Javert24601

MonkeyT said:

Mr Six Bankruptcies is now making decisions for one of the most successful business in history.  Great.

You and I may not agree with it, but there is nothing wrong with using the system to your advantage.  (I'm sure you never speed and pay every dollar in taxes that you are supposed to since you are a very upstanding citizen.)  I'm not saying this is how I would conduct my own affairs, but it was legal, and he used the system.

Obviously, banks have no problems with it because they keep lending him money and are happy to do so.

P.S.  If only the US government were run like a business.....

StrangeDays said:

sdw2001 said:

davidmalcolm said:

I suspect that Apple is really regretting not kicking both Truth Social and Twitter off the App Store. 

Tim got played by the right wing goons and now he’s trying to keep them from doing irreparable harm to Apple’s long term future. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like Tim as much as I can like any Billionaire. But it wasn’t the working class who rigged the system so that the only options were a disingenuous lady who couldn’t even say genocide was bad, and a geriatric baby who can’t remember what he said last sentence let alone last week. 

Apple could have been pushing Biden for more reforms that would have benefitted society. They could have been working with their unions. Instead Apple like everyone else kept acting like America could keep eating its own tail and it would never get to the head. 

And honestly now it’s too late for Tim to fight back in any meaningful capacity. The only thing that will give America a chance of avoiding complete collapse in the next three years is a heart attack, stroke or some other surprise illness. Or at least something that looks like one of those. 

America’s debt to GDP is out of control and the politicians want to slash taxes for those who need it the least so they can make… more innovative… restaurant delivery apps? 

The politicians are acting like they can squeeze the working class more to dig themselves out of the debt crisis that they’ve been fostering for decades.

America is being sacrificed on the alter of Reaganomics. 

I completely disagree.  I realize it's more than fashionable here to trash Trump, the tariffs, etc.  But the reality is that our trade policy has been a nightmare for decades, particularly with China.  We had been operating in the 20th-century paradigm, both for China and the rest of world.   For the former, the theory of the case was "free" trade (which was nothing of then kind) would enable economic growth in both countries, but that China would liberalize as its prosperity grew.   In fact, China went exactly the opposite way.  China has become more closed, more authoritarian, more corrupt and more aggressive.  For the latter, our policies were stuck in the post-war mentality, when Europe was devastated and we were helping them recover.   

What Trump is doing is resetting these relationships.  His plan should now be obvious to anyone who doesn't have--pardon me---"derangement syndrome."  That goal was to triangulate China into changing the way it does business...from tariffs, to non-tariff barriers, to theft of IP, etc.  Secondarily, the goal was to improve terms with our other trading partners or "allies."   As a supporter of the president, I have to admit that I didn't really understand the strategy of going after allies as well as foes (or frien-a-mies.).   After all, why not just target China and go the opposite way with allies?  Why not treat them in a more conciliatory way, but go hard on China?  

However, as deals with India, the UK, Vietnam  and others took shape, it dawned on me.  Trump hit everyone hard (but China harder) and then proceeded to quickly work on deals with those friendlier nations.  He was able to largely correct (or is in process of correcting) the trade problems we've  had with our allies, and leave China--pardon me again---standing with its junk in its hand.   It explains why they are now negotiating and willing to stand down.  Their economy is getting hammered, millions are unemployed, factories are closing....and Trump is running around making trade deals with everyone but them.  

I'll admit it's been somewhat chaotic.  Wall Street hates tariffs.   But we're already seeing the results.  Debt growth has slowed dramatically.  Inflation is nearing the 2% target.  Prices of staples (such as eggs) continue to fall.  Ditto on energy prices.  Private payrolls are showing solid growth.   Even last quarter's GDP reduction (-.3%) was misleading, as companies like Apple rushed to import goods before tariffs kicked in (this reduces GDP in the calculation).   

You've railed against debt, tax cuts, Reagannomics, etc.   Briefly:  

Debt:  We agree on the scope of the problem.  I would think you'd support things like DOGE, energy development, tax cuts for economic stimulation, etc.   I'd certainly think you'd realize both parties have historically been a nightmare on this issue, but that the Democrat party is currently far, far worse (just take 2021-24 alone).   

Tax cuts:  I don't know where this notion of "squeezing the working class" and "tax cuts for the rich" comes from, other than the Democrat party propagandists and their media allies.  The Trump tax cuts benefited the lower and working classes more than the wealthy.  That is simply a fact.  Another fact is that Trump and the GOP are considering actually raising taxes on the wealthy in the planned extension (reconciliation) package.  

Reagannomics:  I'm not sure I see the connection.  I also have my doubts that you have a full understanding of what "Reaganomics" even was/is.   You've no doubt been told (as nearly everyone has) that it was cutting taxes on the wealthy, slashing welfare and healthcare, and giving "tax breaks" to evil corporations and the mega rich.  Sound familiar?  I wonder why?  

This is nonsense. Tariffs remain higher than January, prices are higher than January, and it’s entirely self-inflicted. Tariffs are 100% a tax, paid by consumers to the US-based importers who pay them first. The Trump admin can’t even make up its mind if the tariffs are designed to cause pain and bring domestic manufacturing investment, or temporary negotiating tactics. It can’t be both. So they go back and forth, speaking out of both sides of its mouth on this. Meanwhile this is pure chaos that damages our portfolios and causes great unease in the markets, for reasons which should be obvious to you. 

If you don’t know where the tax cuts for for the wealthy are, what can I say, you haven’t been paying attention. He did it last time and will try it again. The middle class continues to get squeezed as our costs for things like healthcare go up and up with no relief in sight. GOP cuts so-called “entitlements”.  GOP votes against things insulin caps and other regulation designed to help the working class despite the loss of additional profit to wealthy corporations. Entirely departments of services are being cut by Musk, claiming they’ll be pushed down to the states, and yet our federal income tax remains the same, while we get less for it. States will be forced to cut services or charge more income tax. This is very standard and well understood stuff. The wealthy top percentage have added billions more to their hoarded wealth while minimum wage and general wages have remained stagnant. Your ignorance is bliss, I guess. 

Oh, please stop parroting the liberal nonsense.  Get your head out of the propaganda and look at the real world.  

Do you think every other country is levying tariffs on US products in order to tax their own citizens?  Yes, Canada was trying to "tax" their citizens 250% when buying US dairy products.  /s  The reality is that tariffs affect the seller country.  Often/Mostly it is the producers who absorbs the costs of the tariffs.  Do you need real world proof?  When Trump enacted the tariffs against China during his first administration, did you see that enormous spike in prices for products from China?  No?  Because prices did not change for the US consumer.  It was the Chinese companies that absorbed the tariff costs into their cost of doing business; this is what usually happens when tariffs are levied.  So, technically, yes, the US consumer "paid" the tariff, but since the product price remained the same (this is what liberals conveniently forget to mention), the net effect was that the Chinese companies made less money and were the ones who suffered.  Those tariffs were so bad for the US economy and consumers that Biden kept all of those tariffs in place.  Oh, the horror!  

The tax cuts from Trump's first administration largely benefited people in the working class.  https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Correcting-the-Record-Trump-Tax-Cuts-Went-to-Wealthy.pdf  There was also a recent study that was published in the last six months (earlier this year?) that showed largely the same thing.  

Despite your assertion that we are "getting less" for the taxes that we pay, eliminating wasteful spending is reducing the amount of debt that the US is accumulating.  It is hard to do math, but since our $37 trillion debt is so enormous, those millions and billions in savings do get lost as decimal points in the debt and interest payments.  Nevertheless, it does reduce the current debt and more importantly reduce the accumulation of future debt.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the author of this article/opinion piece has chosen to editorialize rather than just report the news.  If you are too weak to deal with the "tariff chaos", stop watching the news.  Regardless of how you feel about it, they are succeeding by motivating companies to invest in the US.  It is such a horrible problem to have companies invest $10 trillion into the US economy.  What is Saudia Arabia thinking of investing another $1 trillion here as well?!?!  /s  Apple has an enormous profit margin, so you anti-capitalists out there shouldn't lose any sleep.  Apple will be just fine.  If Apple chooses to increase its prices, it is doing so because it is convenient.  It can also decide to move more manufacturing to the US, just like it has been moving manufacturing from China to India.  I'm not saying it is easy or cheap, but having more manufacturing in the US is beneficial to all of us.  

Hopefully, I have been respectful in my discourse.

gmgravytrain said:

I'm quite happy with Apple's latest hardware announcements.  The latest MacBooks, the Mac mini, the Mac Studio, etc. seem to be fine products and rivaling the best consumer products in the industry.  I'm not interested in A.I., so I'm not in any hurry to see it take over.  In my opinion, A.I. is highly overrated.  I don't want Cook to resign or to be fired, as I don't know if there is someone better to take his place.  I'm a 20-year Apple shareholder, and I'm very satisfied with Apple's financial performance.  Every company goes through problems, so I'm not concerned about it, as I believe Apple will do its best to figure things out.  I couldn't do any better, as I don't have the ability to run any profitable company.  I can only depend on Apple internally solving whatever problems they have.  I think some people are too impatient or greedy and don't appreciate all the good Tim Cook has done for Apple over the years.  These people always boasting about how they could do better than Tim Cook, and I doubt they could run a company as well as he has.  I'm living a very comfortable life since owning Apple stock over the years.  I have nothing to complain about.  I enjoy using my current Apple products and will likely buy a new MacBook Pro this year, even if it doesn't have any A.I. features.

I used to think AI was overrated until I used Grok3 on a project two weekends ago.  To say I was impressed is a gross understatement.  Thoughts of Star Trek "computer" came to mind.    It was very informative to see how Grok3 broke down my request, come up with options, and then explain the pros and cons of each option.  I was then able to ask it to analyze some alternatives and different scenarios, and it extrapolated from the previous analysis and provided a new recommendation.  I saved me maybe 10 hours of doing research on my own and then keeping track of stack of papers and jumble of search windows and product screens.  

Then, yesterday, I had a discussion with my brother about a suggestion that he had.  I thought I knew of some issues with his plan but didn't know how to analyze the situation.  So, I posed the question to Grok3, and it synthesized an analysis that was logical.  It didn't just provide an answer, you can actually read how it broke down the questions and reasoned the analysis and calculations.  I expressed my concerns, and Grok3 explained why they did not apply.  I then fed it some scenarios, and Grok3 expressed its understanding and suggested upsizing to allay my concerns.  Impressed!

Unfortunately, Apple isn't even proposing anything like this.  Apple is just developing an "enhanced Siri" to deal with on device requests.  There is no data analysis nor options suggestions.  "Enhanced Siri" is only going to be an "AI interface" to other LLM, such as ChatGPT.  This is an utter failing on Apple's part and promises to make Apple an irrelevant, obsolete company.  The future belongs to AI companies, which is why Apple should be developing is own independent AI model.

macxpress said:

The Apple Intelligence rollout reminds of iTools which had a very rough rollout and wasn't widely accepted, then switched to .Mac which was better but still not create, which was switched to mobileMe which was a little better and now iCloud which still isn't 100% but works pretty well for what it does. BTW this was all under Steve Jobs so I guess we should have fired him too by how some people are calling for Tim Cook to step down. 

Nobody needs to be fired. They just need to take the feedback, learn from it and make appropriate changes to make it better. I think people have very unrealistic expectations of new services. They seem to expect everything to be perfect and great out of the gate and that's usually never the case. Apple has very talented people working for them and they can make changes and make it better than is today. We also don't know why features are delayed, why things are the way they currently are, etc. 

I just don't get this well something failed out of the gate so people need to be fired! How would you like if you were fired because something didn't work quite right out of the gate and perhaps it wasn't even your fault (or anyone's fault directly)? 

It's called accountability.

Yes, people make mistakes all the time.  No one is perfect, and I agree that no one should be fired based upon a single failure.  But, it should be based upon a pattern of behavior.

IMO, the only person that should be asked to resign is Tim Cook, and there should already be a plan of how to replace him by the Board.  For how many years have people complained about Siri?  For how many years has it been neglected?  It started off as the gold standard of voice commands, but it has fallen to dead last.  Should there have been better leadership on the issue?

For a $2 trillion company, Apple seems to pivot from a couple of products to another without being able to keep all major products in development.   "Oh, this year, we will upgrade the Mac Pro, when was it upgraded last?"  "Oh, it's been five years since we have developed a new display?  I still hope no one noticed that the last Studio Display was just repackaged in a new case."  "Oh, is AI the upcoming trend?  Have any of us in the industry been staying up on this trend?  No?  Let's rush out Apple Intelligence."   People have excused this "pivoting" behavior to Apple being a "design company" being led by the small, core design team.   But, since Apple has so many different products, shouldn't someone in leadership have thought to restructure the company or to enlarge the design team to be able to handle more products?  That failure of leadership falls right at the doorstep of the CEO.

Tim Cook has contributed significantly to Apple's evolution to a leading tech/design company.  However, it has always been known that Tim is a logistics genius and not a technology visionary.  Because it is his forte, he has been able to navigate the logistical nightmare of the US-China relationship and has been able to move manufacturing out of China without upsetting the Chinese government.  However, his lack of being a technology visionary has handicapped Apples ability to pivot.  I fully acknowledge things like the development of the Apple Watch, the shift to chip manufacturing, and the migration away from Qualcomm (you could argue the latter two could be the natural evolution of keeping more control of the hardware, but I am going to give credit to Tim Cook).  On the other hand, he did put a lot of the emphasis and resources on Apple Car and Apple Vision.   I am fully okay with Apple trying new paths and not succeeding because we all want Apple to innovate.  However, it is arguably his distraction with those endeavors that caused him and his leadership team to miss the evolution of AI, which may be the most consequential technology in the next several decades.  With AI advancing by leaps and bounds with new (versions) of LLM coming out every 6 months, Apple is stuck a the stage of still planning its AI server farm, trying to collaborate with AI models to be the (accessory) brain of Siri, and to transform Siri into something useful.  Without AI, Apple has arguably become a "has been" company.  Is Apple going to build its own fully functioning AI?  Apple is like at the 5 yard line, while ChatGPT4 and Grok3 are at the 40 yard line and moving faster ahead.  If you will recall, Grok was behind, but Elon Musk built his AI server farm in ~2 weeks, throwing who knows how much money into it.  Grok has 1200 employees, while Apple's Siri team only has ~121 employees.  Is this how someone leads in a cutting edge field?

The example of iTools was raised.  At the time, it was cutting edge technology and speaks to Jobs being a technology visionary.  People at the time thought about backing up data, and no one really thought about keeping computers/devices in sync.  What we considered in sync, was copying something to a disc and transferring the data to another computer.  Jobs had a different vision, and it is something that we appreciate now.  Unfortunately, technology moves at an even more rapid pace than ever before.  For someone in the technology industry, how could this AI technology have been missed?  Why has the AI team not been scaled up?  Instead of developing an AI model, Apple is really focused on developing an "AI interface" called Siri, which is why Apple is collaborating with AI model(s).  As such, Apple is losing relevance on a weekly/monthly basis.  It isn't about what Apple has accomplished, it is about leading Apple into the future.  That is how CEO's are judged as unfair as that may be.

Just because a company has to pay out a severance package does not mean that the company should not hold someone to account.  For a large company as Apple, the Board must have a succession plan in place in case something were to happen to Tim Cook.  Yes, it is disruptive to change leadership, but a company should never function on the shoulders of any one person, and any leader should also understand the importance of holding people accountable.  It is also important to bring in a new leader to shake up a company that is not executing as well as it should/needs to be.  As much as Apple has benefited from Tim Cook's leadership, he has also failed on many important issues that affects Apple's future.  As such, he should be asked to resign and for Apple to bring in a new leader.

mpantone said:

Two-thirds of the time is horrid. Even 90% is useless.

Put it in perspective using an actual real world comparable scenario: a human personal assistant.

Let's say you give your human P.A. three tasks:

1. pick up dry cleaning (via TaskRabbit for the AI assistant),
2. e-mail vendor that their account will be past due tomorrow thus incurring a 1.5% service charge, and
3. book round trip flight on April 17th from Los Angeles to San Jose (SJC in California)

Your AI assistant only correctly accomplished two of the three tasks. Now if it's the dry cleaning, that's maybe not a big deal. But the other two are. And there are plenty of ways the AI assistant can screw up. Maybe they told the vendor they would be fired tomorrow. Maybe the AI assistant quotes a 2.5% service charge. Maybe the AI assistant books you to SJO (San Jose, Costa Rica) instead of SJC.

The problem is you don't get to choose which task the AI assistant fails at.

Now if you had a human personal assistant, you'd fire them for effing up #2 or #3.

Realistically a useful AI assistant (or human assistant) really needs to be about 99.8% accurate. Assistants need to be reliable, accurate, and private. And not just two of those three attributes.

What if your cellular provider didn't deliver 40% of your text messages? Your transit card fails at 40% of fare gates. Your car won't start three days a week? Your credit card fails to authorize a couple times a day?

Hell, what if the Tokyo Metro subway payment system screwed up 0.02% of transactions every day? That's literally thousands of rides. Or if ATMs gave the wrong amount of cash withdrawals that many times. If you had a Pasmo subway transit card that only worked 40% of the time, you'd probably give up and just buy paper tickets from the ticket vending machine.

Apple knows this. An AI-assisted assistant needs to be way better than current Siri. It needs to at least be as good as a really, Really, REALLY good human assistant because going back to clean up someone else's mess (AI or human) takes too much time. And you lose trust in that assistant very quickly.

"Fake it until you make it" is not a credible business plan in the real world. That's something Elizabeth Holmes would do.

Apple cannot afford to put out an AI-assisted Siri that only gets things right two-thirds of the time and promise that it'll get better. We already have way too many LLM-powered AI chatbot assistants that dole out garbage on a regular basis. The world is not going to be any better with Yet Another Lame Assistant.

This is why Apple shot itself in the foot by limiting themselves to being on the device. I strongly suspect there is not enough "horsepower" for a AI assistant to be able to "reason" the request, come up with an avenue to accomplish the tasks, and then execute the tasks. I personally use Grok3 (I have not used ChatGPT because of it usage limitations), and I really like the way that it shows you how it breaks down the request, shows you how it figures out the answer, and then explains the answer while also explaining the limitations and pros and cons of the answer. And, how much "horsepower" is behind Grok3 compared to our iPhones? Apple should have gone with the "privacy on the server" route as it worked to putting it on the device. Don't get me wrong as I fully appreciate the privacy/security emphasis, but it was the wrong call at the wrong time. Apple already squeezed a LLM into 8 GB of RAM, but that doesn't mean the 8GB is enough to make an AI assistant that is 99.99% accurate. Whoever made that call should be fired.