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Apple Announces Most Profitable Quarter in History
zacharye writes with an except from an article over at BGR about Apple's quarterly results: "'Disappointing' though it may have been to some, the iPhone 4S propelled what is now confirmed to have been the most profitable quarter any technology company has ever recorded. Apple on Wednesday reported record earnings for the December quarter, revealing a profit of $13.06 billion on revenue that surpassed $46 billion. Among technology companies, Apple's fiscal first quarter represents the most profitable quarter ever recorded. Only one U.S. company has ever posted a more profitable quarter — Exxon managed a profit of $14.8 billion in the third quarter of 2008 — and the driving force behind Apple's record-setting performance was quite clearly the iPhone."
Nokia and RIM should read and weep. This should have been them.
As a WebOS fan, this makes me sad. Why would HP give up on such an incredibly profitable market after only investing $3.3billion http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/21/hps-failed-webos-experiment-cost-them-3-3-billion-but-whats-next/ ? The iOS and Andriod user experiences still have not passed WebOS smoothness, in my opinion, though the notification systems are catching up.
Although HP's management style of WebOS reminded me of: "They say you gotta spend money to make money. I don’t know what went wrong. We spent all our money." - Tom Haverford
Expect some of those profits being rolled into further efforts to battle back Android and secure a future for Apple.
Also expect more headlines in Slashdot regarding how they are spending it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Selling mp3s, apps and movies doesn't have a ton of costs.
I'll have to disagree ...it's tech worthy news. The more money Apple gets, the more money they have to influence the shape of things to come.
It's good to be aware of the shifts in power and the current status quo regardless of whether you are a fanboi or not.
I can't help that think with record breaking profits like this, there has to be some sort of bubble that's about to burst. Maybe it's paranoia brought about by the current economy, but goodness.. $13 billion in profit? More than 25% of their revenue is profit? Something is going on here..
They are building all their products in China. What's so hard to figure about this? OK, Foxconn will now pay the workers a few Renminbi more, per hour, but don't expect that to dent the profit margin much.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nothing lasts forever. But Apple have put together a quite amazing run. If Apple were to shut down tomorrow, and distribute all of its cash as dividends, it would be returning 100bn to its investors, and for anyone who invested in Apple 10 years ago, they would be getting a stupidly large return. That for what was already a mature company.
Thats a billion dollars a week! I figure there are not even many countries which can manage that.
You will never have experience until after you needed it.
Most Profitable Quarter in History?
Did you adjust for inflation?
The press release doesn't really mention much about iTunes sales. Mostly it's talking about the MASSIVE number of iPhones they sold, and huge increases in almost every other hardware product over this quarter last year (except for the iPod). 37 million iPhones is equivalent to quite a lot of mp3's....
Of course it is a bubble. Apple is currently the only company that can charge huge margins for their tech because they are looked at as the best. If you want quality, the masses think, you need to get a Mac/iPod/iPad/etc. Of course if Apple slips up like they did back in the 90s and slips backwards of course they won't be as profitable. But, at the moment, everyone thinks Apple has very high quality products. If they really do or don't, it is irrelevant. The fact is, the masses think that its made by Apple, it has to be good. Couple this with having large revenues per product makes Apple super profitable. Compare it to most technology companies that operate on razor thin profit margins and powerful hardware and sell it to the masses.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I paid $70 for an unsubsidized low-end LG android phone at Christmas. It's not a bad phone, and I suspect Apple's jaw-dropping profit margin is going to get hit as Samsung, LG and Moto push out some extremely capable phones in the sub-$300 range. That said, Apple has two things going for them -- (1) a closed iOS ecosystem that encourages people to remain on their platform, and (2) Profitable multi-year contract arrangements with the telcos that allow them to market "$149" handsets with the true cost hidden in multi-thousand dollar contracts.
It shows that nerds are wrong and Apple is right.
Seriously, you're confronted with an existence-proof.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
It's because they can expand services and not have to raise their overhead that much.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The entire phone market is switching over to smartphones.
All of CHINA is switching over to smartphones.
Apple's current profits are based on selling to a tiny fraction of the current phone market; at least some iPhones are now free in contract.
This is not a bubble. This is a surfer just at the START of riding in a very big wave.
And that's only figuring in the phone business, the entire PC industry is going to switch quickly to where most casual consumer computing is done on tablets... and there Apple is again, lead surfer on that wave.
Oh, and I forgot to mention Apple is a leader in selling consumers media over the internet. But that would only matter if that were some kind of transition underway also.
So if you think it's time to sell, think again... even if you think buying now is foolish, well plenty said that back at $350. The fact is that just to keep the absurdly low P/E of 15 that Apple has currently, every quarter is going to see a large stock surge like you see now as profits and cash on hand keep dragging the price up against the will of the traders.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And yet Apple couldn't manufacture iPhones in the US because they couldn't afford the extra $49 it would cost to make iPhones here. It might shave a few millions off of those billions. Can't have that happen!
Cite please.
I was going to explain why there's a key difference, that I read your journal. So I'm not going to bother, because no amount of explaining will fix stupid.
Communism wishes to roll back the clock.. idiot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Who cares?
Uhm, shareholders? :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
Nerds are often arguing about issues that require foresight, something the general public doesn't have when it comes to IT because they're good at other things than us. Freedom is one of the examples of things that don't matter to the public, but may matter later. Which is why we still argue that the 'losing' alternative is superior.
I always thought WebOS would be a close second to iOS. What tragedy that other platforms prevailed, and like you said HP basically took the axe to WebOS.
RIP, WebOS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Courtesy of outsourcing manufacturing to China.
I'm a bass player. For years, it's been common that high-quality expensive gear is made in the US, and cheap knockoffs overseas.
Now, Apple has re-defined that. They will gouge your eyes out for high-quality (if you believe their absurd marketing schemes, that is) hardware that is still made overseas.
$13 billion in profits is probably not entirely derived from short-changing their American workforce (who seriously believes those things can't be made here -- I don't) and adding to the already bursting trade deficit.
I guess I shouldn't complain, though. In America, the land of milk and honey, it's now considered fortunate to have a shitty McJob. God forbid the middle class could afford the fruits of their own labor.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
They make very little from the software/media sales. Gross margins on the hardware are huge though: 44.7%. Tim Cook indicated in the conference call that that's probably not a sustainable number (their margins are typically in the high 30s). But the raw numbers of devices they sold grew by stunning amounts. Even Mac volumes rose by more than 25%, and that's in a PC industry that's not doing that well in aggregate.
Say what you want pro or con about their products, but they know how to make stuff that people want to buy.
Case in point: Verizon reported that iPhones accounted for 55% of their smartphone sales last quarter. That's against how many different models of Android phone?
The only thing going on is that people are suckers for slick marketing and consumerism in general.
So that's why on a daily basis, I see more android commercials than apple commercials.
The difference is in the perception: Apple did it by developing something that didn't exist before. Exxon did it by digging stuff out of the ground and suddenly prices spiked through no effort of their own.
They are building all their products in China. What's so hard to figure about this?
So is everyone else. Everyone else is not enjoying this level of increase in profits quarter after quarter, or the same margins that Apple has.
Only Apple as far as I know has started moving any production (the A5 chip) back into the U.S.
OK, Foxconn will now pay the workers a few Renminbi more
They already do, and yet Apple's sales surge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who cares?
This isn't news for nerds, it's fodder for fanboys.
How can I tell you don't have a stack of Apple stock? Because you are sitting here, creating a post like that.
If you had any stock in them at all you'd be dancing a jig. That's an impressive jump in stock price and evidence the company is still growing.
Two ways to look at this - from a financial investment - looks good! The other, it's that little company that was trounced by Microsoft for years, made cute little computers, but lost the plot and market share and nearly died. Re-invented by Steve Jobs, it's back and badder than ever and from whom more toys will be forthcoming.
Sure wish I had some stock in them...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow. You could have had an iPhone 3GS for free, or an iPhone 4 for $100. "Penny-wise, pound-foolish" comes to mind.
How did they "leverage the death" of Steve Jobs?
Seems to me that was only a negative for Apple, making a lot of people think the company would drift after that point.
It's not like Apple came out with a "Jobs Memorial iPhone". The only people who profited off Job's demise were a few turtleneck manufacturers and some doll makers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple isn't the only company building things in China, but somehow they've managed to be the most profitable about it. If "Made In China" was the only requisite for extreme profits, then I think there would be a lot more "99 cent" stores dominating the stock market.
It probably is just paranoia. The reason for a bubble is prices no longer represent real world value. Contrary to the popular opinion on /. a lot of people like their iPhones which gives them value. So unless for some reason people stop liking their iphones (which seems unlikely) there's no bubble here.
Perhaps it's time to just shut down and distribute the cash to the shareholders. Clearly this company didn't know how to manage.... :)
Apple is DOOMED! :)
When Exxon posted those profit numbers people were screaming for a windfall profits tax. Where are those people now? Probably listening to their iPod, tuned out to the world.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This would not only restore manufacturing, but it would also improve our tax base, rather quickly. Finally, it would force nations that we have supposed open markets with that manipulate against us to change their behaviors.
So, for our top 20 nations that we trade with, this would punish the following:
While giving other nations like Canada a pass:
Interestingly, this is legal PER WTO. WTO's position is that when a nation's trade deficit is larger than 10% with another, than you may take action.
The trick here is to convince the neo-cons that are attached to China's pants to let go and back America instead. Right now, far too many neo-cons are the ones blocking efforts at a balanced trade. In addition, without a budget deficit below 500 billion (or so), this probably becomes impossible to do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A couple of years ago, there was much screeching about Exxon's excessive profits. "I want to take those profits and..."
Why not the same here? I guess it's just evil oil vs. cool iPhones.
Since we are in the season full tax disclosure, I wonder how much Apple pays ?
abusus non tollit usum
: abuse does not take away use, i.e., is not an argument against proper use
That is, fanboyish reactions do not strip the relevance of one of the largest players in a tech industry making more money than ever before, or prevent sane discussion of the fact.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
They make almost nothing on those things - practically noise in the data as far as profit goes.
The vast, vast bulk of their profits are in hardware sales.
You should learn a few things about investing before making a fool out of yourself. The fact that AAPL shares are above 400$ bares no meaning at all on whether the price is "sky high" or not. Berkshire Hathaway class A shares are over 100,000$ each and their price is not "sky high" either. It's all about the actual valuation metrics of the company relative to the share price and according to them, AAPL was actually pretty fairly priced before the earnings release.
Or are you going to be making even more of a fool out of yourself by sticking to your guns and saying that a PE of 15 for a company with projected 30% revenue growth is "sky high"? Except that it was actually even cheaper then that, because the revenue growth ended up being twice higher.
Take a look at this chart.
http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2012/01/appleq112topchart.jpg
The orange strip is revenue from downloads. Sure Apple makes money from them, but it's dwarfed by the money they make from hardware.
So the Android phones that are made in the same factory aren't as profitable.... why?
If it were solely down to the Chinese labour (who are not slaves btw, but we'll ignore the hyperbole) then there would be considerably more highly profitable electronics manufacturers.
Also I might be a bit slow today, but I don't understand the summary:
Apple's fiscal first quarter represents the most profitable quarter ever recorded. Only one U.S. company has ever posted a more profitable quarter — Exxon [...]
Seems like a contradiction to me. So is it the most profitable quarter in history or not? In the history of what? the US? the world?
The Foxconn factory complex in question has a lower suicide rate than the overall suicide rate for China. When you have half a million employees in the same city, some of them are gong to commit suicide. If you have half a million humans in the same city, some of them are going to commit suicide.
Finally! Somebody on slashdot who knows the difference between profit and profit margin!!
Mark this day in your history book.
Apple's short term investments essentially make it a very huge hedge fund.
Nerds are often arguing about issues that require foresight
That is exactly right, and why you should place no stock in predictions from those on Slashdot that constant predict Apple's demise for reasons that plainly make no sense and exhibit the continued misunderstanding of the market as a whole.
something the general public doesn't have when it comes to IT because they're good at other things than us.
And yet the general public generally speaking could have told you Apple continues to fare well, just form anecdotal evidence. So should not there be some giant red flags here that nerds En Masse have apparently willfully given up the power of foresight simply because of hatred?
Which is why we still argue that the 'losing' alternative is superior.
You can still argue something is superior while correctly predicting the thing you think is not superior will win out and understanding why. That's what helps you to make the truly superior thing fare well in the market.
But again many nerds here on Slashdot have instead decided over and over again to proclaim Apple is not successful because they say so, and the technologies they favor will win "just because". That is not going to work out well long-term.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... It's still Tuesday....
Damn you, dnaumov, now I have to open at least 5 Wikipedia tabs so I can later pretend I understand something about investing.
Lessee... "PE".... 41 matches. This is gonna take a while...
Translation: The more money they get to try bully competition with spurious but time-consuming lawsuits.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I would say "kinda". The bigger story isn't the blowout story. For most nerds, it is that a tech company is now the largest company in the world when measured by market cap. Apple passed Exxon in after market trading.
An ancillary story would be the rise of mobile and a potential sea change in how we interact with our computing devices. These are good times for nerds me thinks!
Sorry for sounding a bit like an Apple fanboi. I actually think Apple is bad for nerds long term.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
My crystal ball, tuned to the year 2025, says that this quarter will in fact prove to be the most profitable quarter of Apple's entire history.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'll have to disagree ...it's tech worthy news. The more money Apple gets, the more money they have to influence the shape of things to come.
It's good to be aware of the shifts in power and the current status quo regardless of whether you are a fanboi or not.
The profit levels say nothing about the shape of things to come (other than more law suits).
What the do indicate is the excessive level of profit is cranked into the iphone/ipad line.
By my estimate they could cut the price in half and still make a profit. None of the other phone
or tablet makers have this kind of profit margin, yet their products easily match the iOS products
in quality and ease of use.
If apple cut their prices the "cool factor" would be diminished, and the fanbois would move onto something
else. If they aren't over paying top dollar its just obviously not the best thing ever.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
OIL the life's blood of ... all of us! Comparing that to the non-essential iPhone of hipsters of the world?
It takes about 10 calories of oil for 1 calorie of food you eat. per day. every day. The industrial revolution's fuels made the population boom possible. Oil is about LIFE; because we built this teetering world population upon an Oil foundation.
Oil was fraudulently priced too highly during an increased demand which stressed the already fragile world economy. Demand didn't raise the price of oil; they did and bribed anybody who knew better who could do anything about it.
They could just jack up the price tomorrow with no excuse what so ever and they would get it because its a NECESSITY (to avoid too much revolt, they do not push it any further than the edge of tolerance...) I bet they could hit 20 billion and not get enough congressmen to DO anything to them for a few more million in bribes.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
And the number of "fanboys" appear to grow exponentially each quarter, judging by the financial results. How exactly do you imagine that Apple manages to keep on getting all these new fans?
WARNING: This question actually requires you to think. Be careful. Do some warm ups first.
abusus non tollit usum
: abuse does not take away use, i.e., is not an argument against proper use
Quod Latine sonat alta.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Of course some people seem to think that Windows and Android are winning.
It all depends on your definition of winning. One of the analysts covering the mobile industry was being interviewed on CNBC after Apple reported their quarterly results. This analyst claimed that 94% of current iPhone users would buy another iPhone but only 47% of current Android users would by another Android device.
Maybe or maybe they'd have some hope of being relevant outside of a few niches. Right now they're relevant in the tablet and smartphone markets, I'm guessing that's not going to last too much longer as they're losing in the smartphone market and they're having to resort to patent trolling to protect themselves from competition in the tablet market.
This isn't like a decade ago when they could just misappropriate other people's work and expect to get away with it, they're competing with outfits that generally know how to compete and care about making money.
The only number I heard about iTunes was that it was 1.5X the entire revenue of Yahoo! who reported just before Apple.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
Because Apple creates an aura around their products with excellent marketing and design, just watch the way people fondle their iPhones/iPads it's pornographic, and if they're not the type to fondle the seriously pose with it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You think as if all consumers are idiots and will put down good hard earned money for shitty products.
I'll have to disagree ...it's tech worthy news. The more money Apple gets, the more money they have to influence the shape of things to come.
It's good to be aware of the shifts in power and the current status quo regardless of whether you are a fanboi or not.
Speaking of which :
@fmanjoo : "Apple's profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google's entire revenue ($10.6 billion)."
Thought that was pretty mind-blowing since we're all used to thinking of Google as some kind of juggernaut.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
PE, more commonly abbreviated as P/E stands for Price/Earnings, usually for (TTM) - the trailing 12 months.
Woo, SuperKendall the Apple Zealot strikes again
It's not being a zealot to give you simple facts.
What is begin a zealot is to ignore said facts in the face of reality.
Especially when reality has bitchslapped you repeatedly and you ignored it before.
I'll give a shit about Apple's high stock price when it splits or they start actually paying out dividends to their investors.
Who cares when the stock keeps climbing? You can easily make your own "dividend" through stock sales.
Until then it's just a bubble you hope you exit before it pops.
If you really thought it was a bubble you'd sell the whole of your stock. So you are either schizophrenic or lying.
For the stock to be a bubble you have to demonstrate clearly how it could fall. The internet bubble was plain to see, absurd amounts of money invested in things not making any money and in fact simply consuming money hand over fist.
But Apple is making tons of money. They also hold LITERAL tons of money, 100 billion would weigh quite a lot in any denomination. They also have sales that you certainly could not claim have any basis to slow down much given the sales to date and any competitor on the near horizon.
So then tell us, just how does the Apple "bubble" pop when all signs point to growth in every single endeavor Apple is involved in? Even a HUGE growth of Android tablet sales (possible with the Fire) does not necessarily mean any slowdown in the iPad trajectory anytime soon.
Even if Apple's sales totally flatlined, and there was ZERO growth - even then the stock would continue to climb for some time just based on fundamentals of selling that much and the recognition of deferred revenue. Do you truly believe zero growth for Apple in tablets OR phones OR media is realistic?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Then if it is that easy, I assume you will be posting a billion a week profit soon.
Apple's demise for reasons that plainly make no sense and exhibit the continued misunderstanding of the market as a whole.
I know, right? Time was, a man could make a decent wage in the Apple-bashing biz. Hell, back in the mid-90s it literally was this simple:
"Apple is doomed! Just break it up and sell it already!"
*Cashes Cheque*
But with all these record profits, the Apple hating market is just totally dead, a shell of its former self.
Honestly, that's the real story here.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
That's precisely why I don't own any shares of Apple. As soon as people start acting like there's a sure thing you can be pretty sure that the price is already way too high.
There have been a few very significant changes at Apple lately which lead me to suspect that it might not continue going up much longer. One they lost their CEO and the individual that drove the branding and marketing for Apple.Apple is mostly marketing, they rarely if ever do anything first and most of the time they way over price the items they sell, depending upon name recognition and glamor to pull it off. I'm not so sure that they're going to be able to continue that without Steve. Sure, they may very well, but so far I don't have any reason to assume so.
Then there's been the patent trolling and general dickishness of Apple trying to kill Android. It's going to come back to haunt them in the future in terms of increased competition and damaged image. I personally, am not going to be recommending Apple products any time soon, which makes it somewhat difficult as I don't generally recommend MS products either.
Lastly, stocks have a nasty tendency to regress to the mean over time and the more people view the money as guaranteed the more likely that it is that there's going to be a correction. Right now, if you want money, MSFT is a much better buy than AAPL is.
Will this lead to AAPL taking a bit of a dive, I don't know, it's hard to really figure out how long delusion is going to last before it finally comes into contact with reality.
...Which, incidentally, will influence the shape of things to come.
/* No Comment */
None of the other phone or tablet makers have this kind of profit margin, yet their products easily match the iOS products
in quality and ease of use.
1) "match the iOS products in quality and ease of use." We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Most Android phones I've seen (with some very few exceptions) feel cheap, they feel much cheaper than they are in fact.
2) Android makers get the OS for free, remember Apple does more than just sell the hardware. There's R&D, software development, patents to be bought, etc.
3) Even with a free OS, show me the phones and tablets significantly undercutting iOS devices while providing the same quality. And the "going out of business, please buy our inventory" sales don't count.
If apple cut their prices the "cool factor" would be diminished, and the fanbois would move onto something else. If they aren't over paying top dollar its just obviously not the best thing ever.
To me calling people "fanbois" and looking down on them because they think "the mainstream is so cool but they don't know what's cool, I know what's cool" just makes you another hipster. Just accept there are people who like something different from you, is that so difficult ? I can see why people like Android or Windows Phone, that doesn't make them idiots or "fanbois" just people with other needs.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I have Apple stock and yet I still can't help but be a little sad. Apple makes good products. I own a few and many other people I know have them as well (hence the stock). That said, I like to see winners that are worthy of emulation. Apple hasn't been a good corporate citizen lately. They have tried to drive competition from their markets by less than honorable means. They have not given back to the society that nurtured them. They have not set an example of how to treat your employees, your partners, or your country.
I know it would be considered heresy at American business schools, but I don't believe a company exists only to benefit its shareholders. A company is given many gifts by their society; monopoly on their brand and inventions, protection in trade, infrastructure to distribute their goods, and consumers to buy it. Companies cannot succeed on capitalism alone. Don't misunderstand me, I believe that capitalism is the greatest economic system yet devised because it harnesses our inner greed, but the power of that greed can be self-destructive.
So I guess when I see profits of this magnitude, it makes me a little nervous.
$100 mil is like cab fare. With the kind of money that Apple or Microsoft has, you can litigate someone out of business even if you know that ultimately you're going to lose.
If you want quality, the masses think, you need to get a Mac/iPod/iPad/etc.
I love this "the masses think" remark, because it exposes your elitism as well as lack of touch. Many famous and prolific hackers use Macs/iPhones/iPads. Are they the "masses" that you speak of?
Recently I've had to use a non-mac (Thinkpad) for my work laptop... and it chafes. Not only would I be more productive with OSX, the hardware itself is archaic. It contains an optical drive that I never use (think: all software and licensing in large companies are now automated - no discs necessary). It weighs more than the equivalent Mac, and it occasionally stalls at random intervals. I would switch back in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.
It's more than just "fashion" as most Apple-crtics deride - it's design. Both hardware and software. Sure it may not have the latest features or be as fast as the competition, but the reason for that is often that Apple couldn't find a way to do it and keep the size/heat/battery profiles within reasonable bounds (with exceptions.: BlueRay).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
If who makes the most money is what decides what is "right," then I guess McDonald's is the best restaurant in America.
You're talking about different things. Revenues are independent of costs, and the GP was talking about costs.
Still, combined with reports that gross margins on hardware range from high 30s to mid 40s, the profit still looks significantly higher than those revenues.
Apple now has $96 billion in cash/equivalents.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
...And there are still just as many who don't. Its a catch-22 here on /.
If you post Macs are quality you are going to get attacked by people who don't like using Macs.
If you post that Macs aren't quality you are going to get attacked by Apple fanboys.
So in my post I used a neutral and factually correct term to avoid a flamewar, because, if you asked the masses they would generally say that Macs are quality machines.
My own views of Apple are irrelevant to my post and your views on Apple are too. We are talking about that Apple has sky high profitability. Not that X user likes using a Mac. That doesn't matter. There were famous Mac users back when Apple almost went bankrupt. What matters is that the masses are embracing Apple.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I love this "the masses think" remark, because it exposes your elitism as well as lack of touch.
And the rest of your comment demonstrates your own elitism and lack of touch. Seriously, read your own comment. Since you don't use an optical drive, it's archaic? Since you're more productive with OSX, everyone else is as well? (I regularly use both OS X and Windows, by the way, and I'm far more productive on Windows).
I agree with your premise. However I don't agree that it applies to AAPL (yet).
However good there growth has been (and don't get me wrong its been pretty amazing last few years) its entirely justified given their valuation metrics.
The thing is whichever way you slice it there isn't a single metric that would suggest they are overpriced. This kind of growth in a company is unprecedented and it is for that reason the share price is lagging. People are irrational, the market is irrational. My take is that people are too scared to buy because they think the price has gone to high too fast. They are still nervous. There are still plenty of skeptics.
Once the market catches up with reality, we'll see the next level of growth. It will be fast outpacing everything we've seen so far as everyone decides that maybe they are that dead cert, and that's when we'll over shoot. Probably about the same time that revenue and profit plateau (Which has to happen at some point!). Of course people will ignore this, caught in the euphoria and continue to pile in cash as its now 'a sure thing' share price will go insane.
Then its time to panic. Now, not so much.
Invaders must die
I honestly don't think they are losing in the smartphone market. I still see 10 iPhones for every 1 Android device out there. In the US perhaps Android is a bit more competitive (due to your 'phone tied to the carrier' model, it means big phone companies like Verizon and Sprint actively advertise Android phones, which isn't really done anywhere else). But here (Australia), although Android phones are readily available (including some decent ones like the Galaxy S), they still don't sell anywhere near as well as iPhones (keeping in mind that a lot of people buy the phone direct from Apple here, outright, not locked into a carrier or plan or contract etc.)
It may eventually turn out that iPhone falls to less than 50% of the smartphone market (which isn't surprising since Apple is one manufacturer and Android is made by several companies who can combine their forces). But even then I wouldn't qualify that as 'losing' in the market.
Where? It's certainly Wednesday 25th Jan 11:40am here....
Never happened. True story.
You're talking about different things. Revenues are independent of costs, and the GP was talking about costs.
Of course. But he was offering up the low costs of downloads as the reason for Apple's profits. I'm pointing out that downloads are too small a part of Apple's business for that to be the case. They are making the bulk of their profits on hardware.
That'd be a great point, if customer satisfaction surveys and analysis of support call center numbers didn't suggest the exact opposite of what you've just claimed.
Here's what's funny: the iPad has been competing with similarly priced competitor devices for a while now - devices from Motorla, Samsung, Dell... how is it that those other makers have lower profit margins on their devices (by your own claim), yet Apple could cut the price of the iPad in half and still make a profit?
And the profit levels absolutely do say something about the shape of things to come: the person with the thinnest profit margins is the one who has to start cutting corners on build quality and components to be able to make a profit. The person with the biggest profit margins has some room to reduce their per-unit profit without sacrificing build quality, allowing them to maintain their market share in the face of competitive pressures.
Wednesday here...afternoon in fact. Closer to Thursday than Tuesday.
If apple cut their prices the "cool factor" would be diminished, and the fanbois would move onto something
else. If they aren't over paying top dollar its just obviously not the best thing ever.
So, making things expensive automatically brings you new customers?
I'm sorry, but that doesn't have any sense. Apple is not a luxury brand, most people who buys Apple products probably don't even care about technology.
Apple now has $96 billion in cash/equivalents.
Which means that the $100M spent on Android lawsuits accounts for just over 0.1% of their current cash (equivalent) reserves. Barely a blip on the quarterly report.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Actually, most of the value production is done outside of China. China basically does assembly. For an IPad that works out to about $10 of labor. So the wages in China could double and we would still not see much change in the price / profit of a IPad.
pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2011/Value_iPad_iPhone.pdf
http://www.economist.com/node/21543174
After all, when XOM makes 4 cents/share, everyone is calling for their heads on a spit.
That's 100M in what, 4 months?
the legal costs will escalate for apple far faster than the competition. That's the nature of shakedown attempts.
My guess was that they had the highest profit relative to revenue ever recorded in a single quarter, and that only Exxon ever had more profit in dollars in a quarter. But that is only a guess and I don't want to dig into it to figure it out further . . .
Sooner or later. Unless a big-ass meteor crushes the Earth, in which case we're all doomed and I'm right on a technicality.
>When all is said and done, right now Apple is rather aggressively destroying value as it tilts at windmills.
>Sure, they might get away with it in the short term or figure out a way of avoiding it in the long,
>but eventually this sort of behavior catches up with a company.
How do you define losing? The three best selling phones in Q4 among all carriers were: iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, in that order. More than half of all phones sold by Verizon in Q4 were iPhones, and they're currently the largest carrier. It would be safe to assume that the numbers would be at least similar with AT&T and Sprint, although they have not published their numbers.
If that's your version of "losing in the smart phone market" then how would you define winning?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
It may not make sense to you, but it sure make sense to apple fans.
If they didn't care about technology they wouldn't buy every new phone apple puts out.
Making things expensive has ALWAYS brought new customers and repeat customers. If the product in question is anything other than a commodity, raising the price, and thereby implying a better product always sells well.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Well, according to the post-release interview, the iTunes store generated $1.7 billion during Q112, so that would be a pretty neat trick. They also state that Gross margin was 44.7%. Have you not noticed all the articles about how they buy up the supplies of everything, and all the other manufacturers are struggling to match Apple's prices?
"...That's the nature of shakedown attempts."
I don't think you understand the nature of Apple's litigation. Last I heard Apple was not interested in licensing any technology they claim (i.e. shakedown), they want to force competitors to find work arounds. It's a bit like the scene in Goldfinger when Bond has an industrial laser beam about to cut him in half. He says, "I suppose you expect me to talk" and Goldfinger replies "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!".
By my estimate they could cut the price in half and still make a profit.
None of the articles cited state the profit margin on the hardware, which I suspect is quite low. The profit is all in the app store and iTunes store...
Everything I've ever read about the app store suggests that it runs at very little profit. Apple has stated as much in their 10K.
They run it to support device sales, and device sales are their bread and butter.
The profit margin on an iPhone is almost twice what the competition enjoys. Close to 60% pure profit.
Its been this way for a long time. Check this CNN-Money article.
iPhone sales have crept up from about 30% of Apples Gross to about 50%.
iTunes is the loss leader, not the iPhone or iPad.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
A smart phone, of course. Yes, Sun had them in prototypes 2-3 years before Apple did. But Apple put it everyone's hands. Just like Exxon ensured logistics negotiating contracts all over the world, building drilling stations all over the world, operated shipping boats, ensured refineries' operations. And then made it possible for a million gas stations to exist everywhere in the country to pour liquid, whose contents are highly explosive, in a safe way in the middle of nowhere. You see, if it's not "digital", it's not innovative. Don't you know? They are just "digging stuff up." Cave man stuff really.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Sorry, but are you actually defending Communism? I just want to make sure I understood you correctly before I laugh uncontrollably.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Case in point: Verizon reported that iPhones accounted for 55% of their smartphone sales last quarter. That's against how many different models of Android phone?
And the reason for this is the same reason why Android made it into the market. I bet you 80% of those Iphone purchases were from people who wanted an Iphone but decided not to get one because Apple wanted to lock them into AT&T. And thus, Android was born.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
The iPhone.
I think they meant it was Apple's most profitable quarter ever and the second most profitable for any US company.
I've always wondered about this statistic.
When you compare a single company to a country, you have to consider demographic differences. For example, suicide rates are generally higher among the unemployed, among the mentally unstable, among the elderly, etc.
Foxconn employs people who are young, healthy, sane, not on drugs, and (obviously) gainfully employed. What is the national rate among that demographic, and how does Foxconn's rate compare? My guess is not favorably.
You'll need a source for that, since my own places the iPhone 4s at third, (SII at first, Nexus at second), the iPhone 4 at 9th, and the 3GS at 34th. The Lumia 800 places 4th, though the next WP after that is the Lumia 710 at 53rd.
And the number of "fanboys" appear to grow exponentially each quarter, judging by the financial results. How exactly do you imagine that Apple manages to keep on getting all these new fans?
WARNING: This question actually requires you to think.
Be careful.
Do some warm ups first.
You definitely have a future in writing for the best of the comedians if your tech job fails.
> As soon as people start acting like there's a sure thing you
> can be pretty sure that the price is already way too high.
Some people look at a slot machine that hasn't paid off in a long time and say "it's due!" and play it.
Some people look at a slot machine that just paid out and say "it's hot!" and play it.
Years ago people were saying that AAPL at $100 was way to high and no way could it maintain that level. Have you seen what's happened since then? That's the funny thing about growth--there's always the possibility for more of it. Sometimes it's more likely than others, but it's always possible.
Have you been paying attention to how Apple has been doing for the last decade? Do you fail to grasp that they just had a quarter that was 50% higher than their highest quarter ever? That only one company has EVER had a more profitable quarter in U.S. history? You really think you can get that high on a combination of marketing, dumb luck, and Christmas? And that it's gonna wear off in a hurry?
> Will this lead to AAPL taking a bit of a dive, I don't know
Look at the size of the smartphone market compared to the size of the entire cell phone market; the growth of the smartphone market, and Apple's position in that market. Then do the same for iPads versus PCs. Apple is doing just fine without Steve Jobs and they will continue to do so. With the potential growth in those two markets we may well be talking about a $100B quarter for them in a few years. You might think you're pretty bright but I guarantee you there are some really smart people inside Apple right now, and they have a lot more experience than you and access to infinitely better information than you.
You obviously don't like Apple and that's fine--I'm not happy with how sue-happy they've become lately either--but to look at the numbers that came out of today's call and say "It's all downhill from here!" is nothing short of insanity.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
That's a boatload of cash. No, literally, a large boat load of hundred dollar bills. And it looks like they're going to need a bigger boat. That's like 1,200 congresses.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm on the verge of getting an iPhone, because it's the only remaining smartphone that appears to be designed to fit in a pocket. I went to see about upgrading my Motorola Droid to a Droid Razr, thinking I would get something a little thinner, a little lighter, a little more battery, than what I have now. The Razr is the size of a ping-pong paddle. It's stupid. I walked out angry and still have my old phone.
I don't understand what the Motorola and other engineers are thinking. Congratulations on how thin the Razr is. Too bad it's comically large in X and Y. I held my Droid against every other smartphone in two different stores, and not a single Android phone is smaller in X or Y (some are thinner). The Droid is already right at my upper limit for pocket comfort.
Maybe Apple sold most of the phones on Verizon because the iPhone is the only phone-sized product remaining on the market. (I am happy to hear suggestions for a phone-sized Android phone, perhaps I missed one in my search.)
1977 - Consumer friendly complete computer out of the box Apple II ...
1983 - Mass market desktop metaphor computer and software Lisa
1984 - Macintosh
1987(?) - Small business affordable ($6000) PostScript laser printer LaserWriter
2001 - iPod (hard drive based music player with easily purchased popular digital music, N.B. iTMS took some time to develop
2001 - Mac OS X first unix OS that allowed but did not require geek cred
2001 - Apple Store first tech store that didn't suck (usually) in contrast to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc
2007 - iPhone first modern multitouch based "smartphone"
2010 - iPad first tablet that is not a laptop wannabe due to same iPhone pioneered multitouch interface
Dates are off the top of my head so could be off slightly. You can contest all you want about "didn't exist before" but these things were not in stores available to buy from competitors
Everyone I know has gone Mac in the last 2-3 years, and most have a story like mine. I was committed hardcore to another platform, though I had more than a few complaints. Still, no expectation of ever switching.
But the iPhone was a quantum leap in consumer technology. I was using a Palm, which was "not a bad smartphone" the month before the first iPhone announcement was made. Then iPhone was released and after 10 minutes using it I knew it was a completely different class of device. Within a few months I had realized that I couldn't keep my hands off one and bought it. Rather than let me down and gradually disappoint me, leading to rationalization and acceptance (the usual model for technology buys of all kinds), it continued to impress weeks and months into ownership and I have had no desire to switch—only to upgrade—ever since.
When iPad came out, I was absolutely sure I didn't need one, but ended up using one regularly for reasons unrelated to my own consumerist impulses. But boy did it drive those consumerist impulses... Again, within months I had bought one and it has becomemy most used and relied upon work device.
After those two experiences, Mac OS didn't seem far off, and already being in love with iPhone/iPad based on my own use of them, the one annoyance I had with them was the way that they seemed not to mesh as well with other platforms (in my case, Linux, but the same goes for Windows) as they do with Mac OS. So I resolved never to spend Mac-level money, but to buy a very old old used Mac and a Mac OS update pack, and get the OS X pack running on a hackintosh machine to "test the waters." I built a hackintosh box for $250 or so with a dual core mainboard, Firewire-800, and a RAID-1, and within a week of using it I knew I would soon migrate my life from Linux (where it had been since 1993) to Mac OS.
Within six months of going "Mac OS only," though, the difference in quality and hardware/software integration between my iPhone/iPad and my other technology devices (a hackintoshed desktop and a hackintoshed Thinkpad) was painfully obvious and I knew that I was done for—I really, really wanted access to true Mac hardware to avoid the niggling little issues and flaws of PC world hardware that seemed increasingly apparent to me.
Got a MacBook Pro 13" machine last January, finally.
It is the best computing device I have ever owned, bar none. Build quality is exceptional, fit and finish are so precise and refined that you feel as though it wasn't made by humans, but by perfect machines. Even the ThinkPads I'd always owned had little things that I'd never noticed. For example, I would never have said that the power switch was slightly crooked or that there was a little key vibration and noise in some keyswitches, or that the hinge had uneven tension throughout its range or that the display was a bit uneven in its brightness UNTIL getting and really using a MacBook Pro. The build quality is measurably better. It has raised my expectations for technology goods.
Aside from that, the ergonomics are also much better. Apple's touchpad and keyboard, though very foreign to me at first, have now enhanced my work speed considerably. For example, the key travel distance and key "give" on the chicklet keyboard has given me another 10-15 wpm in typing speed with no loss (indeed, a gain, thanks to keys not touching each other) in accuracy.
And of course beyond all of these things, there are just fewer fatal flaws. No BIOS to worry about. Exceptional battery life. No need to fuck around with drivers. No "update hell" in which the latest round of absolutely necessary updates kill some functionality in your system that you rely upon, leaving you installing/uninstalling/tweaking in a desperate haze for hours or days (problems seen both in Windows and in Linux). Just massive, massive piles of It Works Without You Having to Think About It, and It's Tough as Nails to Boot.
My parents and siblings' families have gone Mac (something I never thought would happen, an
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Even more so, the rate of suicides at Foxconn is actually LOWER than the average suicide rate among Americans workers! Amazing.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-05-26/tech/30097107_1_suicide-rate-foxconn-suicide-prevention
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
You think as if all consumers are idiots and will put down good hard earned money for shitty products.
McDonald's is the most successful restaurant chain in the world.
Wal-Mart is the most successful retailer in the world..
I don't respond to AC's.
And the number of "fanboys" appear to grow exponentially each quarter
Looks like someone doesn't know what the exponential growth is...
How exactly do you imagine that Apple manages to keep on getting all these new fans?
The market is growing and they're a well-known brand. That's not too complicated for you, is it?
Hell, RIM's subscriber base grew more than 40% last year. Not too bad for a supposedly dying company! How exactly do you image that Blackberry manages to keep on getting all these new fans?
Required reading for internet skeptics
It's a good question. But not one that appears to have been investigated by any of the journalists reporting the story.
Even less thought has been put in by the posters that refer back to the story as if suicides only happen at Chinese factories producing iPhones.
What I think is interesting is that the biggest profit for a company ever, except Exxon Q3 2008, came from consumer electronics. You might thing bigger-ticket items like cars or airliners or $350M per-copy fighter jets would have more room for profits. Or scamming Wall Street. Even if you limit it to IT, you might assume selling to corporations or government is the most profitable.
Nope! The biggest profits ever, save only Exxon Q3 2008, came from selling nothing that cost over a few hundred bucks, to a huge number of people.
There is such a thing as a stock split. They can split the shares to any fraction to get the stock price anywhere they want it. There's a reason Exxon-Mobil is ~$87, they split the shares periodically. The question then is, why would apple want to keep the share price in the several hundred dollar range? Is it to show people exactly how much growth they are missing out on by not being a shareholder? Are they trying to make the company look more like a luxury with a high price tag? Do they just not care, or are there some fees involved that they don't want to pay? I don't know.
Apple has surpassed Exxon several times in the last year. The reverse is also true.
Well multi-year contracts for iPhones are not that bad. I'm just about finished on my 3 year iPhone 3GS contract and Apple is not only still supporting it they are still selling it!
What other Smartphone manufacturer is doing either (actively supporting, updating and selling a phone introduced in 2009.)
When (if) I upgrade this summer I'll be able to sell my 3GS via Craigslist. And it will probably last a few more years. Apple will probably continue to actively support it for a least another two years.
and access to infinitely better information than you.
This strikes me as a bit of hyperbole. Do the people at Apple truly know all the information in the universe?
You have to consider Chinese mentality, and the way the suicides happened. Those workers were making a statement.
And even if you don't consider the suicides, you must admit that worker conditions at Foxconn are beyond horrid.
I think being a worker at Foxconn would be no better, maybe worse, than being a 19th century slave.
We would all like to think we are better than the 19th century slavers, but are we? I'm sure the old slavers would say there was nothing practical to do about the situation.
Looks like someone doesn't know what the exponential growth is...
Looks like someone hasn't been looking at Apple's results...
The market is growing and they're a well-known brand. That's not too complicated for you, is it?
So you mean it's not just fanboys that will buy anything Apple puts out. i.e. You're repeating my point.
Hell, RIM's subscriber base grew more than 40% last year. Not too bad for a supposedly dying company! How exactly do you image that Blackberry manages to keep on getting all these new fans?
No one claimed RIMs results were as a result of fanboys buying anything RIM put out.
That would be my guess. Apple does a lot of things right. I would feel a lot better about Apple, if it were not for their constant IP scams.
It keeps me from buying Apple products. But, that's just me.
Let's think about this for a moment. Exxon and Apple are approximately the same "size" as measured by market capitalization. Imagine what would the world be like if Apple just vanished overnight. Now, imagine if Exxon vanished overnight. Does it not make sense to anyone else that Exxon should be far more valuable? They drill, refine and ship oil and petroleum products that are used in damn near everything man does on Earth. Apple makes computers, smart phones, and tablets. It would be hard to live without computers, but I could do that a lot easier than without oil.
I know the fundamentals of AAPL back up its valuation. So maybe, the purchase habits of consumers in our society have gotten way out of whack with reality.
But buying them does. I can't believe that this level of consumer spending on discretionary items is sustainable.
So you're basically saying "buy low sell high" ? Did you really have to participate in all the FUD for that?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I'm pretty sure they simply do not care; Apple does not act like a company that cares what shareholders think (which is to their credit).
It is funny how stock splits almost always end up bumping value, while reverse stock splits do the opposite...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The fact you can raise a price to imply a better product, does not mean that expensive products are not better.
By there very nature better products will often cost more to produce.
People really struggle to separate price and value.
Invaders must die
So unless for some reason people stop liking their iphones (which seems unlikely) there's no bubble here.
Other platforms eclipsed Apple a while ago in terms of features and usability. Android phones offer a great alternative with features and options that you'll never get from Apple. RIM's new OS takes mobile computing to a whole new level, and not just technically, they even offer a drastically superior UI to the famous iOS interface.
It doesn't take long to go from top to bottom. Blackberry was the best selling phone brand when we began 2011 -- they were first passed by Android in Q1, then Apple by in Q2. They're still growing, and have some great new products both on the market and in the pipe, but that hasn't stopped the doomsayers.
Apple, on the other hand, has had nothing new to offer in years, just boring updates to their old product line (a bit like RIM in 2009, only with fewer new products). Apple's strong position in the smartphone market can and, unless they start innovating now, will fall just as quickly. That is, once consumers notice how far Apple has slipped behind the competition.
The tech press isn't likely to give Apple a pass with the iPhone 5 after getting burned by Siri, the supposed "future of mobile computing" that had all-but completely fizzled out by November. I suspect that we've already seen Apple's best days.
Required reading for internet skeptics
bingo. not to mention this little place called China that they're just tapping into now. i hear they are excited to get their hands on some iphones.
Right, but this is not a small move. They were roughly equal value only varying by noise.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
No one knows, but they're all 100% certain that Apple made a fortune by developing something that didn't exist before.
I mean, everyone knows that. They just can't remember what it was right now.
Required reading for internet skeptics
No doubt, because you could just use a Windows PC or Android phone/tablet and be pretty close to where you were. Of course the same could be said for Exxon. Royal Dutch, BP and Chevron all make fossil fuel derivatives that aren't just similar to Exxon but identical.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-interview-transcript/
What the do indicate is the excessive level of profit is cranked into the iphone/ipad line.
By my estimate they could cut the price in half and still make a profit.
Apple struggles to keep up with demand as it is and they continually expand their production capabilities. Rest assured that there are bean counters in Apple that do the price/demand/production calculation and come up with the best fit.
As far as a high price contributing to a "cool factor" there is no doubt that it contributes to the allure for some people. However, there are also a lot of people who buy on the "cheap trumps quality" factor. In the end it's the balance between price and features that wins out overall. There's no doubt that Apple is doing just fine there, their sales speak to that.
Sapere aude!
Even less thought has been put in by the posters that refer back to the story as if suicides only happen at Chinese factories producing iPhones.
I don't think those people are being any less honest than the people who try to brush it off as a normal suicide rate by improperly applying statistics.
Don't forget that Apple got their OS for free too (most of it, anyhow).. since its primarily based on BSD, which they use and then of course contribute little back to the open source community, unlike Google who makes significant contributions to many open source projects
Oh really?
It looks like Apple contributes quite a few open source projects.
Sapere aude!
You do know that the income gap in China is narrowing, right? And it's widening in the US? Conditions in China are bad, but getting better. Conditions for workers in America are much better, but getting worse. Who's getting hurt here?
This is an expression of the free market at work, with a good dose of unintentional consequences for the corporate masters who shipped all the jobs overseas in hopes of getting cheap labour, thereby increasing the value of that labour, and slowly improving the lot of the workers there (at the expense of the workers back home, of course). All this crying and gnashing of teeth ignores the fact that conditions in China are improving for workers, and American workers don't like that.
The real problem isn't the shipping of jobs to one part of the world or another. The real problem is executive compensation. The leeches at the top pay themselves hundreds or possibly thousands of times the wages of the people at the bottom of the supply chain, instead of limiting themselves to something reasonable (but still quite a lot of money) and making sure that everyone else in the chain makes a decent standard of living.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
That, or the GP actually has no information and I was dividing by zero. ;-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
> Apple's success is the limited variance. They make a few models of each device, and generally a good/better/best option for each
That is certainly a factor.
See: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
For why choice is a bad thing for consumers.
If you don't have $500 to invest in the market, I don't know what to tell you.
Depends. If you're arguing this proves that Apple is somehow "The Best", I would disagree.
Keep in mind that money and market share don't necessarily equate to being the best. Microsoft is the obvious example, but I prefer McDonalds. McDonalds makes more money than other burger chains--does this mean they make the best hamburgers? I believe that GM is the #1 automobile dealer here in the US--does this mean that GM's cars are the best cars on the road?
Apple makes good products, don't get me wrong. I'm a satisfied iPhone and Mac owner and I've been a Mac developer for nigh-on 20 years. Where Apple has excelled in recent years is in marketing. Whether we're talking about Apple Bunnysuit Ads or the Super computer ads to the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, Apple's advertising is top-notch and they're able to convince people that anything that's new is something Apple has invented.
A fun example of this is the "Rip, Mix, Burn" ad. While you'd been able to burn a music CD for quite some time (on a Mac or a PC), Apple was the first to really push this capability in a way that caught the public's eye (using real performers rather than some announcer who just mentions it in the middle of Dell ad).
I see post in similar veins as yours all the time on /. they stem from the fact that we're nerds. Nerds by definition have difficulties understanding other humans. Nerds combine numbers and facts to give us an understanding of value. This is not the way most people think. Most people make decisions and assign value based upon emotions.
Not only that but when you think about it "what UI is best" is a very opinionated thing in of itself. How many people people here despise unity despite the fact that it's very clearly much more simple from an end user perspective. What's the point of having a faster CPU/GPU in a smartphone; you can only fit so much data in 3 to 5 inch screen; you can play fairly robust 3D games on a 3GS. Most people don't even know what specs their phones have. Next time you see someone on the street with an iPhone ask them what CPU their iPhone uses.
Having said all this over time there probably will be a decline in iPhone sales but there's a big difference between that and a bubble.
iOS has 450k apps; I couldn't find a recent count but at this point it should be about the same.
However, iOS also has 170k iPad apps...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First of all, if Apple does any R&D
Webkit?
LLVM?
Obviously doing material based R&D on materials for cases and such...
It's a little odd how even the most casual, and certainly any technical user, could be unaware of the R&D Apple does.
Hell just with LLVM alone they are probably even ahead of Microsoft in modern compiler research!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Clearly I was wrong. You're no Apple fan.
You're a hard-core Apple zealot!
Required reading for internet skeptics
Apple is sitting on a giant pile of cash.
They probably have a very good reason for doing so.
So do you want to invest in a company with a lot of foresight or what?
And even if the market totally craters AAPL cannot go much below the cash value... around $82. A loss (if you were forced to sell then), but only 1/4 current value.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I hadn't realized you're the same person who posted the initial comment, so please don't think I was singling you out.
However, you ARE misusing statistics. Maybe not intentionally, but you are all the same. You can't just say "this stat is easily available, therefore I'll apply it" while ignoring all of the factors that would clearly run against your conclusion. For example, the median American wage right now is $33k. If Microsoft decided it was going to pay it's engineers $40k, you wouldn't say, "That's a good salary, because it's above what most people make." You have to compare apples to apples.
An interesting thought, but I don't think Foxconn actually does employ all that significant a percentage of the aforementioned demographics (young, employed, sane, healthy).
China has 422.3 million people between the ages of 15 and 35.
Their employment rate is 4.3%. I couldn't find a breakout by age, so we'll be conservative and assume it's 10% in this demographic, leaving 380 M in the pot.
At that point, even if you assume that half of the Chinese population is either insane or suffering serious illness, you still have 190 M people in the young, healthy, sane, employed demographic. Foxconn would make up less than half a percent of that.
Moral of the story: China has a lot of people.
But again many nerds here on Slashdot have instead decided over and over again to proclaim Apple is not successful because they say so, and the technologies they favor will win "just because". That is not going to work out well long-term.
"Who cares?"
I think that aptly summarizes the attitude of the haters here.
Don't quote me on this.
How long have you been saying this? Has it been as long as Apple stock has been going up?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I take your points, but I've always wondered why society tries to tell the corporations to "be good", instead of legislating "good behavior", or creating incentives for them to do so?
It seems much easier that way.
Don't quote me on this.
So where are the people clamoring for a windfall profits tax on Apple?
Or do we just call for those against companies that we dont like (energy)?
The number of iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) sold last quarter exceeded the number of Android units
Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please :-)
More to the point, there is no guarantee of a repeat next quarter, far from it.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Clearly is as clearly does. My actions speak louder than your "words".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Feeling a bit touchy today, are you?
You mad, bro?
(LOL at "actions")
Required reading for internet skeptics
The day will come where consumers get iTired and ditch their iPhones en masse, that is just textbook mass psychology. I presume that this is what MS has been waiting for with their tardy WP7 rollout.
Have you been off planet for a while?
Android already exceed 50% of smartphone sales, and Apple is hovering around 26%.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Apples posts highest quarter in tech history and Apple is still losing. What are you smoking I want some.
Jonathanjk.com
2) Android makers get the OS for free, remember Apple does more than just sell the hardware. There's R&D, software development, patents to be bought, etc.
3) Even with a free OS, show me the phones and tablets significantly undercutting iOS devices while providing the same quality. And the "going out of business, please buy our inventory" sales don't count.
HAHAHAHAH HAHAHA Haaaa, Oh wait you were serious weren't you?
Let me clue you in on something. There isn't a single manufacturer which takes the free Android loads it on a piece of their hardware, and then sends it off out the door. NOT ONE! ... Wait Samsung could fit that bill given they've done the recent Nexus phones, but that only applies to their Nexus phone.
The vast majority of companies build hardware (non trivial R&D cost), get Android, work with contractors and coders to get the drivers going for their phone (non trivial R&D cost), spend loads of money on giving the device a personalised design or look and feel (a non trivial R&D cost), licence all manner of custom software that is preloaded on the phone like GPS system, widgets, etc, (ok this is a trivial cost), and then often go all out to completely replace core things like the damn user interface with their own custom app like TouchWiz (definitely a non-trivial R&D cost).
But by all means keep believing that because Android is given away freely by the AOSP that it costs nothing to use. It gives the rest of us quite a chuckle.
Why the hell would Apple slash prices? They aren't at supply-demand equilibrium if you listened to the earnings call. They expected higher than usual sales and prepared with a gamble on producing tons more iPhones than previously and hoped it would pay off. The result was that they still sold out in days and were producing at maximum capacity and still had demand higher than supply lines. So there is no incentive to reduce the price from any economics point of view. There's actually incentive to RAISE the price to bring the equilibrium lower, but that has long term effects so it's better to operate at current levels and expand production capacity.
That also means there's STILL a huge demand going into the next quarter and Apple's own guidance is well above the street estimate (which was optimistic) for the next quarter even though it's the slowest of them and is shorter this time around by 1 week (the blowout quarter was longer by 1 week in turn).
So stop the bashing because you're not happy with the price, from an economic point of view Apple's doing it right and the market agrees.
And there will always be people who will continue to claim that the happy run ends tomorrow. They've been doing that since AAPL was 70$ and somehow it doesn't happen. You have to understand the experience before you get why the return customer rate is 94+%. It's not a fanboism or cool factor (that may sometimes be the inital thing that gets you to the product at least to check it out). It's the actual quality and ease of use. Believe me 99% of populace couldn't care less what CPU the thing runs on or how many MP the camera has as long as it runs and does the things he/she needs and produces results. It's the geeks that squirm because it's not latest/greatest tech, but most of the time there's good reason for it. Take 4G for example. The network might even be getting there (I for one have 4G at home and benefit from it greatly for home network), but the current generation of 4G chips require a dedicated chip and draw quite a lot of power so you trade possible faster download speeds (and hype) for battery life. The next iDevices will have 4G because qualcomm has now a chip that can do most of the wireless stuff in one chip and the batter drain is less. That wasn't there yet for 4S and hence no LTE. The Android makers just wanted to scream WE'VE GOT 4G so they made it with no due consideration to end-user satisfaction (and I doubt you're satisfied with a half-day battery life on 4G).
Go use iDevices for 1 month and come back claiming you still don't understand the phenomenon...
but to which country does a multinational corporation show fealty/loyalty too?
Should companies be required to locally produce items for each market? Yes I understand that Apple is based in the United States; so am I; but does that require them to make their products there?
The middle class has chosen, they chose China for their goods. Don't tell me we didn't choose. We had a choice every single day we went to the store for electronics and we had every choice when we bought our cars.
We bought the product of other people. We did it to save a buck, we did it because we perceived better quality, we did because they made something we wanted. We had industries here that made many of these items. However many priced themselves out of the market, a market we defined by who we purchased our items from.
So who do we blame? Well just look in the mirror.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Can you define "primarily based"? The BSD subsystem may be an important part of Mac OS X but it is relatively small in terms of all code that makes up the operating system. It is just over 50% of the xnu 1699.24.8 kernel source code (25 MB out of 47 MB), but what a normal Mac program sees is mainly the Cocoa runtime, which is quite far removed from BSD and is many times the BSD subsystem in size. Kernel drivers and low-level software interfaces with IOKit and the Mach subsystem rather than the BSD parts.
Imagine the poor Apple executives watching their loot pile up. They look around, see your slashdot post and say to each other, "Gee, we should cut our prices by half and we'd still make a profit...Holy Shazzam, Batman, what were we thinking!"
Since corporations acquired citizen's rights like contributing to political campaigns and such. Take those away and we'll stop pulling C. Everett Koop faces on them, we promise.
The stats may say that (is that globally, btw?), but in day to day life, as I said, I still see way more iPhones than anything else, at least in this part of the world. My suspicion is that a lot of Android sales are corporate (the phones my work provides are Androids for instance, and we are a big (100,000+ employee) company).
by all means keep believing that because Android is given away freely by the AOSP that it costs nothing to use.
Hell no, not with the licensing fees they have to pay to Microsoft to use Android.
That's true if you're comparing phones. Though I'm sure Apple is happy to sell ipod touches too as it gets you buying more stuff from their shop. Which of course makes the iOS market more attractive and can keep developers on their side and away from Android.
None of the articles cited state the profit margin on the hardware, which I suspect is quite low. The profit is all in the app store and iTunes store...
Maybe if you read Apple's press release where they also release the summarized data. Then apply some logic.
Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion . . . Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter.
The iTunes store (and iPod accessories) made $2.0B in revenue (not profit) while Apple made $13B in profit for the entire company. There's no way Apple makes most of it's money in their online stores. Also remember that number is revenue before Apple has to give their 70% cut. So in reality, Apple only took in at most $600M in revenue before they factor in their costs.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But by all means keep believing that because Android is given away freely by the AOSP that it costs nothing to use. It gives the rest of us quite a chuckle.
Not nothing just significantly less then doing ALL of it. Just like running a company like Ubuntu is cheaper than running Microsoft. Sure, both do a non-trivial amount of work but only one does the whole thing from the ground up.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
It was one of the most profitable quarters ever for any U.S. company, trailing only ExxonMobil's (XOM, Fortune 500) record-setting $14.8 billion quarter from the fall of 2008, when oil prices were at an all-time high.
Fandroids hate facts.
See this pie chart for the breakdown of profit, according to Apple's own numbers:
http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2012/01/appleq112bottomchart.jpg
The iTunes store is a very small piece of the puzzle.
y David Wilson - Fri Nov 18 05:00:01 GMT 2011
Anyone who expects Apple Inc.’s growth to rebound after sales and earnings shortfalls last quarter is “living in denial,” according to David Nelson, chief strategist at Belpointe Asset Management LLC.
I wonder if someone wants his money back.
Fandroids hate facts.
The day will come where consumers get iTired and ditch their iPhones en masse, that is just textbook mass psychology. I presume that this is what MS has been waiting for with their tardy WP7 rollout.
That's what people said about the iPod too.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
and access to infinitely better information than you.
This strikes me as a bit of hyperbole. Do the people at Apple truly know all the information in the universe?
Of course! The address is 1 Infinite Loop.
No the profit is on hardware. They don't make much from the app store or iTunes store yet. Longer terms as the hardware profits dry up this might become an important revenue source. Now on the iPad where the hardware profits are lower and the apps more expensive the share is much higher.
Pretty much Exxon makes their money selling nothing that cost over a few hundred bucks, to a huge number of people.
The number of iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) sold last quarter exceeded the number of Android units
Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please :-)
The question is, why do you care about whether iOS or Android is "winning?"
If you're Verizon or Sprint, or HTC or Sony Ericsson, then you might just care about phones. You want to know which devices are drawing customers into your stores, so things like the iPod Touch and wifi-only iPad are irrelevant to you. All you want to know is how many handsets and 3G tablets get activated on your network.
On the other hand, if you're a developer, or just an armchair tech enthusiast, you want to know which platform is more successful. Which ecosystem has a larger market for apps, which OS do people prefer to interact with, which vendor holds sway over more eyeballs, which vendor has more influence when doing deals with content providers and such. I think most Slashdot readers fall into this category.
And to those of us who are armchair-referreeing the platform race, handheld and tablet sales are extremely relevant. A platform that is successful on a variety of devices has a definite advantage in the marketplace. It will attract more content providers, more app developers, and more accessory makers. This in turn reinforces the strength of the platform, which encourages consumers to buy more devices.
Only the last 2 are responsible for their success. Apple store will be the reason for their eventual downfall. And iPhone was not an innovation. Sun has a prototype smartphone long before Apple.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There is such a thing as a stock split. They can split the shares to any fraction to get the stock price anywhere they want it. There's a reason Exxon-Mobil is ~$87, they split the shares periodically. The question then is, why would apple want to keep the share price in the several hundred dollar range? Is it to show people exactly how much growth they are missing out on by not being a shareholder? Are they trying to make the company look more like a luxury with a high price tag? Do they just not care, or are there some fees involved that they don't want to pay? I don't know.
Maybe it's because they don't buy the bullshit "shareholder value above all" line. They make their products for their customers, the stock price goes up because of it. Other companies make everything to please the shareholders, the customer is second in line.
Fandroids hate facts.
I agree. But you've heard "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The claim is that people are committing suicide due to the conditions in those factories. And that requires extraordinary evidence.
I'm, making the case that they need more evidence than >, because the general rate for that number of people is higher than that.
Put it another way, the same as in a courtroom the accused doesn't have to prove his innocence. The prosecution have to prove his guilt. And the defence barrister/advocate only has to show the reasonable doubt in the evidence presented.
As things stand there is absolutely no statistical evidence there is a suicide problem at the Foxconn factories.
And I'm not misusing statistics.
You're talking about different things. Revenues are independent of costs, and the GP was talking about costs.
OTOH, that is revenue before 70% goes to whoever made the MP3s, videos and apps. Only then cost kicks in.
Fandroids hate facts.
I've always wondered about this statistic.
When you compare a single company to a country, you have to consider demographic differences. For example, suicide rates are generally higher among the unemployed, among the mentally unstable, among the elderly, etc.
Foxconn employs people who are young, healthy, sane, not on drugs, and (obviously) gainfully employed. What is the national rate among that demographic, and how does Foxconn's rate compare? My guess is not favorably.
In China, suicide rate is highest among young adults - just the age group working for Foxconn. So you guessed wrong.
Fandroids hate facts.
The problem is groupthink. As long as you can find one sucker to pay an extra dollar for a stock the price will go up on all of them. In terms of the earnings as long as they can find suckers that are wiling to overpay for the product they'll keep making profit.
With Steve gone and the very real possibility that their suppliers are going to be unhappy getting sued, they could very well see their components getting a tad difficult to procure.
Plus, they've been on thin ice as far as antitrust matters are concerned for quite a while with the shenanigans at the ITMS and more recently with the way they handle the Appstore.
Sure, they could keep going up, but in practices companies don't keep going up indefinitely, and there's a pretty clear bubble forming. As an investor I don't want anything to do with it and neither do other investors. Now if you're a speculator, fine go and buy it up, but that just reinforces my point that it's a sucker bet. Most of the price rise has already occurred and there's a ton of risk. If I knew when it was going to correct itself I'd be shorting it, but in practice it's incredibly hard to identify the date when the delusion is no longer sustainable.
You've got that backwards, you're the one that's arguing that past performance means that it has to keep going up. iPad 3 and iPhone 5 could very well both be duds. It's unlikely as it's going to take a bit longer before we really know what Apple is capable of without Steve, but assuming that they'll continue to dominate long enough that one can profit by timing it is folly.
The thing with many techy Apple Haters is that they think hating Apple gives them Tech Geek status. But not only is that not enough, it isn't even required.
Fandroids hate facts.
The only thing going on is that people are suckers for slick marketing and consumerism in general.
So that's why on a daily basis, I see more android commercials than apple commercials.
Ahh, but those have to also sell those really crappy ones, and all the ones that give you "choice".
Fandroids hate facts.
No, what I'm saying is that if you think you've got a sure thing, save your money and buy something else because you haven't thoroughly researched it. I'm sure if folks buy Apple now they'll be able to make a profit. I just don't buy the notion that it's as safe as people think or that the possible profits are sufficient to outweigh the inherent risk of buying a stock that's been pumped up.
You think as if all consumers are idiots and will put down good hard earned money for shitty products. McDonald's is the most successful restaurant chain in the world. Wal-Mart is the most successful retailer in the world..
And Android is the best Smartphone OS ever.
Fandroids hate facts.
No, I get business. And the problem is that in the future they're going to have to make a switch from luxury good to commodity and they've already done that in terms of the build quality. In some markets they're so dominant that their products have become synonymous with the market.
Products can be luxury items or they can be incredibly popular, in the long term you don't typically see products that can do both. Sure it's working for them right now, but I see no reason to assume that they'll always be able to get away with it. At some point people start to actually look at the products and compare them with the competition and that hasn't been Apple's strong point in a really, really long time.
And the number of "fanboys" appear to grow exponentially each quarter
Looks like someone doesn't know what the exponential growth is...
Could it be you? Did you look at the numbers and couldn't realize it, or do you actually not know? In 2009, they sold more phones than in 2007 and 2008 combined. In 2010 they sold more than the previous three years combined. In 2011 they again sold more than in the four years before combined. Do you fucking see the pattern?
Fandroids hate facts.
They have a pile of cash which is incredibly problematic for their business model. Piles of cash don't grow the company. A business like Apple is theoretically about acquisitions and R&D. Piles of cash help with the former, but at a certain point that money becomes a wasted resource. I take it you haven't noticed what MS does with it's piles of cash.
The consumer is going to start caring about the competition when they can't get the device they wanted. And the image, honestly, I'm less sanguine than you are about Apple being able to continue to gloss over the crap build quality, anti-consumer interfaces and just general bad behavior.
And how long precisely do you think that's going to happen? Eventually companies can't out do what they previously earned, and anybody dumb enough to own shares in AAPL when that happens is likely to lose a lot of money.
Some would say that a $0 Iphone is worth less than a $100 Android phone.
Those are called Fandroids.
Fandroids hate facts.
So you think the Nomad that used a huge fragile 3.5" disk drive, was larger, heavier and synced over a serial port was better?
And people wonder why Slashdot opinion is a poor arbiter of what will be successful in the market.....
The problem is groupthink.
Ha, all those sheeple, not realizing you are right, eh?
You've gotta be careful man, you're getting close to fanboy logic. That is, you are looking at all the points that support your opinion, without looking at the the things that go against your opinion. I used to do that too, I knew that Windows was such a crappy operating system, I was sure people would realize it and switch away, and MSFT would drop like a rock. Now I've woken up and realize people are OK with Windows, and MSFT keeps going up.
Just as a sample, there are a lot of factors in AAPL's favor. They have a cash supply equal to 25% of their market capitalization (more than the total value of 95% companies on the stock market). Surely that pile will grow even more before people wake up and realize the Walled Garden is a bad thing. Apple has started expanding into Europe and Asia. No doubt they will find suckers to fall for their marketing practices there, with potential to actually double their sales. The stock is not expensive either, with a P/E ratio close to MSFT's. And you never know, some people might actually think Apple computers and phones are worth the price.
In short, make sure you don't use fanboy logic. Try to look harder for arguments against your main point, than you do arguments in favor.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So when can we expect a price cut on the iPhone? Or maybe the next model will be cheaper?
The Android size increase of late is likely very related to the fact that many of the phones are coming with 4G capabilities now. 4G chipsets are physically bigger than 3G, and consume more power.
As a phone designer, the options are:
1) Increase the size of phone to fit bigger chips and more battery to power the bigger chips inside the phone; since you have to stay "razor thin", your only option is to increase length and width, i.e. - screen size.
2) Cram 4G chips into existing form factors, producing a phone which will see about 30 minutes of actual 4g use on a single charge.
Doesn't really matter considering that they haven't had to work around any of the technology, entirely.
Apple hasn't really held up a single claim successfully in court thus far against others - so they've merely tried to make people "comply" with things they claim to own, even when they don't. So that 100M costs their competitor approximately zero.
In fact, what's the one time they actually supported the competition and themselves? When they defended themselves against psystar. You'd think apple would remember that defending themselves is more useful than going on the litigation spree.
Mac OS X has a BSD subsystem, but most of that isn't present in iOS. Both systems, as far as I know, use the xnu kernel, which is a modified Mach (which is not BSD). It's a little disingenuous to say that it's "primarily based on BSD", though. A number of core components (Darwin) are open-source -- either derived from existing open-source projects (like WebKit) or new projects made open-source by Apple. That accounts for only a small component of the operating system, though. The majority of the frameworks are not open-source, and it's these that provide the features that developers actually use.
They split their shares a couple of times in... early 2000s maybe? Maybe late 90s. (Okay, I looked it up: 2000 and 2005.) Apparently they don't do it any more because having high per-share prices is trendy in tech companies.
To an extent, it doesn't matter. Most individual investors these days (the only ones who would invest a small amount of money) purchase securities through pooled investment vehicles like mutual funds and ETFs.
Sure, but how much money is in a business is not well-correlated to how essential it is. Ask a farmer.
Sure. It's already happening to the iPod.
Except they're ditching their iPods for iPhones. Which is probably why Apple keeps so much cash on hand... so they can invent the iNeXT.
"If apple cut their prices the "cool factor" would be diminished, and the fanbois would move onto something
else. If they aren't over paying top dollar its just obviously not the best thing ever."
The iPhone 3GS is free with most contracts now. It's the third best selling smart phone in the US, right behind the 4S and the 4.
Google is a juggernaut. 10 billion in revenue is a LOT for an advertising company.
More to the point, there is no guarantee of a repeat next quarter, far from it.
Nothing's guaranteed. But look at the trend on Neilson's market share estimates.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/smartphone-recent.png
I think I can guess why this is happening. People on contracts generally get to change their phone every couple of years. Increasingly people are replacing a smartphone with another, rather than buying their first smartphone. And so satisfaction with their existing smartphone plays a big part of the decision. And that's bad news for everyone but Apple.
http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/01/09/iphone-satisfaction-at-75-closest-competitor-at-47/
He didn't say "phones" he said "iOS devices" which the iPod an iPad both certainly are. If you want the "apples to apples" you need to count everything that uses Android as an "Android device".
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Slavery. That shit is just the magic pixie dust of corporate profits, eh? Why didn't we think of using slaves hundred of years ago?
In B.C., our fascism is green.
I've seen some International students (U.S. here) put a module into a touch and do some software change and the touch becomes a phone. Not nearly as fast for download speeds but if what you want is already on the phone it saves a couple hundred bucks.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
Only idiots invest on emotion. The majority of phone buyers don't care which big company is suing which. Apple products are priced fairly well in line with competitors - lower, in some cases, if you believe those competitors, who claim much of their failure to compete is due to Apple's supply chain dominance.
YOU don't like Apple. So don't invest in them - more people should demonstrate integrity in their investments. But don't pretend Apple is doomed because of your personal feelings.
Google makes nearly all their money from advertising. While they are a juggernaut in terms of the number of areas they are active in or investing in, they mostly give their products away to get people to look at ads. Apple on the other hand has a near monopoly in one area (MP3 players), and is in the top 2 companies in at least 3 others (MP3 store, tablets, touchphones). And that's before you look at their desktop and laptop lines, where they aren't the market leader. It shouldn't be surprising that Apple makes more money than Google.
"Apple is mostly marketing, they rarely if ever do anything first and most of the time they way over price the items they sell"
Apple is mostly DESIGN. If they lose Sir Ive, I'll be worried. It IS worrisome that they've put the bean counter in charge, but he has been at Apple a long time and most of the rest of the company's leadership seems to be perfectionists just like Jobs.
Apple does not overprice their products. The iPad is apparently priced so aggressively that competitors claim they can't compete. Flagship Android phones are priced very similarly to flagship iPhones. Intel's attempts to compete with the Air aren't going so well. If you want a look at companies that actually DO depend on image, take a stroll into a store like Burberry sometime. The iPad cases cost more than iPads.
The only reason a company wants market share is so you can leverage it to get the profits by getting people to buy your stuff and developers to make programs for it. So Apple is definately winning over Microsoft and the other cell phone makers. With Linux, it's a bit different because supposedly if everybody was using OS software, there wouldn't have to be any profits to be considered a win as getting people to use OS software is the goal, not profits. So, right now, Apple is getting the profits in the phone business while Linux is getting the market share and can use it for getting more OS programs and support. In effect, both Apple and Linux are currently winning because they are after different things.
"imagine if Exxon vanished overnight"
Okay. Exxon is gone. One of the bazillion other oil companies, big or small, steps in and continues pumping oil.
Exxon is a commodity supplier. They're a very large one, but provided the handoff was done smoothly they could be replaced by any number of others and nobody would even know the difference.
"When they defended themselves against psystar"
What? Apple didn't defend themselves against Psystar in the legal sense. They sued Psystar to prevent Psystar from selling computers with Mac OS X pre-installed. It took quite a while to successfully litigate (these cases can be drawn out) but Psystar did lose and it appears to no longer be in business. Are you thinking of some other case?
Apple in its earlier years, like Google more recently, seemed to be less interested in playing the copyright/patent game that established players tend to favor. In the 80's they saw what they considered their innovations pilfered by competitors and they were unprepared for the legal battles. If you recall the keynote speech by Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone, he spent considerable time making it clear Apple had applied for many patents to defend what he saw as Apple's innovations in this case. He also made clear that Apple was prepared to successfully defend its position this time. These sorts of battles are long and drawn out. Don't expect it to end anytime soon.
Personally I think this sort of activity is less than optimal but as long as the laws are in place I expect corporations to continue these battles. What is sorely needed is comprehensive patent reform. Expecting individual companies to abstain is naive. They know they will get eaten alive.
"(1) a closed iOS ecosystem that encourages people to remain on their platform, and (2) Profitable multi-year contract arrangements with the telcos that allow them to market "$149" handsets with the true cost hidden in multi-thousand dollar contracts."
1) A closed ecosystem doesn't mean much when your distributors are locking people into multiyear contracts.
2) So do ALL other cell phone manufacturers. If you actually compare similar phones, the true cost of Apple's are similar to the true cost of everyone else's. ALL those costs are hidden from customer.
"Looks like someone doesn't know what the exponential growth is..."
Um, you express RIM's growth as a year over year percentage. Would you do the same with Apple? Are you sure YOU know what exponential growth is?
Really? Did Sun create a multitouch API from the ground up like Apple? There were plenty of "smartphones" before the iPhone but what they had in common was that they all sucked. They had their little clicky keyboards and mouse substitutes and they ran like miniature laptop computers with interfaces from the 80's that were not even compelling on laptops. On top of all that you are putting forth a prototype as your example. Are you for real? A prototype? That's hilarious.
What is most amusing is touting the Apple Store as the seeds of Apples downfall. I remember how the idea was mocked as naive and incompetent by citing previous failed efforts like the Gateway stores. However, as the Apple Store has become possibly the most successful retail store in history the critics have quietly shuffled off and learned that their insights might be less than perfect. But not you. Impending disaster. Apple is Doomed!
By the way, the reason for Apple's success is that it is not Apple, It is Next Computer wearing an Apple skin. Apple acquired Next but it was actually a takeover of Apple by Next. The OS, NextStep, is the basis of the system software of all the Apple devices. Even as Next was fading it was acknowledged that it was a superb OS but it had arrived too late and lacked the critical mass of users needed to survive. The Apple acquisition and transition from MacOS changed that factor by stealth. There are other important factors, like the successful launch of the Apple Store, but Apple with MacOS would not be where it is today.
"I think one of the reasons behind Apple's success is the limited variance."
Someone else mentioned another factor - Samsung makes half a dozen different phones that are named with some variation of Samsung Galaxy. Only one of them is the high quality phone everybody wants... the others supposedly exist to give consumers choice, but the way the carriers use them is to fool people - advertising free a "Galaxy XX!" So people fall for it, eventually realize they're locked into a contract with an inferior phone, and aren't happy.
Apple gives you a few, clearly delineated choices. You know what you're getting. No tricks. And no tricks the carriers can play.
Someone should restart the "Android environment as a standard Linux application" effort started before by Cannonical.
WebOS would be the perfect target:
- it's a (somewhat) fuller Linux platform than Android (webOS : Standard Linux stack with a proprietary GUI. Android: Linux kernel+special userland).
So geek could love it.
- it has the best GUI for smartphone ever .
So users could love it.
- it has support for HTML+Javascript based apps
So developpers could love it.
The only thing it lacks is a market share.
- Now if it could run also standard Android applications (with a android execution envrionment) and thus leverage the thousands of existing apps
- And if it gets open sourced (as promised)
That could help it see more widespread usage.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That's what you get when you let people decide their own salaries, with no oversight whatsoever. At least politicians have to balance giving themselves raises and being reelected.
It should be illegal to pay board members, and board members should set executive salaries. I'm not sure how you deal with board members of one company being executives at another and the whole club doing each other favours, but there must be a way.
The number of iOS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) sold last quarter exceeded the number of Android units
Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please :-)
More to the point, there is no guarantee of a repeat next quarter, far from it.
iPod Touches count because they run iOS, not that they are smartphones. So, Apples are apples in this case. Now, if we want count ALL Android device sales vs. all iOS device sales we're talking a level, unbiased playing field.
We're talking about finance here. It doesn't matter directly if your industry is "good" or "bad", "useful" or "futile". What matters is the uncertainty and the trends around this industry, thus influencing where "people" wanna invest in this industry or not (same thing replacing industry with company).
Exctly!
I drank what? -- Socrates
No, no, no, you're doin' it all wrong. It's Apple is beleaguered! .
Kids these days.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I sold my 60 odd shares of apple when they hit $19/share. Sigh.
I drank what? -- Socrates
It is funny how stock splits almost always end up bumping value, while reverse stock splits do the opposite...
Not so funny. The primary reason a stock splits is that it's going up, so makes sense that it'd keep going up. And reverse splits happen when a stock is already dropping. Correlation, not causation.
I don't think he has been to China or India where most of those Android sales take place. In the rich world iPhone rules the roost.
Do the people at Apple truly know all the information in the universe?
Not until Siri comes out of beta.
No thanks, I have morals. I'd rather stay me, than be a profiteer of slave labor.
You so need to read about "The Seven Sisters".
Hint: The oil is there whether a company called Exxon drills it or someone else does.
read it and weep fanboi: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/14/shocker-android-grew-us-market-share-after-q2-ios-was-static/
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You really shouldn't have to defend that point. You're right, and I don't understand why people always get so aggravated.
Clearly the market thinks they're getting something more in an Apple product, or they wouldn't buy them in greater numbers over the alternatives, at higher prices, even during recessions, year after year. For the only objective definition of "better product", that the features of it are consistently more desirable than the competition at the price they're offered, Apple wins (on their big money makers), hands-down.
There's simply no other rational way to figure it. The rest is emotional nonsense, and any individual's personal preference is largely irrelevant. Including mine, which is typically for non-Apple alternatives.
Well, there's plenty of catching up to do, given that there is an endless stream of these Android phones and just the occasional (read: yearly) release of a new iPhone... I am also amazed how a market split five-ways suddenly is "one" when it comes to Android, as if a HTC device sold somehow benefited Samsung.
I'm also amazed at how many times that ridiculous argument is raised.
If apple licensed their OS to other manufacturers THEN it might have some merit.
What matters is Andorid is eating Apples lunch. It doesn't matter if its being eaten by one company or 10 companies. The world has voted, and it is swinging away from iOS.
And in next quarter's results this will be even more evident as they will not include all of the iphone users going thru their once-a-year-every-year replacement.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I know that slashdot is the land of extremists, but why can't someone just like things that work? I've ran Windows(multiple variants), Linux(multiple distros), and now Mac os. I'm sticking with Mac, it works; and is as simple or as technical as I want it to be. Most of all, I just like things that just work. It's the reason why most of my guns are glocks, and most of my cars are Hondas.
And reverse splits happen when a stock is already dropping.
I have one stock (that shall remain nameless) that was cycling around a bit, but generally rising over a few months...
They did a reverse 10-1 split, and BAM the stock tanked. It has not recovered since.
I honestly thing there IS causation, that any reverse split will lead to a decline the stock that is not fully related to how the company is doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Just barely, and only if you believe that overtly biased analyst's estimate. And why would you count the Touch as a phone? Apples to apples please :-)"
Because people are counting for deciding which platform to deploy apps onto. Do iPod Touches run the same apps as the iPhone? If yes, it counts.
The Android devices that are not phones were also counted, so in that respect this is still an apple to apple comparison.
Which android phone has full encryption of the device and a native ipsec client?
Of all the android phones on the market, which is running the latest ice cream sandwich, and why aren't the others capable of being updated to ICSW?
Thanks.
Apple store is a leverage. As all other leverage it allows the company to make more money when their core products are successful and forces it to lose more money when they are not. It's not a failing or successful strategy in itself -- only insofar as the core products do well or not. All it will take for them is to miss on a one or two product cycles and the cost of the apple stores will burn a huge hole in their balance sheet. They won't recover from it. Leverage is the opposite of insurance -- it exacerbates failures by many fold while increasing success by a marginal amount. Long-term success is determined by how well they are positioned to survive occasional stumbles. I could go on, but you probably get the point.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
He didn't say "phones" he said "iOS devices" which the iPod an iPad both certainly are.
As we both know, iOS is not an operating system, and neither is Android. Both are just skins for an operating system. So if you insist on lumping together phones with non-phones, which is essentially the entire share that BSD has these days, it would only be fair to consider the entire share that Linux has. Which would include DSL routers among other things. Then where do you suppose iOS/BSD sits? Right.
Hey, you Apple fans really should stop trying to compare music players to phones. It makes you sound like... cultists.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
That is a better explanation of your position than other critics have presented (mindless zealots who are unable to control their impulse to purchase). I still think it suffers from a time scale perspective. I don't see how Apple can continue to introduce products that experience exponential growth (I mean that in the mathematical sense, not the uneducated hyperbolic sense). But they still have four categories (laptops, handheld media players/internet devices, cellphone capable internet devices, and tablets) that will continue to grow for as far as the eye can see (except maybe iPods and they remain a huge market). A few non-revolutionary products will do little to dampen the desire to buy always improved, hit products from a tech store that doesn't suck.
When and if those products become irrelevant, assuming nothing new and significant ever appears, Apple would have to adjust its Apple Store strategy but it would do so as a huge incumbent. This would be some twenty or thirty years in the future judging from the wintel life cycle. This suggests geopolitical forces that would apply to the US and West generally are more likely to matter than commercial forces. That is what I mean by time scale. Your speculation would better apply to an Apple that prospered greatly from the iPod but never ventured into new territory. Simple media players become commodities and Apple Stores whither on the vine. But that is not what happened. In any case betting that Apple will not produce a new hit product has already become a fools game.
What? Apple store will be a reason for their downfall? Apple stores make more money per square foot than basically anything in retail. You'd as soon convince me that slot machine's will be the downfall of Las Vegas.
The iPhone was an innovation. Just because others had made crappy ones first doesn't change that. For so many devices, Apple didn't make the first in the category, they made the first in the category that didn't suck. The "not sucking" part is the product of thousands of tiny innovations, or perhaps more accurately the innovative combination of thousands of little things.
Listen, haters gonna hate, don't let me get in your way. Just don't mistake your hate for, you know, a rational assessment of Apple's strengths or weaknesses.
The problem isn't that they might not have new products. The problem for them is that if they introduce a product which gets only a lukewarm (rather than hot) reception, then they will lose more money in that quarter or two than the other tech companies would lose if they introduced a complete stinker. Leverage multiplies losses. If BestBuy can't sell enough of gadget X, they half the shelf space which is occupied by gadget X. Apple store has to sell Apple products. So they would lose money both on "keeping the lights on" in the stores (figuratively speaking) and on the product which only got the lukewarm reception.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I understand your point about leverage. What I think you are trying to ignore is the wealth of products Apple makes and will continue to sell. The Mac (at least in name) goes back to '84. That is almost 30 years. Apple has never sold more or made more money on the Mac than in the most recent quarter. There is a huge amount of growth potential from the multitudes who are not satisfied with their current choice and are willing to try an Apple product because of their experience with the iPhone, iPad, and/or iPod. This is even more true of the iPhone and iPad. They insures an enormous amount of time (decades) before an improbable absence of a new successul product is felt. Finally there is the $100 billion that Apple (and by extension The Apple Store) has in cash or cash equivalents that could sustain them if they decided to nothing but sail around in yachts. Anyone waiting for Apple to fail because of the Apple Store needs to be very young and very patient.
Ah, the "zero sum" argument. That the total number of potential buyers has been reached so that every sale is a conversion instead of growing the total market.
And yes, it does matter whether that is one company or ten, unless you somehow believe that there is a common "Android pool" of revenue that the multiple manufacturers share.