prof

sog35 said:

Sorry but all those Irish laws that Apple took advantage of was also available to any other company in Ireland. That was not preferrential treatment.

You're certainly entitled to this personal opinion, but it is exactly that and nothing more.

The result of the EU investigation might as well be that there was no foul play and no one will be fined anything... We'll see.

melgross said:

No the EU is investigating the charge that Apple had a deal that constituted to state aid which was not the same as other companies had access to which contravenes the rules. It's not changing the rules it's looking to see if the rules weren't enforced.

That's not quite  true. But even so, it's taking the authority of individual countries into its own hands which isn't part of EU law. What Ireland did is the same thing we see states, counties and cities doing all the time. They give breaks to companies in order to have them move some operations into the area. This is done in Europe as well.

Actually that's not true. Subsidies are part of EU law and have to be approved. If Ireland created tax loopholes specifically to subsidise companies in order to lure them into their country that's illegal and this is exactly what is under investigation here.

The EU has mostly been targeting American companies.

DOH, of course! Those loopholes only work for overseas countries and provide the largest benefits for tech companies of a certain size which is exactly why you'll find the who-is-who of American companies there. There's little to no tax benefit for European companies to move to Ireland and it seems that Asian companies also have little incentive to move there -- though I have no explanation for why that is.  

if this were France or Germany, this investigation never would have happened, as that two do whatever they want.

That is utter bullshit. The reason why the investigations target countries like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg etc. is because they have those fancy loopholes. Why do you think that all those fancy tax avoidance constructs like a "Double Irish with Dutch sandwich" exist and there're pretty much none involving most other European countries (including Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, ... just to name a few of the bigger ones)...

thewhitefalcon said:

It takes more effort than it's worth to support pre iOS 8 and pre Yosemite, especially with Apple's tool chain changes. 

Nonsense. They just want to spare themselves the testing effort for additional versions because the market share for those went down a bit.

I'm still waiting for Apple to be hit with a clue bat that people are waiting for other products going back to the roots, too... Please Apple, take my money for a real MBP with non-glare retina display, replaceable parts and ethernet socket...

apple ][ said:

Unexpected?

Only to the clueless perhaps. Why are analysts so clueless?

I've been saying since day one that the SE would sell a whole lot. That was obvious to anybody with a clue.

Yeah, I also don't get it. Only because some -- admittedly loud -- people have size complexes and require compensation doesn't mean everyone appreciates ridiculously big phones. Okay, Apple actually wanted to get into the lower price segment, but actually I do think people would actually pay a premium for a highest end small iPhone -- I certainly would.