Wgkrueger

dependent on other - leading - tech companies.

I could argue that both Samsung and Huawei are leading the tech industry as both companies far outstrip where Apple swims in its particular stretch of the river.

As for what could have been done to better invest all that cash, well there were plenty of opportunities that simply weren't put on the table.

The reality is that Apple has invested little into R&D in terms of percentage of revenues.

They could have easily moved into the cloud areas that Microsoft, Amazon and Google currently occupy. They could easily have invested in future communications technologies like 5G. They could have invested heavily in one of current phones weak points: battery technology. They could have moved into satellites.

The truth is there was little foresight in the future. They played safe and hoarded instead. That isn't so much of a criticism from a business perspective, as Apple does now have a nascent penchant for buying in expensive technologies or businesses (Beats, intel 5G, content creation etc).

The result is Netflix slipped away and now Apple (very late to the party) is playing catch-up. 5G modems? Catch-up again. iPhone (the big revenue generator)? Catch-up again. Audio streaming? Catch-up again.

As for leading the tech industry. I disagree.

users and Windows/PC the computer for those that play games.

Nice logic there!  Because Windows excels at gaming, you're consensus is that no one uses it for "serious" computing?  Tell that to the 90+ percent of businesses that use Windows servers and clients for their business.  How many businesses would you estimate use Mac to run their business (accounting, HR, management, etc.)...you know the real "serious" stuff?

into Apple and they recycle it. How complicated is this? They make that very clear. 

Generaly speaking, repairing something is more environmentally friendly than recycling it.  That's the point.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order.

Tim Cook now has a fiduciary duty to devote all M1 Max production to bitcoin mining.

If a large PC manufacturer placed an order for 10 million M1 Pro CPU chips at $1000 each, Tim Cook would have a fiduciary duty to take their $10B. Not just for the $10B, but for the $100B in orders that would come shortly thereafter when everyone realized it was time to leave Intel. Why would anyone turn down $100B in orders?

neverindoubt said:

“ It's likely that the reduced adoption rates are because of a change in Apple's update stance. The company is no longer forcing users to install the latest operating system version to gain important security updates.”

99.9% off the reason.

“Apple's set of iOS 15 features -- including the controversial-but-delayed CSAM detection system -- may also be playing a part.”

0.1% of the reason.

Agree.  Why would a feature that most people don't know or care about and that was pulled be paying a part?

Because people don't trust that Apple isn't doing it anyway due to the entirely out-of-the-blue way they announced it? That said I was on Big Sur until about a week ago. There was nothing compelling enough for me to spend days fixing things after they break as Apple deprecates random core bits of the OS.