Fatman

I love the speculative stories! Wow. An engineer leaves (that most didn’t even know existed) and Apple insiders are ready to abandon the company. This guy sounded like a key contributor, wish him best of luck on his next endeavor. Now that I know his name - thank you sir for your great work. However, something tells me that the most profitable company in the world will manage to survive and thrive after his departure. Maybe he will make an impact elsewhere that Apple will benefit from in the future.

Amazingly - I see this as good news, and the other recent news of support for MS active directory. The more software available to MacOS, open or closed, the srronger the platform becomes. If you don’t want to use MS antivirus, then don’t - but this may give IT departments a better reason for buying Mac OS, and that has always been a struggle outside of buying for the creative department. If Microsoft killed off Office for Mac years ago (they were very close to it) I believe MacOS would have disappeared.

I like the chip updates, two changes would have knocked it out of the park: 1. Reduced bezel and 2. Reasonably priced SSD options. 512GB for +$150, 1TB for +$300

My absolute favorite software. For a musician it’s a fantastic way to get ideas recorded quickly - and the guitar effects sound pretty darn good. I wish I had this in my younger years instead of my MIDI connected Commkdore 64! Even non musicians can use the pre-recorded loops. Truly a great creative tool.

I always take the timing of these negative articles into account - create a panic to drive down stock price prior to a big Apple announcement (March 25) that will drive it back up... traders make a nice short-term profit.

However... there is undoubtley a serious problem in China - Apple has confirmed it themselves! It’s a combination of factors: Apple’s high pricing vs Chinese competitors (The Chinese government subsidizes pricing, yes, not fair, but the reality), Chinese sentiment (The Chinese are taking pride in their own brands, the US trade war is creating a hostile view of the US, and at the extreme, a negative view of the Apple brand), the increase in quality and features of ‘low end’ Chinese smartphones (many specs are on par with Apple or even surpass Apple), Apple’s stubbornness with sticking to an ‘s’ strategy - tech buyers want to see new features and external design changes for every new model. Apple’s slower yearly release schedule needs to change. Timing is critical -in particular Apple needs to move up the 2019 release - September is a very, very long way off, and it may be too late. Once a customer is lost to the competition it will be two years, if ever that you can attempt to get them back. Chinese use of WeChat - this (government owned) platform essentially replaces the underlying OS. I’ve seen it firsthand, on a visit to China, citizens are in the WeChat app all day long, they don’t use anything else. This makes choosing Android vs. iOS irrelevant. Smartphones become a commodity (much like PCs running Windows) and Apple looses their ‘superior OS’ advantage.