joebloggs

The talk about ongoing support misses an important point - to get one of these things repaired costs $279.  One of my two (a synched pair) developed the dreaded "flashing volume buttons" last week.  It was a Christmas present less than 15 months ago.  I already had one (which has AppleCare+) but I didn't think to buy the extended warranty for a gift.  According to the Genius I took it to, it will cost the standard charge of $279 to fix it.  She recommended buying a new one, but all Apple stores and the online store are out of stock (it's space grey, of course).

How on earth can Apple charge $299 for the product brand new with a 12 month warranty but $279 for any repair to it with only a 90 day warranty?

As Apple (Computer) itself said in its lawsuit with Apple Corp. (the Beatles' record company), "even a moron in a hurry" could tell the difference between the marks.  It's ironic that after Apple (computer) won the lawsuit brought by Apple (records) it is resorting to the same sort of tactic that it defended itself against.

applejakes said:

Apple only spent $8.2 billion this quarter on buy backs after spending an average of $21 billion the last 3 quarters.  Could they be stockpiling money for a purchase?  If not it was a gross misuse of cash to not throw a huge amount at buy backs this quarter.  Something along the lines of $25+ billion.

They were probably avoiding insider trading charges by avoiding buying when they had information not available to the general public.