Apple in 'Dumbest Moments'

Apple has managed to find its way into two positions in Fortune's Dumbest Moments in Business list for 2008, the magazine notes. While many of the moments are connected to the credit crisis and the subsequent fallout, the sixth choice was Apple's approval of the "I Am Rich" iPhone app. Although costing $1,000, the app did nothing except display a red jewel, scamming eight customers out of their money. Apple quickly pulled the app without any discussion.

The 19th position in the list assigns guilt to Bloomberg and CNN in their coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. In August, Bloomberg accidentally published an template obituary for Jobs, one with clear gaps in it for his age and means of death. CNN took flak in October, meanwhile, for its iReport system, which allowed a teenager's claim of a Jobs heart attack to be posted unverified. This in turn triggered a brief but sharp drop in Apple stocks, which lost 10 percent of their value in the space of 10 minutes. A later SEC investigation found that there was no obvious profit motive for the false report.

by MacNN Staff