wiggin

AppleInsider said:

While the exact purpose of the IC remains unknown, iFixit surmises that it's likely a digital-to-analog converter accompanied by an an amplifier and an analog-to-digital converter. Those are necessary to convert digital audio from the Lightning jack to analog sound that can be heard by human ears --?and also to convert input sources, such as sound through the EarPods microphone, into digital audio that the iPhone can use.

Interestingly regarding an analog-to-digital converter, per this article Apple's adapter does not support the mic and controls on 3rd party headsets, rending them useless for phone calls, volume adjustments, etc. I think a lot of people are going to get their new iPhone 7s and be surprised their existing headsets don't work even with the adapter as this limitation is not spelled out in Apple's description of the adapter. Is the method 3rd party headsets use so different from what Apple's own headsets use that it couldn't have support both?

http://www.macworld.com/article/3127211/iphone-ipad/7-solutions-for-the-iphone-7s-lack-of-headphone-jack.html

If this is true, bad form on Apple's part to not be more clear about the limitation.

frankie said:

sog35 said:

spice-boy said:

The last "tax holiday" was granted by the US in 2004 for multinational companies. The rate was heavily reduced to a mere 5.25%. I as a small business owner pay about 35% on my profits. Corporations like Apple expect another Reparation tax holiday sooner or later so there is little incentive to bring this money back to the US until Congress caves in. How did this all happen? Well look at the people we citizen elect to political office, who funds their campaigns, who are they in debt to when the get into office? It is not the US citizen but these huge corporations. Laws are written to make these tax havens possible as a pay back for a cushy seat in Congress. Are corporations like Apple breaking the law? Not as the law is written. Is Apple morally wrong for taking advantage of these laws? Yes. Tax breaks and incentives were originally designed to help small to large businesses grow and have positive impact on a local or regional area. These incentives often have time limits unlike these tax haven laws. I am a big fan of Apple's products and services and have been for decades but don't let you love admiration of this company blind you to the fact they are positioned as many huge international corporations above the tax laws most citizens must follow. 

Apple also pays 35% tax on ALL USA profits. You are in the same boat. You are barking up the wrong tree. The problem is the ridiculously high 35% tax rate in the USA. By far the highest tax rate in the world. 

But Apple also has operations in other countries like China, Japan, and Europe. In those countries Apple pays all the taxes that are earned on profits in THOSE countries. In China they pay about a 15% corporate tax. So why should Apple pay the USA DOUBLE TAX on income EARNED in China? It makes ZERO sense.  There is no logical reason why Apple needs to pay the FULL TAX BURDEN of China profits and then pay tax again in the USA. Profits generated and EARNED in China have no business being taxed in the USA.

When the tax holiday happenned those corporations were not paying a 5% tax on USA profits. They were paying a 5% tax IN ADDITION to the foreign taxes they ALREADY PAID.  So Apple would have paid 15% taxes on China generated profits and then an ADDITIONAL 5% tax to the US government for the right to bring the cash back into the USA.

Basically you have a very shallow understanding of US and foreign tax laws.

HAHA Sure they do!

 Anyone who thinks any of these multi-billion $ corps actually pays 35% in taxes is either lying on purpose or ignorant.

It's really not about the tax rate they are paying. That's just a percentage that is applied to the profit. The real question should be how they arrive at the profit number. That's where the [legal] international shell game takes place. 

People like to say a company made X profit and paid Y taxes and therefore has a Z=Y/X tax rate. Then they focus on only Y and Z without questioning X.

zimmermann said:

techwarrior said:

Isn't this the same question EU is mulling? The business entity Apple Ireland is the company that sells products in the EU. They pay taxes on sales and profits in the EU based on Ireland's tax laws. Presumably, the EU, like the USA, taxes based on the domicile of the business entity rather than requiring companies to pay taxes in every state in the union which would be a bookkeeping nightmare. If the EU has a problem with Ireland's tax laws, that is between the EU and the Irish state, not the companies that legally do business in the jurisdiction. Seems that the politicians see a deep pocket and go after these companies (Apple is not alone) because they can't win the argument using the lawmaking process. The only thing unfair about tax haven rules is that most small businesses find it hard to compete with the big guys because they lack the legal prowess to take advantage of the opportunity.

No, I think this is a different thing al together. The UE wants that all countries enforce the tax rules they have installed, and not give certain companies a more favorite treatment. This is what happened with Apple. Ireland gave Apple a different treatment, less tax, and the EU sees this as unlawful. So, Ireland has to reverse this arraignment. Of course a lot more can be said about this, but this is the short version.

The issue I have with the EU ruling is that this is an issue between the EU and Ireland. Apple is not a member of the EU and is not a party to the EU constitution (or whatever they call their governing documents). If Ireland violated the agreement, they can be penalized by the EU. Saying Apple retroactively owes taxes even though they complied with the laws of Ireland seems like an overreach by the EU.

Apple does have a relationship with Ireland, so if Ireland wants to try to recoup some of their EU penalty from Apple perhaps they could try that, or they could just eat it themselves and not try to retroactively change their tax laws (which would make for a very unstable business environment). The EU should not be able to go after Apple directly. Penalize the entity that violated it's agreement.

sog35 said:

This is pure STUPIDITY.

Lets say you have a local business selling Bikes in the USA. Call it Mike's Bikes USA.  So you make profits and pay your 35% tax to the IRS.

But now you decide to incorporate in England. So you start a new corporation Mike's Bikes UK. It is a full UK corporation, with employees, stores, ect. You then pay full UK taxes at 15%. 

Do you expect Mike's Bikes UK to pay and additional 20% taxes to the USA, just because? How does that make any sense?

This is EXACTLY what is happenning to Apple.

I agree that the US tax laws are crazy stupid, but your example is far too simplistic because you assume there is no relationship or agreements between Mike's US and Mike's UK and this is not exactly what is happening with Apple.

To make it a bit more relevant, you have to have Mike's Bikes USA also doing all of the engineering and design work and testing of new bike models. These activities take place in the US, but they directly contribute to the revenue and profitability of Mike's Bike's UK. All of the cost of those activities is deducted as an expense which reduces the profit, and thus the taxes, in the high-tax US region. The profit and thus taxes in the UK will be higher because they didn't have an expense for the value of these activities, but if the tax rate is lower in the UK Mike has saved money by paying a lower tax rate on a portion of his overall profits.

If half the revenue of bike sales is in the US and half is in the UK, but 90% of the expenses are deducted in the US, doesn't that seem a bit odd (but of course legal) to you?

Now let's take it a step further. The bike design also constitutes intellectual property (which Mike can probably decide is worth whatever he wants to say it's worth). Mike opens Mike's International in Ireland and transfers the ownership of this intellectual property to that location which doesn't actually do any design work (I know how much everyone here likes non-practicing entities). Mike's Bike's USA then licenses the intellectual property and this licensing expense is deducted from US revenue to further reduce US profit and US taxes. Mike's International in Ireland has an increase in revenue from this licensing activity, but luckily for Mike Ireland has incredibly low tax rates for his type of company in Ireland. The downside is that all of this profit is now stuck overseas (and contributed to Ireland's unbelievable 26% increase increase in 2015 GDP over the previous year!).

But I'll repeat, this is all perfectly legal (as far as the US is concerned, the EU obviously feels that at least part of this violates EU membership rules). The question is, should it be legal? And if not, how would you change the laws to fix it? Several people here have suggested the law should be to only tax revenue in the country it was earned in and repatriation should be 0%. Ok, I'm on board with that. But how do you determine the country it was earned in? You can't simply take the point of sale location because many countries may have contributed to "earning" the revenue through design work, intellectual property, manufacturing, etc. If Mike designs a bike in the US, manufactures it in China and sells it in the UK for $500, can you really say that all $500 was earned in the UK, or was some of it earned in the US and China?

xpad said:

Follow up to my previous comment, look at the sky showing through the leaves in the first photo. The light pattern is not merely a blur, but is bokeh-like in how the bright area expands into the darker area.

I think I would agree with you that we can call this bokeh. But I would also say that I don't find it as pleasing as the affect you get with a larger lens which is able to achieve a narrow depth-of-field. However, most of the time it's going to be better than nothing (although in a few photos I've seen I actually find it quite distracting, as if my own eyes aren't focusing properly and they are trying to adjust to get the background back into focus).

As for how it's created, let's think about this...the 7 Plus has two cameras. Couldn't you use the longer lens to capture the main subject (the entire image would probably need to be in frame for this camera), but then use the shorter lens to capture the scene again but slightly out of focus. Use a mask around the main subject to merge the two images together. From the article there seems to be a fairly strict positioning and distance requirement for taking these photos so that may be due to the need to frame the scene within the longer lens.

Speaking of which, this photographer's statement that

some shots required the use of a DSLR for future use of the photos, but it was "much harder to get the moment the same way as you can with a phone."

doesn't really jibe with

Instructions at the bottom of the screen inform the user whether or not there is enough light in their shot, and also whether they are too close or too far from the subject.

Sounds like there are still far more limiting factors than with a DSLR.

Don't get me wrong, the iPhone camera has come a long way and my 6s has finally replaced my point-and-shoot (it's a pretty good point-and-shoot). But if a professional photograph said they were going to shoot my wedding with an iPhone 7 Plus they would not get the job.