bells

ktappe said:

I wonder if a legal expert could answer this Q:   If the requisite evidence has already been presented in U.S. court, isn't it therefore available to the German court? Or are German courts willfully blind to previously available discovery? If the latter, that seems like a pretty f---ed up "justice" system Germany has.

Qualcomm is claiming Apple's devices infringe a battery saving technology. Apple and its supplier Quorvo is saying that is not the case. Apple can achieve the same result using another method not patented by Qualcomm. However, Apple's supplier Quorvo doesn't want to share the information with Qualcomm's engineers because it is a trade secret.

So, in the US, the Court was allowed to view Quorvo's technology without it being made available to Qualcomm's engineers, and the Judge was convinced Apple's iPhones didn't infringe Qualcomm's patents.

The difference in outcome is between the way the courts and parties handled the evidence. In the US, the Court was able to evaluate the evidence, which was kept secret from Qualcomm's engineers. In Germany, Qualcomm prevented Apple and its supplier from keeping the evidence confidential, which allowed the Judge to rule against Apple. Totally whacky if you ask me. 

Apple's supplier is rightfully worried that if its trade secrets are revealed to Qualcomm, Qualcomm will steal its otherwise unprotected technology. 

Rayz2016 said:

The trouble is that they haven’t had much luck anywhere else with similar cases. 

All that the CEO and Chairman mean is this year if Qualcomm loses in court or vise versa the motivation to settle will be higher. Apple can hold on for longer though.

Apple will never go back to strict Qualcomm chips though because having Intel as a viable alternative helps Apple keep prices lower. 5g will level the playing field more as well.

elijahg said:

StrangeDays said:

Dead_Pool said:

More evidence that prices are too high across the board. The phones are not the problem; the prices are. Half of the iPhone’s price increase since it was released a decade ago has come in the last year alone.  

Actually, you’re wrong - the only “evidence” is Apple’s record profits, which suggest the price on iphones has been too *low*, as explained by Warren Buffet. Read up.

Just because you want things for free or cheaply, doesn’t mean there’s a problem. It’s good to want things. 

Why then are phone sales flat YoY? Cook is desperate to keep growing revenue, and he's using the ridiculous mentality they use on the public transport here in the UK: Less sales, raise prices to compensate. Results in a vicious circle of less people buying iPhones because of the cost, then raising of prices to maintain revenue. Where does it end? It's pretty obvious to any businessman cutting prices boosts sales. Cook seems to think the opposite. Remember he's an operations guy, not a visionary.

Apple met its own guidance and increased sales YOY. On top of that people said last year Apple was doomed because people weren’t buying the iPhone X. Turned out Apple sold far more of them then it anticipated. People elected for the more expensive X over the 8.

It is OK Tim isn’t a visionary as long as he has a strong creative team and he empowers them. Apple is spending tons of money on health care research. The Apple Wstch is utilizing some of that research. There is lot more Apple can do in health care.

Further, if Apple’s unit growth is maturing then any smart CEO is going to try and grow the company by offering some higher price point products. Apple’s approach is offering lower priced phones in the XR and more expensive models in the XS. 

More over the Wall Street Journal doesn’t name sources and has a history of being wrong.

KidGloves said:

Here's an idea. Why not make some computers that more people can actually afford and try relying slightly less on one product? Apple could do so much more with the Mac and although it's nowhere near the income they've getting from the iPhone, they'll need something solid to fall back on when phones start to become a commodity. Let's face it, the gap between the Chinese phones and the iPhone XS isn't as big as the price difference would suggest. And they're closing the gap all the time, just as Apple is getting really bold about charging. They're leaving SO MUCH room for the Chinese brands to exploit.

Nobody is asking for a $400 MacBook but why not offer a way in with lower specced machine like an updated white plastic MacBook (a bit slower, non-retina, maybe spinning drive) and in a similar way offer a lower-specced version of the Mac mini. These people will move onto the more expensive stuff in time. 

When the gloss goes off the iPhone there's going to be a bloodbath.

Apple’s stock tanking has little to do with Apple’s performance. Apple met all of its guidance numbers and had a record breaking quarter. The stock tanking is making somebody money. Investors like buffet load up in times like these because they are long term investors.

While Apple paying more attention to its Macs would be nice, this isn’t a real growth area. Growth will be in services and new categories.

it is easy for Chinese companies to offer products for less when their research budget involves taking somebody else’s ideas. With that said, Apple’s prices are very competitive with Samsung.

The phone doesn’t have to become a commodity is companies like Apple continue to innovate with features like Apple Pay and Face ID.

eye.surgeon said:

So the multinational corporation is worried about elected officials accountable to the people meddling with the constitution. I guess Apple prefers to do the meddling themselves. Certainly they have welcomed their communist Chinese overlords with open arms, censorship and all, without a complaint.

Last I checked, Apple is an American company. It is entitled to its opinions, and allowed to make decisions based on its best interests.

Apple isn’t going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a second home if it isn’t happy with the environment. Like any company, it wants the move to be financially beneficial. It also wants employees to want to work at the location. Apple has not publically commented on its views regarding NC’s circus  policitcal environment, but it certainly is entitled to make those views known. 

As far as Apple doing business in China goes, I’m not a fan, but Apple’s view is it can effectuate change from within, and putting up with China’s laws is worth the access to the market and manufacturing. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it’s made a mistake. Nonetheless it would be very expensive for Apple to just move from China after the tremendous investments it’s made in the country. Perhaps that is why Apple is proceeding cautiously in NC. It doesn’t want to make an enormous investment that it can’t easily back out of. You have already seen Apple slowly attempt to reduce its reliance on China for manufacturing by assisting its manufacturing partners to open new facilities in other countries.

Elected Officials might be accountable to the people, but Politicians, mostly Republicans, have fought to stack the deck in their favor by redrawing districts to dilute their opponents votes. Further, schools have been stripped of funding, so many people truly aren’t educated enough to understand what they are voting for. We allow the rich to spend billions of dollars to influence elections. Our source of news is owned by the same rich people. The whole trying to rewrite the constitution in NC to undermine a law fully elected governor is just another example that voters really don’t have much power. The people vote for something, the politicians try to undermine that.