Apple enjoys tremendous marketing benefits from the attention they attract as one of the most popular brands, and successful companies in the world. So it's only fair they also enjoy the equal and opposite results of that attention -- a burning spotlight on their every flaw, real and imagined. Once again, The New York Times turns that burning spotlight on Apple, this time examining Apple Retail.

Unfortunately, like the rest of their iEconomy series on Apple, the packaging continuously undermines the importance of its subject matter. Let's look at the headline:

Apple's Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay

Short on pay compared to what and whom? Compared to other retail employees in the U.S.? Well, no, at least not according to the very came article.

By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount.

So who then? Turns out, compared to Apple's gross earnings and the salary of Apple executives, including CEO Tim Cook.

Yeah.

They also cover the recent wage increases Apple has been rolling out to their staff as well.

But Cory Moll, a salesman in the San Francisco flagship store and a vocal labor activist, said that on Tuesday he was given a raise of $2.82 an hour, to $17.31, an increase of 19.5 percent and a big jump compared with the 49-cent raise he was given last year.

The criticism here, however, is that Apple doesn't offer commissions the way AT&T and Verizon do. Given the high price and margin of Apple's products, it's arguable they should be providing the same opportunity to the people that help them make those sales. An opportunity which, they say, can net the best of the best of the best of the salespeople 6 figure salaries.

At Apple, the decision not to offer commissions was made, Ms. Bruno said, before a store had opened. The idea was that such incentives would work against the company's primary goals — finding customers the right products, rather than the most expensive ones, and establishing long-term rapport with the brand. Commissions, it was also thought, would foster employee competition, which would undermine camaraderie.

The articles then turns, predictably and disappointingly, to cover the cult-like nature of Apple, their enthusiast base, and their potential employee pool, and the methods they use to train (indoctrinate) their staff.

This is where whatever editorial agenda the Times is pushing with Apple once again does them a disservice.

No doubt there is an incredibly important discussion to be had about compensation and career opportunities in a retail organization like Apple's. But the Times keeps dropping that thread just to be sensational. If Apple isn't at fault, it's nasty business. If they are, it gives them an easy out. Either way, it's bad for Apple, bad for the Times and bad for readers.

Instead of a debate about what fair wages are in a market economy, about the highest price the market will bear for goods and the lowest cost workers will accept for wages, of the relative distribution of wealth between executives and customer service staff, about Apple's responsibility as the most prominent company of the modern era and the Times responsibility as one of the most prominent reporting organizations in the world, we get something less than the sum of its parts.

So let's turn this over to you: Should Apple's profits be better shared with its retail staff? Should the profits of all major companies be better shared with the workers who sit at the front lines of the profit-making engines? Or is the goal of any good executive to maximize revenue and minimize costs? Should employees in this economy be thankful for the better-than-average Apple retail jobs they have, or should we be demanding that Apple offer the best jobs in the country, period?

Let's have that discussion.

Google Senior Vice President of Commerce & Local, Jeff Huber, teased that, new Apple Maps in iOS 6 not withstanding, we might not have seen the last of Google Maps on iPhone or iPad either. Responding to a comment on Google+, Huber said:

We look forward to providing amazing Google Maps experiences on iOS.

Whether that means a native Google Maps app for the App Store, something that brings feature parity with the Google Map Android apps, Huber didn't say. Given the resources Apple's bringing to bear on iOS 6 maps, which includes free turn by turn directions and "fly over" view, a web app or UIWebView wrapper won't cut it.

Since Apple doesn't seem to be tackling transit directions and doesn't have Street View in iOS 6 apps, there's opportunity for Google to attract a lot of users to a proper Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad -- which is something I've been asking for for a while now.

Given the brouhaha that arose when Apple didn't approve Google Voice, it's hard to imagine Apple could get away with not approving a Google Maps app, and given the value of iOS users' location data to Google's business model, it's hard to imagine Google wouldn't make it.

The only question is how long we'll have to wait.

Source: +Jeff Huber via The Next Web

The United States Justice Department will have their day in court against Apple -- but they'll have to wait for June 3, 2013 to do it. If you're joining this story in-progress, the U.S. government has accused Apple of anti-competitive practices and collision with book publishers to "boost the prices of ebooks". Apple claims they're fighting to keep the market free from Amazon dominance.

Amazon Inc, which makes the Kindle e-reader, had long sold e-books for as little as $9.99. The government complaint quoted Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs as wanting to offer publishers a means to boost prices, and "create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99."

Apple argues it has not conspired with anyone or fixed prices for e-books in an effort to thwart Amazon's dominance of that fast-growing market. Apple says that its foray into e-books has actually fueled demand for e-books by forcing Amazon and rivals, including Barnes & Noble Inc, to compete more aggressively, including by upgrading e-reader technology.

I'm wondering why the U.S. government isn't suing over HD movie prices as well. Because, damn.

Source: Reuters

U.S. federal court judge Richard Posner followed up his earlier, tentative dismissal of the Apple vs. Motorola patent suit with a full on "get off my lawn" dismissal of the entire case. Chris Ziegler of The Verge reports:

For Motorola, Posner's ruling is huge: it had been hanging on by a thread with just one patent remaining in the fight — a standards-essential patent for GSM that Apple claimed wasn't actually used in practice — and a full ruling in Apple's favor could've put the newly-minted Google subsidiary in the precarious position of facing a portfolio-wide product ban until it could design around Apple's claims. In the end, Posner seemed frustrated at Apple's inability to offer hard numbers: "Both parties have deep pockets," he says in his 38-page decision. "And neither has acknowledged that damages for the infringement of its patents could not be estimated with tolerable certainty."

The case, in courts since 2010, saw claims on both sides hacked away over time. Motorola issued a statement saying they're pleased, and will continue to defend themselves against Apple's violation of their patents. Apple, for their part, had no comment but will likely appeal.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Motorola is notably different from other Android licensees now that it's owned by Google, but Apple vs. Motorola will still play out globally, as will Apple vs. Samsung and Apple vs. HTC.

Rightly or wrongly, Apple's late co-founder, Steve Jobs believed Google betrayed Apple, stole core concepts from the iPhone, and gave them away to everyone. Current Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has less passionately but just as assuredly said Apple can't be the developer for the world, and competitors need to come up with their own inventions and not just duplicate Apple's.

Since all the companies involved have billions in the bank, none of this will be truly over for a good, long time.

You can check out the specific documents for this case via the link below.

Source: The Verge

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