Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs knows drama.Will the next iPhone debut at this year’s sold out World Wide Developers Conference on June 8? What’s this mysterious Apple tablet with a 10-inch touchscreen? Can Verizon land a role in iPhone’s success story? Will the world’s greatest innovator recover from his health woes and return to Apple this summer?Most importantly, can Jobs defy the odds and bulldoze his old house?Haters love to rip Apple, but the Silicon Valley (and now Wall Street) darling continues to defy conventional wisdom. Microsoft and others hammered Apple for its high prices in a recession, and so Apple answered critics with rosy quarterly earnings earlier this month. In comparison, Microsoft posted a weak quarter with sales and profits sliding. Searching for something rotten in Cupertino, do-gooders frowned upon Apple for initially allowing and then pulling a really stupid iPhone app, called Baby Shaker, from its AppStore shelves. Yet it makes more sense to question Apple’s self-imposed role as morality cop in an emerging marketplace. (Of course, the even bigger question: What goes for entertainment these days?)Then bloggers got into the Apple-hating act when they raced to make an unenlightened analysis on Apple’s 10-Q. They seized on the fact that Apple’s retail group had “14,000 full-time equivalent employees,” down from 15,600 three months earlier. The haters roared that Apple must have fired 1,600 retail workers! Anything for a pageview, I guess. Sure, sales sputtered at Apple’s 252 retail stores: average revenue per store was $5.9 million, down from $7.1 million a year earlier. But does this mean Apple fired 1,600 retail workers? Hardly. The catchphrase is “full-time equivalent.” Apple could just as easily have cut worker hours and reduced headcount through attrition. To all the haters, the truth is that Apple is one of the few stars shining brightly in this gloomy economy.Got a different take? Send me an email at Tom Kaneshige. Or follow me on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline. Related content opinion Google Bigwig Eric Schmidt Posts Bizarre Guide for 'Converting to Android from iPhone' Google's Executive Chairman wants you to switch from iPhone to Android, and he posted a strange guide to help make the transition as smooth as possible. By Al Sacco Dec 09, 2013 2 mins Smartphones Android Operating Systems opinion Apple's 'Spaceship' Campus Evokes Jobs-Era Perfectionism Some facts have emerged about Apple's planned "spaceship" campus. Delayed and over-budget but painstakingly detailed, it's already part of Apple history, and makes CIO.com's Tom Kaneshige nostalgic for Steve Jobs' maniac By Tom Kaneshige Apr 05, 2013 3 mins Financial Services Industry Innovation IT Leadership opinion Apple, Where Art Thou? Apple is under siege and uncharacteristically running for cover amidst mounting competition and research reports favoring Android. By Tom Kaneshige Mar 12, 2013 2 mins Smartphones Tablets IT Leadership opinion Is Computer's Future a Glass House? According to Google and Corning, glass surfaces and eyeglasses are where we'll do our computing in the future. By Tom Kaneshige Mar 06, 2013 1 min Small and Medium Business Innovation Mobile Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe