isn't very good at. All that will do is cause the things they are good at to suffer which in turn will make users less satisfied and possibly result in fewer sales.
I do agree with you though on the iPad comment and I think the issue there is Tim Cook is more hands off letting his SVPs make those kinds of decisions. And Phil Schiller is someone who seems obsessed with upselling and having devices at all these different price points. So the iPad 2 and original iPad mini stuck around longer than they should have because marketing thinks they need to have a product for a specific price point but they can't sacrifice margins. 16GB devices exist to get you to spend $100 more for 64GB. Once they have enough people locked in to 64GB (and using most of that space) they may upgrade 16GB to 32GB but I wouldn't be surprised if instead they upgraded 128GB to 256GB instead to see how many 64GB owners they can get to spend $100 more. There's plenty of margin to play around with at the high end and it would increase ASPs. I'll bet this fall we see 16 > 64 > 256.
There is no 'slow adoption' of Swift. No development team in their right mind would bin years if good code for no reason. That includes Apple.
The only reason you keep droning on about Tim Cook is because you lack the maturity to own your investment decision. Last year Cook told you that if you don't like the way he runs the company then sell your shares. You didn't, so grow up and take responsibility for yourself.
And yet you were one constantly defending that decision and practically calling anyone who criticized it a cheap bastard who should go Android. You screamed about how much money Apple would lose and how margins would suffer blah blah blah. Now that your portfolio has taken a hit all of a sudden none of that matters.
Reading developer blogs and the like (plus my own amateur attempts) it seems one of the biggest sticking points has been dealing with the swift's type safeness and the abstract data blob. I wonder if Apple hit the same roadblocks internally with swift. It would seem like Apple could put some work into swift native data handling libraries like JSON, SQL and the like and it would have a real lift in swift use in shipping code.
We should here at this June's WWDC if the language is complete, or where it's at. In the meantime, it's risen to be a VERY interesting language... passing a lot of older languages.
I chose CoBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) because there were many programming languages at that time in computer history -- all vying to become the standard for the future ... This is not too dissimilar from the environment into which Swift was introduced. US Government pressure (mandates ?) resulted in broad acceptance of CoBOL in US business and government.
Yes, I have programmed in CoBOL starting with the !BM 1401 in the early 1960s -- then programming and teaching CoBOL 68-Extended on the IBM 1410 in the late 1960s. My last encounter with CoBOL was in the mid-1980s part of a bid for 10 LANs including 100 Motorola 6800-based computers (Corvus Concepts -- basically Mac IIs with large screens). We won the bid and successfully installed the systems at Ft. Leavenworth.
The big advantages to CoBOL were that it was easy to teach/learn -- and once learned you could read and understand anyone's CoBOL program.
The disadvantages of CoBOL were many as you pointed out ...
I didn't see this personally, but one of my co-workers at a unit record installation told the story:
Maybe, he just loved a parade
http://swiftlang.ng.bluemix.net/#/repl
These illustrate things like using Swift to create/write/execute:
Also, consider that Apple acquired FoundationDB -- which is capable of handling data in almost any popular structure:
http://www.programmableweb.com/api/foundationdb
The big question, IMO, is "Will Apple make FoundationDB APIs available to Apple Developers? Open Source Developers?
If Swift is to become a serious backend language then it will need type safety. The likes of IBM get nervous around scripting languages that are free and easy with typing. That's why Python now has an optional type checking module and Javascript has precompilers to support types. I like the direction that Swift is going in, and I'm waiting to see if the open source moves increase its popularity. God knows it's time to put Java to rest.
But I'm still in no rush. Will probably make the switch sometime this year though.
The irony of what you are writing is that Apple grew into this giant company with a huge pile of cash under the leadership of Tim Cook. Not even under the guidance of Steve Jobs did the company grow in this way.
The issue is not with Apple but with Wall Street. The guys simply do NOT understand the company. The business model is simple enough -- much simpler than Google's -- yet it seems incredibly complex when you listen to Walk Street analysts.
Every time I read their advice ("Apple should do this...") or recommendations, I scoff. They just do NOT get the company. I find it remarkably bizarre. There is a history of disruption and success from 1995, with a clear road map and a narrative (even the name change away from Apple Computers should give a clue, yet Wall Street persists counting iPads and Macs as if Apple is like any other PC manufacturer). They have multiple interviews of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Johnny Ive; they have plenty of articles and books, where the company philosophy, goals, and DNA are spelt out ever so clearly, yet Wall Street rehash the same platitudes year in year out.
DED is so right about the lazy unimaginative naysaying analysts: the iPod? Just another player; the iPhone? Nice gadget, but too little too late in a market that Apple knows nothing about; the iPad? A fad that people will not buy and that will disappear in a year or so; iTunes? People will NEVER download songs to own them -- they would rather purchase CDs -- it's a doomed business; Apple TV? How can it compete against the others already out there; the watch? They will only sell a few hundred thousands at the most; and so on.
On top of being an IT director, I also enjoy teaching IT to a secondary pupils. Everything I told and forewarned my students about Apple (many of them are passionate about Samsung or HTC, and are strong PC gamers) has come to pass. When they get heated in a technical argument (not taking my 30 years of experience into account), I just smile and say: "ok. We will see, won't we? This is going to happen, and this will happen" (as mentioned earlier, Apple's business model is simple enough and their philosophy is clear). When it does, they come back to know more (many of them are now Apple users).
If you are frightened about Apple shares, perhaps you should sell yours and grab something safe.
But if you want to be part of something insanely great, then own the shares with pride, support Tim Cook who is doing an incredible job, and tell others how Apple keeps changing things for the better.
Otherwise: I beg you, shut up.