twolf2919

Anybody else feel like the White House calling these fines "economic extortion" is like the pot calling the kettle black?  Trump's tariffs are exactly that - economic extortion - just on a much grander scale.  The whole Trump Presidency, thus far, has been about extortion: demanding universities accept Trump agenda or face withdrawal of grants - pure extortion.  Sending the DOJ after individuals and corporations unless they do his bidding - pure extortion.  Preventing law firms from being able to get into Federal buildings unless they submit to his whims - extortion, pure and simple.

The Trump Administration is the most extornist Administration in American history.  For them to call the EU simply enforcing their laws (that are disadvantageous to American companies) extortion is just hilarious.

shrave10 said:

Whitehouse is right here IMO.  Unless Epic, Nintendo, and third party app stores for iOS all reduce their own commissions to developers to zero as well, Pres. Trump has full right to raise EU tariffs to the amount to recover any illegal fines to US companies.  

It is not fair that all other platform vendors can charge a platform fee commission while Apple is not allowed to do same to recover costs of development, support, and marketing.  Core platform licensing fees can be negotiated to be on similar or even slightly lower than that of other platform vendors but it can not be zero.  

This fine isn't even about what you think it's about  - it's not at all about the amount the app store charges.  So you're barking up the wrong tree.

Not sure how "knowledge of high-performance, low-latency systems" qualifies you to lead an AI effort where the problem isn't really performance but lack of "I".

9secondkox2 said:

Difficult to see apple producing snother headset. Maybe if the did a super cheap version. But not just changing a few things. 

Either go all in with glasses for mass market or do the cheap tethered thing, but with great cameras and screens. Otherwise it will just be the same or maybe rvrn worse now that the early adopters are saturated with the expensive version one. 

Agree - I can't imagine Apple doubling-down on a design they know didn't get enough sales.  They need to face reality: there simply isn't much of a mass market for a device costing multiple thousands of dollars that can only really be used in private, since it's too cumbersome to use on the go - and you look like a  complete tool if you do.

To this day I have no idea why Tim Cook let himself by led into this technological dead end called the Vision Pro.  i remember him clearly stating that Apple's next big thing would be AR glasses.  Somehow he got convinced by someone that these devices must be standalone products rather than an iPhone dependent one like Apple Watch and AirPods.  Unfortunately, that decision meant the future devices needed to cram a lot of CPU power and battery capacity into what needed to be a very light, small device - glasses!  The AVP VR headset became their first stab at it.  But it seems obvious that they will never be able to shrink that down to glasses anyone is willing to wear.

Google produced useful AR glasses TWELVE years ago.  If Apple hadn't gone down the wrong path, I'm sure they could have developed a sleek, much better product given all the miniaturization that's taken place win a decade.

In essence, Trump is going to hold court and whoever kisses his aXX the best gets the exemption.  Better pucker up Tim - take one for the shareholders.

This, if it comes to pass, is the President of the United States getting to decide who are the winners and who are the losers.  I guess letting the 'free market' decide is not required in this new Banana Republic.

For what it's worth, I challenge the assumption that Apple is most deserving of protection because it "is so reliant on China".  There are 34 MILLION small and medium sized businesses in the US, many of which are just as reliant - if not more so - on parts and/or products from China.  And this 145% tariff is going to have a much more immediate devastating effect on them than it does on a giant corporation like AAPL.  Little dollar stores don't have the 39% margin cushion Apple enjoys with its devices and, more importantly, they don't have $50+b in cash they can rely on to weather this tariff storm.