mpantone

My hunch is that Apple's board of directors discreetly employs a high-level government relations consultant who provides suitable guidance in how Apple handles the current administration. I doubt if Tim himself (or anyone else in the senior management team) came up with the idea of this particular plaque and presentation.

It's worth noting that two board directors were former CEOs of aerospace/military industry corporations who would be well versed in dealing with senior Washington D.C. officials to score big government contracts. There are also two directors from the healthcare/biotech industry. And there is another director from BlackRock.

For sure the BOD would have to be in general agreement in how/what Tim interacts with the White House, Congress, etc. He would definitely need their backing in his actions with POTUS 47. Tim Cook is not acting rogue or blindly shooting from the hip.

In a similar way I'm sure Apple engages the services of diplomatic relations consultants when Tim meets with foreign dignitaries.

Tim is smart enough to know this is how Tim Apple has to play the game for the next 3.5 years.

zoetmb said:

Anyone who confuses Apple Cinemas with Apple, especially considering the Apple Cinemas logotype, is an idiot. 

And especially considering that Apple Cinemas have been in business since 2013 and Apple didn't go after them until now, I would hope the courts would say, "too late!"    Apple Cinemas only owns 14 theaters.    Apple should just let it go.    They come off as bullies otherwise.

Unfortunately this is not how American law works. You have been a registered commenter since 2007, you should know this by now because this is most definitely NOT the first time Apple has gone after another entity for trademark violation. Nor will it be the last time. And it's not just Apple who does this.

The trademark owners need to actively protect their trademarks otherwise they risk losing them. That's how the law works, not just here in the USA and not just Apple. About twenty years ago Big bad McDonald's went after a little nearby mom-and-pop coffee shop that called themselves McCoffee and guess who won? That's just one of tens (if that hundreds) of thousands of legal actions.

You are entitled to your opinion but the fact is that there are laws that define what is allowable with a trademark. My guess is there's a 98% chance that Apple Cinemas will eventually pick a new name, whether it is settled out of court or goes into litigation. The big question is how much Apple Cinemas wants to spend to pursue this. Ignoring cease-and-desist letters is free. But it has gone beyond that now. Now that this company is in expansion mode, right in Apple Inc.'s backyard, it has come to their attention.

Note that copyright and trademark laws are similar in many other places in the world.

Macocalypse said:

My gods it's so fraking hilarious seeing you chucklefcks complain about something so stupid and mundane and completely irrelevant to how a Mac works as finder icons. 

This attitude will not get you anywhere important. Being mediocre won't help you achieve excellence or greatness.

The people who worry about the details (after getting the basics correct) are the ones who have a chance of creating something truly great: the Mona Lisa, a Michelin 3-star restaurant, haute couture, even something as commonplace as a videogame (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild comes to mind).

As Mies van der Rohr said, "God is in the details." If you don't understand why it is used in this discussion's context, you don't know anything about Apple, Steve Jobs or probably anything about consumer goods.

There's a reason why entry level Toyotas and Hondas seemingly run forever. Someone has to care about the details, even in a mass market vehicle like a Corolla or Civic. And what about the companies that didn't care about the details in sub-compacts? GM, Ford, Chrysler all basically gave up this entire market segment to exports in the Seventies.

You probably have never left your mother's basement but there are places on this planet where even modest workers care about doing something a little better, worrying about the details. 

If you don't care about the details, you get American public transit. If you care about the details, you get Swiss and Japanese public transit. There's no surprise that McDonald's in Japan blows doors on McDonald's stateside, even on identical menu items.

Steve Jobs -- perhaps more than any American CEO since WWII -- cared about the details. When Apple loses sight of this, you know the company culture has changed. Perhaps you think it is for the better but I assure you that quality doesn't come from a "satisfactory is sufficient" attitude.

Remember that this is not exclusive to PC operating systems or consumer electronics. It pertains to everything humans do and make.

This ham-fisted drive icon might seem unimportant. But in fact it's one of the things you will see every single time you log into your Mac. Like I wrote before, Steve NEVER would have let this get approved. Let's just hope that this was a one-off mistake and not the beginning of a trend.

ATLMacFan1 said:

Why does it look like it shifts perspective midway?

It's because Apple didn't depict the "drive" realistically. There are a couple of problems with the new icon.

The Apple logo is presented as though it is on a flat two-dimensional surface with no foreshortening. If you look at the traditional hard drive icon on the left, the circular spindle bulge is an oval.

Worse the "drive" on the right has parallel sides. The old HDD icon on the left has tapering sides, more properly depicted using vanishing perspective. Apple could have gotten away with the "flat" logo had they used proper perspective on the actual silver enclosure itself (like all the icons in the IconFactory window grab provided by theralsadurns.

The new and "improved" icon is an example of really poor draughtsmanship. Plus there's nothing that really says "I am a disk drive." It looks like it could be a (inept) sketch of the unreleased iPod shuffle 3.

Let's hope the rest of macOS 26 isn't full of equally bad design. Somewhere on this planet Jony Ive is silently smirking. And Steve never would have let this happen on his watch.

Looks like these Roam speakers got the Patrick Spence Badge of QA Approval.