thinkman@chartermi.net

Not sure where this leaves me as regards my allegiance to any specific D. candidate - need to know more about this and what impact it'd have on any of the major players affected by this porposal. Though it's a long road to 2020, the field of likely candidates is sure to break down to (hopefully) the most electable - with the most enactable issues. After these last 2+ years there is SO much to fix, it could take decades, or we could be in for more of the same - which would certainly result in an extinction event in the not too distant future. Dramatic? NO!

lkrupp said:

Apple retail is yet another example of the whole world telling Apple it would fail miserably, much like the whole world told Apple they would surely fail in the smartphone arena. Thankfully for us Apple doesn’t listen to its critics. As for the curmudgeons and naysayers that populate Apple centric tech blogs, well, nobody listens to them, least of all Apple.

That's pretty much par for the course for any product or service Apple introduces. All the talking heads predicting miserable failure, almost without exception. The Apple Watch was mocked and laughed at, yet soon became the biggest selling watch in the world, with evolutionary excellence that has brought us to Watch Series 4 with LTE and a greater focus on health - that which Tim Cook see as Apple's ultimate legacy. Health care in most parts of this country is abysmal and getting worse - participants are doing a complete money grab, and the patients needs are secondary to the big (crooked) pharma, insurance, hospitals, doctors and nurses. I'm 73, so I've been witness to this devolution, coming from an era when doctors made house calls and wait times for appointments were minimal. Now everything seems to be at the convenience of the providor as opposed to the needs of the patient. At my age it's difficult to watch this slide, more for the generations coming up than for my own needs. Of course there could be a light at the end of the tunnel, but there'd have to be a sea change from our horrifically greedy, self centered government that is the cheif facilitator .

Of course they made far more XRs……………nearly as functional as the far more expensive X or XS! I have faith that Apple has better control over their supply chain than in previous years. Surprised that they don’t have the same crystal ball as all the sad-aϟϟ’d talking heads? Kinda makes you wonder how they got to their current evaluation - huh!

ElCapitan said:

No wonder Tim Cook falls in staff ranking as under his “leadership” Apple has for all practical purposes

• Gutted the Mac Pro product line
• Gutted the Mac mini product line
• Gutted the Displays product line
• Gutted the Networking peripherals product line
• Gutted macOS server
• Crippled iWorks to the extent the 09 version still have more features
• Handled the MacBook Pro product mix particularly bad in terms of performance vs thinness.
• Increased the pressure on staff to deliver yearly major releases of not one operating system like under Steve Jobs, but now 4. This has both lead to an increase in issues and reduced quality, but it also draining on the developer community where particularly Indie developers with limited resources struggle to keep up. 

It must be very discouraging to for long term staff to see the very foundation the company was built on, being decimated in this manner. It is also not a very encouraging picture for long term customers. 

At the same time he and the company is spending a lot of time virtue signaling climate change, GLBT, internal US politics and this fantastic building they are working so hard on. 

Particularly the consequence of the virtue signaling can be draining on staff both because staff may not necessarily at the personal level subscribe to the views of Tim Cook, yet they are being put in a position to defend them on behalf of the company. 

For international staff company virtue signaling may be even more draining because the employee could work in a country that largely have resolved these issues up to decades ago, or they are completely taboo at the other end of the scale. They also can make the company seem fruity and less serious in the eyes of many customers and potential customers. Yet the employee is forced to front the official company profile.

What hole have you been living in? "Gutted MacPro"……new one coming in 2019 for certain! "Gutted Mac Mini"……no one outside of Apple knows the future of the Mini, but I've read more stories about it's eventual revision. "Gutted Displays"……except they have at least one new one coming out with the MacPro, not to mention the fact that there are many great 4 & 5k displays that are compatible, excellent quality, and often a real bargain! Cook's hands-on approach to national and international problems is impressive, particularly when you consider that Cook is the ONLY Fortune 500 CEO with the guts to come out as gay. What are the odds that he's the only one! Answer: NONE! Finally, while Jobs was CEO, the company grew nicely, very much in part thanks to Cook. During Cook's tenure as CEO, he has turned Apple in the to most valuable company in history of the world.

Forbes seems to have exactly the same modus operendai - Bad Apple………Amazing Samsung. The simple solution is that I don't read either!