Dan_Dilger

dclivejazz said:

Even given that this site is devoted to all things Apple, this editorial is over the top in building up a straw man of a publication it claims has historically made inaccurate negative predictions about the company and then hysterically tearing it down.

The stories it emotionally criticizes were not necessarily malign in intent and were possibly just wrong, based as most of them appear to have been on speculation made by financial analysts or parts suppliers.

Furthermore, Apple may well be one of the most well-positioned companies to weather the current crises but it will not be impervious to it. It very well could have to delay the iPhone 12 even past the Christmas holiday sales season. Maybe not. BFD either way for such a financially solid corporation.

"Straw man" has a meaning. It referrs to "giving the impression of refuting an argument, while actually attacking a different argument that was not presented but is simply easier to criticize." That didn't occur here in any way. In fact, by claiming "a straw man was attacked," rather than refuting any of the arguments of the actual article here, you are the one building up a straw man you can then attack because it's so easy to effortlessly do so. 

There is also not any "emotional criticism" of the new and historical false claims made by Nikkei in covering Apple. The article merely pointed out that the Nikkei's staff has repeatedly presented false information that confidently predicted an outcome that did not actually occur. In the most recent case, it contrasts the comments of an analyst, and Apple's suppliers and assemblers against the Nikkei's "months late Phone 12" conjecture based on unnamed, unverifiable "sources." 

Further, by attempting to shift the conversation from whether Apple can "weather the current crises" to the very different argument of whether "it will not be impervious to it," you are again making a lazy straw man argument to avoid actually refuting any of the points made. Nobody has ever been saying Apple will be "impervious" to challenges in the assembly and selling of its devices this year. Apple was the first to report that it would not be reaching its expected Q2 guidance. AI has never stated Apple will be unaffected by the shutdown of society, because that is ridiculous. Its stores are closed! 

Your entire comment is therefore an erected, phony straw man you mercilessly beat up because you can't really address any of the actual arguments presented here, because there is nothing to complain about. If you could present a clear argument that takes apart what is written here, you should have, rather than erecting a straw man of a straw man.

Apple has a variety of options available to it to avoid launching iPhone 12 "months" late, including a streamlined, limited release of iOS 14 features and even a less ambitious release of iPhone 12 models that partially delays segments of the launch, just as it delivered iPhone X weeks after the launch of 7+ and 9 in the same year. The nikkei clearly aimed its fact-free conjecture to generate the most FUD possible, and it delivered no real insight into Apple's situation.

Along with the Wall Street Journal, it also was completely inept at framing the importance and impact of Apple's setbacks with that of the greater industry as a whole. There is no company better positioned than Apple what will gain a leg up while Apple is struggling to meet demand or produce inventory. As AI has repeated several times, Android makers are far worse positioned in their ability to cope. They have less funding, less profitability, and were dead set on catching up to Apple this year leveraging the promotion of via extreme-luxury tier folding screen devices and 5G models. 

Nobody is going to care about $2,600 crippled folding devices during a crunch. 5G is not rolling out on schedule. The Tokyo Olympics that Samsung was betting on using to promote its temporary lead in 5G have been delayed for a full year, erasing that entire strategy. Samsung bet big on that and is now screwed. Even a modest 5G iPhone launch will catch Apple up to the only significant advantage Android has enjoyed recently. In fact, a weak iPhone 12 launch that can be blamed on COVID-19 is a huge relief to Apple, as its the best opportunity the company has ever had to reset expectations and lower the intense scrutiny of whether Apple can ever grow beyond its current sales. 

And unlike all the Android companies that had been hoping to launch something new and attention getting this spring and summer before another new iPhone appears, Apple has the longest lead time of anyone in the smartphone industry before it needs to deliver something that can help it to recover. These are facts. You couldn't refute a single one of them, so you resorted to throwing out "straw man" as a straw man.

bohler said:

the most idiotic thing in recent years was Apple buying back its stock and building up a wall of debt $100bn high...insane

Apple has bought up shares since 2012 mostly at prices well below $150. Despite dramatically falling from its Feb peak, Apple's shares are still above $240, higher than any point before October 2019. So no, the buybacks remain one of the best investments Apple could have possibly made for its investors. The debt Apple used leveraged that value of its capital until repatriation taxes were lowered, which is also rather brilliant in hindsight. Even with all the problems in the world, Apple will have trouble spending its current $100B; it would not have benefitted from $200+ billion in the bank, because if things go that far south, inflation willl begin making all of the dollars of the world far less valuable. Apple was wise to do something with its cash hoard, while also leaving itself enough to comfortably survive the early 2020s no matter what happens.

racoleman29 said:

Come on guys. Who can really predict Apple? Nothing to see here...move along.

If you can't predict the weather, the solution is to not predict the weather and then claim authoritative insight into the weather from anonymous experts. That's just lying.

gmgravytrain said:

I like the idea of AR for devices, but the only thing I have seen from Apple in terms of AR is a glorified tape measure app and I'm not sure how useful that is. Apple seems to have been pushing AR for a few years now and I wonder if it has any distinct advantage over what the Android OS devices are offering. I honestly don't recall Apple using AR in their marketing to sell more iPhones and I doubt most consumers would see any use in having it. To me, AR is a vague sort of tech. The only thing I can think of using it for is if you could hold your device up to a sign written in a foreign language and it would be translated on the fly to English. I'd like to see more useful examples of what could be done with AR.

Animoji is AR. Portrait Lighting is AR. Many Snap/IG filters are examples of AR. The documentation of ARKit offers some extra insight into what sorts of useful things AR can do. Mapping a layer of graphics to your face is the primary feature of a face-facing TrueDepth camera. Aiming a LiDAR sensor in the other direction will enable users to similarly augment graphics on video in the opposite direction. That's what Tango was trying to do. There are photos in this article depicting what that does.

TL;DR Measure is not the only AR app.  

seanismorris said:

Do you have any evidence to support “merchants who sell online report AR is boosting sales by a massive figure - 300%“?
...But, you seem to be saying all merchants... that’s a ridiculous claim.


But, for all AR/VR potential that doesn’t mean Joe consumer should go out and buy a iPad with LiDAR today.

I don't "seem to be saying that," and yes it's ridiculous to suggest as you do that anyone would say that AR automatically guarantees a 3X boost in sales. Embarrassing for you, really. 

Joe consumer" is already buying iPads, regardlesss of their capabilities. And when LiDAR appears on iPhone 12, there will pretty clearly be a vast installed base develop, whether people are specifically buying because of LiDAR or not. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but it seems like vacuous complaint invention with no purpose.