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Apple’s Covid-19 Response

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Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#41

Post by jonknee »

totalZero wrote: post #36

My intuition is that this is a supply chain / inventory management closure, not a virus risk closure. They have 509 stores in 25 countries (incl China). I don't believe that they would close over 90% of those stores simultaneously due simply to generalized viral transmission risk. I find it guileful that they announced the closure in the middle of the night at the end of the week, a day after having announced the ope…

They are providing inventory to a bunch of other retailers and are continuing online sales, this really sounds like they don't want people coming in and touching the same piece of glass.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#42

Post by dogma1138 »

ehsankia wrote: post #13
blowski wrote: post #10

I wonder which companies will benefit from this pandemic, long-term. If there’s a surge in remote working, for example, seems like that could be good for FAANG, bad for transport companies, commercial real estate, public events. Is there any analysis out there about this?

Streaming sites like Netflix, maybe?

All movie and tv production has been halted, with Netflix losing much of its library to competing services it might not be that good.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#43

Post by kyriakos »

blowski wrote: post #10

I wonder which companies will benefit from this pandemic, long-term. If there’s a surge in remote working, for example, seems like that could be good for FAANG, bad for transport companies, commercial real estate, public events. Is there any analysis out there about this?

Streaming services and online adult will benefit.

The only problem in the long run with streaming services is that they will soon run out of fresh content.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#44

Post by spacedcowboy »

jodrellblank wrote: post #25
jonknee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the next part: > We’re also announcing that we are matching our employee donations two-to-one to support COVID-19 response efforts locally, nationally and internationally. Plus everyone is still getting paid: > All of our hourly workers will continue to receive pay in alignment with business as usual operations. We have expanded our leave policies to accommodate personal or family health circumstances create…

I don't know whether to be happy that a major American company has publically said such things, or carry on being disgusted that such a thing is not normal and is worth a PR announcement. Seriously, Apple 's leave policy didn't include " recovering from an illness "??

I work at Apple. I’ve not reviewed the new guidelines but can confirm that yes, Apple do indeed let you take sick time to recover from an illness. Of course they do.

In fact, the only time I ever had to interact with Apple HR about time off was when I wanted 3 months off after my kid was born. I ended up getting paid for all of it except the last week. Any other time I’ve taken sick leave I just need to let my manager know, and I took 2 weeks once when I was hit by a car.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t take sick leave at the drop of a hat, but I’ve been here for 15 years, and life happens. I currently have the max-possible 240 hours of sick leave available. In my view, Apple are fairly generous for a US company regarding sick leave. US companies pale in comparison to EU companies, but that’s the US for you.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#45

Post by norswap »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #30
blowski wrote: post #10

I wonder which companies will benefit from this pandemic, long-term. If there’s a surge in remote working, for example, seems like that could be good for FAANG, bad for transport companies, commercial real estate, public events. Is there any analysis out there about this?

It seems to be quite bad for the AA in FAANG. Or at least one of them I don't think any analysis is valid right now since we don't know what long term even means at this point. I think the companies that will benefit will be entirely unpredictable, because we're about to fall into a steep descent in our gradient and the optimization of companies business models and products is about to get crazy. Just like '08 and '0…

How can this possibly be bad for Amazon? Deliveries will explode as long as the post keeps running. More web usage also = wins for AWS.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#46

Post by unlinked_dll »

norswap wrote: post #45
unlinked_dll wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be quite bad for the AA in FAANG. Or at least one of them I don't think any analysis is valid right now since we don't know what long term even means at this point. I think the companies that will benefit will be entirely unpredictable, because we're about to fall into a steep descent in our gradient and the optimization of companies business models and products is about to get crazy. Just like '08 and '0…

How can this possibly be bad for Amazon? Deliveries will explode as long as the post keeps running. More web usage also = wins for AWS.

Deliveries take warehouses, truck drivers, ports, and air travel. Especially for things from China.

I've already tried buying some stuff I'd normally get at a store from Amazon and the lead time was questionable.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#47

Post by ehsankia »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #31
ehsankia wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streaming sites like Netflix, maybe?

Maybe Disney, more likely. Hollywood has essentially frozen production and from what I'm hearing they're really not setup for working remote in pre/post (especially the latter). Combine with delayed releases, cancellation of film festivals (which are marketplaces as much as exhibitions for content) and the new releases this year appear to be on a giant delay. Disney is interesting because they have the deepest bench,…

Even with it's deep catalog, Disney+ still has far less content than Netflix. I do agree that Netflix relies on new content to reduce churn, but my argument wasn't so much about existing users (churn), but about millions of new people who never had Netflix deciding to sign up because they have nothing else to do at home.

As for the rest of people, I agree that when you're competing with hundreds of other sources of entertainment and ways to spend your days, Netflix's catalog may not be amazing, but when most of the population is stuck at home, I'm sure there are plenty of stuff people will find and enjoy on Netflix.

Disney is definitely a runner up too. They've started moving releases closers. They just released Frozen 2 and the new Starwars movie digitally.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#48

Post by caymanjim »

busymom0 wrote: post #37
caymanjim wrote: post #14

Bragging about unrelated topics in the first paragraph, and touting a $15M donation while sitting on $200B in cash. So magnanimous. By the way, get back to work.

Seems like you missed the next part where he’s talking about matching two-to-one and also everyone getting paid even when closed. That’s more than enough they are doing. Also I dislike when people comment on why so and so is only donating X amount of money.

I would never criticize how or whether an individual donated. Apple is fair game. The entire announcement is self-congratulatory PR. Yeah, it's good that they're donating some money and matching some employee donations. They could have just done that. They turned it into a PR item, fluffed it up with other self-aggrandizing anecdotes, and announced what, to them, amounts to a token gesture. I don't go around town bragging when I drop $20 in the veterans' bucket at Walmart.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#49

Post by totalZero »

jonknee wrote: post #41
totalZero wrote: post #36

My intuition is that this is a supply chain / inventory management closure, not a virus risk closure. They have 509 stores in 25 countries (incl China). I don't believe that they would close over 90% of those stores simultaneously due simply to generalized viral transmission risk. I find it guileful that they announced the closure in the middle of the night at the end of the week, a day after having announced the ope…

They are providing inventory to a bunch of other retailers and are continuing online sales, this really sounds like they don't want people coming in and touching the same piece of glass.

Inventory is a lot easier to manage when you don't have to send it to 500 different sites and predict demand. If you're coming up short on inventory, the reasonable choice is to put it into one central repository and ship from there. There are several different configurations for each type of device, varying based on color, memory, and carrier.

If they were only concerned about the virus, they would take the display models out of the showroom and continue to process pick-up orders. And they wouldn't shut down stores worldwide (ex-China).

No health body has recommended worldwide retail shutdowns, and no competing device vendor has closed all of its stores worldwide (ex-China). This is a ramification of the factory shutdowns we saw in China several weeks ago.

Re: Apple’s Covid-19 Response

#50

Post by totalZero »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #46
norswap wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can this possibly be bad for Amazon? Deliveries will explode as long as the post keeps running. More web usage also = wins for AWS.

Deliveries take warehouses, truck drivers, ports, and air travel. Especially for things from China. I've already tried buying some stuff I'd normally get at a store from Amazon and the lead time was questionable.

The lead time for many items is questionable due to demand. Think about the volume of Amazon Pantry orders right now.
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