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Apple reports fourth quarter results

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Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#301

Post by SllX »

pjmlp wrote: post #250
SllX wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, they're the iPhone company and they are massively understating how much of their revenue is directly attributable to the iPhone. Take "Services" for example: most of their services are things like App Store revenue and Google Search revenue, something they technically have on all of their platforms, but the lion's share of that revenue comes directly from iPhone users subscribed to iPhone apps, playing i…

The day Playground evolves to something similar to XCode is when iPadPro takes over.

That’ll be a good day for the iPad but take over? Not a chance in hell.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#302

Post by eightysixfour »

FredPret wrote: post #286
eightysixfour wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it reduces the amount paid out to shareholders, but that doesn't mean it is bad for the economy as a whole. When corporate taxes are higher, companies spend more - wages, r&d, etc - because they'd rather do that and squeeze some value out of it then have it taxed. There isn't a "right" answer, there are trade offs between incentives that drive the flows into different places.

This is a good counterpoint, but forcing companies’ hand with investment will at best distort the economy, and slow it down long term. Companies are single-purpose wealth creation machines, let them find their optimal investment mix. Taxing only dividends, buybacks, and salaries will bias the taxation to mature companies that aren’t growing so fast anymore, minimizing the damage.

There's no such thing as an "undistorted economy," there is only different configurations which are more or less efficient in different areas. Taxation isn't "damage," it is the fee you pay for the stability of the system you are operating in and the services that system provides.

> Taxing only dividends, buybacks, and salaries will bias the taxation to mature companies that aren’t growing so fast anymore, minimizing the damage.

This is a reactionary policy to the existing system, not a sustainable new one. At the minimum, it incentivizes:

1. Hoarding cash

2. The acquisition of assets unrelated to the core business (real estate for example)

3. Increased corporate debt (no tax on interest payments)

4. Shifts from salary to stock options

5. Acquisitions over investments in new product lines or R&D

Functionally, you and I probably disagree on some things though - I would want to encourage companies to spend their money on salaries, pushing the money towards the broad consumer base.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#303

Post by pjmlp »

SllX wrote: post #301
pjmlp wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The day Playground evolves to something similar to XCode is when iPadPro takes over.

That’ll be a good day for the iPad but take over? Not a chance in hell.

Depends on Apple's management.

Some people still hope they haven't completely forgotten about UNIX workstation market, after dropping the server one.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#305

Post by Nevermark »

koyote wrote: post #166
jdross wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do you get a meaningfully better result than google.com/flights? Outside of booking with points, it's all basically the same thing and I can book on google on my phone in under a minute

I could go into detail how being able to have a dozen tabs open almost always gives a better result than simply picking the first flight on google flights. But let's assume there's no difference: Do you really want to use a phone's on-screen keyboard to type in your family's passport details, address, then credit card numbers, then review all of this to ensure your $2000 purchase doesn't have any typos or mistakes? I…

I bought a Tesla in 2018 on my phone, only ever having seen one, and without ever having driven one. In a quiet/stalled moment while traveling.

But that says 1000% more about impulsivity coming to my rescue, with reckless disregard for the risk of regret at the first sign of boredom, than any trust in mobile interfaces.

I didn't (and would never) book the trip that cost a fraction of that on a phone or pad.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#306

Post by pjmlp »

trollbridge wrote: post #193
nullbyte808 wrote: post #129

No wonder they treat the Mac like a third-class citizen. Mac sales barely pay their tax bill.

At this point Macs have a great deal of parts in common with phones and tablets - M4 / M5 chip, flash design, and so on. The main purpose of the Mac (for Apple) is to host the development environment that is used to create apps which sustain the iPhone ecosystem. It does continue to baffle me just how cheap Macs are. $649 for a brand new 16GB MacBook at Best Buy with M2, more than powerful enough to do the aforementi…

US prices, meanwhile in Portugal where minimum wage is about 800 euros bruto, it goes by a mere € 1692, meaning 1962 dollars.

https://www.worten.pt/produtos/portatil-apple-914-7662-13-6-...

Hardly a great value for Portuguese households.

It gets even worse outside southern Europe.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#307

Post by pjmlp »

andy_ppp wrote: post #44

Apple could substantially eat into Nvidia’s AI lunch if they really tried, honestly Macs are fast enough… my guess is by the time M6 is coming out they will have external GPUs available for both the data centre and home use. If I was them I’d already be taking orders, power requirements alone even if they aren’t as fast 2 nodes ahead would make their offering sensational.

Metal has little value for research community.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#308

Post by skeuomorphism »

koyote wrote: post #166
jdross wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do you get a meaningfully better result than google.com/flights? Outside of booking with points, it's all basically the same thing and I can book on google on my phone in under a minute

I could go into detail how being able to have a dozen tabs open almost always gives a better result than simply picking the first flight on google flights. But let's assume there's no difference: Do you really want to use a phone's on-screen keyboard to type in your family's passport details, address, then credit card numbers, then review all of this to ensure your $2000 purchase doesn't have any typos or mistakes? I…

> Do you really want to use a phone's on-screen keyboard to type in your family's passport details, address, then credit card numbers, then review all of this to ensure your $2000 purchase doesn't have any typos or mistakes?

Not only do they type it in, they let them save their information...

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#309

Post by hnfong »

maximus_01 wrote: post #59
tpurves wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around a decade ago, even as they were just launching Apple Pay, Apple was trading at a multiple barely over 10x. Street was valuing Apple like a manufacturing OEM company. I remember buying a small chunck of shares at the time thinking, this is crazy, just the services revenue off of owning these platforms is going to become massive one day.

Good investment decision and obviously the street was very wrong, but the reason the multiple was low was because of concerns earnings were at risk from a) their issues in China (which they solved, at least for now, but was a very valid concern at the time) and b) android eating them (there was a narrative they were about to be blackberried, or that android was doing what windows did to mac). There are good reasons w…

IIRC, tech in general was trading at very low multiples 10 years ago. Microsoft was also ~ 10, and Google and Facebook were probably < 20 as well.
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