LG a couple of years ago stated that so long as they continue making enough money on Android accessories to cover their losses on Android phones and tablets, they will continue to make Android phones and tablets.
I don't remember Apple fans/customers being so obsessed with how much profit the company was making in the past. Why is that so important now?
Your memory might be off. Back in the late 90s people were obsessed with the profit numbers because the profits were so small, and people were worried about Apple's ability to remain an independent company. I remember a sequence of quarters when the only thing that kept Apple's profits above 0 was the sale of ARM stock.
Then with the iPod, the expanding profits were a huge relief for fans of the company.
Then with the iPhone fueled profit expansion, the relief turned to euphoria and disbelief.
1. Despite the enormous profit advantage, Apple does not seem able to completely knock the competition out of the high-end market. The Chinese are not as far behind in terms of features and performance as one might expect given the resource disadvantage. I think this is because Apple can't come up with enough good ideas for investing those profits back into the iPhone business. That's not a criticism, it's just the nature of a mature product -- innovations come more slowly because the opportunities for meaningful improvement are far less obvious than they were when "copy/paste" was a big new feature.
2. The Mac is a very profitable business that deserves more investment from Apple! I think it is realistic to believe that Apple could double (at least) its share of the global PC market if they tried. They should dominate the high-end of the PC market in the way they dominate the high-end of the smartphone market.
In other words:
"I want the iPhone to then Apple will be forced to start building humoungous laptops again."
The reason that Apple always seems to do better than folk expect when a new phone is released is because they're not aimed no at the people who upgraded last year; the phone will pick up all the people who haven't upgraded for two years or more.
I'm also not sure that we're dry of innovations in the mobile space. I think Apple won't be happy until they've got the phone down to a glass slab.
If you're like owing for a market that's hit the ceiling for innovation then that's the desktop PC market. Apple doesn't seem interested in dominating a market that's shrinking.
Still, I'm pretty sure that Apple will release a Pro desktop this year, but I doubt you'll like it.
Avon B7 said, "No manufacturer of low or mid tier phones has even the slightest intention of massive profit. Comparing those profits to those of Apple serves little or no purpose."
If maximizing profits isn't the goal, then it's time for those companies to get out of the business.
The criticism of the points DED made with statements like this are pretty ridiculous.
Apple and Samsung are the only two companies capable of reliably profiting from the smartphone industry. Samsung primarily in components and Apple in the finished product and vertically integrated system.
Samsung is attempting to move to Apple's vertically integrated model much to the consternation of Google. Samsung's plan is to move off of Android all together and over to Tizen. Samsung's Tizen phone sales in India are pretty nice. And it is quite worrisome to Google. Because if Samsung is successful, the only high end players will be Apple and Samsung. And neither will be running on Android.
So it actually be self-fulfilling if the low end Android device manufacturers aren't interested in large profits. Because it won't happen. There will be Apple and Samsung. The others, including Huawei won't be playing at the high end of anything. Samsung's Gear S3 makes the Android wear watches from Huawei and LG look atrocious.
You appear to be confusing 'massive' profit with 'maximising' profit.
My point is that low to mid tier manufacturers can't get away with 30-40% margins and they know it. That isn't part of the plan.
Huawei hasn't even stretched its legs in the premium segment but has already released a phone well over the $1,000 mark and has units at all the price points down to the entry level. It took such a jump on quality with the P9 that it has allowed itself to take a breather with last week's P10 announcements which were more lifestyle focussed. Expect a bigger jump later in the year with the successor to the Mate 9 and perhaps an attack on the US market.
When you see numbers like this is the reason we are not seeing a whole lot of innovation in the cell phone markets and why everyone is copying Apple. No company is making enough to do their own R&D to come up with new ideas, whether they are good or not does not matter. You need more companies working on ideas and bringing them to market to see which one are worth keeping around. Right now Apple is the only company putting out new ideas and everyone else is just tweaking those ideas. Samsung was trying to push the envelop but keep falling on their face.
I'm not so sure. It would be good for Apple to take a leaf out of competitors' books too.
Gestures on the fingerprint scanner, ultra fast charging, new finishes on materials, AI for optimization etc.
As far as R&D in general I think we've reached a comfort zone and will be there for a while. The most important advances are already out of the gate. Batteries are one area where we may see a significant jump but I am stretched to think of anything else that would really stand out.
This article has so much spin on it that it seems to suffer from giddiness.
Apple shipping more phones in one quarter than 'Samsung's entire range of smartphones' is of little value if during the year Samsung still outsold Apple (and probably by a handsome margin), even with an unprecedented product recall.
There's the real spin. The only reason Samsung sells more phones is because the majority of their sales are from low-end junk phones. Apple doesn't sell $50-100 phones so it's pointless to compare total Samsung sales to total iPhone sales. That's like saying Ford is better than Mercedes because they sell more cars.
If you compare apples to apples (flagships to flagships) then Apple absolutely, totally and utterly crushes Samsung in the market in terms of unit sales AND revenues/profits.
The last time I had 540% of 100% to be distributed I ended up as Analyst
But the 540% is about Apple in relation to Samsung Mobile.
that is why he is not an analyst, but I have to admit I almost fell for the click bait title trap. I had to look at the numbers closely and do my own math to realize that Apple's profits were 5X of Samsung thus the 540% number. I tell people all the time beware of the % sign it is not telling the whole truth.
whats wrong with %?
If you got a raise at work would you say:
1. I got a 30% raise
or
2. I got a 0.30 raise
For financial information % is used all the time.
% are fine as long as the denominator and numerator as also shared, most times they are not. Even when they are do you know what was all include or removed from the numbers being converted to a %. Too many time we all seen things being removed because someone said they do not count or another person adding extras in since they believe they should be counted. My point just show the actual numbers no need to convert to %'s people can figure out for themselves, Saying Apple may $44B in profits when the entire industry made $54B and Samsung made $8B tells the story, only product is Samsung does not break out their number and neither do most of the competitors so all could be actually make all the profits which are available since everyone else is selling at a lose.
In spite of the recall, $8.3 billion operating profits from the mobile division is still good business and let's not forget that Samsung also makes a profit out of every iPhone sold through the components it supplies to Apple.
Why? Did I accidentally stumble onto Samsung Insider? Why do you feel a need to prop up Samsung?
Also, unless i'm mistaken Samsung's semiconductor division is different than its mobile business and thus component profits have jack to do with their mobile profits or lack thereof.
Avon B7 said, "No manufacturer of low or mid tier phones has even the slightest intention of massive profit. Comparing those profits to those of Apple serves little or no purpose."
If maximizing profits isn't the goal, then it's time for those companies to get out of the business.
The criticism of the points DED made with statements like this are pretty ridiculous.
Apple and Samsung are the only two companies capable of reliably profiting from the smartphone industry. Samsung primarily in components and Apple in the finished product and vertically integrated system.
Samsung is attempting to move to Apple's vertically integrated model much to the consternation of Google. Samsung's plan is to move off of Android all together and over to Tizen. Samsung's Tizen phone sales in India are pretty nice. And it is quite worrisome to Google. Because if Samsung is successful, the only high end players will be Apple and Samsung. And neither will be running on Android.
So it actually be self-fulfilling if the low end Android device manufacturers aren't interested in large profits. Because it won't happen. There will be Apple and Samsung. The others, including Huawei won't be playing at the high end of anything. Samsung's Gear S3 makes the Android wear watches from Huawei and LG look atrocious.
You appear to be confusing 'massive' profit with 'maximising' profit.
My point is that low to mid tier manufacturers can't get away with 30-40% margins and they know it. That isn't part of the plan.
Huawei hasn't even stretched its legs in the premium segment but has already released a phone well over the $1,000 mark and has units at all the price points down to the entry level. It took such a jump on quality with the P9 that it has allowed itself to take a breather with last week's P10 announcements which were more lifestyle focussed. Expect a bigger jump later in the year with the successor to the Mate 9 and perhaps an attack on the US market.
No large profit, no large R&D budget. No large R&D budget, reduced innovation and no synergy of innovation across product lines.
Samsung and Apple both benefit from the above; Apple more so as it controls all of its OS's, and much of the ecosystem. I would note that the only glitch in Apple's ecosystem is that many of its users benefit from x86 on Apple's Mac products, limiting what Apple can do to remove Intel from that product line.
But of course, if all you sell is handsets near equal to every other handset in a particular market segment, then I agree with you that Huawei is doing just fine eking out a modest profit.
1. Despite the enormous profit advantage, Apple does not seem able to completely knock the competition out of the high-end market. The Chinese are not as far behind in terms of features and performance as one might expect given the resource disadvantage. I think this is because Apple can't come up with enough good ideas for investing those profits back into the iPhone business. That's not a criticism, it's just the nature of a mature product -- innovations come more slowly because the opportunities for meaningful improvement are far less obvious than they were when "copy/paste" was a big new feature.
2. The Mac is a very profitable business that deserves more investment from Apple! I think it is realistic to believe that Apple could double (at least) its share of the global PC market if they tried. They should dominate the high-end of the PC market in the way they dominate the high-end of the smartphone market.
I could not agree more - except with the "mature product" definition.
Regrettably, Apple's inovation has slowed to a bare trickle, and you guys don't give me this Apple Watch BS. I understand that Tim is not Steve (damnit) but honestly, since the "Steve driven" pipeline has drained there have been very few mind blowing innovations - maybe none.
Yes, the stock is doing well and profits are hanging in there, but honestly, the thrill is gone for me, and I have been banging on Apple stuff since 1987.
I personally think Apple relies far to much on brand loyalty, and has actually survived on it since the "great demise." They continuously fail to make meaningful updates to flagship software, having stripped the iWork group, there is constant uncertainty as to Mac Pro and Airport. Even Apple TV seems to still be a beta (kudos for a better input device - WFS)
The fanaticism that use to surround and boost Apple is dying at a rate that may be unrecoverable without some serious reality distortion again.
I mean, come on, when one of THIS WEEKS headlines is "Steve Jobs thought the Genious Bar was idiotic" aren't we still hoping he will somehow walk back through the door?
Apple is where it is because of great vision, great products, hard work and some serious loyalty, all of which seem to be tapering off quite preciptiously.
Saturation without innovation can be a rude awakening.
Wasn't it a mature product when we no longer needed a switchboard operator - or was that touch-tone?
I don't remember Apple fans/customers being so obsessed with how much profit the company was making in the past. Why is that so important now?
Why does Apple profit bother you so much?
Profit is the air corporations breathe. It is a metric of their health and success. It is what enables all action. Thus it is highly relevant metric when discussing Apple. Their record profit should explain to you why they do the things they do, and why these things are often different than what other companies do or what vocal critics whine about them not doing.
I don't remember Apple fans/customers being so obsessed with how much profit the company was making in the past. Why is that so important now?
I'm thinking that you are misremembering the past. Fans have been bragging about Apple profits since the nadir of the iPod era, and why not?
Profits have given Apple huge supply chain advantages, and extensive R&D capabilities, much of which could be described accurately as an iceberg; we're only seeing some 10% of it.
I don't remember Apple fans/customers being so obsessed with how much profit the company was making in the past. Why is that so important now?
Because during the wilderness years, Apple didn't have any money. What I find odd is the desperate ways that IT pundits are scrambling for to express that wealth.
When they say, Apple is soaking up 107% of the industry profit, that still makes no sense to me. Another company makes a loss doesn't mean Apple makes a gain.
1. Despite the enormous profit advantage, Apple does not seem able to completely knock the competition out of the high-end market. The Chinese are not as far behind in terms of features and performance as one might expect given the resource disadvantage. I think this is because Apple can't come up with enough good ideas for investing those profits back into the iPhone business. That's not a criticism, it's just the nature of a mature product -- innovations come more slowly because the opportunities for meaningful improvement are far less obvious than they were when "copy/paste" was a big new feature.
2. The Mac is a very profitable business that deserves more investment from Apple! I think it is realistic to believe that Apple could double (at least) its share of the global PC market if they tried. They should dominate the high-end of the PC market in the way they dominate the high-end of the smartphone market.
I could not agree more - except with the "mature product" definition.
Regrettably, Apple's inovation has slowed to a bare trickle, and you guys don't give me this Apple Watch BS. I understand that Tim is not Steve (damnit) but honestly, since the "Steve driven" pipeline has drained there have been very few mind blowing innovations - maybe none.
Yes, the stock is doing well and profits are hanging in there, but honestly, the thrill is gone for me, and I have been banging on Apple stuff since 1987.
I personally think Apple relies far to much on brand loyalty, and has actually survived on it since the "great demise." They continuously fail to make meaningful updates to flagship software, having stripped the iWork group, there is constant uncertainty as to Mac Pro and Airport. Even Apple TV seems to still be a beta (kudos for a better input device - WFS)
The fanaticism that use to surround and boost Apple is dying at a rate that may be unrecoverable without some serious reality distortion again.
I mean, come on, when one of THIS WEEKS headlines is "Steve Jobs thought the Genious Bar was idiotic" aren't we still hoping he will somehow walk back through the door?
Apple is where it is because of great vision, great products, hard work and some serious loyalty, all of which seem to be tapering off quite preciptiously.
Saturation without innovation can be a rude awakening.
Wasn't it a mature product when we no longer needed a switchboard operator - or was that touch-tone?
Ahh, the "Apple doesn't innovate anymore!" trope. With an added "I've been using Apple stuff since..." add-on, nice.
Innovation within Apple happens continuously. Just because you don't see it as tentpole features doesn't mean they don't innovate. The hardware is continuously getting smaller and faster, from systems on a chip to display tech. The new MBP has incredible display tech but you likely aren't aware of it. None of this stuff drops off trees fully formed -- it must be engineered.
Avon B7 said, "No manufacturer of low or mid tier phones has even the slightest intention of massive profit. Comparing those profits to those of Apple serves little or no purpose."
If maximizing profits isn't the goal, then it's time for those companies to get out of the business.
The criticism of the points DED made with statements like this are pretty ridiculous.
Apple and Samsung are the only two companies capable of reliably profiting from the smartphone industry. Samsung primarily in components and Apple in the finished product and vertically integrated system.
Samsung is attempting to move to Apple's vertically integrated model much to the consternation of Google. Samsung's plan is to move off of Android all together and over to Tizen. Samsung's Tizen phone sales in India are pretty nice. And it is quite worrisome to Google. Because if Samsung is successful, the only high end players will be Apple and Samsung. And neither will be running on Android.
So it actually be self-fulfilling if the low end Android device manufacturers aren't interested in large profits. Because it won't happen. There will be Apple and Samsung. The others, including Huawei won't be playing at the high end of anything. Samsung's Gear S3 makes the Android wear watches from Huawei and LG look atrocious.
You appear to be confusing 'massive' profit with 'maximising' profit.
My point is that low to mid tier manufacturers can't get away with 30-40% margins and they know it. That isn't part of the plan.
Huawei hasn't even stretched its legs in the premium segment but has already released a phone well over the $1,000 mark and has units at all the price points down to the entry level. It took such a jump on quality with the P9 that it has allowed itself to take a breather with last week's P10 announcements which were more lifestyle focussed. Expect a bigger jump later in the year with the successor to the Mate 9 and perhaps an attack on the US market.
No large profit, no large R&D budget. No large R&D budget, reduced innovation and no synergy of innovation across product lines.
Samsung and Apple both benefit from the above; Apple more so as it controls all of its OS's, and much of the ecosystem. I would note that the only glitch in Apple's ecosystem is that many of its users benefit from x86 on Apple's Mac products, limiting what Apple can do to remove Intel from that product line.
But of course, if all you sell is handsets near equal to every other handset in a particular market segment, then I agree with you that Huawei is doing just fine eking out a modest profit.
Is this still the case though? Do folk still need to run Windows? The main reason for doing so was MSOffce, or so I thought.
In spite of the recall, $8.3 billion operating profits from the mobile division is still good business and let's not forget that Samsung also makes a profit out of every iPhone sold through the components it supplies to Apple.
Why? Did I accidentally stumble onto Samsung Insider? Why do you feel a need to prop up Samsung?
Also, unless i'm mistaken Samsung's semiconductor division is different than its mobile business and thus component profits have jack to do with their mobile profits or lack thereof.
2. The Mac is a very profitable business that deserves more investment from Apple! I think it is realistic to believe that Apple could double (at least) its share of the global PC market if they tried. They should dominate the high-end of the PC market in the way they dominate the high-end of the smartphone market.
This might help you understand things a little better.
1. Despite the enormous profit advantage, Apple does not seem able to completely knock the competition out of the high-end market. The Chinese are not as far behind in terms of features and performance as one might expect given the resource disadvantage. I think this is because Apple can't come up with enough good ideas for investing those profits back into the iPhone business. That's not a criticism, it's just the nature of a mature product -- innovations come more slowly because the opportunities for meaningful improvement are far less obvious than they were when "copy/paste" was a big new feature.
2. The Mac is a very profitable business that deserves more investment from Apple! I think it is realistic to believe that Apple could double (at least) its share of the global PC market if they tried. They should dominate the high-end of the PC market in the way they dominate the high-end of the smartphone market.
The fanaticism that use to surround and boost Apple is dying at a rate that may be unrecoverable without some serious reality distortion again.
I remember back around the turn of the century the only people still enthusiastic about Apple products were hard core cultists. They were the kinds of people who never questioned anything Apple did and believed everything Apple said. For example, the cultists really believed that a 400 MHz G4 was faster than an 1 GHz Athlon.
These days, I'm getting the impression that cultists are once again becoming a disproportionately large share of the people making positive comments about Apple.
Don't get me wrong -- things today are not nearly as bad as they were back then. But my sense is that there is a negative correlation between rationality and positive commentary on Apple these days. Five years ago, the only people saying negative things about Apple were hard core haters.
and Apple makes an increasingly large profit from services including the App Store were Android makers have a very hard time making anything at all.
This is the problem with Android, and Windows has gone through the same type of thing. Android phones have turned into a commodity. There is very little money to be made in selling the hardware. Everyone is fighting each other to sell the phones and so prices drop down to nothing. So then like windows, you throw on 3rd party crapware because you get a little money from that which is better then breaking even or losing money. People don't like that crap on their phones. The only real winner with Android is Google because they're making money from their services and from Ad's. Google doesn't care if you make money selling Android phones or not, Google still wins. If you disappear, there's always someone else to take your place. Google still wins. Google's services have to be up front and center.
Other company's are trying to offer their own things. Samesung had done their MILK Music service thing which has failed. They're trying to make money with Samesung Pay, which in the end will fail over Android Pay. Google is trying to sell their Pixel phones at iPhone prices. I don't think they're selling all that many of them. Android all this time has been marketed as the CHEAP phones. Why would you then turn around, stop selling cheap NEXUS phones and sell iPhone priced Pixel phones? It's just not going to work well.
China is the exception to the rule so much in that Google doesn't have a presence in China. So people there are going to 3rd party App stores. Pirating like crazy and Viruses are running rampant there. You can fork Android, but then you can't use Google's services and there's a lot of other Negatives to go along with it. Amazon tried with their Fire Phone and it bombed. The EU is trying to do something about it, but I don't see how. There's no money in selling low end to mid range phones.
Who would you rather be, Android (Everyone) selling 1 BILLION Android phones and breaking even or Apple selling 1 iPhone and making a $50 profit? How about 10 billion for Android, still breaking even, or 10 iPhones making a $500 profit. So who's winning? Well the Investors and Android fanboys will say Android, they have a huge Market share over Apple, Look 10 billion Android phones to 10 iphones. Not even close. While everyone else with a brain will say Apple WON. They actually made a $500 profit and only had to sell 10 iPhones to do it. You've heard the saying, "Work Smarter, not harder!" What is Market Share in the phone industry getting you?
Comments
Then with the iPod, the expanding profits were a huge relief for fans of the company.
Then with the iPhone fueled profit expansion, the relief turned to euphoria and disbelief.
In other words:
"I want the iPhone to then Apple will be forced to start building humoungous laptops again."
The reason that Apple always seems to do better than folk expect when a new phone is released is because they're not aimed no at the people who upgraded last year; the phone will pick up all the people who haven't upgraded for two years or more.
I'm also not sure that we're dry of innovations in the mobile space. I think Apple won't be happy until they've got the phone down to a glass slab.
If you're like owing for a market that's hit the ceiling for innovation then that's the desktop PC market. Apple doesn't seem interested in dominating a market that's shrinking.
Still, I'm pretty sure that Apple will release a Pro desktop this year, but I doubt you'll like it.
My point is that low to mid tier manufacturers can't get away with 30-40% margins and they know it. That isn't part of the plan.
Huawei hasn't even stretched its legs in the premium segment but has already released a phone well over the $1,000 mark and has units at all the price points down to the entry level. It took such a jump on quality with the P9 that it has allowed itself to take a breather with last week's P10 announcements which were more lifestyle focussed. Expect a bigger jump later in the year with the successor to the Mate 9 and perhaps an attack on the US market.
Gestures on the fingerprint scanner, ultra fast charging, new finishes on materials, AI for optimization etc.
As far as R&D in general I think we've reached a comfort zone and will be there for a while. The most important advances are already out of the gate. Batteries are one area where we may see a significant jump but I am stretched to think of anything else that would really stand out.
There's the real spin. The only reason Samsung sells more phones is because the majority of their sales are from low-end junk phones. Apple doesn't sell $50-100 phones so it's pointless to compare total Samsung sales to total iPhone sales. That's like saying Ford is better than Mercedes because they sell more cars.
If you compare apples to apples (flagships to flagships) then Apple absolutely, totally and utterly crushes Samsung in the market in terms of unit sales AND revenues/profits.
% are fine as long as the denominator and numerator as also shared, most times they are not. Even when they are do you know what was all include or removed from the numbers being converted to a %. Too many time we all seen things being removed because someone said they do not count or another person adding extras in since they believe they should be counted. My point just show the actual numbers no need to convert to %'s people can figure out for themselves, Saying Apple may $44B in profits when the entire industry made $54B and Samsung made $8B tells the story, only product is Samsung does not break out their number and neither do most of the competitors so all could be actually make all the profits which are available since everyone else is selling at a lose.
Also, unless i'm mistaken Samsung's semiconductor division is different than its mobile business and thus component profits have jack to do with their mobile profits or lack thereof.
No large R&D budget, reduced innovation and no synergy of innovation across product lines.
Samsung and Apple both benefit from the above; Apple more so as it controls all of its OS's, and much of the ecosystem. I would note that the only glitch in Apple's ecosystem is that many of its users benefit from x86 on Apple's Mac products, limiting what Apple can do to remove Intel from that product line.
But of course, if all you sell is handsets near equal to every other handset in a particular market segment, then I agree with you that Huawei is doing just fine eking out a modest profit.
Regrettably, Apple's inovation has slowed to a bare trickle, and you guys don't give me this Apple Watch BS. I understand that Tim is not Steve (damnit) but honestly, since the "Steve driven" pipeline has drained there have been very few mind blowing innovations - maybe none.
Yes, the stock is doing well and profits are hanging in there, but honestly, the thrill is gone for me, and I have been banging on Apple stuff since 1987.
I personally think Apple relies far to much on brand loyalty, and has actually survived on it since the "great demise." They continuously fail to make meaningful updates to flagship software, having stripped the iWork group, there is constant uncertainty as to Mac Pro and Airport. Even Apple TV seems to still be a beta (kudos for a better input device - WFS)
The fanaticism that use to surround and boost Apple is dying at a rate that may be unrecoverable without some serious reality distortion again.
I mean, come on, when one of THIS WEEKS headlines is "Steve Jobs thought the Genious Bar was idiotic" aren't we still hoping he will somehow walk back through the door?
Apple is where it is because of great vision, great products, hard work and some serious loyalty, all of which seem to be tapering off quite preciptiously.
Saturation without innovation can be a rude awakening.
Wasn't it a mature product when we no longer needed a switchboard operator - or was that touch-tone?
Profit is the air corporations breathe. It is a metric of their health and success. It is what enables all action. Thus it is highly relevant metric when discussing Apple. Their record profit should explain to you why they do the things they do, and why these things are often different than what other companies do or what vocal critics whine about them not doing.
Profits have given Apple huge supply chain advantages, and extensive R&D capabilities, much of which could be described accurately as an iceberg; we're only seeing some 10% of it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-growth-since-steve-jobs-chart-2016-12
When they say, Apple is soaking up 107% of the industry profit, that still makes no sense to me. Another company makes a loss doesn't mean Apple makes a gain.
Innovation within Apple happens continuously. Just because you don't see it as tentpole features doesn't mean they don't innovate. The hardware is continuously getting smaller and faster, from systems on a chip to display tech. The new MBP has incredible display tech but you likely aren't aware of it. None of this stuff drops off trees fully formed -- it must be engineered.
Is this still the case though? Do folk still need to run Windows? The main reason for doing so was MSOffce, or so I thought.
Very true.
http://www.itechpost.com/articles/74000/20170113/why-pc-sales-keep-falling.htm
These days, I'm getting the impression that cultists are once again becoming a disproportionately large share of the people making positive comments about Apple.
Don't get me wrong -- things today are not nearly as bad as they were back then. But my sense is that there is a negative correlation between rationality and positive commentary on Apple these days. Five years ago, the only people saying negative things about Apple were hard core haters.