Apple's Ultimate Comeback

Forty years ago today, an oddball trio, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, founded a little computer company that turned out to be a bigger success than anyone could have imagined at the time. But that business, Apple AAPL 0.92% , could have just as easily gone under.

Surviving a near-bankruptcy in 1997 is a testament to Jobs, who led what is as rare as a mint condition Apple I computer is today: A tech turnaround. Few struggling tech companies have ever managed to pull one off.

That’s bad news for the likes of Yahoo YHOO -0.87% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise HPE 3.78% , two once high-flying Silicon Valley companies that are trying to shake off years-long slumps. Yahoo, after a series of failed turnaround attempts, is now a likely acquisition target. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, along with its sister company, HP Inc. HPQ -0.49% , are on a go-it-alone strategy after splitting from each other last year.

Tech innovation moves so fast that if you fall behind, it’s excruciatingly difficult to ever catch up to those still sprinting.

Jobs did it by embracing the enemy—Microsoft MSFT 0.62% , which gave Apple a $150 million investment lifeline—and kickstarting a successful run of desktop computers, retail stores, and laptops, followed by iTunes and the iPod. You know the rest. Jobs did it by focusing Apple on only a few things, and doing them well. His keen marketing instincts didn’t hurt.

Priceline PCLN 0.83% , the travel site that initially thrived by letting customers bid on airline tickets, is among the tiny club of other tech companies that recovered from downturns. During the dot-boom, it soared along with nearly every other Internet wannabe—until the market soured and its shares tumbled so far that they were nearly delisted from Nasdaq. A turnaround strategy that included eliminating booking fees, refocusing on hotel reservations, and expanding overseas ultimately saved the company. Today, Priceline’s market value PCLN 0.83% is nearly $64 billion, about the same as United Continental Airlines UAL -5.25% , Delta Air Lines DAL -3.43% , and JetBlue Airways JBLU 0.99% combined.

So when you think about Apple’s accomplishments on its 40th anniversary, don’t just think about how it managed to turn iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks into a mega business. Think about how Apple, near death shortly after its 20th anniversary, was able to defy the odds and start the ultimate tech comeback.

Fortune magazine perpetuates the myth that Microsoft bailed Apple out of near bankruptcy in 1997 with a $150 million investment, when what actually happened was that Microsoft settled a patent/copyright infringement lawsuit in Apple's favor and was not any kind of "bail out" at all. This canard has long been debunked, but the myth lives on, especially when mainstream news media reiterates again and again without bothering to research the facts which are available on the internet, including the three interlocking contracts that settled the lawsuit, including outlining the initial $150 million payment for non-voting, restricted preferred Apple stock which had to take place before Apple would dismiss the lawsuit which was at the heart of these agreements. — PING!

Fortune resurrects the Myth of the Apple bailout by Microsoft
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Ultimate = final; last. What now? ;-)

I dunno. Maybe they'll just take a step back, look over the stuff they've put on the market, take the best of the bunch and reinvent them.

I just got done replacing a 5c with a brand new 5se this morning and that's pretty much my initial take on what they've done. They took that 5 series package, stuffed all the works from a 6 series 'phone into it and then are selling it for under $400. (At least that's what I'm paying.)

First impression: The phone is fast. The preliminary specs I saw claimed the 5se was twice as fast as 5s/5c and my estimate after using it for this little while is that Apple might just have sandbagged those numbers. I run banking/expense reporting, weather radar, LOTS of mapping and the usual email/text/photo stuff and where I'd been used to sitting ten to fifteen seconds waiting for a screen to regen or calculation to complete, I'm getting results now almost as soon as I hit DONE. And that's with a half dozen other apps running in the background.

Second is security. Took me a couple of times of plugging in that new 6-item password before I decided to see if that fingerprint thingee worked. It did, it worked slick and now I wouldn't be without it. (One small hitch in the fingerprint setup is that if you've got big hands and fingers, it'll take a while before all of that fingertip gets scanned to the satisfaction of The System.)

Battery life seems to be just about same as I had with the old 5c. As I said, I'm typically running a half dozen apps 'round the clock, so my usual drill was to leave the phone run until it got down around 30% when I would then plug in and recharge, which generally meant I was recharging every two days or so and the 5se seems to be following the exact same power consumption curve. (I'll let y'all know if I hit any bumps on that deal.)

It looks good, but I haven't done much with ApplePay or the wallet stuff just yet. We're out in the sticks, I haven't even seen more than two or three of those Chip Cards yet and I'd hope that waving your phone at a cashier in one of our local establishments would not provoke (polite) laughter just now. However, we're still a month or so away from Tourist Season, so by Memorial Day everybody in Montana will be all checked out on all that fancy doin's and I may even be waving my phone at people then as well.

Music/Games I just generally ignore. I have a perfectly good radio in the truck, once you get more than 30 miles from the Interstate about the only thing you get on that is Cattle Futures/Country & Western music and the internet/cell coverage gets extremely sketchy in the meantime. As far as Games are concerned....well, I've got a truck to keep between the ditches (and away from the wildlife and assorted livestock that wander into the road) and that deal don't seem to leave much time to gaze at a game.

Setup was almost too easy. Spent more time fooling around with my fingerprint (noted above) and getting my big fat fingers to hit less than three keys while entering passwords than it did to download the entire life history of that poor little 5c.

Finally, the price almost induces girlish giggles from our accountant and I'm really relieved at not having to figure out how I was going to fit that half-a-tablet sized 6s into my outfit. (That's Montanaspeak for "I don't have room in the front seat for it AND me.")

As a preliminary score, I'd give the iPhone 5se four-and-a-half (out of a possible five) stars.

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