Pema

looks like Apple has lost its core.
More fiascos after the Apple car titanic

I don't know about this Ming Cho Kuo. Around the Apple haunts he is regarded as some venerable soothsayer like Nostradamus.   

One day he says that his estimate is 60K-80K units. Then he reads his tea leaves and comes up with 180K sold. But, and this is where he is covering where the sun don't shine, orders are tapering off. And oh, yes, it is a niche product. 

OK. Tomorrow Apple starts to sell the hell out of Vision Pro because other than amateurs take an interest - pros in every industry where there is a need for an MR headset - and then Ming comes back and revises his tea leaves and says, well Apple just sold one million VPs and it is no longer a niche product, it is now an industry defining product like the Bondi Blue Mac, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the AirPods, the Apple Watch and on and on and on. Unlike Google that has a miserable time with hardware releases Apple creates INDUSTRY DEFINING products. 

And once VP takes off, Netflix, Spotify etc. etc. will create native apps and Ming will say, 'see, I told you so', forgetting all along that his tea leaves are just that, tea leaves and sometimes he gets it right and most times he gets it wrong. 

Perhaps Ming can spend his time more productively looking for MH370. 

All you ever read about the Applecar is it's coming. Then senior staff leaving to work at other companies. 

Now we have a new update: Applecar will pick me, take me home and play music. Well, I have all that right now. My spouse picks me up, takes me home and instead of playing music I get a todo list. 

For all the fanfare about the Applecar I would want to have a whole band sitting on the roof while I am being driven home. 

The other very salient point, in case Apple hasn't noticed is that the Chinese are flooding the market with EVs - which is what I presume the the Applecar will be - the result of which prices have been forced down, down, down. Just ask Elon Musk - he has had to reduce prices 6 times since the car was launched. 

If you bought at the launch your car would be worth next to nothing. 

I often wonder when I see a pic of Cook. He is either looking like he is seated on the porcelain bowl leaning forward or standing up holding his hands like he is thanking the good lord. The former is when he is meant to reflect that he is stunned and the latter when the quarterly report is spectacular and pleased with the results. 

I wouldn't worry too much about Goldman Sachs. 
A mere four years ago they cost taxpayers billions of dollars with their dodgy investments in toxic assets and then dodged their responsibility by refusing to take ownership of the problem. 
I would suggest that a great many taxpayers wanted out the sub prime mortgage crap and couldn't just exit the arrangement while Goldman Sachs sailed off into the sunset. 

Let's face it. Google not Apple is in the pole position. Admittedly Apple has some one billion devices out there using search at some point the reality if Google stopped paying Apple billions of dollars to be the default search engine, what would Apple do: 

1. Create its own. Not always an easy proposition. Apple has created an excellent Music streaming services. But it still lags behind Spotify by a wide margin six years on. To start amassing the massive amount of data starting today, 2024, to build up a credible search engine would take Apple till 2030 at the earliest to build up credible momentum. Look what's happening with the Apple Car. It's coming, it's coming, it's coming. It should be called the Apple Mirage. 
2. It could have purchased Bing. But the latter is very weak product. About as bad as Spotlight on the Mac. 

There is nowhere for Apple to go for Search except offer Google. The alternatives are not really viable. Not Bing, Duck Limp Duck, or any other search engine. Google invests most likely 60%-70% of its budget on maintaining and developing its search engine. If Google refused to pay Apple the billions of dollars to be the exclusive search engine on all Apple products, Apple has not got a viable alternative. 

IMHO Apple ought to also purchase a top-notch streaming platform and combine it with Apple TV+ Yes, there are good shows on Apple TV+ but the bulk of the content is scraps from other platforms. 

And perhaps the best thing to do, is buy out Spotify. The latter keeps whinging and whinging and whinging. Just buy them out and shut them up. 

People's utter stupidity never ceases to amaze me. 

A drop test on an iPhone makes sense. I have dropped mine a few times which is why I got a protective case. Dropping a VisionPro is utterly ridiculous. The set is placed on your head and there is a strap over your skull and in back. You would have to be doing cartwheels to test its durability or stand up Yoga. 

What a ridiculous proposition.

I would be more focused on the strain on the user's pocketbook. In our household we own two iPhones, a MacBook Air and if we were to purchase a VP we would be at the $10K level. That's a lot of $$ to pay to own gear that is non-life-essential but is part of the modern tech household. 

I may hold off on the 2nd generation VP (2026): lighter to wear and on the pocketbook, integrated battery pack and with 3-4 killer apps that prove as tech essential as owning an MBA and two iPhones. 

We have done without foldable phones which are slowly dying on the vine and other tech gimmicks which have faded with time. 

If the VP survives to 2026 and the new version proves to be compelling technology - read useful - than at $2K we are interested. 

There are 12 languages in Apple Vision Pro code that could indicate Apple's plans for expanding the product's availability, but it could also mean nothing.

Quote from the article. 

Could mean nothing or saying nothing. 

Vladimir Putin was rumoured to be writing an email to Zelensky. Could mean something or it could mean nothing.