Apple Crushes Expectations, Sees Record Holiday Quarter (axios.com) 97
Apple on Thursday reported sales and earnings well ahead of projections, and said holiday sales should be a record and ahead of many analysts' expectations. The company sold 46.6 million iPhones last quarter, which came in about 500,000 units ahead of expectations. Axios reports: Going into the earnings report, there were concerns about both iPhone 8 demand and iPhone X supply. Thursday's report should go a long way toward answering those questions. Sales were up in every region expect Japan, where business was down from the prior year, though up sequentially. Notably, the company finally saw a much-needed turnaround in Greater China, where sales of $9.8 billion were up 22% from the prior quarter and 12% from a year ago. The company's business has been weak in China for some time, though the company had predicted improvement this quarter. Apple reported $52.6 billion in revenue (vs $51.2 billion estimated) and per-share earnings of $2.02 (vs $1.87 estimated). In addition to the 46.6 million iPhones sold (vs 46.1 million estimated), the company sold 10.3 million iPads (vs about 10 million expected) and 5.4 million Macs (vs about 5 million expected).
Re:Just what the kids asked for this Christmas (Score:4, Funny)
That's a rude way to describe our President.
Have you SEEN kids? (Score:1)
A $1000 machine that turns them into a talking poop emoji.
Honestly, how can you not think that 3 out of four third graders would pay anything if they could make a talking poop emoji movie.
Heck MAYBE if talking poop tells them to clean their rooms, they will actually do it.
You must be hanging out with the dour Unicode Standard [buzzfeed.com] guys.
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sooo...LAST Quarter was THE Holiday Quarter? (Score:3, Insightful)
You misunderstand, summary misleading (Score:2)
Honestly the wording of the summary could be improved, what it really should say is Apple PREDICTS (not sees) a record holiday quarter - they gave a forecast of $84-$87 billion for this upcoming quarter ... which would be a record holiday quarter.
Re:sooo...LAST Quarter was THE Holiday Quarter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple on Thursday reported sales and earnings well ahead of projections, and said holiday sales should be a record and ahead of many analysts' expectations.
I mean, it's the first sentence of the summary. No RTFA, you don't even need to completely RTFS.
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Never mind the ridiculous hyperbole of 'crushes'.
I wonder if the writer of the article understands the difference between thousands and millions.
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Re:Profit games (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what type of games they're playing with the books to make this happen.
Cute. I'm an accountant and I've seen zero evidence that Apple is cooking the books. Every indication is that they are simply moving a lot of product and getting very handsome margins on that product.
It's well known that without Jobs Apple has already started going into the meat grinder.
Someone should tell Apple because they are moving more product than ever and profits are UP. People have this bizarre notion that Apple should be releasing some new world changing technology every 18 months. If you look at their history they tend to have about one big idea every 10-15 years or so. The 70s was the Apple II. The 80s was the Mac. The 90s was the Newton (which flopped) and the Powerbook. The 2000s was the iPod and the most recent decade or so was the iPhone/iPad (which are the same device really). What will Apple do next? We should know in the next few years. In the mean time they are doing fine and there is little evidence to suggest they are in any danger of decline. Not to mention that they have a ludicrous amount of cash in the bank - enough to buy both Ford and GM outright in cash if they wanted to.
I have no doubt they can keep this up maybe for decades (Jobs did leave a bank of ideas) but Apple in the end is headed towards the toilet. Just like the last time Jobs left them.
While losing a visionary leader certainly is a big loss, there is no evidence to reflexively assume Apple is going to turn into a dumpster fire without him. Companies don't succeed or fail based on a single person. The question is how well Jobs did in succession planning and in setting up robust management systems. If Jobs did a good job of that then Apple will be fine just like other large successful companies. Part of the reason Apple struggled without him the first time is that they were still a rather young company in a new industry. A lot of the problems Apple had in the 80s and 90s were actually caused by Jobs. Jobs leaving the company probably made him a better leader than he would have been had he stayed.
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Cute. I'm an accountant and I've seen zero evidence that Apple is cooking the books. Every indication is that they are simply moving a lot of product and getting very handsome margins on that product.
Unless you are a (very) high level accountant at Apple, I don't see how you could possibly know whether they are cooking the books or not. They're not going to publish anything egregiously wrong like claiming sales of 5 million iPhones in the Principality of Liechtenstein (pop. 37,000).
No one predicted the collapse of Enron or RBS by looking at their published accounts.
Show the evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are a (very) high level accountant at Apple, I don't see how you could possibly know whether they are cooking the books or not. They're not going to publish anything egregiously wrong like claiming sales of 5 million iPhones in the Principality of Liechtenstein (pop. 37,000).
The simple fact is that it is plainly obvious that they are selling a LOT of iPhones and selling them at price points that are higher than most Android devices. Since they don't cost more to make then it's a pretty simple logical leap that their business model simply works.
No one predicted the collapse of Enron or RBS by looking at their published accounts.
Did you actually look at the financial statements of Enron? I did. They were the most (intentionally as it turned out) incomprehensible mountain of obfuscation you've ever read. They were written to be effectively incomprehensible even to experts at reading such financial statements. The signs were there and there were people pointing out the concerns even prior to the revelation that it was a huge fraud. Apple's financial statements (which I have also read) are NOTHING like Enron's. While they don't provide unlimited detail, they are pretty straight forward as these things go.
Sure Apple could in theory be covering up a fraud but you could say that about any company. The simple fact is that you have ZERO evidence to suggest Apple is doing anything other than selling a lot of product for a good margin. People love their products and it is clear that they are selling millions of them. Furthermore we can see their supply chain with reasonable clarity and all the evidence there backs up the thesis that they are moving a huge amount of product. If that strains your credulity then by all means provide us with a thesis and evidence with anything to back it up. Otherwise you are simply wasting our time.
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A lot of the problems Apple had in the 80s and 90s were actually caused by Jobs. Jobs leaving the company probably made him a better leader than he would have been had he stayed.
Truer words were never spoken, and if Jobs was around, I think he would agree at least with the second statement, at least...
Re:Profit games (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder what type of games they're playing with the books to make this happen. It's well known that without Jobs Apple has already started going into the meat grinder.
I have no doubt they can keep this up maybe for decades (Jobs did leave a bank of ideas) but Apple in the end is headed towards the toilet. Just like the last time Jobs left them.
Jobs has been gone over 4 years now. To give you an idea how long in "Apple Years" that is, the iPhone 4s came out JUST as Jobs died. That's like EIGHT iPhone generations ago...
I kinda doubt that any amount of "book-juggling" would hide "the truth" from EVERYONE for that long.
No "meat grinder". Just stellar products that everyone but Haters seem to really like...
Should Apple get a tax incentive to divide itself? (Score:2, Interesting)
So I can't help wondering about the REAL costs of Apple's profits. No, I don't think Apple is destroying the planet to the degree that the Koch brothers and Exxon do. No, I don't think Apple is an evil empire like Microsoft was in its monopolistic and abusive heyday. I actually think the google has much more potential for cancerous and evil growth than Apple does, but the jury is still out and I don't want to ignore Apple's ability to create profitable fashion stampedes around peculiar fads.
And yet, I recal
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What's the difference between "Soulless, huge, immoral, and immortal companies running amok in search of infinite profits without any control" and the US federal government?
Apple made a few tens of billions and probably avoided paying some taxes. The feds rake in trillions each year, murder foreigners at will, invade other sovereign nations, imprison innocent people without trial, encourage local entities to engage in civil asset forfeiture which is tantamount to theft, craft laws and regulations that cont
Re:Should Apple get a tax incentive to divide itse (Score:5, Insightful)
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As history has shown, there is little difference between huge governments run amok and huge corporations run amok. See: East India Company.
The various &;lt;insert nationality here> &;lt;insert region or nation here here> companies were able to do what they did because their home governments extended to them the right to borrow their monopoly on force. When governments do their job and keep corporations in check, not least by preventing them from exercising violence instead of actually condoning it as in your example, they have far less ability to do harm.
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As a matter of interest I do wonder what the East India Company did that was different from any government policy of the day. I mean I know about the general warfare and slavery but that was generally accepted at the time and not really attributable to differences in government vs mega corporations.
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That's because corporations get their charter from the government - they are fictitious entities of law which derive all of their power directly from the government. We call them "private", but really they act at the behest of government - which can make arbitrary regulations and interfere in any way they choose.
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I no fan of Apple, Google or Microsoft these days, but comparing them to the East India Company is a bit of stretch. The EIC had private armies and took over most of India. In fact it was the de facto government of India until the UK government intervened and shut it down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
During its first century of operation, the focus of the company was trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company (Compagnie francaise des Indes orientales) during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey and Battle of Buxar, in which the British, led by Robert Clive, defeated the Indian powers, left the company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, ruling the whole Indian subcontinent either directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies, much of which were composed of native Indian sepoys.
By 1803, at the height of its rule in India, the British East India company had a private army of about 260,000â"twice the size of the British Army.[5] The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.[6] Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 and lasted until 1858, when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown's assuming direct control of the Indian subcontinent in the form of the new British Raj.
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I no fan of Apple, Google or Microsoft these days, but comparing them to the East India Company is a bit of stretch.
I didn't make that comparison. I don't consider Apple, Microsoft, or Google to qualify yet as having run amok. But put a money-mad psychopath in charge of any of them, and you've got a problem. The potential to run amok is there.
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The East India Company wasn't running amok though. Parliament granted it a charter which gave it a monopoly on trade in a big chunk of the world. The EIC then acted inside that charter which gave it more or less absolute power in the area the charter applied from the perspective of the UK government. If any other state quibbled with that absolute power, the EIC was empowered to raise armies and fight them.
Of course the advantage to the UK government was that if the shit ever hit the fan and the EIC did some
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The East India Company wasn't running amok though. Parliament granted it a charter which gave it a monopoly on trade in a big chunk of the world. The EIC then acted inside that charter which gave it more or less absolute power in the area the charter applied from the perspective of the UK government. If any other state quibbled with that absolute power, the EIC was empowered to raise armies and fight them.
Not only is this running amok, it's a government and a corporation conspiring to run amok together. The worst of both worlds.
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Well that's my point really. Corporations are very dangerous when they have a government to grant them the sort of power that EIC got.
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The firing was pretty much justified; that was clearly violating NDAs and security policy letting your adult daypughter take a video of a "secret" space.
As for splitting Apple... are they "too big to fail?" Are they monopolists, dominating a sector? Are they a national security risk? Moreover, for shareholders, are the parts worth more than the sum?
My take is that they have some solid segments, but nothing that dominates. They are extremely weak in some areas that could be a problem in a few years compa
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It's already made up of 50 smaller countries. Time to reassert their local issue rights over the power of central authority.
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And yet, I recall the recent story about the engineer who lost his job and possibly his career because his daughter visited him at the office and took a naughty picture of a new iPhone. Seems like a somewhat evil prioritization of profits over people.
Welcome to capitalism. Apple sells hype, the engineer gave the hype away for free, this interferes with Apple's core business model so they let him go. Nothing could be more capitalistic — capitalism being defined as capital controlling the means of production.
I think smaller government must be predicated upon smaller companies. Soulless, huge, immoral, and immortal companies running amok in search of infinite profits without any control is one of the worst scenarios I can image.
Once upon a time, you had to actually justify an application for a corporate charter. It should provide value to The People, or it should not be permitted to exist. You can do all the same stuff that you do with corporations with co-ops, though
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While I agree with you in some places, I think you're kind of misled on this "capitalism" thing. Next you'll be trying to convince me that "communism" still exists (or ever existed outside of Marx's dreams).
I think the best description of what we have now is "corporate cancerism". I would even argue that cancerism is the natural outcome of attempting to reduce all value to the single dimension of profit.
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And yet, I recall the recent story about the engineer who lost his job and possibly his career because he breached written and well understood company policy
FTFY. If you think Apple is bad for *this* reason your priorities and understanding are seriously messed up.
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No, I know Apple is bad, even EVIL, to put money ahead of human beings. I think you are seriously messed up, but perhaps you can explain to me exactly why you "think" Apple needs another billion dollars of profit? Last I heard Apple was simply sitting on an obscene amount of cash in the bank.
My preliminary theory is that you have delusions of getting a billion of your own and mostly you fantasize about what you would do to other people when you had the kind of power that comes with that kind of money. I cal
Idiots get fired (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, I recall the recent story about the engineer who lost his job and possibly his career because his daughter visited him at the office and took a naughty picture of a new iPhone. Seems like a somewhat evil prioritization of profits over people.
The engineer in question should have known that sharing that information was verboten. He almost certainly signed agreements to that effect. That engineer cut his own throat by disclosing trade secrets of his employer. ANY company in a similar position would have to do the same thing and that is the proper and responsible course of action. Otherwise they send a message that they don't really care about whether people disclose company secrets. We're not talking about some sort of toxic waste dump coverup here. We're talking about carelessly hurting the economic well being of the company and the people who depend on that company. He screwed up. He knows he screwed up. And he got fired for cause. You don't share secrets, even with family. He could easily have prevented the problem by not sharing the phone with his daughter who really is blameless. She was just an enthusiastic kid who got her hands on a new toy and behaved predictably like children do. That has nothing to do with prioritizing profits over people. Those profits actually support the livelihoods of many thousands of people and this idiot engineer needlessly endangered that.
The only phone company to respect privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is in the business of selling hardware, not selling your data. That plus creating a premium experience translates to a device that people will pay a premium to get.
Re: The only phone company to respect privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
*The latest news is that third parties can nab face scan data on the new Iphone x. Customers are 'protected' by giving consent a fine print click-thu on their game (everybody they know is playing it).*
Wow! You mean when the OS clearly and boldly says *X app would like to use your camera (Accept) (Deny) and you choose "Accept", the app can actually use your camera to take pictures of you!
That is incorrect (Score:4, Insightful)
The latest news is that third parties can nab face scan data on the new Iphone x
That s completely technically wrong. iOS apps have no access to FaceID data - which remember would include some 30k dots per however many samplings they take as you rotate your face around twice while setting up FaceID.
What developers have access to is a depth map from front and rear cameras - but it is much less detailed, and there's no way to use it to authenticate. Remember Apple themselves created 3D face masks to try and fool FaceID, in order to ensure that approach would not work...
Re:That is incorrect (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the FaceID data isn't even 30k dots x face scans.
Those raw measurements are immediately aggregated and shoved through a huge pile of logic (developed via machine-learning techniques) to get a series of completely different values that are then given to another huge pile of logic with some machine-learning based feedback systems to authenticate your current face plus a weird range of drift around it. It is utterly impossible to take those values and deconvolute them into a face.
Hackers may as well try to reconstruct an image of your face based on an audio recording of your fart.
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Hackers may as well try to reconstruct an image of your face based on an audio recording of your fart.
Great (and accurate) statement!
3rd parties can see your O face? (Score:2)
I'm sure the denizens of /. are horrified that pr0n sites can use FaceID to track your O face across their platforms...with their consent.
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I'm sure the denizens of /. are horrified that pr0n sites can use FaceID to track your O face across their platforms...with their consent.
Ahh, no worries. Not only have other phones had face id years before the iPhone, but nobody uses it because it doesn't work, so nobody will put it into phones but stupid Apple.
Re:3rd parties can see your O face? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the denizens of /. are horrified that pr0n sites can use FaceID to track your O face across their platforms...with their consent.
Ahh, no worries. Not only have other phones had face id years before the iPhone, but nobody uses it because it doesn't work, so nobody will put it into phones but stupid Apple.
That's because nobody but (not so) "stupid" Apple put enough R&D into Face Recognition to actually make it WORK.
Fuck, Samsung's Facial Recognition was instantly fooled by a PHOTOGRAPH. That's exactly how much effort THEY put into it...
Re: The only phone company to respect privacy (Score:4, Informative)
You get paid to shit spam that out, eh?
The latest news is that third parties can nab face scan data on the new Iphone x. Customers are 'protected' by giving consent a fine print click-thu on their game (everybody they know is playing it).
It doesn't matter what brand phone you use. If your privacy matters you radically limit the info you put on it.
What Apps can access, as explained by Craig Federighi, is a LOW-RESOLUTION "motion mask"-view of the Face as tracked in real-time, and as demonstrated by Federighi during the iPhone X demo. Neither 3rd Parties, NOR APPLE, have access to the high-resolution FaceID information. It lives SOLELY in the Secure Enclave chip, ON-DEVICE.
And guess what? Even THAT is a "cooked-down" (essentially a "hashed") version of the raw camera data.
See:
https://images.apple.com/busin... [apple.com]
Let me fix that (Score:2)
That plus creating a premium experience translates to they're were kind enough to lubed you up first.
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The only? Google won't sell your data either. It's their most valuable asset. They've perfected the business model of selling access to you while keeping your data treasured to themselves.
Software company (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is in the business of selling hardware, not selling your data.
While it is undeniable that Apple does make money selling hardware, they aren't really a hardware company. They are a software company [youtube.com] and this is something Steve Jobs understood a long time ago. They really make their money selling software. The hardware is simply the means by which they sell their software. The hardware on a Mac is in reality barely different from a Dell or HP computer. The iPhone hardware is barely different from numerous Android phones. Put Windows on a Mac or Android on an iPhone and customers would leave Apple faster than you can say "shareholder lawsuit". The hardware is what facilitates the sale but what people really are buying is the software and that is what they pay a premium for.
Think of it this way. Companies keep the valuable parts of the business. Apple doesn't not manufacture hardware so hardware is obviously not the core of their business. They functions they kept in house are software development and hardware design. The hardware design is simply to facilitate selling the software by putting it in a pretty and well designed box.
And at least so far you are right that Apple does appear to in general be responsible with customer data and privacy. So far... And the reason they can do that is that they haven't needed to get into the ad business to maintain their margins. It's actually one of the reasons I have an iPhone instead of Android. It's not that I think the Android system is bad (it's better in many ways) but Google develops Android specifically so that they can continue to make money with their core advertising business which does not and cannot respect my privacy and data. It's a built in conflict of interest that is not in my favor. I'm actually willing to pay Apple a more to avoid that issue. Your mileage may vary of course.
That plus creating a premium experience translates to a device that people will pay a premium to get.
Correct. And the basis of that experience is software. If Apple sold their software through others they would probably look a lot like Microsoft in a best case scenario. Instead they are a little more vertically integrated to differentiate their products because operating systems tends to be a winner take all sort of business. Had they taken Microsoft's playbook probably one or the other of them would have died years ago. Had they taken the approach of selling hardware with someone else's software they would be nothing more than another me-too vendor of PCs even in the best case scenario and their margins would be a LOT thinner.
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Apple doesn't not manufacture hardware
Are you high?
Employing a Contract Manufacturer to do the soldering and assembly doesn't make you a "non-manufacturer" of your Hardware products.
EVERYONE employs Contract Manufacturers. It's just a matter of economic efficiency, since the facilities and equipment are specialized and quite costly.
Manufacturing (Score:2)
Are you high?
Nope. Don't drink either.
Employing a Contract Manufacturer to do the soldering and assembly doesn't make you a "non-manufacturer" of your Hardware products.
Actually it does mean exactly that. Apple does not manufacture their products and has not for a long time. Therefore they are not a manufacturer by definition. Nothing wrong with that but you have to actually manufacture something to be called a manufacturer.
EVERYONE employs Contract Manufacturers. It's just a matter of economic efficiency, since the facilities and equipment are specialized and quite costly.
I am the GM for a (small) contract manufacturing company. I assure you I understand how it works better than you do. If you outsource 100% of your manufacturing then you are by definition not a manufacturer. Companies lik
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Are you high?
Nope. Don't drink either.
Employing a Contract Manufacturer to do the soldering and assembly doesn't make you a "non-manufacturer" of your Hardware products.
Actually it does mean exactly that. Apple does not manufacture their products and has not for a long time. Therefore they are not a manufacturer by definition. Nothing wrong with that but you have to actually manufacture something to be called a manufacturer.
EVERYONE employs Contract Manufacturers. It's just a matter of economic efficiency, since the facilities and equipment are specialized and quite costly.
I am the GM for a (small) contract manufacturing company. I assure you I understand how it works better than you do. If you outsource 100% of your manufacturing then you are by definition not a manufacturer. Companies like Dell and HP contract out some production but they also make a substantial amount of their products themselves. Apple currently makes near as makes no difference none of their hardware nor do the assemble hardware made by others. The do design a lot of it but designing a product does not make one a manufacturer.
And I have worked for decades Designing industrial control products. The (also small) company I worked for did a lot of its own Manufacturing (including in house PCB design, board-stuffing (through-hole) and a Wavesolder line (again, for the through-hole stuff)), as well as enclosures (other than the injection molded parts) and final assembly. But, due to the equipment investment necessary for pick and place and IR reflow equipment, we also used CMs for our SMT designs. Therefore, I know EXACTLY what I am t
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Actually it does mean exactly that. Apple does not manufacture their products and has not for a long time.
Bullshit [irishexaminer.com]. If failing Dell and HP get to pretend to be computer manufacturers, so does Apple.
“While Apple has changed the supply chain in many other factories and got out of manufacturing in many cases, it has always kept the Cork facility here so we’re the only Apple-owned manufacturing facility in the world,” senior director of manufacturing Paul Coburn explains.
“There’s a huge history there and when they transitioned [to outsourcing manufacturing] I think they saw that to get rid of all manufacturing expertise from Cork would actually be a risk.”
Instead, the Cork facility has flourished in the past decade as the core knowledge of its employees — many of whom are locals — grows in importance as outsourcing continues apace and new products are brought to market.
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Apple is in the business of selling hardware, not selling your data. That plus creating a premium experience translates to a device that people will pay a premium to get.
Precisely!
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I'm not sure the Fappening victims are convinced Apple is doing a better job of keep their data secure and private than any of the other players.
Sure they don't - even so we (as in those who don't have their heads up their asses) all full well know that they gave their online credentials to the hackers in a way that Apple couldn't prevent. ANd that's ignoring that the majority of hacked accounts actually where from Google, for which only an idiot would claim Apple responsible.
drop test market is going like gangbusters (Score:1)
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I have shares in Apple, so I definitely agree.
Buy more iPhones, people! ;-)
IPhone X is painful for other retailers (Score:2)
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I can most definitely afford the X, but my 6Plus is still good enough.
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Dude, I quoted a business insider article
There's your problem, right there.
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Most people buy phones on contract which means a tiny bump in monthly payments, I really don't see this dragging down retail more than it already does for itself. If retail is down, I'd look a lot more solidly at Amazon than Apple.
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Oh NO! (Score:2)
"Crushes expectations"? (Score:2)
The headline is hyperbolic in the extreme.
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An extra 500,000 over expected sales of 46.6 million is 1% above target.
The headline is hyperbolic in the extreme.
Phew, thanks god iPhone sales were the only prediction anybody made. Imagine if TFA or even TFS had mentioned revenue and Mac sales 8% above expectations - how dumb would that make you look.
wee crush (Score:2)
How I miss the good old days, where no one ever interpreted 1% as "crushing it"—unless it was a 1% uptick occurring in under 24 hours. Even by this standard, in any given issue of PC Magazine twenty different Taiwanese upstarts would be outed as crushing it since the last breathless thud.
These days, The 1% is reliably crushing it, but that's a different matter.