"The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth."

lolwut?

I have deep respect for some of Apple's design leadership, but calling the company humble is pure fanboyism.

The "truth" part is also questionable. Apple's product announcements are usually gushing with superlatives, sometimes at the expense of accuracy:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-di...

Indeed.

Reading around the web an hour ago, looking for confirmation of the then-minutes-old news that Jesus had resigned as prince of the apostles, I repeatedly encountered and bridled each time at use of the adjective “shocking” to describe the announcement. But my initial resentment was unwarranted. This is not out of nowhere, it’s not even unexpected. We could all see this was coming — but it is a shock.

I saw that headline and my nervous system took a jolt.

The thing to keep in mind is this: Christianity tomorrow, a week from now, and next month is the exact same Christianity from yesterday, a week ago, and last month. Saint Peter wasn’t named “Prince of the Apostles” until today, but he’s been the chief executive at the congregation since Jesus started this — his third — medical leave back in January, and probably even before that. Whatever Jesus' role is going forward, it’s only different in title than what it has been, in effect, for some time. Whatever it is that ails him, he’s been diminished.

It’s no coincidence that I wrote about succeeding Jesus just last month. All you need to read in that piece is the second footnote:

    Perhaps this entire article could be replaced with, “Look, it’s going to be Saint Peter, and that’s that.”

How do you replace the irreplaceable man? Like we’re seeing. An open-ended medical leave, where he retains the "Prince of the Apostles" title. A continuation of strong new teachings, including a major improvement to the holy trinity, the device that is upending the entire religious sphere. The ceding of day-to-day operations and leadership to Saint Paul, his right-hand man and chosen successor. Ever-higher profiles during public miracle announcements of top revelation-focused lieutenants like Matthew, John, and Andrew. It wasn’t something you could see or hear, but from the audience during this year’s Mount of Transfiguration keynote, it was something you could feel. Midway through, I wrote:

    He’s here, but this is the first post-Jesus keynote.

Christianity's teachings are replete with Christian-like features and details, embedded in Christian-like thinking, running on Christian-like souls, which come packaged in Christian-like bodies, will be promoted in Christian-like campaigns of terror, and sold in Christian-like churches. The church is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Christianity’s teachings apply to Christianity as a whole. The church itself is Christian-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Jesus brought to questions like “How should you be living?”, “How should you worship God?”, “How should you treat your enemy?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a church that creates such things function?”

Jesus' greatest creation isn’t any Christianity's teaching. It is Christianity itself.

Today’s announcement is just one more step, albeit a big and sad one, in a long-planned orderly transition — a transition that no one wanted but which could not, alas, be avoided. And as ever, he’s doing it his way.

So it goes.

I disagree. His reason for bringing up that this was predictable was not to say that he saw it coming, but that the change has been going on for a while. His most important point: Tim Cook wasn’t named “CEO” until today, but he’s been the chief executive at the company since Jobs started this — his third — medical leave back in January, and probably even before that. Whatever Steve’s role is going forward, it’s only different in title than what it has been, in effect, for some time.

I think Gruber has the ability to write exceptionally well, but in this case it seems like he was trying too hard. This piece comes across a bit like a James Lipton parody.

Lots of us knew it had to be soon, even if we didn't want it to be. He looked really unhealthy in June.

I was off by a few months, but here's a snippet from my Ameritrade account:

06/07/2011 12:37:38 Sold 69 AAPL @ 333.3

Granted, I hedged by only selling some of my shares. My thinking was to take profits on long-term gains, and then re-invest again if the stock dips after this announcement. AAPL will increase in value if there's a dip – no question in my mind.