22july2013

mweber said:

The total shares outstanding now are nearly 50% higher, so the equivalent bid today would be more like $160 (not counting for inflation.)

Your heart is in the right place but I don't like your math. Rather than quibble about the incorrect math, let's just look at the indisputable total market cap for Tesla. Right now it's $38 Billion. (I'm guessing it was a lot less in 2013.) No matter what the price of the shares are, or how many there are, Apple now has to pay $38 Billion for Tesla. Probably with a takeover premium, making it $50 B. Here's what the big auto manufacturers are worth: Toyota=$200B, Daimler=$60B, GM=$50B, Honda=$45B, Ford=$40B, Nissan=$30B. Of all the companies I've mentioned the only one that I would be sad to hear Apple purchasing is the struggling Tesla. but the only company I want to see Apple purchase is McLaren Group. As far as I can see its value is $3 B. Not only is that chump change for Apple, (they've paid almost as much for a headset company) but McLaren is the greatest performance car company in world history. And as a cute footnote, McLaren's HQ building is the building Apple modelled its spaceship HQ after, in my opinion. McLaren was the Apple of the auto industry before Apple was the Apple of the computer industry.

I wanted to contribute to this thread in some constructive (and hopefully controversial) way. So I investigated if Apple's Airport Extreme and Time Capsule devices (of which I own both) are routers or hubs (or perhaps bridges or switches). I have occasionally configured hubs, routers, firewalls and switches at work and at home, but I'm hardly a networking expert. Others on this forum will talk me down about something here. I conclude that since Airport Extreme and Time Capsule permit NAT and DHCP, they do qualify (barely) as routers. However they have three modes, and one mode, called Bridge Mode, is most likely what people use and makes the device more of a hub than a router. They also work as wireless hubs (which are usually called wireless routers). They do not appear (as far as I can tell) to have the necessary logic (ie, restricting broadcasts of messages) to be called a Switch. They do appear to prevent incoming traffic which essentially makes them function like a primitive, but useful, firewall. My Airport Extreme is currently unplugged but I looked closely at my Time Capsule. I was surprised that it has the ability to limit (all) wireless devices access to the outside based on time frames. That's an optional feature for a router, above the minimum of NAT and DHCP. But that feature is buggy on my Time Capsule (because, as I type the name of my device, my typing is not visible, there isn't even a flashing cursor). Of course the Time Capsule also implements a Hard Drive wireless protocol. And I think the Extreme supports both a printer and speaker (not a disk) for wireless access. These features go above and beyond basic router features. But the Extreme and Time Capsule both appear to be missing the more sophisticated controls that I used to see on my routers at work, specifically with regard to network rules. So in conclusion I would call them "simple routers" (if not configured in Bridge mode) as opposed to "full routers". I'm not sure if even Apple knows what percentage of its Airport Extreme and Time Capsule devices are configured to use their respective Router features, or whether they are just used in Bridge mode. But since they stopped selling these devices, I'm inferring from that that they know people are not using their networking/router features. But I love my devices and I wouldn't even sell them now for what I paid for them years ago. But for twice my purchase price, I'd probably let them go.

Just because a device (eg, a bulb) isn't listed as HomeKit compatible doesn't mean it isn't HomeKit compatible. Most of the devices that I have are not listed as HomeKit compatible on their packaging but they are because they work through a hub that *is* HomeKit compatible. Even the Apple website which is provided by AI above lists only the bridges for some vendors and does not list the HomeKit compatible products. As a techie I understand this but the average consumer would not.

Notsofast said:

22july2013 said:

One thing I'm always puzzled about is how Apple knows the correct amount to compensate its game publishers if they aren't tracking what users do. (Same for News, Music, etc.)

It's because you assume that anyone needs to know what INDIVIDUALS are doing, versus the aggregate use. Apple clearly knows from it's servers how many people are clicking on a news article or magazine or game, etc., but they don't collect that Joe Blow read that article.

I am sad to tell you that you are wrong. Here's the actual words from Apple during their introduction to Apple News+ "And that means we don't know what you read."  (scroll to 20:46). But people like you just assume how it works without actually knowing. You said "Apple clearly knows how many people are clicking on a news article or magazine or game" but that's contradicted by what Apple says. I remember when they went into further detail on how this works but I won't go into that here.

If the Mac Pro will be modular, why not give the Mac Pro customer a choice between an Intel CPU module, an ARM module, an AMD module, or a combination of the above?