Jobs stand-in ranks iPhone over sex
Breathing, water, food, handset with crap antenna
Apple's acting headman Tim Cook told an investment analyst that the iPhone is more important than sex.
Well, The Reg freely admits that we're exaggerating a bit – but not by much.
Apple's COO and Jobsian stand-in Tim Cook said that he ranks the iPhone "just below food and water on Maslow's hierarchy of needs," according to a Forbes report describing Cook's meeting with an analyst from Bernstein Research, self-described as "Wall Street's premier sell-side research firm."
Food and water reside on the bottom tier of psychologist Abraham Maslow's famous Heirarchy of Needs pyramid. Although they share that Physiological Needs level with a number of other necessities of life, one popular version of the pyramid places sex right after food and water:
Don't blame Maslow for leaving "smartphones" off his pyramid – the psychologist developed it in the 1940s
Cook was joking, of course – not terribly successfuly, but we rush to acknowledge that his attempt at humor far surpassed some of the zingers uttered by Google's soon-to-be-ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.
In addition to promoting the iPhone to the rank of a physiological need, Cook's talk with the analyst revealed a number of less-risible but more-important points – such as the implication that Apple is hatching plans for less-expensive phones.
According to Forbes, the analyst said that Cook "appeared to reaffirm the notion that Apple is likely to develop lower priced offerings," and "that Apple did not want its products to be 'just for the rich'."
Cook was also reported to have said that the iPhone created "the mother of all halos," increasing the visibility and desirability of Apple's entire product line. This effect, the analyst reported, is especially strong in emerging markets such as China, in which Cook said that Cupertino had spent "huge energy", and which he identified as a "classic prepaid market" for mobile phones.
Musings about emerging markets aside, The Reg will refrain from obvious and easy wisecracks about the iPhone's seductive powers among some established-market fanbois, powers that make it more sought-after than even the horizontal no-pants dance. ®
COMMENTS
More important than Sex.
Interesting, my first reaction was that he obviously isn't doing ir right. Then I thought about it for a sec and realised there is a sliver lining to this off the cuff comment.
Hopefully a large number of fanbois will take this to heart and eventually breed (or not as this scenario plays out) themselves out of existance
What a complete Philbert!
No mate, putting the gadgets away just for 5 mins sometimes, will improve your life no end. Unless you are on call it is perfectly OK to turn off the phone once in a while and simply sit and read a book, take a walk, take up a fun hobby. The Internet Police will not arrest you for not being connected, Mark Zuckerberg will not mind if you are not connected to Facebook for a few hours! It is not healthy to be so psychologically dependent upon an electronic gadget like that.
Life is so damn hard these days, just getting 5 mins to slow things down a little and take your mind of the modern world, does wonders for your mental state. Constantly panicking about what your mates are saying about you on Twitter or Facebook will see you in an early grave.
Might be true
If he's the sort of bloke who needs to dial out to arrange it, then I suppose his iPhone might come before sex.
Another potentially interesting experiment
Sex ranking equal to oxygen means that to an Apple fanboi, having an iPhone is more important than breathing. We should test the validity of this statement.
Find yourself someone who is waving his iPhone around in public, and throttle him until he stops. If he dies before he ceases attempts to use his device to search the Apple Store for the How To Break A Choke Hold app, update his Facebook status to "being strangled, argh argh ack", or possibly even call the police, then Cook will be proven correct.
(Disclaimer: this commentard will not be held responsible for any injury, death, imprisonment or personal embarrassment caused by actually being stupid enough to take this suggestion seriously.)
