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Apple reports Q3 results

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Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#201

Post by tomcam »

patrickthebold wrote: post #179
thecupisblue wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reminded me of the last time I spent money on a laptop before mac. Well, it wasn't me, it was my parents. For half the price of new mac air, I got a Toshiba budget notebook. It barely lasted 2 years, which was the amount it's "anything happens" warranty expired - which wasn't really anything happens. The CD ROM just didnt slide back in totally one day and stuck. The shift key got so fucked up I had to disable it…

Meh, I used a $300 netbook for 6 years.

OK I need to hear more about that one. I’m guessing it’s all command line development?

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#202

Post by flywheel »

crazygringo wrote: post #66
matthewdgreen wrote: post #3

Given the high rates of unemployment in the US and around the world (with possibly worse to come) this kind of consumer spending on luxury goods is pretty remarkable. Wonder how sustainable it is.

There's a good argument to be made that Apple devices are not luxury goods but save you money in the long run. They often last for many more years than competitors' products, receive upgrades for longer, become obsolete less quickly, and Apple will repair them both under warranty and out of warranty. (Many competitors simply do not service their products.) And when you're finally done with your device, you can often…

>They often last for many more years than competitors' products

Apple products are often obsolete in a few years, especially iPads and iPhones. Their entire line of laptops and desktops is now practically obsolete with the move to ARM. Apple products are luxury products for people who can afford to simply throw away a device when Apple decides it's stopping support. I have several Apple devices that still boot up just fine, have capable CPUs inside, but are completely useless because Apple just decided they weren't interested in supporting them anymore.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#203

Post by Calamity »

3pt14159 wrote: post #137
anthony_r wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, selling volatility via covered calls. The institutional investors' second favourite way of collecting "extra income" in the zero rates world, second only to explicit leverage. Some of them sold much more volatility, via variance swaps, with quite disastrous results. https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1lffwvwdh7xtq...

I mean, my family's investment company is far, far from being an institutional investor, but the math is pretty solid. If our plan is to buy Apple and sell it in the next six months if it rises by 15% then it is pretty easy to justify selling the calls with a strike at 15%, which I know isn't perfect because if something substantial changes at Apple (a new product, say) then in the case where the calls weren't sold y…

Out of curiosity, what's your total return with this approach if, at expiry, the stock price matches the strike price? In other words, how much are you making with the premiums you collect?

I guess one issue with this approach is that it somewhat assumes a period of low-inflation between now and option expiry (unless you're factoring that into the 15% expected return).

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#204

Post by alwillis »

scarface74 wrote: post #186
nutshell89 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is the biggest argument for breaking up the tech giants - not only are there clear examples of each company either abusing public trust or using their size in anti-competitive ways, but their wealth shields them from having to meaningfully engage with the public at large or reign in said behavior.

There are alternative to each of the four. No one forces anyone to use any of their products. Definitely no one forces people to buy Apple’s products at a large premium over their competitors. I would say that Apple has to work harder to get users to willingly depart with their cash.

>I would say that Apple has to work harder to get users to willingly depart with their cash.

Actually, it's often the opposite. In the Boston area, the Apple Stores are always packed while the Microsoft Store (now closed) was usually mostly empty in the high-end mall across the street from the stand-alone Boylston Street Apple Store.

Price isn't the primary factor for many people, especially younger people.

First, there's no real price difference between high-end Android phones—the newest Samsung, for example—and similar iPhones.

A Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G 128GB list price is $1399; the iPhone 11 Pro Max with 256GB (double the storage) is $1249. That's $52.04/month.

I worked with 24 public high school kids last summer. Most of them were from 1st or 2nd generation immigrant families and would qualify for free or reduced lunch at school. Every one of them had a newer model iPhone than my 6s at the time.

Zero Android devices.

Which confirmed something I learned from market analysis years ago regarding Apple: people with limited funds can't afford to make a mistake when spending their limited money, which is why they tend to gravitate to higher quality, better made products.

Yes, there was the typical desire for teens to have the right sneakers, t-shirt, jeans, etc. The iPhone is definitely in that category, with 85% of them either owning or intending to buy an iPhone: https://www.phonearena.com/news/teens-love-apple_id123682.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#205

Post by alwillis »

mrpippy wrote: post #195
wutbrodo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the majority of users (you don't fall into this category, fellow Hacker News reader), the capabilities of iPadOS are quickly approaching that of macOS. Huh wow, I haven't thought about iPads for a while, but apparently they even added multiple windows (predictably, 5 years late). That's probably the biggest blocker I considered that made tablets a toy even for laymen users (you hardly need to be a leet haxorz t…

On iPadOS you pretty much do need to be a leet haxor to use multiple windows, it’s a complicated mess involving swipes that’s totally undiscoverable

Not so much any more, especially if you get a keyboard and mouse.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#206

Post by philistine »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #178
thecupisblue wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reminded me of the last time I spent money on a laptop before mac. Well, it wasn't me, it was my parents. For half the price of new mac air, I got a Toshiba budget notebook. It barely lasted 2 years, which was the amount it's "anything happens" warranty expired - which wasn't really anything happens. The CD ROM just didnt slide back in totally one day and stuck. The shift key got so fucked up I had to disable it…

Similar story although I haven't purchased a macbook yet. Used to purchase laptops within the 500AUD range which would break or die within a year, decided to spend 1000AUD on a Asus zenbook and it's held up quite nicely over 3 years - only issue being the battery but that's expected. Haven't spent anything close to a MBP but I know people still using the 2015 model and holding up nicely. I guess price sort of correla…

I am writing this from a 2013 Macbook Air. It works fine.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#207

Post by alwillis »

flywheel wrote: post #202
crazygringo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good argument to be made that Apple devices are not luxury goods but save you money in the long run. They often last for many more years than competitors' products, receive upgrades for longer, become obsolete less quickly, and Apple will repair them both under warranty and out of warranty. (Many competitors simply do not service their products.) And when you're finally done with your device, you can often…

>They often last for many more years than competitors' products Apple products are often obsolete in a few years, especially iPads and iPhones. Their entire line of laptops and desktops is now practically obsolete with the move to ARM. Apple products are luxury products for people who can afford to simply throw away a device when Apple decides it's stopping support. I have several Apple devices that still boot up jus…

Apple products are often obsolete in a few years, especially iPads and iPhones.

The iPhone 6s was released September 2015 and it will run iOS 14, due later this summer/fall.

My daily driver is a refurb iPhone 7 (released September 2016) and I'm running the public beta of iOS 14—it runs noticeably faster than it did running iOS 13 just a few weeks ago.

I’m pretty sure nothing from Samsung, Motorola or HTC that's 4 or 5 years-old can run this year's Android release. Or even last year's.

iPadOS 14 goes all the way back to the iPad Air 2, which was released October 2014—nearly 6 years ago.

Their entire line of laptops and desktops is now practically obsolete with the move to ARM.

Nope. All current Intel Macs will continue to be supported for years to come. Updated apps will be fat binaries—they'll run natively on Intel and ARM Macs, the same way fat binaries ran natively on PowerPC and 68K Macs back in the day.

macOS 11.0 Big Sur will run natively on both Intel and ARM-based Macs; so will next year's macOS 11.1. All of the important, mainstream apps (Microsoft Office, Creative Suite, Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher, etc.) will be updated to run on ARM-based Macs in addition to the existing Intel ones.

My last machine was a 10-year old 27-inch iMac that I still use as a server.

I have several Apple devices that still boot up just fine, have capable CPUs inside, but are completely useless because Apple just decided they weren't interested in supporting them anymore.

If they can still run Homebrew, there's lots of software, especially open source stuff, you can install and run. The core apps I use for web development like Vim, command line utilities, etc. work fine on unsupported Macs. If I had to, I could install FreeBSD or Linux and keep things moving.

Most indie developers allow you to download older versions of their apps if you're a registered user.

Macs that don't have 64-bit CPUs couldn't make the jump to 64-bit world, which Apple has been warning about for like 10-years.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#208

Post by alwillis »

birdyrooster wrote: post #105
mdoms wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Ford F-150 is absolutely a luxury vehicle. And I don't see any way you can look at an Apple iPhone as anything other than a luxury purchase, regardless of the market share.

When you say iPhone, just consider you are speaking about a product which starts at $399.

Xfinity Mobile as an example:

$200 off the list price of the $399 iPhone SE. $8.33/month, with 0% APR for 24 months.

It has similar specs of a $1000 iPhone from a few years ago and is faster than any Android device you could buy for the same price.

Most carriers have the same deal.

Re: Apple reports Q3 results

#209

Post by alwillis »

GeekyBear wrote: post #198
alacombe wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In times of economic pressure, buying a $1000 phone is not the smartest idea.

Buying a $399 iPhone SE that will receive OS and security updates for at least six years, on the other hand, works out to less than $70 a year.

And a $399 iPhone SE that's $200 off is even better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24005628
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