51–60 of 112 posts
Decent even though Google, OpenAI, Anthropic eating their lunch on AI.
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The capital return program was a massive own goal in my humble opinion. It will work for now but soon Apple will go through their Intel years because they spent too long sweating their (admittedly incredible) assets. Something like Harmony OS is going to eat their lunch and they will only have themselves to blame.
I imagine you're saying the capital return program is a mistake because they should reinvest the money in R&D etc. I think the issue is there's diminishing returns to spending, and in some cases it can be outright negative. For example, one major thing you can do with money is hire more people. Hiring more people than you can handle is a great way to grind everything to a halt. You're basically making a bet when you…
Hopefully there is work being done on the replacement for the Mach kernel and OSX / iOS in general. If there isn't that would be a grave mistake and exactly the kind of one someone like Tim Cook would make. Look at how he fumbled AI at Apple. I'm not saying he isn't talented, he is, but he isn't a product guy or an engineer.
This could happen in parallel with existing software dev skunkworks style.
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…
The only money that shareholders keep is the dividend per share which was $0.27 out of a profit of $2.01 per share.
All this while passing on the leap of faith everybody else is taking in the form of crazy AI investments. If the bubble bursts, Apple with its mountain of cash will be ready to buy the carcasses of whatever is left.
If the bubble bursts why would Apple buy any AI companies?
Google did this for several years in the early 2000s – snapping up talent and data center capacity from the casualties of the dotcom bust.
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I wish they’d stop doing buy backs and invest 100B in R&D … imagine what they could do in battery tech or otherwise.
They really should have built a car. It'd make them leaders in batteries. It'd keep America at the forefront of EVs. Huge disappointment.
Decent even though Google, OpenAI, Anthropic eating their lunch on AI.
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If the bubble bursts why would Apple buy any AI companies?
More likely they would buy the assets of AI companies for pennies on the dollar. There could be a lot of H100s floating around at fire sale prices. Or they would acquire these companies for talent. Google did this for several years in the early 2000s – snapping up talent and data center capacity from the casualties of the dotcom bust.
Also, remember H100 will be ~years old. Sometimes I wonder whether the average HN crowd really thinks through things.
Apple has historically shown an unwillingness to deploy capital to "own" things. They partner with TSMC for manufactoring, they get their panels from Samsung, Google on Gemini ..
Vertically integrated doesnt mean they "make" everything, but instead partners build things to their specification.
Short version: Reported quarterly revenue: ~$111 billion, so a 17% year-over-year increase. Diluted earnings per share: ~$2. 22% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Operating cash flow: surpassed $28 billion. Record for a March quarter. iPhone: Record March-quarter revenue of ~$57 billion, heavily supported by demand for the iPhone 17. Services: Hit an all-time high revenue record of ~$31 billion. Capita…
They really need to build their own fabs at this point. AI is going to kill their ASIC and DRAM supply chain if they don't. "Real men have fabs." - Jerry Sanders, first CEO of AMD. Actually, AMD, Nvidia, and Apple need to build their own fabs. Maybe Google, Amazon, and Meta too.
It seems to me that Apple is only going to be further increasing the number of price points and "levels" of caliber of devices, from budget/entry level all the way to new heights such as things like iPhone Ultra or Macbook Ultra, because services will be have an even wider net to cast into (If you're buying Ultra devices, you'll probably get AppleCare+, and if you have new apple devices such as the Neo or 17e etc, yo…
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.
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 needed was a video input. Gamers, 3-D modelers, drone pilots, filmmakers, engineers, travelers... all would have been a ready market for an excellent head-mounted video device. But nope... Apple can't have people doing anything with its products that it didn't think of.
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I wonder if there’s a breakdown of their top performing or fastest growing services. It’s interesting how they dont seem to promote the services that much yet are seeing tremendous growth.
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…