Here’s John Gruber commenting on Shira Ovide’s piece in Bloomberg:

Shira Ovide, writing for Bloomberg:

Here’s what Cook didn’t say: 1) Apple has been misjudging its own business, and that makes it tough to believe what executives say; and 2) The company failed to prepare investors for an inevitable slowdown in growth — even if that slowdown proves temporary. If one duty of public company executives is to under-promise and over-deliver, Apple has flopped in that job.

This is fair and astute criticism of Cook and Apple’s executive team. The problem isn’t the drop in iPhone sales so much as forecasting them accurately.

1. Apple’s guidance has been right, almost hitting directly in the middle, quarter after quarter;
2. Since the iPhone, Apple’s brand is predicated on record numbers and staggering innovation: neither Wall Street nor the blogosphere would have been satisfied with “don’t get excited about this quarter” messaging, and that’s quite the catch-22.