Latko

Sports unifies people in the notion that some like it, and some not.

ctj said:

I haven’t seen any explanation from Apple or Goldman of what their business arrangement is, but I would be extraordinarily surprised if Apple is going to be loaning money to any of its customers. Goldman is the bank. They’re going to be the ones loaning money to consumers and collecting the interest. Apple gets to reduce the transaction costs on the enormous volume of credit card transactions they process every year. They can’t just start loaning out the cash reserves of the company which belong to shareholders. In fact, I imagine that US banking laws would prevent Apple from starting to act as a bank. They aren’t a bank. So the suggestion they are going to make money off the interest on balances is crazy. That’s all Goldman’s money. 

Agree - untl the last sentence. 
Goldman will indeed be “the” bank but they’re hardly a humanitarian org.
Apple will probably activate some of its immense, undeployed reserves for credit / securing purposes. It will also allow them to “moderate” sales performance over quarterly intervals

lkrupp said:

Perfect troll fodder. Thanks AI! Okay, haters, let’s hear all the reasons for the “drop” and how Apple is no longer fit to work for. 

That is a binarist, somewhat childish assumption in a 100k+ corp. It very much depends on where, and under what regime/circumstances. I can imagine that as a shop employee, in logistics, marketing, provisioning... you can have a great, even lifetime employment. But then, e.g. as a young designer, it must be quite frustrating to see so many pilots for new designs being denied higher up on the corporate ladder, looking at the pace of development now. Imagine what it must be in 2019, to see that the company returns to the iPad (Mini) design of 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 with homebutton/huge bezels etc. that you just had innovated away. Same for several innovative/IT/high tech positions. Imagine 10k patents on the shelf not being pursued or products being denied somewhere during the development cycle - including the one you worked on... Imagine as a design engineer, finding out that the development hurdles for creating a modular Mac Pro are being solved in a week/month or so in small tech companies on Chinese streetcorners. Try to think by yourself - working in a 132k employee company will undoubtedly result in many happy minds but an incumbent (i.e. merely defensive) strategy does not always appeal to the mere creative minds. Which has more to do with a giant global company than with trolling - but you’re welcome to think otherwise.

One of the KEY problems apart from prices, is that Apple’s ecosystem does not get valued in China. On the contrary, much of that ecosystem breathes typical US-based culture, habits and usage patterns, that do not align with the Far-East. I don’t feel the latest Keynote (and in particular, Tim’s hug with Oprah...) has changed that for the better

Fatman said:

State subsidies is why Chinese handset manufacturers can sell similar (or better ) spec’d phones at one third the price. In a non-communist society, these companies would be bankrupt if they did not have that support. The China 2025 strategy is to own the world’s top technology and to never again depend on any other nation. They are using the same strategy in the data center, electric cars, telecom and airlines. They are willing to take massive losses in the short term to destroy the competition. There will be no other choices left (and innovation will die along with it). Manufacturing has already disappeared in many countries. Intellectual property has already been stolen - with no penalty. How can Apple or any other company or nation compete with that? The only edge Europe and America has over China is their ability to be truly creative and innovative, traits nearly impossible to steal or replicate - but is that enough?

Those practices are indeed detesting. However, with Apple’s gross margins, its huge cost infrastructure (luxurious offices, real estate etc.), its accumulated wealth that is larger than some continents and biggest corp. cash reserve on the planet, go figure what their net earnings are versus the competition. Were it that it re-directed those funds into premier innovation, that would be understandable and from a customer POV make sense. However, we sadly have to conclude that it lamented its position and the Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean wouldn’t even need subsidies to undercut it’s prices to prove they are outrageous. That said, Chinese state subsidization as you describe worsens the situation and is just as alarming (or possiblyeven more, if you could somehow quantify it...) However, using it as spin (like Cook does) is elementary nonsense when it comes to Apple’s inflated proposition (that started with the Mac, and now getting into iPhone/iPad) Note: Apple isn’t that far from cross-subsidization itself: Apple Music, as per Jimmy Iovine’s grievance, can’t exist on its own and depends on heavy corp. subsidization in its effort to destroy Spotify.