One move by China and Apple sales pause for a few years. Is this priced in?
Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
231–240 of 541 posts
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#232Gotta be some mega accounting shens going on here.
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if it counts, but one of the main reasons US big tech is big is bc it was largely sponsored by federal reserve stimulus over the past 14 years.
Did the tech companies in question receive federal reserve stimulus over the past 14 years? I find it hard to believe that the businesses selling the highest profit margin products and posting the highest profits received stimulus funds. A likelier explanation for how big tech got big is that they delivered something of very high utility to people around the world and it has low marginal costs and high barriers to en…
Stimulus isn't a huge part of it, but it's hard to deny that the US has ample safety nets for domestic business. The larger problem is our Laissez-faire attitude towards tech regulation and already predatory consumer practices. The US government has had considerable oversight over Big Tech for at least a decade, but it refuses to roll out consumer protections when Democrats or Republicans are in office. The European market balks at the stuff Google and Apple get away with, and rightfully so. Our regulators, legislators and executive leaders all turn their backs on software distribution and internet regulation because it makes us so much money! The US lives or dies on the health of it's economy, it should be no small secret that our leadership will keep these companies on life support as long as they can.
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's more subtle than that, and probably closer to how French treat their wine business for instance. An example of gov intervention: banning Huawei as it was rising as a global phone maker, international tarriff negociation (the whole stupid tarriff war happened as China was rising as high end device exporter), protecting Apple's business when challenged on anti-trust grounds (Apple's open stance to the judge was…
How is that an example of US government influencing other countries’ purchasing decisions?
The US has been pushing and is very vocal about its partners not using Huawei.
They might be right, but it's super hard to determine where good intentions stop and self interest starts.
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you not think M1 is a compelling architecture? I think it’s technically brilliant and it has a positive impact on my life.
I mean, no. For what I do with a laptop, a Chromebook is fine. And it's what I use.
I spend many hours per day on a computer and the M1 MacBook Pro just feels nice to use. The little things on it that make it a pleasure. The speakers sound good, the screen is excellent, the keyboard is fantastic, the battery lasts forever. I don't even do big bad compiling jobs or anything. I can afford it and that's why I got it. My iPhone is the same way. I'll spend $100 on a single dinner. Simple as that. And clearly, millions feel the same way. Not everything needs to be some sort of min-maxing exercise.
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#236Holy moly, the Mac keeps growing like crazy. It’s amusing how Apple wanted the iPad to disrupt the Mac but the advent of M-Series chips on the Mac has really nipped that ambition in the bud.
I remember when I got my first Retina laptop screen, it was nice but I quickly just got used to it. Then, I found myself using the earlier machine, without the high DPI. That learned me. It was hard to imagine all the work I'd done staring through a screen door at those pixels. Similarly, I've been using the M1 MPB since I got it. I only remember that it never makes noise when I'm reminded of it, such as in this conv…
> That learned me.
That taught me?
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#237Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#238Annual revenue of $394 billion, more than a billion a day. Not the first company to do it, though. Exxon did it in the 2000s when oil was up to $140, and I think Walmart did it, too.
Their numbers seem utterly unreal to me. How on earth do you sell $205 billion worth of just a single product (iPhone) every year? This is simply the greatest business to have ever been created. I can't imagine anything else ever topping it. The margins AND the volume are both insane.
I find it more depressing than anything else. The amount of those sales that was actually needed instead of upgraded for vanity is quite small. Imagine all the wasted resources and e waste so someone can have a different model number that is one higher for their phone, so they can feel better than their friends and spend more time looking at their phone. Our largest company is based on profiting from human greed and self-esteem issues. Doesn’t speak highly for us.
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I know we may be heading towards a future where we’re totally locked down, but what alternative do we have? Well, Apple could just... let people install other stores. The App Store will still exist for new users and security-paranoid users, but the right to install/manage software needs to be a universal right when you buy hardware from someone. Arguing the opposite is almost insanity. > I’m a relatively technical…
> Well, Apple could just... let people install other stores. So the solution is to let another big tech be the gatekeeper? If a customer thinks Google is a better gatekeeper then they should stick with Android. Nothing wrong with that. > Do what F-Droid does, compare the downloaded binary against a first-party checksum for the release (usually provided by Github). But my issue is not that something has been tampered…
> So the solution is to let another big tech be the gatekeeper? If a customer thinks Google is a better gatekeeper then they should stick with Android. Nothing wrong with that.
Nobody is going to be a green bubble for access to the play store. This isn't textbook forced bundling[0], but it sure feels close. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
> As for the right to install/manage software, I view it similarly to what the FDA is doing now to protect me from products that are dangerous. I don’t have the knowledge to be able to vet all chemicals that are dangerous to me so I’m happy to let them handle it. Is such a view considered insanity?
You're fine to think so, but why can't I opt out?
> In the end is all this talk about rights and freedoms really just a veil for the fact that some devs just want to make more money?
There are whole classes of applications where the margins don't really make sense because of apple's cut. I don't know why they need to extract so much rent?
Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
What can't be emphasized enough here is how much Windows created this. They went from the 95-XP arc, some of the best operating systems from a user's perspective, to 7 (another hit), to now windows 10 and 11, which turn your device into a slow always-connected ad platform that you don't really control. In other words, Windows became one of those toolbars that we all have to remove from our grandmothers' browsers. For…
You forgot Vista, the Wii U of Windows
I always thought Windows ME was the Wii U of Windows.
Microsoft was expecting people to line up around the block and fork over $100 for Windows ME and everyone was just confused.