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Apple Posts $18B Quarterly Profit, the Highest By Any Company, Ever
jmcbain writes: Yesterday, Apple reported its financial results for the quarter ending December 27, 2014. The company posted $18 billion in profit (on $74 billion in revenue), the largest quarterly profit by any company, ever. The previous record was $16 billion by Russia's Gazprom (the largest natural gas extractor in the world) in 2011. Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones last quarter, along with 5.5 million Macs and 21.4 million iPads.
Can't even buy a decent lemonade for less than $2 these days I tell ya what.
I wonder which country Apple are paying tax on that profit?
Oh wait, they are based in Ireland and pay no tax at all. Silly me.
Be nice if they paid their taxes since they are rolling in cash. They keep a vast fortune off-shore just to avoid US taxes on profits, and screw Europe in the same way.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Here is the proof!
25% mark up for an OEM is pretty envious, especially in the electronic market where usual retail markup is less than 10%!
Those are amazing numbers. It shows that by making bug-free products, offering long term support, providing great value, acting fully ethically, and listening to your customers, can make you a fair amount of money. Their secret sauce? Bringing the real engineers to the spotlight.
Apple arguably makes the best phones and when using Android phones you notice little things here and there that aren't quite a nice, but these are rather rare and mostly insignificant.
It feels strange that Apple is making such a profit with a rather smallish that may be 12% of the market and no particularly eye-popping new products since the Steve Jobs era, just a series of well-engineered refinements.
Then again, certain shoe and apparel companies do this and have done this for decades. Seems odd to see this in technology sector that historically has been very market-share, volume and dominance oriented. However historically, this was the method employed since the early days of Apple (premium pricing).
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
And they paid $12 in taxes.
That is 24%. That means your device could be 20% cheaper and they would STILL make more money then anybody else in percentage per product in the electronics world.
So instead of 500USD for the Ipad2, you could be paying 400USD and they would still make money.
And some people don't think Apple is overpriced.
I bet the before and after tax is the same. Legal? Yes. Moral? Nope.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
All it means is that you pay WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much for their products.......
meanwhile: chinese workers slowly die, economies in crisis because of missing tax money, trash piles, heavy energy consumption.
It's time to stop this madness and bring out phones that last 4 years minimum.
It just goes to prove no one is irreplaceable; not even Jobs.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
So now a "cult" is half of US smart phone buyers?
What does that make Linux users then?
The highest by any publicly traded company, you mean. I'm pretty sure Saudi Aramco is at the top with annual profits estimated at a whooping $182 billion. Where else do you think the terrorists and the Bush family keep getting all that money from?
Imagine all the money Apple pays in taxes - that has to have a beneficial effect on the US economy and citizens.
If they were "overcharging", they wouldn't be selling as many. Amazing how the free market works isn't it?
I live since a few years in Asia (first Singapore, now Hong Kong). 3 years ago I saw lots of people with iphones in de metro, gradually this shifted to mainly big Samsung phablets which are really popular here. Switcher friends told me that they liked their iphone 4/4S but they simply like a bigger screen more.
Now, the iPhone 6 Plus is (very visibly in the metro) stealing customers back from the Android camp, often these are switching back buyers.
I did ask a few colleagues about their switch back, the general opinion is that while they needed to unlearn a few Android habits, they thought that the Apple gear worked very well, and (ALWAYS a factor mentioned by the lady colleagues) they thought that the iphone was simply a beautiful, elegant device.
I upgraded 2 months ago from a 4S to the 6 Plus myself. I am not so impressed by hateful online arguments (nor do I have a problem with Android phones), and it must be said that it works indeed very smoothly. It is still just about portable and the comfort has made me almost abandon my old ipad (between the 6Plus, and the small MAcbook Air the ipad sits now a bit uncomfortably). Also, the camera is remarakable. Without doing scientific tests, I have the impression that the general image quality is akin to my old Nikon D200 (without the nice bokeh of course), the pictures are more than good enough for most casual uses.
Your product can be clearly inferior hardware and be much more expensive than the competition, but if your product is considered a status symbol that lets you win rich partners, so it sells no matter the price.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Corrected for inflation, it isn't.
Most profitable cult ever.
Oh I don't know, some girls can make thousands in a single...
Oh, sorry. Misread.
It's a quarterly profit announcement, not for the year.
So the real questions are what is the declared profit / loss for the entire year and how much actual tax are they actually paying on the year?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Not true. You can both overcharge AND sell. You just need enough dumb asses to buy. Niche market if you like.
So half of all smart phone buyers in the US constitute a "small niche"?
$18 billion profit, but they can't afford to make their phones in a country with decent labour laws. Nope, can't do it. The numbers just don't add up I tell you. Apple are the apotheosis of psychopathic corporate greed, at the expense of any human decency.
He said: "I am not so impressed by hateful online arguments"
"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. "
Why aren't you helping?
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
So now a "cult" is half of US smart phone buyers?
The people screaming that kind of nonsense are those who see how successful Apple is, who _should_ see why Apple is so successful (because there is no secret about this), and even though everything that Apple does to get that success is totally out in the open, they just don't get it.
So because they just can't figure out why a rational person would buy an Apple product, they come with their ridiculous interpretations that there must be a "cult", or that people must be "sheep", or that an iPhone is "fashion" (without trying to figure out _why_ it is fashion), or that Apple has brainwashed for example half the US smartphone buyers (how would Apple have done that? )
Of all their profits they are no longer reinvesting, they still will not pay dividends. A stock that never pays dividends is simply a really expensive baseball card.
half of US smart phone buyers
But only 12% worldwide. Android rules the rest of the planet.
Circumcision is child abuse.
That still doesn't answe the questiom, does half of the US constitute a "cult"?
Perhaps, quite large part of you also go to church every week and believe the world is 4000 years old. And also consider your football as a sport.
Let's see what the dictionary says...
Cult: a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
No further questions, your honor. ;)
Circumcision is child abuse.
So does anyone who buys a product from a company that sells product at a high margin have an "excessive admiration" for that product? What do you think the marginal cost of a copy of Windows is? Does that mean every Windows user belongs to a cult?
When you realize Apple makes a lot of iPhones and it becomes clear that Apple has basically become a smartphone company. The iPods are now dead, thanks to the iPhone, the iPad has shrunk in sales thanks in part to the bigger iPhones, and yet Mac sales have increased most likely because of the disaster of Windows 8 and because some people found tablets to be less then ideal for everything. Which is why tablets have always been a non replacement for the computer.
But what happens to Apple if they lose their mojo in iPhones? Because all this talk about new innovation from Apple has simply not happened. The first new product since the iPad is the Apple watch and many already believe its simply a non starter as the next big thing. Of course some of the Apple flock will buy anything Apple but I do see and read plenty of Apple loyalists questioning Apple's vision for the future.
Yeah. Majority doest mean intellect. Majority in US voted for Bush TWICE! ;)
"Words Mean Things". By whose definition is "niche" - half of the relevant population?
He said 4% profit (what is left over after all other investments and costs) not 4% margins (what is left over after you subtract only manufacturing costs from sales). Operating on 4% profit is doable, retailers do it all the time. No one runs a business on 4% margin.
They announced dividends and have been paying them for several years now.
If they've litigated away their competitors, why do their competitors have most of the market share by volume?
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then you can reap great profits. Remember, profits and margins are all that matter. The world, and the EU in particular, should make sure Apple pay their taxes, or forbid them from entering the markets.
What do you think the marginal cost of a copy of Windows is? Does that mean every Windows user belongs to a cult?
No, because unlike in the case of Apple, there is a lack of viable alternatives. Windows can be sold at a high margin because most users do not have a real choice. Apple products can be sold at a higher margin than equally good but cheaper competitors because they are, well, Apple products, and that alone seems to justify the price for many.
It's not the price, it's just that I really can't stand iOS. And this from a long-time Mac fan, but when it comes to mobile, I'm with the Android cult.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I am no native English speaker, but you got the point. Something so successful in business can't be optimal for consumer. It means basically one thing, that if there is analogue for this product, and there is, they are overcharging.
So in other words there is no basis in reality that Apple's customers are a "cult"....
If I find where they sell sense of humor, I will buy you some.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Amazon: .1% operating margin.
Apple: 29.3% operating margin.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Again, in a free market where there are literally hundreds of alternatives, the consumer -- all 75 million of them -- chose what they felt would be an "optimal" use of their money.
The per capita income in the US is around $50,000. If someone chose to spend about 1.2% of that income on an iPhone -- something they use multiple times per day, that's capitalism working "optimally". Their is market for a product and a producer willing to create it for a price they both feel is fair.
Too bad they have no place in business.
Great work everybody. If we all get behind this we can make next quarter even bigger!
I've never understood the true-Apple-fanboi approach to these figures, which is always joy and pride, like they've somehow "won"? The amount of times I've heard people proudly tell me how Apple has the highest profit margin on their phones - a phone which the person who is telling me this is holding - truly makes me shake my head. I can't think of many other scenarios where people are proud that they paid more for their device and the people who sold it to them paid less to make it.
When did "I win because I got ripped off the most!" become a sane argument?? By all means, be happy the company is stable and will stick around to make more devices for you or will money to invest in future devices but for goodness sakes, people, stop being proud that you're being ripped off!?
Yeah. Majority doest mean intellect. ;)
Majority in US voted for Bush TWICE!
No, they didn't. Bush didn't even receive the most votes in the 2000 election let alone a majority of them.
2000 election vote totals:
Bush: 50,456,062
Gore: 50,996,582
That still doesn't answe the questiom, does half of the US constitute a "cult"?
A cult is devoted to worshipping something specific: its followers don't necessarily have to be a minority of the population.
For example, in ancient Greece, the Cult of Apollo was quite widespread.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You've never understood because you're probably quite young. First, you must understand a bit of history that is freely available on the web. There are people who consider themselves "MacHeads." They love this company and love their products. Then you must understand that there was a time in the 90s when Apple was on the ropes. There was a danger that the company was going to disappear. That upset a lot of people. Microsoft actually bailed them out. It was a crazy time. Apple fans were on the receiving end of a lot of derision. Well, now Apple is the biggest and most successful company in the world. Maybe in history. And it's time for the Apple fans to give back a little. Especially now that Microsoft is in the dumper and even Google is starting to show cracks ever since flushing their "Don't be evil" motto and exchanged it for "Let's spy on everyone, always, and give it all to the NSA for money." Finally, you're not getting ripped off if you pay a little extra for an experience you love. I used to use Windows for years until I got a Mac. Windows used to cause me so many headaches; I had to work constantly to keep it optimized and problem free. Now, with the power of Unix in a candy-coated shell my Mac is problem free. My uptime right now on my 2008 MacBook is 98 days. I used to have to reboot Windows at least once a day. If I paid $200 more for my MacBook but have completely eliminated the need to "run" my computer have I overpaid? I'd say no.
and followed that up by voting obama in twice. We really are freaking stupid here in america
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So in that case, everyone who buys any product belongs to a cult? Or is it just anyone who buys something that is sold at a high margin?
Apple's marketing is just genius.... have useless things be considered critical, bug and issues be considered advantages, ridicule cheaper products...
I have a Nexus 6, which I got 64gb and without contract, so after shipping and taxes, it came up over $700. The only reason the 64gb is that important is that Android SD card support was crippled in Android 4 to the point of being useless aside for music/video, so people end up being more to get screwed more.
Anyway, at one point I'm sending a message on my overpriced N6, which I only forked over because I'm not fond of Apple products yet I wanted a phone that actually gets updates. Someone in my office look at me, and couldn't help but going: "Oh, you use Android? Wtf, that's a phone for poor people, I thought you were an engineer".
So not only from their point of view being ripped off is a good thing, else you're a "poor person", but getting ripped off by Google is still not good enough.
They also voted for O'dummy twice. what's your point.
One would hope so if you think "niche" means "intellect". Do you know there are online dictionaries you can use to check the meaning of words you don't know before you throw them around?
Since there are many alternative products clearly they are not significantly overcharging. If they were they would not have half the market.
Seriously, why is this guy's comment flamebait? Apple does this. They move billions of euros through Ireland to avoid paying any taxes.
I find it curious that so many Slashdoters have no problem when a company uses all the advantages of society and yet refuses to contribute to keeping the society going. In this case, literally racking in billions upon billions in profit while barely contributing to the tax base.
Why do you think this is a good thing?
I work for a small company. We have only about 80 people. So, while we may not make as many jobs as Apple does we do pay our taxes. We also still have a profit.
Oh I get it - I'm just saying it doesn't make sense. Despite what you say, I am not really young anymore, though I wish I was! I remember Apple being on the ropes and I've been around long enough to fully understand the Apple phenomenon. I've owned Apple computers (currently none because work has surprisingly lead me down a very Microsoft centric path in the last couple of years and I found all my Macs just bootcamped to Windows, so it was kind of a waste).
I even get the bit about paying more for what you love. That's all fine and good. Perfect reasons to spend more. I drive an overpriced car, I am sure.
What I don't get is people who are outright happy that Apple makes a larger profit margin per unit - and they are the people funding that unit. That makes _no sense_. I'm not talking about people who are happy to pay a premium for a "better product" - I am talking about people who are actually happy that some company is over charging them and have turned this into a "win" for themselves. So *Apple* charges more for a product that costs less to make - and the consumer who buys it is *proud* of this?? That is completely bonkers. Unless you own shares in Apple, this should piss you off, not make you feel like "the winner". The winner, here, is Apple, not the consumer.
The fact that their RDF or cult or marketing or whatever you want to call it has produced people who will even perform the necessary internal mental gymnastics required to not just justify the higher profit margin but actually internalise it as a "win" for themselves, speaks volumes about how good Apple has become at this.
That's what happens when idiots are tricked into thinking that 37 cents worth of plastic and silicon is worth 500 to 600 USD.
You're fooling yourselves if you think Apple makes anything decent these days.
VW did 16 billion EUR. That's more than 18 bil $$$.
See, I understand the mentality that drives someone to spend more for a product, so they don't look like a "poor person". I even understand that people are happy to pay more for status or premium, etc.
The point I'm trying to make is that Apple fans go one step (or more maybe?) further than simply justifying the higher price - they go to the point of claiming that Apple's higher profit margin = a win for them, the Apple consumer. It doesn't. It equals a win for Apple.
Unless they own Apple shares, Apple's profits are not a reason for Apple's consumers to be proud, yet somehow, at every iPhone launch, Tim Cook (or Steve Jobs) gets up and says "we made x billion profit this year" and the crowd goes berserk. The Daring Fireballs of the world cheer *Apple's* profits as somehow *their own personal* victory over other people's consumer choices. "Apple made more money than Samsung so I am correct for buying an iPhone and you are foolish for buying a Galaxy".
That aside, how is the Nexus 6? I have been seriously considering buying one, if Google ever remember to release them in Australia but I've heard they suffer from lag and poor battery, due to the quad-hd screen?
The gaming console wars end up the same way, though in that case one at least can make the argument that the more successful company attracts more games (so its more about device sold than profit margin, which confirms your point about Apple being even worse)
Nexus 6 is good. My personal usage pattern for a "phone" is: "Really, I don't make many phone calls, ever, so what I really want is a tablet that can make a phone call every now and then...but if I can't fix a tablet in my pocket and have to read for my bag every time, I'll never use it, so I need the largest possible 'tablet' that will fit in my pocket and be able to make phone calls". The Nexus 6 fit that bill, though millage will vary if you don't have large pockets :)
If you read around you'll hear about how the N6 does full device encryption in software, and can't be disabled without custom ROM. That doesn't really affect performance in practice except for app loading, which absolutely feel slower than it should for a premium device (though its not nearly as bad as at launch. They patched it up since most of the negative reviews popped). If you flash a custom rom (i don't have the patience for that), it supposingly flies. That said, one can't help but be jealous of the iphone 6 plus battery life.
All around I like it. Its the only intersection of near tablet sized phone thats fully hackable if I ever need to, that has guaranteed OS updates, so for me it ended up being my only real option.
....the iPhone sheeple keeping Crapple alive...
"half", hahahahahahahahahaha
Thanks for the info. Hopefully we'll see them here in Australia sometime before they're superseded but it seems Google and Microsoft are going out of their way to forget we exist, down here, lately.
Holy shit are there a lot of delusional statements in 3 sentences.
Apple *does* pay a stock dividend. Has since 2012 (except for the quarter where they had the 7-for-1 stock split).
And the accuracy of your post goes *down* hill from there...
Dedicated, loyal and exuberant perhaps. A cult? Hardly.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
I wont come on offensive here. I have already explained how over half of population of US vote twice for Bush. Absence of intelligence to make proper comparison of products obviously is not helping. Geeks created Apple empire, and they will kill it. No one believed me that windows will go into decline. It does now. Mark my words, fanboys will wake up. Most fanboys are not necessary stupid people. Just stubborn ones.
I just wish Apple would use a small fraction of that profit to rewrite itunes, from scratch.
I don't know why you think I'm getting ripped off. I paid $600 for a phone that will get software updates for four years. The hardware will last for four years. My last iPhone did.
The reason why those profit margins are a good thing are because it means Apple isn't concerned with me buying a new phone from them every 18 months to stay afloat. They don't have to track my personal data or advertise to me to make money. Apple making money means that I can be sure that when I want to buy another phone in 4 years, they'll have something good for me to buy and they'll still be around for me to buy it from.
Contrast that with Android phones. They only promise support for 18 months, even on Nexus devices (though they MAY support them longer than that). There are dozens of phones that have fallen by the wayside. Sure, I can buy a new $150 Motorola every year or two, and it would be a good phone, but I could also just buy my top-of-the-line iPhone and keep it a little longer, and it means that I get a really exemplary phone every once in a while.
I understand the decisions that lead you to chose Android devices, but it's not wrong to chose Apple even BECAUSE they're making money. It's a short term pain that has (for me) been a long-term win.
It's anyone that buy something from a company that tehcyder doesn't own stock in.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
I think the quality of comments here is deteriorating. I wonder why no one is asking what special thing happened this last quarter for them to earn this much?
None of which has anything to do with the word "niche".
I don't think you're getting ripped off; I get why you make your purchase. No side is wrong or right and it's not wrong BECAUSE Apple are making money. I expect them to and I expect them to make as much as they can.
What I'm talking about the somewhat bizarre phenomenon that's (almost) unique to Apple fans where by Apple's profit margin is recorded as some kind of "win" for Apple against Android's market share "win" - but fans see this as a win for them - the Apple fan themselves, instead of for Apple. It's not. No matter how you present it, it's not. It's a win for Apple. It's one thing to expect a company to make a profit but it's a whole different thing to be proud of a company, that you don't work for or own shares in, making money out of you.
Now you can enjoy your phone all you like - there's lots to enjoy about it. And it's good your provider is profitable and stable; those are good indicators for the future of your product's support (but don't kid yourself that you're not being tracked - I promise you that you are. If you read slashdot and you don't think iCloud stores your IP address, then I'm a little shocked).
However, Apple's profit margins being high is not something for Apple's customers to be proud of, when they're funding them. Can you imagine people being ecstatic - and I really mean ecstatic, if you've ever read Daring Fireball or watched an iPhone keynote - that Walmart or MacDonalds had huge profit margins?? (Note: we don't have Walmart in my country, so I'm trying to pick a company that will resonate with most readers. Hopefully it's a good example). It's such an odd thing to be proud of!
niche. Smallest unit of a habitat that is occupied by an organism. A habitat niche is the physical space occupied by the organism; an ecological niche is the role the organism plays in the community of organisms found in the habitat. Nothing to do with word smart whatsoever. Used was used metaphorically. I agreed I said something wrong, but I apparently I didn't. You don't know what you were talking about. Over and out. Don't bother answering, as you are attacking my words and not my idea, where idea is clearly given.
Contrast that with Android phones. They only promise support for 18 months, even on Nexus devices (though they MAY support them longer than that). There are dozens of phones that have fallen by the wayside.
I was told that in California, Apple was required to support (be able to repair) their devices for 7 years. I'd think that would apply to Android companies as well?
Again, this profit talks to Apple ability to continue growing and innovate. Such profits will encourage more people in trusting Apple ability to deliver. For those who like what Apple has done, it means more of the same and I can understand why they would be happy about that. So basically it's a win-win for those who have Apple products and for Apple.
But only 12% worldwide. Android rules the rest of the planet.
Is that a reflex answer? "Half the US smartphone buyers" absolutely forces you to post world wide market share? Don't you think that is evidence that you belong to the cult of Android?
Let's just say that what my post was about was that it is utter rubbish to claim that Apple brainwashed 50% of US smartphone buyers, just as it is utter rubbish to claim that Apple brainwashed 12% of world wide smartphone buyers.
Your statement that "Android rules the rest of the planet" is nonsense. There are many places in the world where the average person cannot afford an iPhone. So they buy the cheapest phone that they can afford. The cheap Android phone is a sign of poverty. It doesn't "rule" anything.
are you suggesting that he may be a replicant?
So because they just can't figure out why a rational person would buy an Apple product, they come with their ridiculous interpretations that there must be a "cult", or that people must be "sheep", or that an iPhone is "fashion" (without trying to figure out _why_ it is fashion), or that Apple has brainwashed for example half the US smartphone buyers (how would Apple have done that? )
I've been saying for years that this is cognitive dissonance. When a whole bunch of people like something, and someone else doesn't, they would rather invent conspiracy theories or chalk it up to "sheeple" rather than accept the possibility that (a) they might be wrong, or (b) different people are legitimately allowed to like different things.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Perhaps, quite large part of you also go to church every week and believe the world is 4000 years old. And also consider your football as a sport.
Oh look, another asshole European taking potshots at the US!
Color me surprised.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You have a strange idea of "clearly given". I have no idea what that paragraph was trying to say.
Which is fine, my is worse than your english.
I suspect much of the "joy and pride" stems from a certain vindication felt by "True Apple fanbois" who have stuck with Apple through the years of "Apple is dying". I doubt most Apple consumers feel they are being ripped off; thankfully, people have choices. Besides, I imagine you'd have to search hard to find someone who never pays a premium in any category and only buys commodity-cheap in every single thing they buy. Do you think consumers who buy Crest over the store brand feel ripped off? Other than for job requirements, do you ever wear anything nicer than a $2 Fruit of the Loom plain white tee?
To a certain extent, I DO like these announcements merely because they really tweak the noses of the people that have been beating the 'Apple is Doomed' drum for a while. So yeah, there's a small bit of enjoyment that I get that Apple's numbers are so astronomical--I'll cop to that. That's the same thing that's happening with Daring Fireball. Gruber is obviously an Apple partisan, but he complains about as much as anyone I've heard about quality and direction.
But Apple has a good brand and it's drawn customers in. It's what every company hopes to do, really.
But there are lots of other examples of this. Ford vs. Chevy (or Ford vs. Holden, if you're in Oz) is a good one. People become partisan over all sorts of things.
In this case, I mean 'OS Support' when I say 'support'. I'm definitely not worried about needing hardware repairs.
Does your small company pay extra taxes just for fun?
It turns out that your are just wildly, fantastically wrong. Apple makes money by selling physical products that humans want.
It sounds like you think a reasonable price is a negative point. Weird.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Sure, I can buy a new $150 Motorola every year or two, and it would be a good phone, but I could also just buy my top-of-the-line iPhone and keep it a little longer, and it means that I get a really exemplary phone every once in a while.
that would be awesome if true. however when the iphone 6 came out, there was a phone by moto, samsung, and LG that all had the iphone spanked when it comes to specs.
So in practice, if you bought an iphone 6 at launch, you will still be using it in 4 years as you say. in that time you already bought a phone not as good as others already on the market, which are getting upgraded versions over the next few months. which one might buy, use for 2 years.
at this point you are still on a 2 year old iphone 6, which we already established was not the best phone on the market the day of launch, while I am trading in my note 5 to the new shiney, and you are using your iphone 6 for another 2 years.
yes, i went though more phones than you, but i didnt really pay any more to do so.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Half of the US means the cult has been elevated to a religion. That is all.
Maybe now they can afford to toss a few more dollars towards their QA departments?
I've never understood the true-Apple-fanboi approach to these figures, which is always joy and pride, like they've somehow "won"? The amount of times I've heard people proudly tell me how Apple has the highest profit margin on their phones - a phone which the person who is telling me this is holding - truly makes me shake my head. I can't think of many other scenarios where people are proud that they paid more for their device and the people who sold it to them paid less to make it.
When did "I win because I got ripped off the most!" become a sane argument?? By all means, be happy the company is stable and will stick around to make more devices for you or will money to invest in future devices but for goodness sakes, people, stop being proud that you're being ripped off!?
That is your way of seeing it, but having used Apple in home and business since 1984, I can attest to quality went in before the name and they just get the job done and after we're finished they can go on working for the next owners. I'm sitting now before a 2005 model that works as well as when we got it and so does that Cinema Display, keyboard and the rest. We did add a second drive and a Trac Ball, but it just works! My last workstation went to a family with a son in Engineering school and an earlier G3 portable the same. He loved it and made music and served well as he got into grad school on full scholarship and now has his Masters in engineering.
We used to be able to update these and that stopped with the G5's but.. really it is a great product, which did not stop me from getting an Air Portable. After my Android phone sort of fell apart I got the Blackberry and it would drop calls in sort of fringe areas.. got an iPhone and that ended. Now have a newer 5s and it just works.
That is the lesson from Apple.. pay a bit more and they just work and keep on working.
I think what it really means is they don't like Apple products. That they can't understand why others do is a failing.
This whole concept of people rooting for corporations and cheering when they pull more money is absurd. This is not sports, these are the corporations that are taking and exerting tremendous influence over the world.
I think it stems from the democratization of the stock exchanges after online trading became cheap and available in the 90's. Now some schmuck can put $1000 in APPL shares and thinks they're well on there way to riches when it bumps up $100 on a random day. Of course many of these same people buy companies with familiar products that they know and love. They aren't really investing on actual data about the companies and eventually they get convinced that the stock market is rigged because they didn't just blindly make tons of profit buying stocks of companies that make the stuff they use.
Before you jump on me about APPL being a very sound company to invest in that makes large profits, I am referring to this type of investors total portfolio not a particular company. Why do you think there's so much investment in Amazon? They burn money like crazy. How about Google, Tesla, NetFlix, etc. Some of these may prove to be good investments. Some of them may make a lot of money, but people are really confusing their feelings too much with what is a good investment and sooner or later these types of investors will get burned.
I used my iPhone 4s for over 3 years. I wasn't even going to replace it when the 6 came out, but then I left it in the pocket of my jeans and tossed it in the washing machine with the laundry. After taking it apart and drying it out, it still powered up, but both cameras and wifi were dead. I still use it as an alarm clock in my old Altec speaker dock.
Clearly.
In relatively recent times, there was no true consumer marketplace for computers or mobile phones -- it was business or homework. Microsoft Office, Blackberry (the corporate emails phone), consoles gaining capabilities and rendering the PC gaming segment tiny.
The consumer market emerged, with the decision making behind purchases for that sector being very different and only Apple sought (or had the acumen) to target it effectively.
Business spending is an expense (cheap, functional), consumer spending is an acquisition of a want.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Capitalism works by goods being more valuable to consumers than producers, generating productivity.
You are falsely equating cost, price, and value. If I buy something for $2 that cost $1 to make but I got $3 of value out of it, I have not lost $1 but rather I have gained $1 on top of the $1 that the producer gained.
I have NEVER bought an overpriced Apple product and I wish no one would have started. I think they are all snobs anyway. Like Corvette (prick mobiles) owners
Yeah, the specs don't really tell the whole story. When you go through the benchmarks, the A7/A8 chips really clean the floor with the Snapdragons, and they do it at a lower clock (and a lower voltage; performance per watt on the A7/A8 is much better). The cameras on the iPhone is of a comparable or higher quality in all those cases (keeping in mind that megapixels is perhaps the worst way to rate a digital camera; my 12.1MP Nikon D3s will crush any phone camera without any effort).
My screen isn't as high DPI, but I'd be hard pressed to tell any difference without a microscope. Numbers being bigger for the sake of being bigger doesn't impress me. Also, it chews up a lot more battery.
I get TouchID, an implementation of biometric access that currently isn't well matched on the Android side. (I've heard Huawei has a good implementation? They're not a very prolific brand in NA, so I haven't read anything except occasional offhand remarks.)
The only thing that the Android phones tend to have is more RAM, but by virtue of a completely different multitasking model and garbage collection scheme, additional RAM is less relevant to iOS. (The lone exception being webpage reloading, which I'll cop to as being an annoyance.)
So yeah, my iPhone 6 runs faster than basically anything else on the market (http://www.anandtech.com/show/8554/the-iphone-6-review/5) and will have the legs to take me to 4 years, even if it'll feel pretty dated by then. I don't really think you can legitimately claim that just because the specs of a few phones were *higher* that they were meaningfully *better*.
Oh, and I don't have to talk to my carrier about my phone, like, ever. That alone is a virtue that's hard to pass up because fuck those guys. :)
True
hahahaha, free market. That is a good one.
Wonder how much it cost to pay all the Foxconn staff for that quarter compared to Apple's profit?
Do they get a bonus?
Sad world of capitalism...
All it means is that you pay WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much for their products.......
A seat in coach/economy will get you across the Pacific just as effectively as business or first. But some people want more than pure functionality. What's wrong with that if you can afford it?
And despite this, we will all be reading on comment boards for ever that those horrible oil company profits are why they need to be punished...
But we will hear no outrage at all about Apple's profits.
Why?
Because Apple is the darling of left (Amazing, given their factories in China)... Whereas the oil companies, why they give money to Rethugnicans, so they are evil beyond evil... So the next "progressive" that tells you how awesome APPLE is be sure and remind them that this means they love outsourcing, believe children should be exploited as slave labor, and that profit is absolutely grand.....
Murphy was an optimist
I know that I am a hater, but I would reject any products from a company making this kind of profit without paying taxes back to the society that created and supported it. In fact, we know that Apple uses its money to feed the 1% and has no interest in anyone (even and especially its customers) who is not on the top 10% of its shareholders. Steve would, truly, be proud. He built this with this goal and their achievement is his achievement more than anyone else.
Congratulations.
I use trust the efficient market hypothesis to price stocks fairly, and then just buy companies with products I like because it's more fun to track them. Money from retail investors buying Apple because they think it's cool is far too low to affect the price in a meaningful way.
There's no such thing as a provably bad stock. Short interest immediately pushes any "bad" stock to exactly where it should be based on available information.
It's pretty simple: they don't feel ripped off. They feel they paid a high price for a product of high value. And they (very reasonably) conclude that if millions of other people paid a similar price for the same product, then they must have been right; the product was fairly priced for the value it contained.
Amazon famously lost money on every Fire phone it sold. Does that mean that the poor saps who bought it got a good deal? Of course not; they ended up with a crapy device. It's just a cheap crapy device. It ended up a disappointment to both seller and buyer.
I think you give the general population a bit too much credit. Have you watched the news lately? Or spoken to anyone...?
How much tax did Apple pay (1% - 2%??)? I suspect these profits are the result of global accountancy practices that avoid paying tax in almost every country they operate in.
Can we stop saying that only fanboys buy Apple products now?
It's pretty clear that mid America buy a shitload of Apple products; it's not a single, small demographic.
I don't care what you use for a phone or a computer, but your arguments no longer hold water.
Let's see what the dictionary says...
Cult: a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
No further questions, your honor. ;)
So if Apple users are members of a cult, that makes you guys an official hate group.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
It sounds like you think a reasonable price is a negative point. Weird.
Considering how many people buy iPhones (in increasing numbers), their price is reasonable. You insisting it isn't makes you member of a hate group.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yeah. Majority doest mean intellect. Majority in US voted for Bush TWICE! ;)
So Android "winning in the rest of the world" means you are dumb. Got that.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yeah, hate group. I am KKK's next grand wizard. Fuck you, dipshit.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Yeah, hate group. I am KKK's next grand wizard. Fuck you, dipshit.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Holy shit, you ARE autistic, aren't you.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Holy siht, don't prove you are a member of a hate group over and over again like the stupid members of hate groups always do. We know already, shit-for-brains.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yeah, you're a troll, or mentally ill.
Circumcision is child abuse.