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Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#261

Post by 72deluxe »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #186
adl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, what makes Apple laptops beat the rest of the industry? No docking station, can't change batteries, no touch screens, no spill resistant keyboards, no matte screen option,etc. You also need those dongles for ethernet and video and can't upgrade RAM or hard drives on the retina models. Sure, the OS (if you need/like OSX, there is little choice), and the trackpad (if you like that those) are good, the…

People want the *nix underpinnings of OS X. So many people would be lost if they had to transition to Windows. You don't see many non Visual Studio programmers programing in Windows. Certainly not your Ruby on Rails Macbook sitting in Hackerdojo/Red Rock types.

I think this is accurate about the nix underpinnings of OSX. I spent years and years and years on Linux faffing around every distro upgrade, fighting with drivers, spending so much time getting stuff working, and then they pulled the stunt of new desktop paradigms, chucking 30+ years of desktop interaction in the bin, so I bought a MacBook after using OSX at work for some years and having a Mac Mini at home for some time. It is a joy to be able to continue doing nix things whilst having an accelerated window manager (Quartz), although it still needs some things to make it more usable (like installing ShiftIt for window movement with the keyboard).

Using Windows is more and more of a pain to me, particularly as Visual Studio 2010 is dog-slow for me compared to Xcode. I know I need to buy a new version of VC++ but it is now always a clunky-screen-refreshing-whirly-cursor-many-folders-shown-in-Explorer-inconsistent-navigation-and-buttons-shortcuts-hyperlinks experience in Windows. Sigh.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#262

Post by Shivetya »

ykl wrote: post #9

Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy. Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some se…

When it comes to realizing what a billion dollars is like, i always fall back on a streamer who recently used notepad to demonstrate a billion dollars. Some not safe for work language but it really explains the sheer immenseness of this value.

Let alone the fact there are streamers who have received tens of thousands of dollars. In this case there really is a very rich person in the middle east who has given tens of thousands to streamers.

http://youtu.be/0J6BQDKiYyM

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#263

Post by 72deluxe »

slantyyz wrote: post #153
ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I would rather run Windows on an Macbook Pro than any of the other hardware (although the new Lenovo machines are getting closer). That said it is still the phone/tablet/media streams that dominate their income.

>> I would rather run Windows on an Macbook Pro than any of the other hardware I honestly don't get why people often say that Macbooks are the best Windows laptops. I have always found the Windows on Mac experience to be sub-par with respect to the key placement, driver behavior, and oversensitive scrolling with Apple mice. I far prefer running Windows on a similarly equipped PC laptop. On the two Macbooks that I hav…

I too find the trackpad (which is a joy to use under OSX) to be a clunky ill-performing appliance under Windows. It suddenly becomes a real nuisance to use (ie, no I want to move a window not drag and select). I resort to using an external mouse when I reboot to Windows on my MacBook.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#264

Post by jpttsn »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #236
amatix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $184K is net profit, so each employee's salary is already counted. Another way of thinking about it: every Apple employee can get a $180K salary increase and they'd still make money.

Yeah, I think this is really showing how much Apple the organization is extracting from the individual Apple employees.

But what about the customers? If a customer buys a $1k laptop and gets $2k out of value from it, the customers are effectively exploiting the workers more than Apple the organization could ever dream of. Where would you draw the line?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#265

Post by Simp »

fidotron wrote: post #6

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, b…

> There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, but it now looks like the iOS market share in developed markets is going to remain fairly solid.

What are you talking about? iOS market share is at an all time low.

It went from 14.4% (2012) to 11.7% (2014).

As of the end of Q3 2014, Android was the most popular operating system, with a 84.4% market share, followed by iOS with 11.7%, Windows Phone with 2.9%, BlackBerry with 0.5% and Others with 0.6%.[90] Source: http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#266

Post by 72deluxe »

spydum wrote: post #187
puranjay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's lack of oversight in the Play store (which is actually a core philosophy) is really holding back Android. There are countless really, really crappy apps and clones crowding the app store. Plus, since most people pirate, developers can't make money (Monument Valley saw around 95% piracy rate and just $250k in revenue from Android, vs. $5.5M from iOS). This sunk Windows Mobile, which I still believe has the be…

I think the real major difference is the psychological factor: Google as a brand stands for "free": Gmail, search, YouTub.. You name the top major Google products or brands, and they are considered free in most consumers minds. You then look at Apple, and what do their users think of the brand? Expensive maybe, but valuable or luxury. This brand identity carries over into the App Store / play store comparisons quite…

I think you are spot on with the "free" perception of Google products, and by extension, Android.

I am one of the freeloaders on Android. I have bought a few apps but I mainly go for the free ones, even if they had advertising. It's a real pity really because I know the effort needed to write an app (I have done a few for Android).

Under iOS, I know I am going to have to BUY most apps, as there aren't that many free ones! Also, I had to sell a kidney to buy the device in the first place so I am expecting to have to fork out money - I know it was an "investment".

The same sort of goes for Mac hardware - I always thought it overpriced rubbish and expensive until I actually had the money to buy one and then suddenly it wasn't quite so bad.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#267

Post by 72deluxe »

cmelbye wrote: post #211
kirse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll have to back up your "shit app store" claim in regards to Windows Phone... I decided try out all-MS with the purchase of a Nokia Icon last year and the integration has been phenomenal. I've also noticed only one bug (in IE of course), and the phone rarely restarts itself like my Droid Maxx often does. Rudy Huyn also creates solid clones of every single popular Andy/iOS app. The UI is cleaner, Nokia Maps > Goog…

Are you serious? Maybe things have changed, but when I had a Windows Phone and did a (hopeful) search for any mildly popular app, I was greeted search results full of blatant rip offs. Same name, same icon, except published by some random dude in China.

Maybe he's running the rip-offs and believing that they're the "real" ones?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#268

Post by 72deluxe »

wvenable wrote: post #105
deeviant wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many would agree with me when I say, Windows 8 was at least part, if not the biggest part of the problem . Nobody wants to relearn a UI just because MS wants to create a bridge into windows phone. The fact is the UI changes did not serve the average MS user, but served Mircrosoft's business ambitions. Any feature that I care about in Windows 8(faster boot, better monitor support, and ah I don't even know of a…

> Windows 8 was at least part, if not the biggest part of the problem. Yes I agree. But ultimately the OEM's produced a bunch of touch-screen laptops and needed an OS to make use of them. Windows 8 fit the bill. My father-in-law actually resorted to running programs from the Program Files folder because he couldn't figure out the start menu! > Windows PC hardware is fine, drivers are more difficult because there is s…

I would concur that Windows 8 was a massive part of the problem. It was like they didn't listen to the resounding feedback from the RTM release.

I think it is odd that OEMs released these touchscreen laptops in the first place! There wasn't any need driving them at all, nor even any "wants" for them. When's the last time they heard anyone say "This laptop's alright, but I REALLY need to reach out over the keyboard and put smudgy marks on my screen and get arm ache swiping left and right. I wish my laptop had a touchscreen!"

It is like they produced a solution to fit a non-existent problem.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#269

Post by 72deluxe »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #169
sigzero wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open file dialog is exactly that to "open" a file. I find the fact that you can do that on Windows stupid and inconsistent.

You find it normal that two windows that look exactly the same don't behave the same way depending on how they were invoked? This violates a concept at the core of basic GUI design called "The principle of least surprise". I regularly want to do file operations when I open file dialogs, like noticing some garbage file I forgot to delete or wanting to rename things. Having to launch a separate Finder just to do that o…

I can see your point, but Finder looks nothing like an Open dialog. Sure, the Open dialog has a list of files in it but it doesn't feature tabs or a corresponding menu at the top of the screen to allow you to connect to servers (eg screen sharing). They're clearly two different things. I have never seen anyone confused by it. I have seen people more confused by the fact that "renaming" under Finder is done using ENTER! I would expect Enter to open the file but apparently Cmd-Down is the obvious choice...

I would say the cluttering up of Windows Explorer is far worse though: it now features a giant useless blue bar (which you can't hide) at the bottom in addition to the statusbar (which is hidden by default), a list of directories on the left in addition to favourites and libraries (all to confuse users so they have no idea where anything is, you should see my mum trying to use it), left and right panes that no longer correspond for navigation (you can navigate with the keyboard in the left tree but the right pane doesn't follow it), a menubar BENEATH the toolbar, an additional toolbar for operations (why aren't these inside the other toolbar?). The list goes on! I know this is under Windows 7 and has likely changed in 8+ but post XP it has really gone downhill.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#270

Post by 72deluxe »

beezle wrote: post #108
fidotron wrote: post #6

Truly phenomenal. But then when no one else is making decent laptops this is what happens. If anything the gap has grown thanks to Windows 8. I'm not a fan of Yosemite by any stretch, but it is very much the least bad of the available options. And on mobile, iOS is very clearly in for the long haul now. There was a time a couple of years ago when Android looked like it might gain enough momentum to sweep them away, b…

I don't think one can by any stretch attribute Apple laptops for the sales of iPhones. Apple is 90% a phone company. As to Macs, while their share has bumped up in recent years, its really just at the top of the historical range going back to the late 80s. (this of course depends what metric you look at and from whom but 7 to 13% seems to be the range). Can't count how many times I heard in the 2008 time frame that O…

I think the people who had been saying that OSX would dominate were deluding themselves - I never heard it said! I would have pointed out the minuscule market share of Apple PCs/laptops as evidence.
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