cnocbui

In three years time, the battery life will be down to 2.5 hrs.  At 4 years you throw  $160 in the bin because you will not be able to replace the batteries.

johnny mozzarella said:

Apple will offer 3D laser scanning of our ears at their retail stores. 
A custom earpiece will then be printed and included with the Air Pods. 
You will also be able to easily reorder replacement Air Pods anytime and have them shipped right to you. 

Cool aid poisoning, see a doctor immediately.

latifbp said:

big brother 84 said:

I listened to Tim Cook trying to defend Apple's pitifully low tax rate on the BBC news this morning and it just sounded bad. Very bad PR. Attacking the EU is very unwise. All the people whose businesses pay tax at 20% are looking at this and saying why should Apple pay tax at less than 1%.
As a life-long Apple evangelist, even I find this Apple hard to swallow.

Apple is based in the U.S. They should not have to incorporate everywhere they do business. Thus they should really only be paying taxes in the U.S. 

So EU citizens who come to work in the US shouldn't have to pay taxes to the US government, but should only pay them to their home governments?

The main reason Apple are in Ireland is so that they are inside the EU where they can add the all-important intellectual property to their goods so that they can claim they originate from within the EU so can be exempted from a 20% import tarif.

There is nothing to stop Apple from importing finished product from their US parent and selling it in the EU - then they would have to pay taxes directly to the US government.  They would also have to pay a 20% import Tarif on bringing those finished goods into the EU, though.

srice said:

dacloo said:

Pay taxes like anyone else, Tim Cook, and shut up.
Glad you're creating jobs, but so is anyone else and they have to pay double digit taxes, not less than 1%.

What an arrogant attitude. 

This is probably a good time to repeat myself:

The EU has a VAT - value added tax system, where the taxes are allocated based on where the value to the product was added. 

They do not have a sales tax based system.

No value is added in the EU, they are just a consumer.  So the taxes should rightfully be applied upstream - either to the US, where the product was designed and developed, or in China where the product was built. (or Ireland where the R&D is performed *cough*). 

I think you are mistaken.  The intellectual property is added in Ireland, otherwise Apple would be importing finished goods from outside the EU and would then have to pay a 20% import tarrif.

VAT is a tax paid by consumers to the government, it is not paid by the companies so is irrelevant to this discussion.

Margrethe Vestage walks into a bar.

She notices some people over in the corner who all seem attentive to what is happening at a table where this tall guy with a shit-eating grin is sitting, like he's just swallowed some countries economy or something.

She walks over and realizes the face is familiar;  Tim something... she thinks.  There are five large identical paper cups upended on the table and in a row. She thinks she knows what's going on.

'Hi', says the Tim man.  'Want to play?'

'Maybe. How does it work?'

'Well I need some money to show you.'

Margrethe hands over a stack of 1000 €1000 notes.  Tim's grin does the impossible and get's a lot bigger.  He peels off 100 of the notes, puts them on the table and puts the rest in a bag on the floor that is next to him.  There's a big bruiser standing next to it she thinks might be his Uncle, Sam.  Tim frowns at the remaining bunch of large bills.

'Damn, these are big.'  He leans to the left and his right hand delves into the pocket of his jeans and struggles to remove a very fat, bulging wallet.   He opens the coin compartment and two tweezer like fingers extract a single €1 coin then deposits it on the table next to the stack of €1000 notes.  Tim covers the stack with one of the cups and the coin with another.  'You have to try and keep your eye on the cup with the coin under it, and if you pick right, you get what's under the cup.'

The Tim man's hands are a blur, four of the cups dart and weave across the table so fast, a faint wisp of smoke and smell of pine rises from the table top.  Margrethe has never seen anyone slicker or more skilled at this game.  The hands stop, the cups stop - the grin doesn't.

She reaches and upends the leftmost cup, three cups away from the one that didn't move.  A stack of 100 notes is revealed.  She picks them up; The grin vanishes.

'That's not fair!'  Wails the Tim man.  'You can't do that.  It's not supposed to work like that.  It's against the rules!'

Margrethe smiles.

'This is my bar, this is my room you are sitting in, that is my table you are using and my chair you are sitting on.  You play by my rules here and they haven't changed in 20 years and have always been posted on that notice board over there.' she says, pointing at it.

'But a leprechaun told me...'

'Not my problem.' she replies, interrupting. 'Now if you will excuse me, there are some other tables I need to visit.'