141–150 of 371 posts
Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.
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 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?).
Remember, Apple needs to target the low end to succeed in China. They need to put out the crappiest, cheapest phone they possibly can otherwise Samsung and Xiaomi will eat their lunch. Edit: Obvious sarcasm is apparently not obvious enough.
They also need to open source iOS (also sarcasm)
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…
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More than Windows sucking, the OEM laptop industry has largely fumbled hardware. For a while it looked like Dell and/or Samsung might actually give Apple a run for its money in terms of design and quality, but that fell flat on its face. I'm a pretty biased sample, but honestly I know more people running non-OSX on Apple laptops than I know people running non-OSX on non-Apple laptops. Apple's laptops beat the rest of…
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…
Batteries - Macs get phenomenal battery life, it's not an issue for most people. Much like iPhones there is an argument for swappable batteries but it doesn't seen to have a large effect on sales. People seem happier with the thinness and weight savings, or at least don't mind the tradeoff much.
Spill resistant keyboards - Are most PC laptops outside of the toughbook market? I wouldn't have even thought about this.
Matte screen - That was an issue. I am typing from the last matte screen MBP Apple made, I didn't like the gloss. I've seen the newer machines in person and while they do reflect more light they're much better than they were years ago. The better contrast and color saturation would be worth it to me when I replace my laptop.
Then again, I imagine the average person always liked the glossy screens because they looked better at first (much like the poorly adjusted TVs at BestBuy).
Some Macs still have Ethernet, but WiFi is pretty ubiquitous. When I'm at my desk I'd just plug an adapter into my monitor and it would work (thanks to Thunderbolt). RAM and HD are another design decision Apple has made that people seem to accept.
I do love OS X. You seem almost dismissive of the trackpad, but I LOVE the thing. I'm guessing you're a TrackPoint person, and I get that. But the laptop world seems to have standardized on touchpads and Apple's are phenomenal. For years they were MUCH bigger than PCs and the gestures works great. For years PC laptops (especially budget ones) seemed to have odd 'scroll strips' and I read complaints about them in reviews.
I'll also mention MagSafe. It's saved my laptop numerous times and is extremely easy and fast to connect (or disconnect).
In general Apple's laptops are just well built and feel solid. Some PCs are like that, many aren't due to cost. If I'm going to use a machine every day for 4 years I want to know it's well built and holds up well. That's never been a problem with my Macs, anecdotally I've heard things all over the place for PC brands. Things where Lenovo makes great laptops except for line 'X' which is built poorly, or the 2013 version of thing 'Y'.
There is a lot to be said for a well built laptop with very consistent quality, thin, low weight, and excellent parts. It's easy to try Apple stuff in person thanks to stores and it's easy to narrow down what you want because they don't sell 40 individual models (before customization). There is a very large 'no hassle' factor when it comes to buying, I don't have to worry that I spent 5 hours picking the right machine only to have it show up on my doorstep as something I don't like and have to send back.
> (if you need/like OSX, there is little choice)
Now THIS is a potential problem to me. I don't blame Apple for not selling OS X, but I know that I'm at Apple's behest. If they decide to make computers I don't like for a few years I know I either have to wait it out or switch platforms. With a Windows laptop you decide to leave Lenovo and go to Dell or HP without having to change your whole day-to-day environment.
(I'm ignoring Hackintoshes. I don't want to spend the time to deal with the possible problems.)
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"Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this..." Personally I like to divide profits and revenues by the number of employees. They have 98 000 employees so they generated revenues of $761 000 and net profits of $184 000 per employee in Q4 2014. Think about this: if you work for Apple, on average you helped the company generate $0.76 million dollars in sales in the last 3 months. Edit: @smackf…
It's a weird metric, because 1 guy at Apple can hire a firm of 100,000 employees at FoxConn in China to do the actual work for Apple. If those employees instead worked for Apple directly, the end result would be the same but the amount per employee would be far less.
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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…
I think they've learnt from their mistakes and are improving things dramatically in Windows 10. 8.1 was leaps and bounds ahead of 8 (which was a disaster). 10 finally is a sensible direction that allows them to do what they want with mobile and give the desktop users are familiar experience out of the box. 98% of the time when using Windows 8.1 (or 8 for that matter) on the desktop you're in familiar territory anyway…
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Firstly it's not 'in decline' it has just reached saturation. 'Plunging' is just false. Secondly, the slowing of iPad sales has absolutely zero to do with any open systems.
-18% sales year over year is a plunge by any measure. It has everything to do with open systems. Walled gardens is a threat to them, it's a very important battle for everybody who cares about freedom.
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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…
Better keyboard, (infinitely) better touchpad, better chassis (to the touch). The places where my hands interact with the machine are much more efficient and pleasing on a mac than any other machine (which is sad, because I LOVED my Thinkpads in the early 2000s).
In general I'll agree with you but there is ONE thing that I don't like on Macs and still exists to this day (I believe). The notch in the aluminum below the trackpad to make it easy to open the machine has sharp left and right right angles, and that pokes me from time to time.
I figure that's one of those 'this looks better' things, but it wasn't a problem on the older machines that had physical latches and a button to open the lid.
Does the "tax rate of 26.3 percent" mentioned refer to how much tax Apple actually paid, or its notional tax rate? For example, here in Australia, Apple had $6 billion revenue and paid $80 million tax. Assuming the margins are at least as good as the US, the profit would be $2.4 billion, so Apple's actual tax rate in Australia is 3.4%. Compare that with the theoretical Australian corporate tax rate of 30%, which woul…