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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.
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
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.......
I think it's a human mentality problem too. Most year "old" phones work just fine, but everyone wants the latest gadget. I'm still using my galaxy s2 and it works just fine.
I made an app! Shoutium
I think it's a human mentality problem too.
Don't you mean sheep, not human?
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.
The problem is that humans aren't actually that far beyond sheep.
We are ruled by pretty much the same instincts.
It's just that we have different ways to use those pretty much same instincts.
No, this is really an absurd profit, Standard Oil's net profit from 1882 to 1906 was $838,783,800 equal to roughly $22B today, so on an inflation adjusted basis Apple's quarterly profit was nearly equal to the majority of the lifetime profits of one of the classic robber baron trusts.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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?
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.
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
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.
No, this is really an absurd profit, Standard Oil's net profit from 1882 to 1906 was $838,783,800 equal to roughly $22B today, so on an inflation adjusted basis Apple's quarterly profit was nearly equal to the majority of the lifetime profits of one of the classic robber baron trusts.
The U.S. population in 1906 was 85,450,000 compared to 2014's population of 322,583,006. Apple is definitively a world wide, global corporation. Did Standard Oil reach as far.
Sorry, but you don't have much of a comparison here.
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? )
yeah, and i wonder just how much tax they will avoid paying
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
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"?
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?
Even adjusting for population and number of employees (Standard Oil - 60,000, Apple 100,000), it's still seems rather absurd.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
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?
Standard operated in 50 countries at the time of it's breakup.
If they've litigated away their competitors, why do their competitors have most of the market share by volume?
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Depends what inflation numbers you are using, i'd say that comparing such things just leads credence to the thinking that the treasury is massively under-reporting real world inflation due to their habit of selectively excluding figures that aren't in-line with their desired reporting.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
25% mark up for an OEM is pretty envious, especially in the electronic market where usual retail markup is less than 10%!
And that argument conveniently sidesteps the fact that apple make no claims to operate on lower profit margins. Running on 10% margin means that the company you buy from can not do as much R&D and can not provide the level of support or absorb things like the Nvidia GPU disaster on the MacBooks from a few years back (offering people replacement/repaired hardware well beyond the warranty period - 4+ years), etc.
You get what you pay for. Buy from a company operating on razor thin margins, don't expect them to do you any favours. Apple support is second to none in both the computer and phone markets.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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"....
Perhaps you should have a whinge about the workers who are manufacturing things for Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, etc.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Also: I just replaced my iPhone 4s. It lasted me 4 years.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If I find where they sell sense of humor, I will buy you some.
Circumcision is child abuse.
yet we never hear about how bad the "rich" apple is, yet oil companies are lambasted for their "obscene" profits. I wonder why that is???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
No. They sell a solution to a problem. You buy an iOS device, and a Mac, and you get the benefits of tight integration between the products to get things done with a minimum of fucking around. Transparent sync between them. Transparent phone backups to either the cloud or your machine. Transparent voice calls from your laptop via your phone. Application state shared between devices. Transparent, out of the box encryption. No one else in the market place offers such things without manual fucking about to get it to work.
That is what Apple sells. And a lot of techies will argue "blah i can do that with my Android + Chrome + Linux box just fine!". Good for you. How many hours did you spend setting it up?
Setting all of that up in the Apple ecosystem is merely logging into your AppleID on all your devices. Job done. Move onto something more important.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
as much as they can, like any smart company/ person.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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.
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 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
in other words, if you want something that just works, but to be dictated on how you can use it. go apple. if you want something that just works, but you can do what you wish with it, dont?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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
thats one theory. I think it has more to do with who is paying kickbacks to who.
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.
and also if thats the issue, why are there talks about increasing taxes on gas now that the price has finally dropped to a reasonable level? all they are gonna do is continue to demonize big oil, while taking the money themselves.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
yet we never hear about how bad the "rich" apple is
You must be new here. Plenty of Apple bashing goes on.
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.
Are you really that stupid, or do you just play a moron on the internet? http://investor.apple.com/divi...
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.
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?
here yes, I was refering to the media who is constantly bashing oil for their "profits" when they say nothing about apple
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
yet we never hear about how bad the "rich" apple is, yet oil companies are lambasted for their "obscene" profits. I wonder why that is???
It is voluntary. No one is making you buy an Apple product. There are a lot of cheap substitutes out there. Only recently have there been viable substitutes for petrofuel transportation.
I like them, I buy them. Apparently a few other folks do also.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
here yes, I was refering to the media who is constantly bashing oil for their "profits" when they say nothing about apple
You must be new in the world too. I've read and listened to a lot of media reports foretelling Apple losing it's polish, stocks taking a murderous hit, and other anti-Apple propaganda.
More likely you just hate Apple, and have a mental scoring system in place to fit your worldview of smug hipsters with 75 IQ's who buy Apple products because of those reasons.
You can have your own opinions, but not your own facts.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
So you're telling me if I praise Apple, I'll start getting kickbacks?
Man, I can't wait!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
i admit that i dont like apple. but this is not one of the reasons i dont like them. I dont hold anything against them for paying the taxes they have to and not a penny more. I dont think anyone should pay more in taxes than they have to
but every year we hear about how evil the oil companies are with their thin margins while at the same time ignoring the hugh margins by a company like apple.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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.
Which kind of begs the question, how did "clearly inferior hardware" become such a status symbol? Microsoft and Samsung would give their respective left testicles to do the same, but haven't quite been able to replicate the recipe.
Certainly part of it is effective marketing, but I think the other part is good execution -- regardless of what you think of the hardware (which is hidden inside the case and visible to the customer only through the device's observed behavior), the devices, as consumer products, work really, really well.
I think you have to give a lot of the credit credit to high-quality software.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Dedicated, loyal and exuberant perhaps. A cult? Hardly.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
guys guys, calm down. we're arguing technicalities. no matter how you slice it, apple made a lot of money and is being very successful.
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.
On the other hand, oil is simply a cost to power the goods, luxury or otherwise, that people own. No one feels good about the gasoline in their vehicle when they drive away from the forecourt - that feeling might come from the vehicle and the feeling of freedom a full tank of gas can provide - but not the energy source itself.
Another factor is that Apple products require a lot of ingenuity, creativity, design and manufacturing to create. Standard Oil just pulls it out the ground which is almost seen as 'free money' for them. Of course people do not consider the cost to oil companies to remove it from the ground, but that all comes back to the emotive aspect at play here.
Good question. My best guess so far is an very aggressive marketing campaign ("every computer in a movie is a Mac", remember?) combined with a device that, despite having a lower hardware to that of competitors, do the work that target audience wants. And perhaps the most important part, is charged as a luxury item in such a way that the public believes that only wealthy and successful people can have one, so anyone who wants to look wealthy and successful do anything to get one too.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
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?
I was refering to the media who is constantly bashing oil for their "profits" when they say nothing about apple
You do see that there's a fundamental difference in the business of oil and Apple, right?
The oil guys are, basically, taking stuff out of the ground and selling it to you. Their profits derive from carefully controlling the supply so that there is always a shortage. So that their customers are always competing for the privilege of giving them money. People give money to the oil companies because they have to.
Apple is in the business of creating technology that didn't exist before. They're moving society, if not culture, forward, and making the world different than it was before. Their profits derive from being more creative or more fashionable than other tech companies, not from artificially restricting supply (much). People give money to Apple because they want to.
What is this "dictated on how you use it", you speak of?
Seriously, i want to know what you think I am unable to do with my devices - or rather, what tasks you think i am unable to perform with them?
There are a few things I know i can't do with iOS, but I'm keen to see what your concerns are, and if they are anything more than petty "in theory" things.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Where do you live? I have had zero issues with Apple support, and I have used it via telephone on a few occasions. I am in Australia.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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!
Wow, at 37 cents name one company that isn't overcharging up the ying yang?
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.
But inflation is simply the increase of purchasing power of a currency over time. One way you can measure it is: how much have your grocery bills gone up in the last year, last five years, last 10 years and so on. If you really want to be accurate, you can even adjust it per person.
This Sig does not Exist.
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?
I'd love to reform taxes but you want to retain your ability to grant credits to green companies
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.
Fuck your insightful mod, it's well documented their tax rate is 26.3%.
Actually it's kinda dumb. They avoid tax and then complain that there are not enough skilled workers for them to hire. If it gets too bad there won't be enough people with money to buy their products.
Japan has the largest number of long-lived (50+ years) companies in the world. They pay their taxes and treat their staff well. Long term gain over short term profit.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, Apple doesn't directly destroy the environment with every dollar they make. Yes, there is an environmental cost, but it isn't nearly as drastic as what the fossil fuel industry imposes.
Also, there's plenty of people that live without Apple products. Literally nobody in a developed nation goes without using petrochemicals in some form.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
and also if thats the issue, why are there talks about increasing taxes on gas now that the price has finally dropped to a reasonable level? all they are gonna do is continue to demonize big oil, while taking the money themselves.
What do you mean reasonable level? The oil companies started the inflationary spiral with thier fake oil shortages. It should cost 30 cents a gallon. Capitolism is a ponzi scheme.
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.
2013 lobbying dollars: Google - $14.06 million, Microsoft - $10.49 million, Apple -$3.37 million
I don't think profit correlates well with how much money each company is giving to politicians.
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?
no i was talking about the kickbacks to the campaigns, not the profit number.
It is well known that tech is buddy buddy with the democrats. as are the majority of the media. As such, you dont see many news articles complaining about the "obscene profits" made in the tech industry.
on the other hand, you hear all the time about the obscene profits of the oil industry, eventhough they are making pennies on the dollar and make money on volume, and apple on the other hand (and tech in general) have much higher margins than big oil. double digit differences.
so if the big oil is "bad" for bringing in 5% margins, shouldnt big tech be shamed for bringing in 30+% margins???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Well, Apple doesn't directly destroy the environment with every dollar they make.
i would argue otherwise between rare earth medals and cheap labor, id say they are just as evil as big oil (and by that i mean not evil at all for making things people want/need)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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?
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.
I guess I don't see how this relates, or rather maybe I disagree with how it relates. Apple is, as far as I know, the only tech company that performs internal and external audits of their Chinese labor and actually fines and fires companies that don't comply with workers rights guidelines. It is far from perfect, but can you name any company that is doing as much as Apple? Hell ,as far as I can tell they get more flack in the media about it for two reasons, first they are popular and well known, second they publish all this info so it makes it easy for reporters to write about them.
As for economies in crisis, yup, we need tax reform, but again, Apple is not one of the companies lobbying against tax reform and has even spoken in favor of it.
Trash piles are an issue, but again Apple works towards "green" goals, conducts audits and publishes how well they are doing. They sponsor a recycling program where you can send them any of their devices and they recycle them free of cost and pay for the shipping.
As for energy consumption, that would be their iDevice's strongest suit and greatest weakness. Apps are limited in their interactions with each other and with the background processes they can run specifically because Apple designed them around the concept of energy conservation (not out of some altruistic goal, just because they believed battery life was a huge consumer concern).
As for phones that last 4 years, my last iPhone lasted 5 years before I gave it to a friend. My current one is 3 years old and still works fine. I'll probably update in another year or two. So, mission accomplished?
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
Apple support second to none? What are you smoking. Apple has been fined in the EU for not giving its customers the two year warranty they are mandated by LAW to provide.
Half of the US means the cult has been elevated to a religion. That is all.
I think you have to give a lot of the credit credit to high-quality software.
I think you have to give basically all of the credit to the people who do the interfaces. That's the only place where Apple ever seems to have a clear advantage, the very early G5 era aside.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
so the oil companies are the ones claiming the sky is falling and we hit peak oil? I thought that was the tree huggers
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Maybe now they can afford to toss a few more dollars towards their QA departments?
Once the materials that Apple uses are out of the ground and turned into a product, the environmental damage stops except for the electricity required to use it, and it's eventual disposal.
With oil, every step of the process including use does very bad things for the environment.
You could, in theory, use a Mac forever with a solar panel without ever doing anything to the environment.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Tax is not ethical. Legally avoiding it is not unethical.
Who is bein successful? Does each of the 100,000 employees receive a $1.8M bonus? That's profit: unallocated revenue. Perhaps they could pay their contractors a fair wage, reduce the price of their phones.
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. :)
but every year we hear about how evil the oil companies are with their thin margins while at the same time ignoring the hugh margins by a company like apple.
I don't find any profit obscene in itselff. I might have some issues with how it is gotten. But that's in all endeavors. Oil is just another industry - and as we break away from it, it will become more of an option, just like what computer we use.
Somehow, gasoline and oil prices have just become an economic bellwether - more important to people's pecuniary outlook than they should be. I drive economical vehicles like a Jeep Patriot and a big twin motorcycle. So the price of beer is more important to me than gas. They can make all the profit they need afaic.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
True
Seems like a perfectly cromulent report to me.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Paying for the services you use is not ethical? They use roads, education, police, and all sorts of services. If they had their $22B in cash under their mattress, there are countries that would invade to take it, so they use the military much more than anyone else.
Learn to love Alaska
That's hilarious. The "liberal media" in Texas is owned by oil companies. The stories about all the earthquakes around Dallas explain how it's not fracking, and if it were fracking, it's a good thing, as the more common smaller earthquakes release pressure, preventing a larger one later.
And I'm referring to Belo, whose owners have ties to the West Texas oil fields. No, Mobile doesn't own Belo, but the owners of Belo have ties to oil.
Learn to love Alaska
We're not all happy campers. Australian papers have been reporting on the tiny tax that Apple have been paying: "The tax bill of $80.3 million pales in comparison to its local revenue which came in at over $6 billion." -http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2015/1/28/technology/apples-tiny-tax-bill-doubles-australia
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
im guessing you are talking about local news in texas (which makes sense if its not in the dems pockets) as I dont even know what you are talking about as a new yorker
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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
The national media is owned by the same people that own Big Oil (institutionalized investors). So I always find it hilarious that the "liberal media" is called such when they are obviously owned by some of the most conservative people.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, they are such an admirable company. So, so much to admire.
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.
Paying for the services you use is not ethical?
Being forced to pay for services I may not use, or in a manner that is not proportional to my use is not ethical. There are others ways of paying for services that don't involve compulsory confiscation.
Actually it's kinda dumb. They avoid tax and then complain that there are not enough skilled workers for them to hire.
When has the US government ever spend tax to make workers skilled? Talk about "kind of dumb" - you are the worst kind of dumb.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
yet we never hear about how bad the "rich" apple is, yet oil companies are lambasted for their "obscene" profits. I wonder why that is???
Well, Apple is increasing profits by selling more of its products. The oil companies are raising their profits while selling less.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
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.