humbug1873

You forgot the political dimension here as well. With millions of Chinese workers manufacturing directly or indirectly for Apple, they are a force of interest to the Chinese officials. I guess they have quite the influence on the PRC government.

Now Apple is moving out of China and also adding some automation, which could lead to hundred-thousands of no longer working Chinese and that at a time where PRC unemployment rates are rising!

If Apple pushes for more automation in China, they'll face a mountain of trouble in China. The fact that PRC government started forbidding to carry iPhones for any government worker (in the office) was just a warning shot and already lead to revenue loss in China. 

(Now add the convicted felon tRump as #47 and his loud anti-china-rethoric and Apple will face significant headwind in the PRC!)

I just don't get it. OK Apple has the first time used the AI moniker wow big deal.
Who was the first to equip all it's (major compute) hardware with AI support in Hardware!? Apple.
Who has been continouusly implemented features once they are ready for prime time, privacy and are actually useful? Apple.
Who has for years an in house team for AI? Apple (yes okay and others).

Who is surprised!? Those braindead MBAs that just don't get that ML is an AI technique.

But hey as a stock holder I'm good.

Is this also one of these design prices where you actually pay the awards organisation money and then they invent a new, fitting category in which this device wins said award?  (At least that is the way the infamous 'red dot design award' usually works).

Right makes perfect sense. I try to get things done, am stressed already and then the iPad wants to p*ss me off with this useless dialog window, preferably modal. 

Kind of makes me wonder how such an iPad reacts when it hits the concrete wall right next to my desk, when it has been thrown with all the force I can generate at that moment. 

I know iPads are not the biggest sellers, but this could be THE biggest sales push for these things in years.

Kwikiwi said:

I am not a big fan of stock buy backs for Apple. The main issue I have is that Apple has to take out debt to buy the stock back and it has gone from being debt free to having over $100 Billion of long term debt that now costs over 4% to service. Yes they generate lots of cash and are able to service the debt but things can change rapidly in the tech industry and that could be a problem in the future. If they did a better dividend scheme, say 50% of all net profit paid out as a dividend the return would be very healthy and by it's nature always serviceable and they could reduce their long term debt substantially. I know dividends create issues when so much of the profit (greater than 54%) is generated overseas and that a lot of people will go on about lazy balance sheets, and I understand their thinking, but I would rather they had bigger cash reserves, less debt and did some better acquisitions than so much in buy backs. Having said all of that I am very fortunate to have done well from my shareholding in Apple over a 20 year period and extremely grateful for that - I just don't like the massive buy backs.

Yep same here. Stock buybacks and dividends are good for the current shareholders short and medium term, but since it's largely debt financed it removes flexibility in the future. Though its not all bad, since  they still get rates get way below the 4% APR and also (at least used to) get way below inflation APRs (if i remember correctly it was usually way below 1% in the last 10 years).
It's the separation between 'making good products success will come' and 'make shareholders happy and get out in time before things get bad'.
So right now they have a good run, money is coming in, no crisis in sight. That would be the time to save up, pay up and make sure you've got resources should things turn bad. If Apple had worked in the 1980ties the way they do now, they would have gone bankcrupt in the 90'ies.
Still remember Steve Jobs from an Apple internal Comm-meeting in 2001, where he came up with exactly that point. Yes live is bad (2001-3 have been harsh times after the .com bust and 9/11), but Apple works its own buildings and is debt-free, so we still have room to play. Essentially betting the company thrice (iMac, iPod, iPhone), was what enabled Apple to come back from the crypt. If they were in debt working from a leased headquarter at that time, Apple would have been a blip in history.
But hey stripping a company of its resources has and puffers has been the way to ruin companies since the 80's, so sm