Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

#301

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:22 PM UTC

72deluxe wrote: post #272

freshyill wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a netbook.

This made me laugh because I remember netbooks being a fad where everyone had one and tried working on an underpowered Atom CPU with a tiny battery, a tiny low-res screen running IE under XP with a billion browser toolbars installed, reducing their visible browser space to about 20px at the bottom. Oh the sad memories. Strangely, the MacBook Air is essentially a Netbook, just better made and not in the "race to the b…

Just replying to myself as I have been downvoted with no replies (how annoying that is), but I wanted to stress that I think the MacBook Air is a GREAT machine and only compared it to Netbooks because of its small convenient form factor, which the netbook was trying to accomplish, albeit with limited success. I had an Acer Aspire One and enjoyed using it (I even made it a Hackintosh and it ran OSX 10.6 but kinda slowly, although with accelerated graphics thanks to the Intel inside it) but I am not under any illusion that netbooks were a fad. I was surprised they did so well and how effectively Intel stole the market overnight that Via should have had with their EPIA boards!

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by datashovel » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:24 PM UTC

Apple's profits definitely seem to be outpacing their contributions to open source.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by Diederich » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

mehrdada wrote: post #206

Diederich wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And consider The Monster: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=WMT+Key+Statistics Just shy of half a trillion dollars in yearly revenue, which generated 15.4 billion in profit. That's $1.3B revenue per day, or $55M revenue per hour, $920K/minute. A million dollars of revenue, every minute. Compared to nominal GDP, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is larger than Taiwan, Austria and Thailand. Granted, that's revenue, which is 'easy' c…

> How can we not start looking at some of these organizations less as companies, and more as countries? Because they are not. Similarities start and end right there.

You are, of course, correct, I was obviously getting a bit carried away with hyperbole.

My deeper point is one of size. At some point, these companies start doing country-like things, at country-like scales.

In this particular example, I'm talking about activities that start to look like something you might called "Intelligence", and "counter-Intelligence", just as an example.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by jsprogrammer » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

runeks wrote: post #276

jsprogrammer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd argue that Apple isn't extracting value from employees, but rather creating value using employees. It's not a zero-sum game. Apple creates value, it doesn't just move it from one place to another.

Apple employees create value. Apple itself hoards cash and leaks it out to shareholders.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by coob » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #117

dude_abides wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>1 billion iOS devices sold since 2007 That's an insane stat. Assuming average cost of an iphone as 500$, and 70% profit margin for an iphone, Apple has made 350 billion in profits on selling iPhones since 2007!! Any idea what would the equivalent figure in Android profits for Samsung be? Android crossed 1 billion devices sold in 2013, but my guess is the number is going to be much smaller.

To be precise, that 1 billion tally includes iPads, iPod touches, and Apple TVs. Still obscene profit.

Although it runs a variant of iOS AppleTV is not counted by Apple as an iOS device.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by exprL » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #285

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…

> No docking station Don't need one. Wifi, bluetooth keyboard/mouse, external display, and other external peripherals haven't been relevant in the past five years. > can't change batteries Fair point I guess, but the battery life is pretty long already (also compared to competitors), and for me personally, I have a static workspace so I don't miss it. > no touch screens I think OSX was slowly heading towards that a w…

A static workspace where you prefer to look downwards on a relatively small monitor on level with the keyboard, to a properly placed desktop monitor and accessories placed where they are physically convenient to use? What does your work consist of, exactly – not using the computer?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by jsprogrammer » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

jpttsn wrote: post #264

jsprogrammer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What does it mean to get $2k out of value from a laptop? I'm sure Apple could devise a licensing scheme to get a kickback on whatever you collect.

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by biomene » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

jpttsn wrote: post #264

jsprogrammer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you create $2k of value with a laptop, it's you who created that value. You just exploited yourself, using the laptop as your tool. Did I misunderstand your question?

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by rgejman » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

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…

Did AppleInsider rip off your numbers? http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/28/by-the-numbers-app...

Re: Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results

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Post by jmilloy » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

kevinchen wrote: post #129

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite impression. Regardless of the bug aspect, I find that Windows 8 looks much more advanced, polished and sophisticated than Mac OS, which has been stagnating for several years now and is still riddled with mindboggling inconsistencies (e.g. why can I rename a file in the Finder but not in an open file dialog, which looks exactly like a Finder?).

Pretty sure the open file dialog being read only is a feature and not a bug - you also can't move things around, delete things, etc. I actually like this b/c when I want to find a file, I don't want to move something accidentally. It also lets them implement things like dragging a file from Finder to open dialog to select it (that feature doesn't make sense if your file pickers can also modify the files).

The point wasn't that having a read-only open file dialog is wrong. It's that that having a read-only file dialog and a full-featured file browser look identical is confusing/misleading.