tundraboy

 '"Forcing users to use the App Store instead of Dapps (websites), or IAP instead of crypto payments, reminds me of what Microsoft did back in the day (forcing users to use IE if you were on Windows) which led to all their antitrust issues," Armstrongs says. '

No Mr. Armstrong.  Windows had a monopoly (okay an overwhelmingly dominant market position) in desk/laptop OSes.  iPhone doesn't even have a majority of the smartphone market.  Your analogy doesn't apply.  Complaining that Apple is a monopoly because it is the sole seller of Apple iPhones is like accusing Audi of monopolizing the market for Audi cars.  It's stupid talk.

Besides, why would Apple, or any other private company, want to promote a currency and technology that enables drug dealers, cyber criminals, tax evaders, terrorist organizations and all other sorts of nefarious characters?  Why should any private company that is not a monopoly or a public utility be compelled to enter into a line of business that it does not want to be in?  Why is it a private company's obligation to promote a technology that it doesn't want to be involved in?

Frankly, cryptocurrencies have not proved their value to society.  Even on a conceptual basis no one has made a credible case yet on how you can stop criminals from using it to conduct illegal transactions.

Headline is inaccurate. The headphones did not explode. The batteries did.

When you are copycat company who is always trying to develop in one year a feature that your competitor has been developing for several years, some corners tend to be cut.

I don't believe the allegations because according to the Swiss, they are a very upright, and law-abiding people whose banks would never do business with anyone who gives off even the slightest whiff of corruption.  Except for thieving dictators, nazis, drug-dealers, organized crime, tax evaders, embezzlers, etc.  But those are minor exceptions.

It's not an Apple sales miss, it's an analysts' forecast miss.  Don't feed the analysts' pretension that if their forecast is wrong, it's the subject company's fault.

No Mr. Durov, Apple is not a monopoly.  They aren't even have a majority share of the cell phone market.  People who demand that the regulators should step in because Apple charges 'too much' is exactly like car buyers asking the government to intervene because Mercedes Benz cars are 'too expensive'.

It is ridiculous to demand that a company that is not a monopoly be treated by the regulators as a monopoly just because they charge higher prices than their competitors.  As long as there is competition -and competition in the cell phone market is vicious- it is best to leave the market alone.  When there is competition, you are guaranteed to get what you paid for, no more, no less.  Apple is able to charge higher because they offer a better product than the competition.  To app developers, that better product is an installed customer base that is more lucrative than the other smartphones' customer bases. 

waveparticle said:

The CEO club has a formula calculating the performance of CEO and a formula of how much to reward. This was written into the contract when CEO was hired. You need to take a close look of the formulas before criticizing a CEO's pay increases. But this is a secret only members of CEO club including board members are able to access it.  In general the most important number is the performance of the stock in the prior year. 

Yes, and CEOs themselves are board members of other corporations.  I won't block your eye-popping comp if you don't block mine. Corporate governance, especially CEO compensation committees, is the most corrupt but still legal practice in the corporate age.  Its self-dealing and good-old-boy network all rolled into one.

crofford said:

Free Market Capitalism works perfectly everywhere except where it comes in contact with government.

This is an ignorant statement.  If you allow markets to operate unregulated, competing companies will just band together, act as a monopolist and raise prices.  Not only that, they will stifle innovation just like how Microsoft in its heyday killed any innovation that threatened the DOS-Windows stranglehold.  That includes OS-2 which tech experts agree was superior to Windows.  It can be validly argued that Microsoft held back personal computer innovation for about 20 years.

Yeah, as great as a designer as he is, Jony started to sacrifice too much utility and durability at the altar of form.  (Much like Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings and houses looked great and innovative but were prone to structural and water damage.)  Jony's departure was timely.  He was probably getting bored too as there is only so much designing one can do on thin rectangular bricks.

Given his total lack of a moral compass and the damage Facebook has done and continues to do to humanity because of it, Mark Zuckerberg is the second worst American alive.