thedba

I just saw last night, the latest AppleTV+ documentary “The year earth changed” and it really puts it in perspective how much human activity interferes with everything. 

GeorgeBMac said:

thedba said:

GeorgeBMac said:

thedba said:

elijahg said:

GeorgeBMac said:

entropys said:

Love the mini. Will keep it as long as possible.

Apple needs to remember that it didn't get to where it is by satisfying stockholders.

Meeting customer wants and needs (even if it had to create them!) is what made (and makes) Apple great.  Yeh, only a minority want a smaller phone.  But likewise only a minority (8%) want a Mac.  

I strongly doubt that Apple is losing money on the mini.  Rather, because of lower demand they aren't making as much on it as a larger phone.  If that assumption is true then Apple is putting the interests of stockholders above those of their customers -- and that is not a sustainable business plan.

Unfortunately Cook is all about two things - squeezing as much profit out of products as possible, with the sole aim of increasing share price to satisfy investors, and using Apple as a platform for his virtue signalling. He only cares about the products as much as he has to to ensure continued profit growth.

The HomePod was probably cancelled as it didn’t hit some return on investment metric. AppleTV+ on the other hand is being given a free pass as it’s Cook’s attempt at a legacy. They’ve spent billions on AppleTV+, likely much more than the HP, but barely anyone talks about it. When the HP was cancelled, the thread had more comments by non-regulars than I’ve seen in years. The threads on AppleTV+ get a couple of comments, if that. 

As is often the case with postings like this, perception trumps reality. 
A simple Google search yields some interesting facts. 



We can see that Apple's margins started their upwards trajectory under Jobs until they hit their peak in 2012 (peak iPhone?). They have since levelled off under Tim Cook. So what conclusions can we draw? SJ was a greedy S.O.B. and TC is level headed manager?

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins

How to lie with statistics  I won't let facts stand in the way of a good rant.

Fixed it for you. 

You just don't get it.   The best way to lie is to tell PART of the truth.  And his statistics told a lie that way.

Sorry if you can't, or won't, grasp that.

Well we're still waiting for YOUR PART of the truth (I can use CAPS too), backed by facts. 

elijahg said:

thedba said:

elijahg said:

thedba said:

elijahg said:

GeorgeBMac said:

entropys said:

Love the mini. Will keep it as long as possible.

Apple needs to remember that it didn't get to where it is by satisfying stockholders.

Meeting customer wants and needs (even if it had to create them!) is what made (and makes) Apple great.  Yeh, only a minority want a smaller phone.  But likewise only a minority (8%) want a Mac.  

I strongly doubt that Apple is losing money on the mini.  Rather, because of lower demand they aren't making as much on it as a larger phone.  If that assumption is true then Apple is putting the interests of stockholders above those of their customers -- and that is not a sustainable business plan.

Unfortunately Cook is all about two things - squeezing as much profit out of products as possible, with the sole aim of increasing share price to satisfy investors, and using Apple as a platform for his virtue signalling. He only cares about the products as much as he has to to ensure continued profit growth.

The HomePod was probably cancelled as it didn’t hit some return on investment metric. AppleTV+ on the other hand is being given a free pass as it’s Cook’s attempt at a legacy. They’ve spent billions on AppleTV+, likely much more than the HP, but barely anyone talks about it. When the HP was cancelled, the thread had more comments by non-regulars than I’ve seen in years. The threads on AppleTV+ get a couple of comments, if that. 

As is often the case with postings like this, perception trumps reality. 
A simple Google search yields some interesting facts. 



We can see that Apple's margins started their upwards trajectory under Jobs until they hit their peak in 2012 (peak iPhone?). They have since levelled off under Tim Cook. So what conclusions can we draw? SJ was a greedy S.O.B. and TC is level headed manager?

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins

Correlate that with Apple's R&D spend and employee count which have both ballooned under Cook with little to show for it, and the $460bn they've spent (as of April 2020) on share buybacks. That's where a lot of profit is going, therefore keeping the margin flat but attempting to push the share price up. Apple was an efficient machine under Jobs, not so much now.

It's really easy to rant and provide absolutely zero facts while telling me to look it up or "correlate it" as you said. 
The posting I was replying to said that TC only cared about squeezing maximum profit. My chart actually proved over the years that margins were level. 
Now you come back with R&D spending. Well here it is over the years.



This says exactly the opposite of what you're claiming, the percentage of R&D spending is actually going up with respect to revenues.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/03/apple-rd-spend-increases-fulfilling-tim-cook-doctrine.html

As for stock buybacks, we can argue the merits or pitfalls of this and we may even agree on many points, but keep in mind that they're all doing it, MS, Google etc.AAPL cannot operate outside of these market forces. 
Here's a chart of Googles stock buybacks. https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/stock_buyback

It is of course going up, as I said: "Apple's R&D spend and employee count which have both ballooned under Cook with little to show for it". You have proven my point, R&D is up as a percentage of revenue, and Apple has little to show for it. Higher margins that are made by squeezing suppliers and increasing ASP are being spent directly on stock buybacks and unproductive R&D; Cook maintains the margin at ~37% by adjusting stock buybacks and R&D spend.

with little to show for it
Really? Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Music and the other services, Apple Silicon.  That's your idea of little to show for it? Let's just ask Microsoft how easy it is to change architecture, shall we?  But Apple came up with Rosetta 2 and have gotten all legacy 32 bit code out of MacOS. 

Higher margins
What higher margins? They've levelled off as my first chart clearly showed. 

Increasing ASP
Few people remember that iPhone 3G was selling for $599 or $736 of today's dollars. Compare that to todays iPhone 12 Mini which costs $649 no contract. How about  today's entry level iPad is what, $329 and compare that to $499 for the original iPad and we haven't adjusted for inflation yet. So again while maybe brute dollars ASP may have gone slightly up in some cases, most complaining about it are not adjusting for inflation and are mostly not looking at the overall picture or are being totally unrealistic in wanting an iPad Pro for entry level iPad prices. 
Here's a source on adjusting for inflation: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com ;

GeorgeBMac said:

thedba said:

elijahg said:

GeorgeBMac said:

entropys said:

Love the mini. Will keep it as long as possible.

Apple needs to remember that it didn't get to where it is by satisfying stockholders.

Meeting customer wants and needs (even if it had to create them!) is what made (and makes) Apple great.  Yeh, only a minority want a smaller phone.  But likewise only a minority (8%) want a Mac.  

I strongly doubt that Apple is losing money on the mini.  Rather, because of lower demand they aren't making as much on it as a larger phone.  If that assumption is true then Apple is putting the interests of stockholders above those of their customers -- and that is not a sustainable business plan.

Unfortunately Cook is all about two things - squeezing as much profit out of products as possible, with the sole aim of increasing share price to satisfy investors, and using Apple as a platform for his virtue signalling. He only cares about the products as much as he has to to ensure continued profit growth.

The HomePod was probably cancelled as it didn’t hit some return on investment metric. AppleTV+ on the other hand is being given a free pass as it’s Cook’s attempt at a legacy. They’ve spent billions on AppleTV+, likely much more than the HP, but barely anyone talks about it. When the HP was cancelled, the thread had more comments by non-regulars than I’ve seen in years. The threads on AppleTV+ get a couple of comments, if that. 

As is often the case with postings like this, perception trumps reality. 
A simple Google search yields some interesting facts. 



We can see that Apple's margins started their upwards trajectory under Jobs until they hit their peak in 2012 (peak iPhone?). They have since levelled off under Tim Cook. So what conclusions can we draw? SJ was a greedy S.O.B. and TC is level headed manager?

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins

How to lie with statistics  I won't let facts stand in the way of a good rant.

Fixed it for you. 

elijahg said:

thedba said:

elijahg said:

GeorgeBMac said:

entropys said:

Love the mini. Will keep it as long as possible.

Apple needs to remember that it didn't get to where it is by satisfying stockholders.

Meeting customer wants and needs (even if it had to create them!) is what made (and makes) Apple great.  Yeh, only a minority want a smaller phone.  But likewise only a minority (8%) want a Mac.  

I strongly doubt that Apple is losing money on the mini.  Rather, because of lower demand they aren't making as much on it as a larger phone.  If that assumption is true then Apple is putting the interests of stockholders above those of their customers -- and that is not a sustainable business plan.

Unfortunately Cook is all about two things - squeezing as much profit out of products as possible, with the sole aim of increasing share price to satisfy investors, and using Apple as a platform for his virtue signalling. He only cares about the products as much as he has to to ensure continued profit growth.

The HomePod was probably cancelled as it didn’t hit some return on investment metric. AppleTV+ on the other hand is being given a free pass as it’s Cook’s attempt at a legacy. They’ve spent billions on AppleTV+, likely much more than the HP, but barely anyone talks about it. When the HP was cancelled, the thread had more comments by non-regulars than I’ve seen in years. The threads on AppleTV+ get a couple of comments, if that. 

As is often the case with postings like this, perception trumps reality. 
A simple Google search yields some interesting facts. 



We can see that Apple's margins started their upwards trajectory under Jobs until they hit their peak in 2012 (peak iPhone?). They have since levelled off under Tim Cook. So what conclusions can we draw? SJ was a greedy S.O.B. and TC is level headed manager?

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins

Correlate that with Apple's R&D spend and employee count which have both ballooned under Cook with little to show for it, and the $460bn they've spent (as of April 2020) on share buybacks. That's where a lot of profit is going, therefore keeping the margin flat but attempting to push the share price up. Apple was an efficient machine under Jobs, not so much now.

It's really easy to rant and provide absolutely zero facts while telling me to look it up or "correlate it" as you said. 
The posting I was replying to said that TC only cared about squeezing maximum profit. My chart actually proved over the years that margins were level. 
Now you come back with R&D spending. Well here it is over the years.



This says exactly the opposite of what you're claiming, the percentage of R&D spending is actually going up with respect to revenues.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/03/apple-rd-spend-increases-fulfilling-tim-cook-doctrine.html

As for stock buybacks, we can argue the merits or pitfalls of this and we may even agree on many points, but keep in mind that they're all doing it, MS, Google etc.AAPL cannot operate outside of these market forces. 
Here's a chart of Googles stock buybacks. https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/stock_buyback