fred stein

No need to get worked up, or the read too much into other people's rumors or Cook's statement. For assembly and final configuration, Austin makes a lot of sense. More so since the unit volumes are low and the option combinations are numerous. These decisions can be revisited in the future, and the specific labor can be divided in many ways.

I'd bet a lot of the Mac Pro consumers are in the US, who will appreciate faster shipping times for custom configurations.

And the assembly labor of the Mac Pro is tiny compared to Apple's total cost structure.

Questions:
1) So far Blockchain applications have not had any breakthroughs. I don't count speculative asset bubbles as breakthroughs. I want to see some major benefit at scale.
2) Will it scale? I've heard this is an issue with Blockchain. This is a question not a critique.
3) I applaud addressing the un-banked and under-banked. Apple does not address this sector now. Why can't Apple address this demographic, even if it takes years.
4) How will FB keep Libra from hands of crooks, phishers, money launderers, drug dealers, arms merchants, and human traffickers? Already crooks that hijack corporate IP want ransom paid in Bitcoin.

Thanks, excellent refutation.

Tripp's biggest miss is Apple Watch, a breakthrough. Apple Watch has already relegated Android Wear based Watches to the "other" category occupying fragments of 25% of the SmartWatch / Fitness tracker category. 

This goes beyond Sir Jony Ive's (and his team's) beautiful design. No other SmartWatch maker comes close to Apple in terms of the chips inside. And it is hard to see how they can catch up and achieve positive ROI. The only company that may seriously compete in SmartWatches is Huawei. Apple is not going to rest. They will sustain chip, software, and partnership investment to keep AppleWatch ahead.

Thanks for the article.

It helped understand the pro users and the value / ROI for them. I wonder as well, if we'll see new applications for this, mainly in life sciences. I would love to see AppleInsider research this arena - it's big.

Game developers, as in the big studios, spend $Ms to develop games, and have great ROI for improving productivity.

This is cool. I'd bet the EU will see Apple, using EU engineers, as favorable compared to Huawei, ZTE, and even Qualcomm. Despite Apple's huge size, they're minority in global sales.