steven n.

maestro64 said:

First, Facebook's Cambridge Analytica was not a data breach, Facebook allow Cambridge access to the data via the licensing agreement that was in place. People were just pissed their own information they freely shared with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica was used against them. 

Of course Apple likes the whole privacy idea since their business model does not rely on this model and Apple's competitors model solely rely on having access to people personal information. This goes into the realm of buyer beware and you do not get anything for free, it is people owe fault their information is not private.

This is no different than Bezos raising his starting wages to $15/hr for Amazon and turning around and supporting legislation requiring his competitors to also do the same thing. He knows Amazon is doing everything to automate its operations so they need less people making $15/hr verse his competitors who are heavily dependent on a low end labor force.

This is calling using regulations to keep competition suppressed. In these cases it means less competition controlled by government regulations. You think you have problem now wait to the see the solution the government comes up with.

wanderso said:

StrangeDays said:

wanderso said:

Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.  

I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference.  After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable. 

By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders.  It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines.  It also allows them to hold the board and management team  accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example.  I hope they they reconsider their stance.  Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less. 

You don’t really invest, do you? No other major hardware company is reporting per product unit sales, so your claim is bunk. 

Your second claim is also ludicrous, as customers of the units have no bearing in this conversation between corporation and investor. I suspect you are only a consumer and this comment is the tip-off. 

Actually, I do invest.  I used to work at a publicly traded company and we included unit sales data in our quarterly conference call, broken out by market segment.  If you read the transcript of Dell’s recent earnings call you will note that they specifically call out their market share in several different segments they participate in, telling investors more than just the revenues by various segments.  (This is just one example; don’t get hung up on Apple vs Dell)

I agree with you that the 10k (for example) is important, especially items such as gross margin, operating income, inventory levels and the balance sheet.    

I also agree that privately held companies have an advantage over publicly held ones in keeping certain financial items outside of public scrutiny. 

Yet leading indicators in terms of share of market are important too.  Tim likes to brag that Apple sells more watches than anyone. That figure becomes harder to believe if he doesn’t release the number that they sell. 

wanderso said:

Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.  

I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference.  After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable. 

By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders.  It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines.  It also allows them to hold the board and management team  accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example.  I hope they they reconsider their stance.  Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less. 

curtis hannah said:

So they don't want to discuss which product categories increase sales anymore? Sort of weird.

I also suspect it might be because they don't want to reveal that their higher price devices aren't selling as they are hoping they will.