thewhitefalcon

mike1 said:

mindwaves said:

Don't care if Apple does. 100% of my music is listened to on my laptop, not on my iPhone.

Me too. I look really cool walking on the track with my laptop in tow.

lkrupp said:

rogifan_new said:

I'm seeing posts on Twitter pretty much confirming this rumor. Lightning earbuds and an adapter in the box. Boy Apple sure does love it's adapters. I'm surprised they're throwing it in the box and not charging extra for it. They better have a good marketing pitch for why proprietary lightning headphones are better than the current ones. I'm not sure making the phone more water resistant is good enough ( if that's even why they're doing it).

My opinion is that an adapter will not be included. Apple has never, to my knowledge, included any adapter when it switches ports. My iMac 14,2 did not include a Thunderbolt-> Firewire adapter when Apple got rid of Firewire. When the iPod went from Firewire to USB there was no adapter. Including a 3.5mm adapter would defeat the entire purpose of moving to a digital port. The idea is to firmly nudge user to the new port, not enable them to stay put. There will indeed be an adapter but it will not be included free. You will have to buy one separately. Only a few days before we find out who’s right. 

blastdoor said:

This sure does have the stink of plausibility on it. 

It sure does seem that Apple is creating a significant marketing challenge for themselves. 

anantksundaram said:

singularity said:

sog35 said:

marktime said:

This is really a non-issue for Apple. Foreign taxes paid are a credit against Apple's US tax liability. Assuming that at some point Apple repatriates its cash to the US, as long as the marginal US tax rate at that time is greater than what the EU is claiming this won't have any impact on Apple's overall tax liability. Apple has never been against repatriating the money, they have been against paying a 35% tax rate when their competitors (Samsung et. al.) get to pay a much lower than the rate. At a 20% rate I'm sure Tim Cook would bring a lot of that cash back to the US.

Otoh, whatever is paid to the EU is tax money that the US won't collect. This is more of a grab by the EU on money that would otherwise end up in the US Treasury. You would think that the US would be a lot more energetic in fighting the EU on this.

Exactly. The only ones getting SCREWED are US Citizens.

The EU is basically stealing $15,000,000,000 from US Citizens.

According to the EU commission Apple and Ireland have stolen 13billion euros from the Irish people.

... which, a government that represents the "Irish people" doesn't seem to want. Go figure.

austriacus said:

To add some facts to the general slamming of the so called extortion racket. Don't get me wrong - I love Apple products but they have been skirting their responsibilities for a long time like many other multi nationals. I don't like taxes either (I live in France....) but at a certain point we have to say its enough when corporations pay next to nothing for Billions in profits. Have a look at what happend in Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement