blah64
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Apple hits $1 trillion market cap, the first US company ever to hit milestone [u]
Kind of taking your side here, even though it might not sound like it. Or at least as compared with some of the other reasoning here...melgross said:
I’ll keep saying it. Buybacks do NOT increase share value by much at all. And most of that is temporary. So, yes, if Apple hadn’t taken about $200 billion off its valuation in buybacks, they would have hit a trillion some time ago. More recently, the buybacks of 43 million shares took off more than $85 billion, going by today’s price. There’s no way that Apple share price rose by that much from those buybacks. The share price rise is from company performance, not buybacks.seankill said:
You make the assumption that the share price would have gone to the necessary number to equal 1T without the buybacks; part of Apple’s value is the company’s buybacks.Soli said:
It happened on their first day of their IPO during a spike. It was sustained for more than a moment, they certainly didn't close that day anywhere near $1T USD, and have been far from it ever since. That's why I don't count this spike as a milestone for Apple until it's sustained, which at least means closing the market with a $1T market cap.rogifan_new said:
Did PetroChina legitimately get to 1T? Is it even a publicly traded company?danvm said:Apple is the first US company with $1T valuation, and second worldwide, behind PetroChina.
PS: If not for buybacks Apple would've reached this a long time ago.
it can be argued that by carrying over $120 billion in debt solely for the purpose of buybacks, and the removal of that amount from the balance sheet has diminished Apple’s worth by the total of the two. - over $240 billion. Now, this quarter, they finally rested some of that debt. That debt, again raised solely for the buybacks, cause Moody and others to downgrade Apple, meaning that further debt cost more.
i don’t see the value here. Apple could have used some of that for R&D, marketing, investments, etc. Instead, it goes down a black hole as the shares are retired.
The stock appreciation is due primarily to performance. And indeed, buybacks by themselves don't really increase share value (much), just like stock splits. If they'd kept the cash on hand instead, then all those billions would still be present in the form of cash on the books, so it's kind of a neutral move, right? But the problem is, who wants $200 or $300 billion in cash on their books?! Cash isn't attractive to investors because frankly if we wanted that we could just sell our investments and sit on the cash ourselves -- for free. Maybe even get a tiny bit of guaranteed interest.
So what to do with it? You mention R&D, marketing, investments. But Apple clearly has more than enough funds for all the R&D they've got planned for the next several years. They've got FAR more than enough for all the marketing they could possibly spew out over the next several years. They could potentially make some very large acquisition(s), but those don't happen on a regular schedule, they're extremely difficult to pull off with substantive benefit, and they generally don't really fit into the way Apple runs their business.
So we're down to investments, and this is key. How should they invest that cash?
If they parked it in something super-conservative, that might not even keep up with inflation, let alone please investors.
If they put it in various high-return, but risky, markets or instruments, then they obviously run the risk of real loss for investors -- and at least in theory that's not their expertise (though I'm sure they have an entire dept to manage their investments, so they should be at least reasonably good at it!).
Instead, what they're doing is investing in their own company, in their own ability to generate better-than-average returns over the next few years. And that alone should speak volumes. Every dollar that they've put into their buybacks so far has generated solid returns, and they're always going to peel out some shares for employees all the time anyway, and this allowed them to essentially buy those shares at a lower rate than they would have had to do otherwise.
The bottom line is that Apple management considers this the best investment for 10s or even 100s of billions of their own dollars, and that's how we should take this. None of us has "insider knowledge" (hopefully), so this investment by the company itself should be looked at as the best proxy for that kind of knowledge that we as outsiders can hope to have. Buybacks aren't necessarily helpful in the way that many people seem to think they are, but they're still a positive.
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Apple says the 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard doesn't improve reliability, and that's not great...
Yep, clearly we're in agreement on this. You should send this to Apple's feedback.jdw said:
USB-A is ubiquitous today and USB-C is not. I would not at all be surprised if that was still true 5 years hence.blah64 said:
Eventually USB-C may be the "one port to rule them all", but it's not a certainty that will happen. What IS a certainty is that it's NOT where things are today in 2018, which is frustrating.
We consider MacOS to be superior to Windows, yet the world embraced Windows over the Mac even before Windows95 came on the scene. Even to this day, MacOS share of the global desktop and portable computer market is quite small. We think that USB-C is the future, but that assumes nothing superior will come along BEFORE USB-C becomes ubiquitous. USB-C is supposedly a port that "rules them all" but it is not as very solid connector due to its tiny size, relative to physical connections made by USB-A. When a wiggle and a giggle can cause intermittent connections on a USB-C connector (akin to TB2 connectors), the "rule them all" statement is at least partially called into question.
While this may sound like I am against USB-C, I am not. But tech doesn't stay the same forever and that helps me keep USB-C in perspective. USB-C is as much on its way in as it is on its way out. I'm not sure USB-C will become as popular or be used as long as USB-A has simply because something superior to it may very well come on the scene in a few years, and as I said, there are connectivity issues to consider. It reminds me of the quote attributed to Bill Gates (which he denies having said) which goes, "640k should be enough for anybody." There was a time when that was true, but no longer. For now, USB-C is the king of ports, but no king rules forever. USB-C too shall be cast aside in the future for something deemed "superior." I flinch at the though its replacement connector size may be even smaller, such that a strong wind or even a fan in your home would wiggle it enough to cause signal errors in the cable!
The thing is, I can't imagine that they'd ever backtrack on this kind of a strategic decision, and include stuff like USB-A and SD slot on next year's model. It would be an overt admission of error in their rush to standardize on USB-C.
OMG, I didn't know they'd taken away the LED status indicator for the battery. I use that multiple times/day, every day, on multiple machines. One more strike against the newer machines. :-(Lastly, the MBP is somewhat becoming morphed into an iOS device in that USB-C powers the machine like a Lightning cable does an iPad. Both devices now chime when you connect the cable (often delayed by several seconds rather than being instant -- another gripe), and there is no LED to tell you the battery state, forcing you to wake the device and look at it. Some people don't mind that. I'm one of those old school guys who does.
Tongue-in-cheek perhaps, but scarily enough, it fits the trend line.When thinking about all these things, can you even imagine what the MacBook Pro of 2030 will look like? As thin as a credit card with no ports, but it will read your mind and use AI to do your work for you, so all is well. It will be the MBP to rule them all.
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Apple says the 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard doesn't improve reliability, and that's not great...
Blah64 & Henrybay, I appreciated reading your sentiments. It's always a joy to hear such words from obvious kindred spirits. As to whether Tim Cook reads our comments, I pretty much know he doesn't. But that doesn't stop me from sending Apple feedback on a somewhat regular basis though. Seriously, I've spoken out to Apple about the keyboards on the 2016 and later MBPs long before the news broke about specks of dust killing keys. I've written my heart out about battery size, MagSafe, USB-A, the SD card slot, and the fact it is terribly unfortunate Apple did not make the 15" MBP a "bridge machine" with more than just USB-C ports to bridge the needs of today with the connectivity of tomorrow. No matter what we all argue about thinness and lightness and keyboards and all that, the fact remains the 15" MBP has plenty of space to accommodate an SD card slot, which by the way, some people once used for always-in supplementary storage (not just for camera photos or videos). Even the thin machines of today would allow for that slot. That's why when you call a machine a "Pro" model but don't include basic and widely used functionality like an internal SD card slot, it just boggles the mind. Anyway, back to my typing and typing and typing on this 2015 MBP and loving every minute of it!
Thanks. I totally 100% agree that they should have made a "bridge machine" with at the very least 2x USB-A and an SD slot. But that's not been Apple's way of doing things for many years. They'll jettison prematurely rather than risk waiting longer than necessary. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
Eventually USB-C may be the "one port to rule them all", but it's not a certainty that will happen. What IS a certainty is that it's NOT where things are today in 2018, which is frustrating.
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Apple says the 2018 MacBook Pro keyboard doesn't improve reliability, and that's not great...
This. Basically all of this, but a couple things I want to elaborate on...jdw said:
Surely a falsehood propagated by Apple. I have no doubt that the factually true "number one user complaint" is actually a complaint that Apple refuses to remedy (and therefore refuses to mention); namely, that the keyboards on all MBP machines from late 2016 and later have virtually no key travel, such that the user's hands feel tired only a short time after typing, akin to pounding fingers on a table or metal surface. Hardly any professional writers that I know warmly embrace the butterfly keyboard. And while I am not a professional writer, I do write many pages equivalent of email and document text every day. And yes, I have typed on the butterfly keyboard before and I also own a 2015 15" MBP to compare, and I prefer the 2015 keyboard, even though its keys are arguably "comparatively less stable." Key TRAVEL matters, folks. It really does. No manner of getting used to less travel changes that. The health condition of your own hands will tell you that over time.Article said:It has been re-engineered to give the users a quieter typing experience, which Apple has told us is the number one user complaint about the machine.
Whenever the sad truth about the butterfly keyboard is told, "Cupertino is never wrong" worshipers crawl out of the woodwork to defend it saying, "key STABILITY is unmatched. I didn't really like the keyboard at first, but now I do." Mentally, if you know that is the only kind of keyboard Apple is ever going to kick out and if you are committed to only buying Apple, you must convince yourself it is a good keyboard. But that doesn't mean it is good. And hey, we all want "key stability." I want that. But I do NOT want key STABILITY at the expense of key TRAVEL.
Stubborn hold-outs who blindly defend the butterfly keyboard, which regardless of the data presented in the article can still be harmed by debris under the keys which are NOT user-removable, do nothing to persuade Apple to change its ways. Apple merely touts those people in its sales numbers as "hey, look at all the people buying our stuff and liking it -- we don't need to change anything." Apple then becomes even more emboldened to continuing slimming down its notebooks so that batteries as get slimmer and adequate cooling for CPU/GPU chips becomes impossible without thermal throttling, making CPU/GPU speed bumps of questionable value.
I call for the MBP body to be thickened so a good keyboard can be restored -- one with key TRAVEL that matches the 2015 MBP (the last great MBP), yet with the key STABILITY of the butterfly switches, and allow the keys to be removed by users for cleaning when necessary. Including better cooling with improved, larger heat pipes and fans in that thicker chassis, along with a physically larger battery. Just because something weighs more doesn't mean it's bad, especially for those of us who prefer to the 15" MBP to the 13". The 13" has always been about portability, while the 15" has been about performance. I laugh at those who say the 15" is "heavy and less portable" because most of those people saying that are too young to remember notebooks of old which weighed as much as a couple 17" MBP's put together. Thin and light is a nice ideal that is not always practical, especially when considering the dissipation of heat for improved performance.
Even staunch defenders of the Status Quo in Cupertino must on some level feel that THE MAGIC IS GONE at Apple with regard to Mac portables. Remember your excitement when Steve Jobs was alive and got on stage and wowed us? I do. The very MacBook Air that Steve once pulled from an envelope, wowing me and the rest of the crowd, is now willingly allowed by Apple to languish.
It's not because Tim & Co. are lesser show-boys than Steve was. It's that Tim & Co. are offering us less WOW. They are merely offering us Minimalism taken to a radical extreme. There are no "take your breath away" announcements that make me want to cry, "My Gosh! They've done it again!" Tim refuses to get involved in engineering designs like Steve once did and it shows. We can hope for change, but the only positive changes are things we see in the Windows world, yet who among us die-hard MacOS fans are willing to ditch the Mac, however lackluster it now is, for the PC? I certainly have eyed PC notebook hardware but remain a MacOS user. There is not a single Windows machine in my home, nor has there ever been. Never. So it makes sense that I hope to see things from Apple that appeal to me, so I don't need to continue using older machines forever.
It should also be mentioned that some people really want the thinnest and lightest available and those people genuinely like keyboards with less travel. And truly, those people are the real target of the MACBOOK line, not the MBP. The "Pro" in MacBook Pro has traditionally (and still SHOULD today) signified "something more" for your dollars, even if that more requires a physically larger machine to accommodate it. People who decry larger MBP's and who demand them to be smaller should in fact focus their buying power on the MACBOOK and leave the MBP well alone so Apple can finally realize that folks who buy the MBP don't mind slightly bigger and heavier for better battery life, better cooling (and therefore performance), and a keyboard that feels good and won't harm our hands over time, nor be harmed by tiny debris under the keys. There is no good reason to complain about the MBP being heavier and thicker when the MACBOOK exists.
Apple's saving grace is the iMac, which thankfully hasn't been gutted like the MBP in terms of ports, nor has the iMac keyboard been transformed into a finger-harming abomination. It still has its USB-A ports along side USB-C, where BOTH need to coexist, and the SD card slot remains in its proper place. It's a crying shame the MBP has been changed into something Apple THINKS the iOS generation wants, when in face those iOS lovers mainly love iOS. MagSafe and all the goodness Apple once gave us in their portable line is gone. And while improved speed is great, it matters little if you refuse to buy it due to inadequate ports and no SD card slot. The situation is really quite sad, and that remains true regardless of the MBP sales numbers Cupertino worshipers try to cram down our throats. People who buy only MacOS portables buy those new machines feeling they have no choice, not necessarily because they LIKE the new machines. People like myself who refuse to defect to Windows and who want portable Macs cannot help but feel greatly disillusioned with Apple since late 2016.
Wherefore art thou, Savior of the Mac?
There is a reasonable optimization curve for the ideal key travel. The physics of it, what people are used to, what people can get used to, etc. If one considers what keyboards were like in the 80s, each key took a significant effort to press, and the throw felt like it must have been the better part of an inch! Okay, maybe it wasn't that far, but it was pretty damn far. And they took a lot of force, and made a huge click sound. Eventually manufacturers decided to make it easier and less fatiguing to type. And lots of people complained when keyboards got shorter throws and easier to press, so there is an aspect of this that's a matter of what people are used to.
Personally, I like shorter-throw keyboards, and I've generally appreciated newer generations as they've come, but It seems like we may have moved past the optimum throw. At some point, I think most people would agree that our fingers need some tactile feedback, and typing on virtualized keyboard projected on a desktop, for example, would not be as good as a "real" keyboard. Right? So there's an optimization curve, and I feel like Apple has been emphasizing thinness at the expense of a variety of things, not just keyboards. Loss of ports, battery size/life, etc.
Your latter points about the loss of functionality with the MacBook Pro line is frustrating. Thinness is indeed very sexy, and it appeals to a certain class of users. They deserve to have the current MacBook line, which is amazingly thin and sexy. Fantastic machines. They are so thin that they may very well need to have a super-short throw keyboard, I don't know for sure, but it's possible, right? But in the quest for supplier parts uniformity, voila, now they're in the "Pro" machines as well.
I've mostly sat out the arguments about "Pro" laptop features and functionality, but I guess I'll say my piece.
Apple has unfortunately shrank the product differentiation between the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines so much that they've lost a lot of the differentiation. We used to happily (sort of) pay an arm and a leg for pro machines because they were significantly and noticeably better-featured than the non-pro lines. We could choose much larger displays, we had matte screen options, we had more built-in ports, generally longer battery life, etc. Now we've been homogenized, and the product lines are more blurred than ever.
Your statement: "so I don't need to continue using older machines forever" rings very loud and clear to me. I'm typing this on a 2009 MacBook Pro with an ethernet port, 2 USB-A ports, and SD card slot, Firewire 800, miniDisplayPort, a DVD drive, and yes, a non-mirror display. Sure, the DVD drive isn't really necessary anymore (but nice on occasion - I just used it yesterday!), Firewire has run its course, and miniDisplayPort would be better as HDMI today. But we have essentially no convenience ports left anymore. USB-C may well be the end-all be-all some day, but it's mostly an inconvenience today. I upgraded my machine to a 1TB drive years ago, and replaced the battery once (myself). Those days are gone because Apple has essentially (nearly) converged their Pro and non-Pro lines.
I recently purchased a 2012 MacBook Pro on the used market, with the high-density matte display, because it's the last machine that Apple has manufactured that I can use. It has a wonderful set of ports/slots, and a display that doesn't give me distractions and a headache. Other than speed, can anyone point out something that I'm missing out on? I feel like I'm stuck. I have money to spend, and I'm not a particularly price-sensitive customer, but Apple isn't making anything that's interesting (or even usable, in a laptop) to me, and it's frustrating. I'll probably buy another 2012 machine just to have around as a backup, because for my needs it's still the best laptop Apple has ever built.
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Researchers find loophole that extends USB Restricted Mode's hour-long timer
WTH?? Are you joking? I had to look twice at your avatar because this seems like something a 19 year old would say.benji888 said:....If you are plugging it into anything that uses the data path at all, and you have not unlocked your iDevice for more than an hour, then you will have to unlock it. This will likely be rare in real world use...how many times have you left your iPhone alone without opening it at all for an hour?
How many times have I left my iPhone alone without opening it at all for an hour? Every. Single. Day. Probably at least 2-3 stretches every day where it sits untouched for at least a couple hours.
I am not a slave to my phone, nor am I a slave to people who think I need to be on instant-answer to them 24/7. Our society has become sick and weakened by this disease of constantly checking their phones. I really hope the answer to your question for most people is multiple times/day.
Do you not sit down to dinner with friends and/or family and put your phone away? Do you ever go to the gym and work out? Do you stop between every rep or lap to look at your damn phone? Play any kind of sports or gaming with friends? If so, do you pick up your phone every time it buzzes?! I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point, and hopefully iOS 12 will help people get a better grip on how much they are overusing their mobile devices.
