78Bandit

anton zuykov said:

JohnnyCanadian said:

When someone begins a statement with "Honestly speaking" it is a fairly reasonable indicator that they are not speaking honestly. It's like using "no offence" or "I'm not a racist, but ..."; they tend to be followed up with offensive or racist verbiage.

Just like ( by the same logic of yours)the phrase “ it is a fairly reasonable indicator” means it is not a reasonable indicator at all. So, you have kind of chopped off your own legs here...
There is a problem with swiping generalizations which is - it gets applied to you eventually..

Wow, that's some convoluted logic there. Because one assertion is a generalization (that may or may not be true) then all all subjective assertions must be inherently wrong? Do you disagree with the assertion people who preface a statement with "no offense" or "not being racist" do indeed generally follow up with something that will likely be perceived as racist or offensive?

A head-tax should apply to all employers equally.  There is no reason to think an Apple employee utilizes the local transportation system any more than any other company's employees.  This is just a fancy way to garner local support because it only sticks it to the big guys.  Throw a $1,000 head tax on every mom-and-pop business and see how far it goes.

The local government better think long and hard about singling out the biggest business for special assessments.  They will find out pretty quick that Apple can simply freeze all new construction on their facilities and push somewhere like North Carolina where the property is much cheaper and taxes are lower.  Cupertino got where it is because of big tech, they better at least play fair in trying to tax them.

I'm somehow reminded of the comparisons between Q1 sales in FY 2017 and 2018.  Everyone was crowing about how much sales had increased in Q1/17 without mentioning it had an extra week.  Adjusting for the extra week Q1/17 sales were actually down from Q1/16.  Then when sales fell in Q1/18 suddenly everyone had to start pointing out the 13 week quarter vs. the 14 week previous one.

Now we have this analyst saying "come on, despite all the hype of the supercycle and Tim's spin that the iPhone X and iPhone 8 were the 'best selling devices every week since they went on sale' it turns out that last half actually was worse than expected.  We would like for you to ignore that fact now and instead focus on how much we expect actual results next time compare to the reduced results from last time.  Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtain."

Analysts can spin a story any way they want to meet their own biases.

Dave Kap said:

This whole article is about you being happy?  By being able to play rocket league on your iPad in the kitchen?

If Apple bends the rules for Steam then they have to bend the rules for everybody. Then there are no rules. 

Heaven forbid the customer should be happy.

Maybe it is time for Apple to change the rules to allow purchases through the vendor's payment system and not be subject to the 30% vig.  I can understand if Apple handles the financial transaction, collects the money from an in-app purchase, and remits it to the vendor then there is something of value that needs to be compensated.  However, if the entire transaction takes place utilizing third-party services then possibly Apple needs to rethink its commission process and not put the "Apple Tax" on transactions it doesn't directly handle.

nunzy said:

History will record iPhone X as a breakthrough in consumer tech. It has changed the world forever. The notch alone is now a universal benefit, even for Android.

OK, I'll bite.  Why is the notch alone a universal benefit outside of being a marketing tool?  If Apple would have limited the cutouts around the FaceID module use to displaying time, signal strength, battery strength, etc. with a black background there would be no "notch" so FaceID can't be the underlying benefit.  What universal utility is gained solely by expanding the app display area to two small ears at the top of the screen?

I'm not against the notch, but it would seem to be neutral at best and even distracting under certain uses like watching a video.