ManyMacsAgo

k2kw said:

So did Apple Pay EU taxes on all the profits they had stashed in Ireland.

This Samsung guy should have moved to Ireland.

First, there is nothing "stashed" in Ireland that should be subject to tax in some other part of the EU, or anywhere else. Apple pays taxes in every nation in which it books any revenue. The reason the vast majority of Apple's European (and Middle East and Africa) Revenue is booked in Ireland is legitimate:

Ireland is Apple's HQ for that large region of the world. Apple's Ireland operation is not an entity on paper with a PO box; it's a large operation with thousands of local workers, assembling and shipping units of all kinds.

A. Apple's resellers throughout the region (including their own brick and mortar stores) buy from Apple's Ireland operation at wholesale prices -- Apple Ireland is the supplier. Over the years, a lot of hardware was also sent back there for servicing.

B. Though Apple's website shows pages with local currencies and local languages, the Apple Online Store sends physical goods out to customers in the whole region from Ireland.

So, every sale throughout Europe, Africa and Middle East has a large Ireland component since that seems to be the distribution center.

Secondly, Apple has already paid ALL the taxes that Ireland asked, on ALL the revenue that it booked there; as well as ALL the taxes that any other jurisdiction has asked of Apple on ALL the revenue booked in those locations. Now, however, the EU is pressuring Ireland to levy additional tax, retroactively, because it believes Ireland unfairly enticed Apple to its shores with a deal that Ireland gave no other corporation.

Thirdly, Apple is the most transparent, financially, of all the large tech companies; and arguably the most forthcoming (gives more numbers and breaks out more things than most of the others). Single P&L statement; doesn't shift things between multiple divisions to make things look good, and all that.

MlorianFueller said:

We all know Florian Mueller is paid by Apple and has been Apple support for so many years. His blog is biased and has no credibility. The fact that FTC is getting testimony from Apple and other manufactures saying Qualcomm is a monopoly shows the flaw in the FTC case. Apple suing because of the price that has been previously agreed upon by Apple and come to know the only reason that both companies agreed to the deal is because Apple demanded a $1 billion "incentive payment" to secure the deal. Apple will and always eat alive their suppliers.

Oh, and btw - https://www.sullcrom.com/district-court-holds-that-frand-commitment-does-not-require-licensing-at-chip-level

Not sure that he is paid by Apple or overly biased. He seems to have agreed with most of Samsung's arguments and pro-Samsung rulings in the Apple v Samsung case.

cloudmobile said:

Yet out of everything I stated only the $1 billion part was wrong. You are just someone who doesn't like differing opinions. But I would like to hear your opinion over Apple demanding $50 per device from Samsung because of rounded corners and icon shapes in comparison to what Qualcomm wants for the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place. You could pack all the horsepower in the Ax chips that you want, and it wouldn't be much good if your data connection was limited to 1G analog signals would it? And by the way ... Apple was sued for patent infringement over their ARM designs for the Ax chips by the University of Wisconsin ... and lost and had to pay up big. So yeah, I guess that is why you would rather I comment elsewhere, right?

"the technology that allows a smartphone to actually be a smartphone in the first place":
Exactly, that is called an SEP. Apple has paid (notice, "has paid"), for something that every phone has, however cheap or expensive that phone may be. 
iPhones don't sell because they can make a phone call. Qualcomm's tech is non-differentiating, it is a "commodity" that has to be used by all phones. And, arguably, Apple has paid twice.

By contrast, Samsung (which had not paid for alleged non-SEP patent infringement) was being sued for making an obvious pivot and selling phones on the basis of their similarity to the iPhone.

So, there is your difference. (And I think it was you to whom I responded similarly in the last article about this subject).

Apple had been paying what Qualcomm asked, for years. This whole thing started, because Qualcomm withheld a promised rebate following Apple's cooperation with an inquest into Qualcomm's practices! Apple initially asked for what Qualcomm was supposed to have reimbursed. Qualcomm has escalated this from there. And, this isn't just Apple -- it's numerous companies and governmental bodies looking at Qualcomm.

saltyzip said:

The issue long-term for Apple is will people pay a premium for a phone in years to come when a £200 phone will do everything they need and more?

IBM used to sell expensive PCs with massive cost to profit ratio, but once competition had caught up and started to out innovate them, their profits started to fall down a cliff. Blackberry suffered the same fate. What's different this time is Apple has monopoly on its app store, and this is why Apple will turn into a services company. However regulators may see this as anti competitive and allow likes of e.g Amazon to setup its own Apple app store. Wouldn't that be good for consumers!

Hey, maybe "regulators" will also let KMart call themselves Target or Walmart, or let them somehow set up "Walmart" stores. Sounds like a fantastic idea to compete against the "monopoly" that Walmart has to supply its own stores as they see fit!

IBM competed with other Windows OEMs in a race to the bottom. They are now Apple fans and use Apple products internally, and offer full OS X and iOS solutions to their clients.

Blackberry was a one-trick pony that didn't know squat about software. Apple can do both hardware and software well -- and apply their abilities in integration to new industries, like, um phones. Apple didn't have to buy a Nokia or a Motorola to enter and do, um, rather well, in the phone market. The buyers of Nokia and Motorola spent billions to find out they couldn't do well in the phone market. And their offerings did "everything they need and more for 200". The "premium" on Apple is about the integration of hardware and software, all the way down to custom and optimised silicon.

Despite the customization of parts (unlike the commoditisation of off-the-shelf parts that OEMs are forced to partake in because they are in a race to the bottom for survival), Apple remains profitable, and can continue to do so, because, among other things, it is careful about its products -- a simple product line that has 2 year cycles during which a model completely pays for its own fixed costs and development. The longer that a single model remains in production and use, like the iPhone 4S, the more profitable it becomes, even as its price drops. 

Contrast this with portfolio companies like Samsung who throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, and try a few new things every six months. Their ASP is all over the place, and profit, if any, is short-lived. Samsung et al are shooting themselves in the foot. Samsung may sell more units overall, but how many Samsung models does it take to sell the same number of units as any one iPhone model? 

The focus and strategic planning at Apple is unprecedented. Apple is patient and lays foundations for market changes years in advance.

sflocal said:

This project was planned for years, along with its intention of planting thousands of trees.  Even with all this advance notice, why are people suddenly pressed for product?  I'm not sure how one goes about placing an order for thousands of trees, but I like Apple does with iPhone parts, the order would have been placed years ago and the trees set aside and cared for until the time comes to plant them.

Is this article just stating there was a problem to generate web clicks?  This really sounds like a non-issue.

Listening to the radio this morning: Apparently, Apple is looking for certain size trees: they need to be about 9 years old. And apparently, the global housing recession meant that tree planting in CA came to a halt 9 years ago and didn't resume until 2012. So, there is a real lack of trees of the right size.

gatorguy said:

There's no evidence that Apple spend more $Billions on stock buybacks will be driving the price higher than it otherwise would, and it's not stock that Apple holds as an asset either. I don't see the win-win for investors but whatever. I don't currently directly own shares of any of the techs.

No it's not stock Apple holds as an investment -- that's the whole point. They retire the shares they re-purchase, so that there are far fewer outstanding shares, and the EPS goes up accordingly.

Apple's vast amount of cash is regarded as a liability by wall street, and at the same time, wall street barely values Apple's business over and above its cash hoard.

 https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/12/28/no-apple-didnt-lose-9-billion-by-repurchasing-shar.aspx
Apple has acted sensibly; and as mentioned in the article, Netflix, for one, provides an example of an unwise move re: share repurchasing.

sog35 said:

This makes me laugh.

I remember last year when Google/Facebook all were spewing that phone hardware isn't that important. Its the software.  LOL. Duh, a software company would say its software is most important. WRONG BITCH.

Hardware is equally as important as software. They both need to work together.

There is so many years left for hardware innovation. It will never end.

Apple will keep shriking the bezel for the rest of the decade. AR will be huge and will require more and more horsepower from the CPU.  In the next decade we will be seeing foldable screens on iPhones.

Don't believe the lies of Google and FAcebook that say hardware don't matter.

What's funny, is that diehard Android fans seem to think that software isn't important either! One notorious, anti-apple poster on several tech forums I frequent insists that fragmentation of Android is a myth, that there are no consequences whatsoever to most of the Android install base NOT being on the latest version of Android.

He says it's not an issue, just something made up by Apple fans, because Google has worked it, "by design", so that api's and innovations can all somehow be addressed through the store and Google Play services. He insists that an Android app on any Android phone running ___ version, four versions back, is just the same as running the app on a newer, better phone running latest Android version.

Sounds to me like a recipe for Lowest Common Denominator. Sounds like something Google HAD to deal with because OEMs and Carriers weren't helping the OS update situation. Sounds like Android users aren't expecting Google to come out with ANY significant updates to APIs or new APIs (like AR, for example).

So, if neither hardware nor software are important to Android users, I wonder what is important? Oh yeah, replacing the battery and SD cards, and "choice" (until that moment they make a choice for the one Android phone they end up with, that doesn't come with the latest version of Android and will never get an update ...but, apparently Apple "plans obsolescence", go figure!) ;P

"...purging skeuomorphism from iOS 7 in favor of a flatter, more synthetic look."

I think that is less synthetic. What is more "synthetic" than trying to reproduce leather digitally on a piece of two-dimensional glass?
flatter, simpler design is more "true to" the medium of digital pixels presented on a screen.

lenn said:

Although I think Bloomberg is a hack publication like most are these days I also believe that Apple is doing everything it can to spin it's financials to look as profitable as possible. Remember Cook is a financial guy, not an inventor like Jobs' was. His job is to always present Apple in the most favorable light with regards to financial health.  And don't forgot all those leaches at the stock market that believe everything Bloomberg and other's right and then panic like little school girls and dump 100s of millions of shares. Plenty of blame to go around.

There is no "spinning" being done, nor any necessary. Apple's financials are rock solid. It's their stock that is volatile, not their financials. "To look as profitable as possible"? Apple makes virtually all the profit in the entire industry. And in watches, and much of the profit of the PC industry (especially if iPads are included).

Apple has long revealed much more detail, much more transparently than other tech companies. And Apple's guidance figures have been so, so accurate year in, year out.

The stock gets manipulated whatever Apple does, so they have stopped reporting actual unit numbers (like everyone else, who have never reported unit numbers). Let's have some (any) unit numbers from Samsung, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

You can learn more about the strength of Apple's financials on Asymco, where Horace Dediu provides great analysis over a number of years: http://asymco.com

booga said:

I believe they tried that. The crux of the matter appears to be that Qualcomm agreed to offer “FRAND” (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) Licensing terms in exchange for having their parents made part of the 4G standard. So you can’t really avoid all of them, assuming they’re valid. But then they turned around and tried to take a percentage of total device value as licensing. So if Apple offers a better screen or battery and charges more, Qualcomm expects more money too for the exact same part and function. Apple says that’s not fair, reasonable, and considering Apples unique place in the industry, not non-discriminatory either. Neither side will budge and it’s a fundamental difference of opinion. If Apple loses, all devices which implement any modern spec will become a minefield of patent percentages. Usually there isn’t that clear a bad guy, but here it’s pretty clear it’s Qualcomm acting against the industry and public good. Hopefully they lose soon and hard. 

Not only are the licensing terms not fair, reasonable nor non-discriminatory, but there is the whole "double-dipping" thing, which is what a lot of companies and governments around the world are disputing with Qualcomm, it's not just Apple disputing...

Essentially, Qualcomm wants to license BOTH the assembling company for the part (Foxconn, etc), AND the device company (Apple) for the same part. Normally, a license for a part covers its use in whatever it is put into. Apple accounts for licensing, and is good with that, but just once -- either Foxconn gets the bill and passes it onto Apple, or Apple gets the bill. But Qualcomm shouldn't be doing both.

Apple's complaint to Qualcomm about that was partly how Apple got some rebate from Qualcomm (but Apple had to "agree" to let Qualcomm be the exclusive supplier of modems as well). Then Qualcomm withdrew the rebates (1B per year) over Apple testifying in someone else's case against Qualcomm (in S Korea, I think).