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Apple reports second quarter results

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Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#101

Post by LexGray »

bombcar wrote: post #62
marsten wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness to all concerned, the MacOS to MacOS X transition was brilliantly executed. These days we take VMs for granted, but back then it was a novel idea to run MacOS 8 as a process inside of MacOS X (the "blue box"). For most users it was seamless.

Microsoft had done something similar (twice!) but Apple polished the living daylights out of it.

Yet they completely failed to do so for Mac 32-bit apps. There is a huge library of apps that have not been updated to 64-bit to this day and it is a travesty they never released a virtual classic mode to run 32-bit and even OS 9 apps. It is the one place Microsoft shines in comparison, and the only excuse they give is “deal with it”.

I am certain the reason Wine never tried Mac emulators is fear of Apple legal and consequently you far more easily run ancient Windows programs on Mac then you can even fairly recent Mac Applications.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#102

Post by LexGray »

creinhardt wrote: post #99
aetherspawn wrote: post #39

If they’re going hard in on services maybe they’ll finally go up against Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, proper. Between the two someone needs to disrupt it with a cheaper stripped down alternative (from a big player) because the prices are going through the roof.

I was floored to find out recently that the web interface for iCloud (iCloud.com) has no way to edit a spreadsheet in-browser. I thought for sure they’d have browser based Numbers at this point, but nope! I think if they haven’t done this yet it ain’t gonna happen.

I presume you mean how you can upload CSV or XLSX spreadsheets but not view them? It does seem an oversight they do not have conversion on the website or the ability to import into a spreadsheet. More interesting is how Pages gives a nice red exclamation saying not a supported file while Numbers gaslights you letting you share something you can’t use.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#103

Post by LexGray »

benoau wrote: post #87
nozzlegear wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth considering (IMO, anyway) that users don't want to use apps that use third party billing, too. That's my own preference, I avoid them and look for something that lets me pay via the App Store instead. In the cases where I can't do that (Disney, Netflix), I just leave a bad review and send feedback on their website asking to pay in the app.

For me there's definitely a trust factor for random app developers and an indifference for non-subscriptions where the one-time fee is irrelevant, but I wouldn't pay an extra $20 - $100 a year in fees to avoid a company like Netflix or Disney managing subscriptions it's just not that hard to do and they're adequate at it.

There may be one or two good examples of companies who do not depend on dark patterns to keep subscriptions, but plenty of the big names are associated with absolute horror stories of numerous hour long phone calls fighting retention specialists to get a service canceled.

For me the ease of seeing what subscriptions I have in one place with easy cancellation options avoids the stress of trusting companies with PII and credit card info and ever needing to deal with anything over the phone.

That said… making it impossible to sell your product with less than a 30% margin does not seem in line with today’s software and streaming economics. I am not sure the model Apple should adopt, but the current one lacks artistry.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#104

Post by LexGray »

MoonWalk wrote: post #59
sudb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am personally saddest to hear about the discontinuation of the Vision Pro - in a couple of generations there was a solid chance that it would be easy sell for me and/or other people who don't VR/AR game but probably would use it for media/productivity.

"in a couple of generations there was a solid chance that it would be easy sell for me and/or other people who don't VR/AR game but probably would use it for media/productivity." Why in a couple of generations? You've put your finger on why the product failed: Apple's fear of connectivity. Apple zealously cripples the I/O on all of its mobile products, rendering them unusable for so many things. All the Vision Pro ne…

Agreed. I agree with the iOS lockdown as I do most of my financial and medical there. I can see it for iPad as a sort of locked down computer you can’t break typing random things into terminal some website said to.

Vision Pro, however, should have been a full computer the way the Mac is as it was never going to appeal to non geeks.

The introductory video of this cyborg recording spatial video at birthday parties seemed pure fiction as there would not be smiles at the weird masked guy with the eyes flashing whenever he wanted to take a picture especially as glasses that record video are slammed so hard. I could only imagine such a thing maybe at a wedding.

Flip phones with apps were around a long time before the iPhone and people knew what to do with them.

Vision Pro really was a whole new thing and they biffed it not allowing people to vibe code and play on it directly instead forcing to dig through complicated X-code on a connected Mac. It needed a 3D Quartz Composer type thing at the very least that just isn’t there.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#105

Post by wat10000 »

LexGray wrote: post #101
bombcar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had done something similar (twice!) but Apple polished the living daylights out of it.

Yet they completely failed to do so for Mac 32-bit apps. There is a huge library of apps that have not been updated to 64-bit to this day and it is a travesty they never released a virtual classic mode to run 32-bit and even OS 9 apps. It is the one place Microsoft shines in comparison, and the only excuse they give is “deal with it”. I am certain the reason Wine never tried Mac emulators is fear of Apple legal and c…

32-bit apps continued to be supported for a couple of releases after 64-bit rolled out. Just like Classic.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#106

Post by dangus »

readitalready wrote: post #85
dangus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“They need their own fabs” is a very current events-biased read of the situation. You can easily end up like AMD or Intel spending years with your own fab that’s uncompetitive. One of the best things that ever happened to AMD was spinning off their fabs. Intel only recently righted their ship after spending years with fabs that couldn’t keep up with competition, and even Panther Lake still contains some TSMC silicon.…

You can easily end up like AMD or Intel spending years with your own fab that’s uncompetitive. You could. Or you could have no fab and no supply of chips for your business.

Being short on chips means you can raise prices.

Making chips on an uncompetitive lithographic process means your chips are worth less.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#107

Post by readitalready »

dangus wrote: post #106
readitalready wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily end up like AMD or Intel spending years with your own fab that’s uncompetitive. You could. Or you could have no fab and no supply of chips for your business.

Being short on chips means you can raise prices. Making chips on an uncompetitive lithographic process means your chips are worth less.

No, you CAN'T raise prices because no one will buy them, destroying your brand and your business. And you won't have supply anyways.

There is no scenario where not having a fab is beneficial.

Apple will have to build their own fabs, whether they like it or not. And they will need to make it competitive if they want to stay in business.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#108

Post by kshacker »

lysace wrote: post #46

So I really wanted to understand the different kinds of margins. Yes, this was made with the help of an AI, with lots of iterations to make it applicable to Apple and easily understandable. I attempted to verify the numbers manually fwiw. Now please roast me. Net profit margin: 26.6% ($29.58B / $111.18B) — what the company and its shareholders keep after taxes and everything else. (edited) Operating margin: 32.3% ($3…

I know it is not you but the industry parlance, so a question to anyone knowledgable. Is gross margin ever useful? Sure 50% sounds like a lot, but without R&D and staff and other expenses, you can not make that 50% and even the 100%.

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#109

Post by xp84 »

nozzlegear wrote: post #73
xp84 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always remember that most of their “services” revenue is the App Store 30% tax on casino games for children, and the commissions for Safari default search engine coming from Google. These two are Apple’s twin licenses to print money, and both of them grow without Apple needing to innovate or really do anything. App Store grows as the addictive game publishers improve their manipulation skills, and Google’s check grow…

I pay $40/month for Apple One alone, not to mention my various AppleCare subscriptions. Surely they make more money from that kind of service than google search payments.

Sure, and I have that Apple One plan too. Certainly from you and me they do. But the sheer number of people doing "searches" (99% of the sites visited from every safari browser is probably doing a "search" to get there) makes the Google search commission so big -- $20 billion per year in 2022 when we found out the figure due to court filings. It would take over 526 million of us - half a billion users - all subscribing to Apple One $38 tier just to equal that number. And I don't think the shift from Google to LLMs for "question asking" has probably put a dent in it, because when I look at how people use their devices, I believe that most searches are done for navigation purposes (people don't like remembering URLs and don't use bookmarks).

Re: Apple reports second quarter results

#110

Post by danaris »

readitalready wrote: post #107
dangus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being short on chips means you can raise prices. Making chips on an uncompetitive lithographic process means your chips are worth less.

No, you CAN'T raise prices because no one will buy them, destroying your brand and your business. And you won't have supply anyways. There is no scenario where not having a fab is beneficial. Apple will have to build their own fabs, whether they like it or not. And they will need to make it competitive if they want to stay in business.

> There is no scenario where not having a fab is beneficial.

Mmm, I think that's an overly strong statement.

In the scenario where Apple has a fab that's doing work at a 2030 level in 2030, that's great, especially if everyone else is, by their standards, doing work at a 2025 level. In the scenario where Apple's fab is doing work at a 2030 level in 2035, and another fab is doing work at a 2035 level, owning their own fab has suddenly become a liability. If they had used that money to hire the output of other fabs, then as soon as it became clear that another one was eclipsing the one they were using, they could simply switch. And given the way businesses operate, it would be very hard to justify closing down their own fab to use the one that was outperforming it.

Now, granted, that's not an especially likely scenario, but it is a very realistic one.

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