Walt Mossberg
Video re-run: Steve Jobs on tape talking about e-book pricing
June 5, 2013: 1:56 PM ETRemarks made after the iPad introduction are now evidence in the Apple antitrust trial.
FORTUNE -- Long-time Apple (AAPL) watchers will remember this golden oldie from 2010.
Steve Jobs had just wrapped up his Jan. 27 introduction of the iPad and iBookstore when the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg got his ear in the post-keynote press scrum.
Why, Mossberg asked Jobs, would anyone buy an e-book from Apple for $14.99 when they could buy the same book from Amazon (AMZN) for $9.99?
"That won't be the case," Jobs replied after a pause. "The prices will be the same."
Jobs went on to predict that the publishers would "actually withhold their books from Amazon ... because they're not happy with the price."
That, according to the Department of Justice, is direct evidence that Apple conspired with the publishers to raise the price of e-books, in violation of the Sherman antitrust act. It entered an edited version of the video into evidence in U.S.A. v. Apple as Plaintiffs Exhibit 607, along with an e-mail exchange between Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, and Elisa Rivlin, then the company's general counsel.
"I can't believe that Jobs made the statement," Rivlin wrote. "Incredibly stupid."
Reidy testified Wednesday morning that she didn't understand what Rivlin meant by "incredibly stupid" until it had been explained. Apple's attorneys will get their chance with her after lunch.
UPDATE: Reidy was asked in cross examination what she understood Jobs to be referring to when he said "the prices will be the same."
"I believe he was referring to the MFN," she replied.
The MFN is the provision in Apple's publisher contracts that said if Amazon sold an e-book for $9.99, the publisher had to offer it for $9.99 on the iBookstore as well. See: Meet the man who created the "linchpin" of Apple's e-book strategy.
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The unbearable lightness of what Tim Cook says
Apple's CEO exercised his ability to out-wait his interviewers at AllThingsD.
FORTUNE -- In trying to cover Tim Cook's roundly criticized performance at a major technology conference Tuesday evening near Los Angeles, reporters grasped at straws for kernels of news from the Apple CEO. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, whose parent company owns the conference, suggested Cook indicated a "wearable" computing product was imminent. (He merely called the segment "incredibly MORE
Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large - May 29, 2013 6:02 AM ET -
Steve Jobs on camera: 'The publishers are actually going to withhold their books from Amazon'
Telegraphing an alleged price-fixing conspiracy 2 years before the DOJ caught up to it
FORTUNE -- Paid Content's Laura Hazard Owen, combing through documents newly unredacted in the states' (as opposed to the U.S. Department of Justice's) antitrust complaint against Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers, uncovered a gem: a blunt Steve Jobs e-mail that basically hands the attorneys general their price-fixing case.
In a note to a publishing executive nervous about MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 15, 2012 7:18 AM ETPosted in: Amazon, Antitrust, Apple, Brad Stone, e-books, iBookstore, Price fixing, Publishing, Steve Jobs, Walt Mossberg -
Today in Tech: The iPad reviews are in
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.
"My last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation. The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus." -- Ex-Google employee James Whittaker (CNNMoney)
* The first crop MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 15, 2012 6:30 AM ET -
Today in Tech: Why Windows Phone 7 hasn't taken off
Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the holiday weekend. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.
* Former Windows Phone general Manager Charlie Kindel explains why he thinks Windows Phone 7 hasn't taken off, chalking up much of it to Microsoft's relationship with manufacturers and carriers. However, tech influencer Robert Scoble thinks it really has to do with the operating system's lack of apps, while TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler argues that it arrived to the MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Dec 27, 2011 11:41 AM ETPosted in: Amazon, Charlie Kindel, Google, IBM, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, RIMM, Walt Mossberg, Windows Phone 7 -
Steve Jobs: The best of the obits
A few gems among the flood of tributes
If you have time for only one story about the life and death of Steve Jobs, read Steve Levy's 5,000-word tribute in Wired.com.
Levy, who covered Apple (AAPL) for MacWorld and Newsweek for most of his long career, has mined his notebooks of three decades of quotes and anecdotes and insights into what made Jobs tick. He writes:
If Jobs were not so talented, if MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 6, 2011 9:55 AM ET -
Video: Meet the Apple press
Gruber, Mossberg, Om and more. Walking the media line at the iPhone 4S event
This 53-second YouTube video is what you might call media inside baseball.
It was shot outside Apple's (AAPL) Town Hall auditorium while the invited press cooled their heels in advance of Tuesday's iPhone 4S event.
That's the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg with the white Van Dyke at the 28-second mark. Daring Fireball's John Gruber is the tall guy in dark MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 4, 2011 10:28 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Cupertino, Daring Fireball, iPhone, iPhone 4S, John Gruber, Mobile, Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg -
iPad 2: The reviews are in
Apple seeded the usual suspects with its new tablet last week. A sampling of the reviews:
Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal: I've been testing an iPad 2 for about a week and I like it a lot. While it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary like the first model, the changes Apple has made are generally pleasing and positive, and the device worked very well for me... It never MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 10, 2011 6:26 AM ETPosted in: Android, Apple, David Pogue, Edward Baig, Google, iPad, iPad 2, John Gruber, Joshua Topolsky, Motorola, Motorola Xoom, Walt Mossberg -
Apple's iPhone 4: The reviews are in
Mossberg, Pogue and Baig all loved it. With reservations.
Wednesday's papers will carry the first official reviews of Apple's (AAPL) new iPhone 4. The usual suspects have been playing with the device for the last week or so and they are, for the most part, pleased. A sample of what they had to say:
The New York Times' David Pogue: New iPhone Arrives, Rivals Beware
Despite the strong initial, positive MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 22, 2010 7:59 PM ET -
Defending Ballmer?
Lots of reactions to my screed on Steve Ballmer, his tenure at Microsoft (MSFT) and his shocking lack of awareness about the world around him. Most agreed with my perspective. Not all. One fan of Steve's wrote thusly:
The idea that all these Windows users are just stupid is a huge blind spot for people living in Silicon Valley. Look, people can complain about Microsoft and Steve. But the MORE
Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large - Jun 9, 2010 11:17 AM ET
