Calls the suggestion that his company doesn't care about the health and safety of workers in the supply chain he built "patently false and offensive"
Here's one thing that's changed since Steve Jobs died.
When Tim Cook, Apple's (AAPL) new CEO, thinks his company has been wronged by the media, he doesn't shrink from hitting back -- swiftly and in a way that he knows will quickly become public.
This report that got Cook's goat -- the second in a New York Times series about working conditions in the Chinese factories that build nearly all of Apple's products -- was particularly painful, we imagine, on several levels:
That last item may have stung the most. And you can almost hear the fury in Cook's message to his staff. It begins:
"As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple's values today, and I'd like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It's not who we are."
The full text, first unearthed Thursday by 9to5Mac and confirmed by us as genuine, below the fold.
The results of the "People's Choice" app award are announced at Macworld|iWorld
Image: Halfbrick Studios
A record 1.5 million votes were cast earlier this month in the fourth annual Best App Ever contest, more than three times as many as last year. Created in 2008 by 148Apps -- a smartphone app-tracking website named after the maximum number of apps that could be installed on Apple's (AAPL) original iPhone -- its purpose, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 27, 2012 11:00 AM ET
Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.
* Twitter now has the ability to censor tweets or accounts in certain countries if legally required, a move some writers see as a "huge setback and disappointment." "As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," the MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Jan 27, 2012 3:00 AM ET
A pair of reports agree -- more or less -- on the current state of the battle
Click to enlarge. Source: IHS iSupply.
Two reports published Thursday -- one by IHS iSuppli, the other by Strategy Analytics -- describe the global race for smartphone supremacy as high-stakes see-saw.
Basically what happened is that Apple (AAPL) took the lead from Nokia (NOK) in June, lost it to Samsung in September and won it back in December.
"Apple's MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 27, 2012 2:26 AM ET
By John O'Farrell, contributor
In part I, I talked about how up-front investment in a high-caliber strategic business development function helped to save Loudcloud when an existential crisis hit in 2002. But the value of strategic business development didn't end there. In fact, it was only beginning.
Opsware V1: Single product, single customer
The EDS transaction closed in mid-August, and we started into the fourth quarter of 2002 in much better MORE
Jan 26, 2012 1:46 PM ET
The brouhaha over the American internet piracy bill has died down, giving way to proposed international legislation with many similar elements.
By Dan Mitchell, contributor
FORTUNE -- It's only fitting that a loud, global outcry over ACTA, an international agreement to govern intellectual property, began just after the anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA were shelved by the U.S Congress in the face of massive public pressure. If "copyright maximalists" can't get legislation MORE
Dan Mitchell, contributor - Jan 26, 2012 11:38 AM ET
The 28-year-old expo has a new brand, a new focus and hundreds of fizzy new products
Macworld|iWorld graphic via IDG World Expo
When Apple (AAPL) announced in 2008 that it was pulling out of Macworld -- no longer exhibiting its products or staging Steve Jobs' closely-watched keynotes -- many wondered whether the venerable expo could survive.
It was touch and go there for a while, but it turns out there is money MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 26, 2012 10:33 AM ET
Its investigative series about how our electronic gadgets are made could be a contender
Aftermath of an explosion at an iPad factory in Chengdu, China
When monologist Mike Daisey flew to China to find out why the workers who assemble electronic devices for Apple (AAPL) -- and every other major U.S. manufacturer -- were jumping from the roofs of their factory-city dormitories, he was shocked to discover that most of the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 26, 2012 7:20 AM ET
The tiny polling site hopes to get a lift from presidential campaigns -- and its tech-star co-founder.
FORTUNE -- Scott McNealy can barely conceal his enthusiasm as he sits down in the media room of his Silicon Valley mansion to watch the New Hampshire Republican presidential debate. But it is not the debate itself that has Sun Microsystems' longtime CEO literally on the edge of his seat -- in fact, his MORE
Miguel Helft, senior writer - Jan 26, 2012 5:00 AM ET
Southern Co. is building the foundations for its two new nuclear reactors in Georgia.
FORTUNE -- The disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant last March set off a global reassessment of the technology. Germany and Switzerland plan to mothball their reactors, while China and India will push ahead. Meanwhile, the NRC just approved a new reactor design, a crucial step in Southern Co.'s bid to build the first reactor MORE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Motor Co | 12.30 | -0.44 | -3.45% |
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.26 | -0.04 | -0.57% |
| Frontier Communicati... | 4.22 | -0.25 | -5.55% |
| Juniper Networks Inc... | 21.66 | -0.71 | -3.15% |
| Cisco Systems Inc | 19.54 | -0.28 | -1.44% |
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