charlesn

To a degree, Apple is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. While I have sympathy for developers whose businesses get upended when Apple Sherlocks their app's functionality into the OS, surely no developer could be unaware--24 years after Sherlock--that this is always a risk. But the apps keep coming, so I assume that developers have made their peace with this possibility. 

Apple, unfortunately, will get criticized either way. When it Sherlocks apps into the OS, it's accused of being the 800 pound gorilla stomping on small businesses. And if Apple leaves it to consumers to either purchase or pay ongoing subscription fees (mostly the latter these days) for third party apps to provide these functionalities, then Apple's various OSes get criticized for being "behind" in features.   

Oh, F*CK ME with this announcement! Trump promised me a great manufacturing job screwing in tiny screws on the iPhone and now he just pulls the rug out from under that dream?! Promises made and broken! Who the hell is gonna pay me back now for the expensive set of precision screwdrivers I bought?! 

So I guess we now know what a million dollar cash gift to Trump buys you: nothing. 

anonymouse said:

ssfe11 said:

... Look Sure we all agree that Trump is not the brightest bulb however people like him deep down know this but they are astute at identifying those with intelligence and then surround themselves with them. ...

You're joking right? Because Trump has surrounded himself with the dumbest, craziest bunch of people of any administration in my lifetime.

Dumbest, craziest bunch? Not a chance and don't get confused here. They are, in fact, the perfect choices for each department they lead if your goal is to destroy that department and administrative government overall. It's all in the Project 2025 manual. 

nubus said:

Kuminga said:

Tim Cook is the type of CEO I want as an investor . Navigating and working with all administration intelligently .

Except that he doesn't. He lost the EU tax evasion case, the Epic case (EU + US), the EU USB-C requirements, DOJ price-fixing on books, and DOJ is now actively trying to kill the $20 billion Google deal while one his executives might have committed perjury. After Trump #45 he dumped Intel in favor of non-American chips and bet everything on foreign components.

Add that Cook during the last 5 years have made strategic misfires on cars, AI, "Trump isn't serious about tariffs", and "must (ship now to) compete with Zuckerberg on headsets". No wonder the market cap is stalling.

As an investor I prefer to have a CEO that can deliver tomorrow.

Let's review with FACTS, shall we? 

First: Kuminga said that Cook was navigating and working with all administrations intelligently, and obviously referring to the Trump administration in particular. Working with an administration intelligently is completely separate from court cases in which Apple is involved, especially when they date back to the Steve Jobs era, but sure, let's blame Cook for that. 

Second: the EU case tax evasion case regarding Apple and Ireland references a special tax arrangement that Apple and Ireland have had since 1996. And while Apple lost the first round in court, it then won on appeal--so this was clearly a case that deserved to be fought--and it was only after the EU appealed to its own highest court (lol, no chance of collusion there with 13 billion euros at stake!) that the case was ultimately lost. But even then, the years for which they owed back taxes were 2004-2014. And Steve Jobs was CEO of Apple for 7 of those 10 years. But yeah, let's blame Cook!

Third: the U.S. courts ruled against Epic on 9 of 10 counts. It only won on anti-steering, which allowed Epic to link to purchase outside of the App Store, but Epic still had to pay Apple 27% commission on those purchases. In the EU, they passed the Digital Markets Act that applies to all companies, not just Apple. (Except Spotify seems to get a pass, and how curious that it's based in the EU!) At any rate, Apple has been forced to allow third party app stores to offer iOS apps. But yeah, let's blame that on Cook! I should add that in terms of the tech business, the EU has been left in the dust by the U.S. and Asia, so its only means of "competing" now is to make life difficult for tech companies writ large. 

Fourth: The EU USB-C requirements apply to all companies, not just Apple. This has nothing to do with Cook. 

Fifth: The DOJ price-fixing case on books against Apple, which it won, dates to actions taken during the Steve Jobs era. In fact, it was Jobs's own words that proved to be the most damning evidence against Apple in the case. But yeah, let's blame it on Cook! 

Sixth: The case involving the Google search deal is undecided, as is the question of whether an Apple exec committed perjury. So how about we not decide what's undecided? But with regards to search, by the time that decision is announced, it will not matter. AI search is rapidly killing off ad-supported search as we speak, and it will render the Google deal moot. 

Seventh: The dumping of inept and unreliable Intel for Apple Sillcon is one of Apple's greatest decisions ever. One look at Intel's stock chart over the past 5 years tells you everything you need to know about it as a company. During one of the greatest run-ups ever for tech, in general, Intel's stock has cratered. 

Eighth: Cook misfired on cars by pulling the plug?! Yes, as an Apple investor, I sit around and cry daily that Apple isn't in the same boat now as Rivian, Lucid, Polestar and Fiskar -- all losing MASSIVE amounts of money on every car they "sell" --or bankrupt and out of business in the case of Fiskar -- with no hope of profitability anywhere on the horizon. Even Tesla, with all the price-cutting and lease deals it has offered, just keeps watching sales sink every quarter. 

anthogag said:

I don't use any services Meta offers and I get by just fine. People should dump all Meta services to protest Meta's relentless advance towards destroying data privacy. Meta is most likely feeding all the data they can get to further their AI research. Eventually they will try to use your data against you.   

AMEN. I cannot believe the idiots buying Meta's Dumb Glasses. Oh yes, sign me up to give the biggest corporate abuser of consumer privacy--a business for which abuse of consumer privacy is a foundation of its business model--complete access to what I see, say and hear in my life. Yeah, definitely, I wanna pay for that privilege. Meta Dumb Glasses no longer allow you to opt out of having your voice recordings stored on Meta servers--nothing nefarious about that!--and the same is true for video and still photographs unless you disable the "Hey, Meta..." voice activation, which of course puts a major hit on the useful functionality of the glasses. This is Meta's idea of "consumer choice" -- turn the product you just bought from us into near useless crap OR give us access to the cameras and allow us to store what you see, record and photograph. 

ssfe11 said:

Ridiculous lawsuit from clueless greedy ambulance chasing lawyers. How do these guys live with themselves? Have a great weekend. 

Exactly. Over 40% of Apple is owned by the top 25 shareholders. Think any of them joined this stupid suit? I honestly don't understand the ambulance chasers: Apple's not going to hand them a penny to"settle out of court," and they have 0% chance of winning at trial. So the potential upside is what?

Mark Gurman is now reporting on the usabilty/legibility issues that have forced Apple to really scale back the Liquid Glass appearance in iOS 26 beta 3. I haven't been using the betas, so I don't have a personal opinion, but with reports that the interface now looks like a frosted or diluted glass look, this is starting to sound like a half-assed UI appearance that isn't going to make anyone happy. smh. How are we 8 weeks from launch and JUST realizing that the splashy new look headlined at WWDC a month ago has serious usability/legibility issues? Isn't that the kind of UI 101 problem that should have been recognized long ago in alpha testing? 

If there's one thing I love about this Republican administration, it's their small "g" government approach! They're all about getting government and regulations off the backs of businesses, finally! Except, of course, for the use of tariffs as blatant extortion to force businesses to invest where Trump wants them to invest, the actual economics of such investment be damned!

By the way, how is that $10 billion investment from Foxconn in Wisconsin going, the one that Trump 45 announced with much fanfare? Have they filled all 13,000 new jobs yet? /s

macgui said:

dijital said:

Who keeps asking Apple for an even thinner iPhone with worse battery life? I’ve never met anyone with those requirements.

I've known a few business types, especially some women, how prefer or would prefer to keep the phone in an inside breast pocket but don't due to the weight, or do and lament the weight. I don't know how many customers like that there are and that they're enough to help sustain a model.

charlesn said:

retrogusto said:

 I would love it if they could make something with the same thickness (6.9mm), weight (129g) and battery life as the iPhone 6 from 2014 (or in that ballpark) but with more modern specs. And maybe they should devote more resources to developing really great battery cases for people who don’t mind the bulk but need more battery life.

See, that's the thing, people say they want this or that, but then Apple offers it and they don't buy it.

No It's not. it's speculative bullshit. 
I can more accurately speculate that everyone or nearly everyone who wanted a smaller phone bought a mini. 

Really? You can do that? Please link to ANY stats that allow you to "more accurately speculate" that "everyone or nearly everyone who wanted a smaller phone bought a Mini."