gregg thurman

metrix said:

Don't give them a dime! They really think this will help their economic woes?

Funny you mention France's economic woes.  The French economy has been stagnant for a couple of decades.  France's new President, Macron, in only 6 months has begun dismantling long time French labor laws that make expanding employment so expensive as to be almost impossible.

Macron's actions come at a time when groups like ATTAC were lobbying for a 32 hour work week (presently 36 hour) and wanted more in the way of maternity leave, vacation time and even more stringent dismissal and layoff regulations (it takes about a year to dismiss an employee in France no matter the cause).  France leads the world in legislated labor benefits, and has an ongoing and chronic unemployment problem.

Tax revenue isn't France's economic problem, its unwieldy and regressive labor laws that are the problem.

I wish Macron (and France) the very best.

The issue that made CR successful no longer exists.

From 1932 until 1940 consumer demeanor demand could not be satisfied.  The Depression destroyed consumer buying power resulting in factory closures.  From 1941 through 1945 (WWII) consumer demand exploded but nothing consumer was being produced (war effort).  It took about 2 years to convert our wartime economy to a peace time economy.  From then on US manufacturers could not satisfy all that pent up consumer demand.  The larger retailers employed in-house repair facilities TO REPAIR BRAND NEW PRODUCTS BEFORE PUTTIMG THEM ON THE FLOOR.

US manufacturing quality was dismal.  This was overlooked by consumers having no other options (European and Japanese manufacturing were still recovering from WWII).

The Sony, Bang & Olufsen entrants have to be designed for the Android market.  Compared to Apple's AirPods they are over priced ($199 and $299 respectively vs AirPod's at $159) with weaker (3 hours and 4 hours respectively vs AirPod's 5 hours) batteries and chargers (Sony 2X charge for total of 6 hours playback time vs AirPod recharge totaling 24 hours playback, B & O not listed).  I can't imagine an iPhone user buying these.

Given that Apple competitors largely rely on price for product differentiation, I suspect that Apple is selling the AirPods at slightly over cost to drive switchers to iPhone.

Just another reason, if you needed one, to buy iPhone.

DavidAlGregory said:

The problem Apple has in the phone market is that unit shipments are probably about as high as they will ever be and the days of huge growth in units are mostly over. Given that, the only way Apple can continue growing profit in phones is to increase the selling price or squeeze costs. As Apple uses many of the very same components (or similar ones) and already assembles in China, the push for higher selling price is the low hanging fruit. But you can only jack up the price so much without destroying demand.

The LTE iPad Pro I am typing this on was just a little under $1,100 and O cannot see spending that much on a phone. I would much rather the combination of LTE iPad and LTE Apple Watch and no iPhone. At some point, the general public may well realize the iPhone is soon to be redundant. Not yet, but soon.

You had me with your first sentence, but then you lost me.

Long ago Apple recognized that, like everything else, the handset market will achieve saturation.  From that point forward growth would be driven by stealing customers from competitors.  This is the way of all product evolutions.  

The problem with stealing customers from competing handset manufacturers is that Apple doesn't want that class of customer, and already has a lock on the high end.  So what to do?

Develop an accessory ecosystem of products that augment/expand the mobile experience, with each new product doing SOMETHING better than the iPhone, thus expanding sales opportunities to iPhone customers.

Apple's Other Products revenue is projected to grow 30+% YoY during FY2018.  That's a higher growth rate than Services.  The combination of the two they became the #2 (behind the iPhone) revenue stream for Apple during FY2015, and as a category have been growing since at 20+% YoY.

Today the point of selling iPhones is to sell more premium Services and premium Other Products.

We may see iPhone unit sales growth in the future, but it won't be much (2% - 3%).  ASPs on the other hand will grow organically (an additional $100 over the next 3 years without raising prices) as less expensive LED iPhones are flushed out of the iPhone product lineup.

Apple's share of handset revenue and profits is going to increase greatly over that 3 year period.

"but the progress was short lived as sales slumped in the second quarter of 2017. "

Au Contraire.  Apple revenue did dip in the March quarter, but that is the norm.  Since FY2013 March quarter revenue has declined from December quarter levels an average of 26.4%.  That said March quarter 2017 saw revenue INCREASE 4.63% over the same period in 2016.

After suffering 3 consecutive quarters of negative growth in 2016, Apple is on the verge of reporting 3 consecutive quarters of YoY growth,  The September quarter should make that 4 consecutive quarters, with FY2018 extending that growth trend to 8 consecutive quarters.

lmac said:

Tim Cook would never go along with that because phones made in the U.S. for U.S. purchases would cost double or triple what they do now because of our higher standard of living.

Forty years ago China began developing a specialized "industrial park" of immense size, then recruited manufacturers of electronic components and Taiwanese business managers.  The catalyst to its success was very favorable tax structures, fast-track permitting, easy access to FedEx and UPS air cargo, and an immense, highly trained workforce.

Foxconn employs about 1,000,000 workers in three cities.  There aren't 300,000 highly trained workers in any three cities in the US that aren't already working.  US unemployment is at post-WWII lows of 3.1% with over 66% participation (a post-WWII high).

US standard of living has little to do with the impediments to manufacturing in the US.

gatorguy said:

Actually a cool feature that apparently won't be available (at least anytime soon) on Android TV's due to feature differences.  Plus one for Apple TV.

Lots of write-ups about this today.  I pulled this quote from one of them, "For now MultiCast is exclusively available on the Apple TV, ESPN says, because other smart TV platforms don’t have the same capabilities as tvOS."

dewme said:

Patent portfolios are also good for defusing large, costly, and drawn out disagreements between competitors/adversaries, or even once-friends that have become competitors/adversaries.

A great example of "once-friends" is from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) dealings with Intel.  DEC was shopping for a second source to manufacture its Alpha processor.

At the time Intel's X86 architecture had hit a clock speed wall.  Pushing it any further made it unbearably hot.  After examining the Alpha's design (at DEC's request) Intel incorporated significant elements of that design into its next-generation processors called Pentium.  DEC sued and Intel agreed to buy DEC's fab and the Alpha design.

Funny thing about the Alpha chip.  Motorola was running into a clock speed wall itself with the 68000 family of processors.  Jobs approached DEC about using the Alpha in future Macs.  DEC's founder and CEO (Bob Olson) refused to consider Apple's overture as he believed the Mac was doomed.  Shortly after the settlement with Intel Olson was forced to step down and the Company was sold to Compaq Computers.

I've never understood the reason for reprinting these COGS estimates.  They aren't accurate, or even fairly representative of Apple's true costs.  Nor do they have any bearing on what Apple charges for the iPhone.  Apple charges based on utility (value) not the cost of manufacture, and I'm happy with that.

As for the size of the battery.  Size is a contributor to battery life but isn't as important as the power management controller and the iPhone's settings.  Besides if you are draining your iPhone's battery before the day is done you need to get a life.

Jobs took the same attitude when approached by IBM, Sun-Micro and some others back in the dark days.

Rejecting a suitor isn't always a bad thing, even if the suitor is Apple.