Slashdot Mirror
Apple Becomes the First $1 Trillion US Company in History (reuters.com)
Apple became the first $1 trillion publicly listed U.S. company on Thursday, crowning a decade-long rise fueled by its ubiquitous iPhone that transformed it from a niche player in personal computers into a global powerhouse spanning entertainment and communications. Reuters: The tech company's stock jumped 2.8 percent, bringing its gain to about 9 percent since Tuesday when it reported June-quarter results above expectations and said it bought back $20 billion of its own shares. "Apple's $1 trillion cap is equal to about 5 percent of the total gross domestic product of the United States in 2018," David Kass, professor of finance at the University of Maryland, told The Washington Post. "That puts this company in perspective." The company's fortunes were turbocharged by the launch of personal gadgets such as the iPod in 2001 and the iPhone in 2007. Since then 18 different iPhones have been launched and more than 1.2 billion of the devices have been sold.
Brad Stone, writing for Bloomberg: As critics enjoy pointing out, the company under Cook has failed to come up with another iPhone-type hit. But that's like saying da Vinci never came up with another Mona Lisa-type painting. The release of the iPhone is up there with the founding of Standard Oil as one of the greatest business moves of all time. And while the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it, Apple has also persuaded customers to embrace other inventions they never knew they wanted, such as connected watches that buzz and beep (to cure the distraction of the phone, Apple says) and wireless dongles that hang ridiculously from their ears.
Apple isn't alone on this mountaintop. Amazon.com, Alphabet, and Microsoft are likely at some point to pinwheel across the $1 trillion finish line, too, and they're almost as good as Apple at manufacturing customer desire. No one told Amazon they needed a speaker they could talk to, or Google a self-driving car, or Microsoft a ... OK, it's been a while since Microsoft has driven civilians wild with desire.
Brad Stone, writing for Bloomberg: As critics enjoy pointing out, the company under Cook has failed to come up with another iPhone-type hit. But that's like saying da Vinci never came up with another Mona Lisa-type painting. The release of the iPhone is up there with the founding of Standard Oil as one of the greatest business moves of all time. And while the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it, Apple has also persuaded customers to embrace other inventions they never knew they wanted, such as connected watches that buzz and beep (to cure the distraction of the phone, Apple says) and wireless dongles that hang ridiculously from their ears.
Apple isn't alone on this mountaintop. Amazon.com, Alphabet, and Microsoft are likely at some point to pinwheel across the $1 trillion finish line, too, and they're almost as good as Apple at manufacturing customer desire. No one told Amazon they needed a speaker they could talk to, or Google a self-driving car, or Microsoft a ... OK, it's been a while since Microsoft has driven civilians wild with desire.
a trillion dollar market cap doesn't have too much significance
It does for the socialists who love their iPhones because Apple is "their company".
I mean, it should for those who have two brain-cells to rub together.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
BS. The Dutch East Indian Trading company was worth over $7 TRILLION in today's dollars. In fact, several were - or are - worth more than Apple. But you go ahead like the good fanboi we know you are!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Apple was in a pretty bad place in '97 to be honest. They had like 6 product lines with huge overlap. (LC, Performa, Centris, Quadra, and 2 laptop lines)
Their prices were way too high. (If you think Apple PCs are overpriced today you don't remember the late 90s! Today they're a fucking bargain!)
They had a lot of ventures that were wastes of money.
Anyone could make the assumption that apple was doomed.
In '97 Jobs came back.. And did something pretty rare. Turned the company completely around where it went on to pretty much change the direction of every industry it was involved in.
He axed useless products, re-branded the PC business with a few lines that became the first company to sell computers that were attractive and cool to own... Then went on to completely change the course of music, portable music, smartphones, portable computing. When you step back and look at it, it's pretty amazing and unbelievable.
Michael Dell's no slouch either. Founded one of the biggest computer companies in the world.. And in the face of a seismic shift in personal and server computing, took his company back private where it continues to thrive.
Trashcan mac is a nightmare to expand or service.
Apple doesn't have parts for the iMac pro
New Macbook pro has soldered storage, so it's a service nightmare again
Apple has no idea what "pro" means
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We really could have declared a victor a long time ago in this age-old debate of "Apple vs. Slashdot"--but $1T is a nice round number so now's as good a time as ever:
It has now been definitively proven that Apple understands technology better than all the Apple-critics on Slashdot (and around the world). Steve Jobs was smarter than you. Deal with it.
Next up. Elon Musk is in the midst of destroying the Tesla haters on Slashdot.
Can we finally dispense with the notion that Slashdot is a pro-technology website? It is so consistently on the losing side of every technology revolution.