gctwnl

No Apple isn't doomed. But the lack of a decent update cycle, especially for non all-in-one systems (nothing with Thunderbolt 3 currently in mini or pro) really, really frustrates me. In fact, if my current hardware dies because I refuse to buy Thunderbolt 2 stuff at this stage, I'm doomed and that is thanks to Apple putting me in an impossible position: either do not update and hope the hardware survives or do update and buy obsolete stuff. Nice choice.

Still only a single USB-C of course. We have one, expecting that docks and such would be plenty soon after (within a few months). But no decent charging docks are yet out of the beta stage. Most projects suffer (or fail on) the lack of decent chips, I've been told by some of them.

Apple dropped the single USB-C on us without there being technology available to use this properly. And no, a few single-function high prices adapters from Apple themselves do not count.

redhanded said:

Being pedantic, 0.005 isn't an actual tax rate, the EU judgement says it was the effective tax rate.

So it seems that Apple have a mind numbingly complex set of corporate entities and the Irish tax authorities made a ruling that Apple could allocate the vast majority of their profits to a corporate entity that didn't pay tax while a much smaller amount of profits were allocated to another entity that paid tax at the Irish corporate rate which is 12.5%.

The EU are basically saying that everything should have been taxed at 12.5%.

Expect this to go to appeal with an argument if the ruling about allocation of profits was correct or not. The Irish government will back their own tax department. 

Yep, it is illegal because the deals made it so that Apple hardly paid any taxes at all (0.0015% at one year) and it is fraudulent because those 'head offices' that were supposed to make the profits did not really exist. Whatever the outcome, Apple is not different from any other large corporation. They're just as morally bankrupt, because that is what their shareholders demand from them. I'm a fan of Apple's products and product philosophy, believe it or not. But this tax evasion I find disgusting.