Get ready to scream, because it’s another instance of “Yes, this guy gets paid for this and he probably gets paid a lot.”
Writing for Barrons, Tiernan Ray tells the tale of the hedge fund manager who thinks the iPhone 5 “feels like a toy” and investors should avoid Apple (tip o’ the antlers to Tay Bass).
Noted hedgie…
“Hedgie”? Oh, Wall Street…
…Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners, who has been pushing the line of thought that Apple (AAPL) has peaked as a business in the wake of the passing of founder Steve Jobs, today sent a missive to the faithful espousing his personal impressions of the company’s mis-steps with the iPhone 5, after trying [sic] he “played with” the device for “about a minute and got quickly bored.”
About a minute! Well, that’s about a minute longer than anyone’s played with a working Microsoft Surface. So, Kass is practically an iPhone 5 expert!
Ray quotes Kass:
Say what you will about whether or not Steve Jobs would have let iOS 6 go out in that condition with those maps…
Actually, don’t.
…but go play with the iPhone 5 yourself. It feels terrible. It’s very light and to me feels like a toy. It needs a lead weight.
Too light. Heavy phones are where it’s at, bro. Have you checked out the Samsung Neutron III SX? It’s got a big lump of osmium in it. It doesn’t do anything, it just adds weight. The phone weighs 47 pounds. Android phones are totally winning the density war.
(You can say that again.)
Well, Doug, we will have to agree to disagree, because to the Macalope’s hoof, the iPhone 5 feels like the best built iPhone ever. And the worst built iPhone ever still feels better than the best-built phone by anyone else.
OK, you knew it was coming, but are you ready for it?
I cannot believe Steve Jobs would have let it go out the door like that. He would have understood that it just doesn’t feel right. That was the value of Steve Jobs—he understood the whole picture, technical and non-technical alike.
Steve Jobs would never have shipped a light phone!
Well, it’s no “Steve Jobs would fire Tim Cook,” but it’s something. There is simply nothing you personally feel that you cannot attribute to Steve Jobs!
“I like pork rinds and feel that Steve Jobs, were he here today, would agree with me that pork rinds are delicious … despite being a vegan.”
Can Apple keep the well-above-cellphone-industry-average customer upgrade cycle going?
Apparently.
With Steve Jobs gone, Apple is at risk of losing that magical Walt Disney feeling.
Which is a terrific example because, as everyone knows, Disney completely lost its magical feeling after Walt died and ended up shutting down several years later, the end.
For his part, Ray thinks the “hedgie” who should get a wedgie and other Apple critics are full of hot air:
The iPhone is an exquisite piece of industrial design that stands alone. Kass must be the only person on the planet who thinks a thinner, lighter iPhone is a bad thing.
He’s out of touch, sounds like a bit of a jerk, and he runs a hedge fund. What are the odds?
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]