Metriacanthosaurus said:

MacPro said:

I'm sure they will be tiny revenue earners just like all Apple's other non-iPhone divisions /s 

Do you know a single person anywhere in the world that is even remotely interested in paying for Apple's original video content? Because you'd be the first.

You sound like these guys:

John C. Dvorak, 1984

“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a "mouse". There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I don’t want one of these new fangled devices."

 former Apple VP Gaston Bastiaens, January 1996.

“Within the next two months, Sony will acquire Apple. … Sony will be the white knight who will step into the picture."

 Michael Dell, October 1997

"I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders."

 Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, 1998.

"The iMac will only sell to some of the true believers. The iMac doesn’t include a floppy disk drive for doing file backups or sharing of data. ... The iMac will fail. 

10/5/2000   Michael S. Malone

Apple R.I.P.

…“Nevertheless, the bloom is off the rose. The incredible run-up Apple stock has enjoyed since Steve's return is over, and the sheen of success that had enveloped the company has been tarnished. 

A temporary setback? Don't be too sure. Unlike, say, Hewlett-Packard, Apple has always been a company that deals poorly with failure. When things go bad at Apple, they go very bad. “

5/21/2001  Cliff Edwards  

Commentary: Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work 

“New retail outlets aren't going to fix Apple's sales “

 

12/23/2006 Bill Ray (Mobile)

“Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly”

It's the Pippin all over again”

 

1/14/2007 Matthew Lynn

Apple iPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move

“…Don't let that fool you into thinking that it matters. The big competitors in the mobile-phone industry such as Nokia Oyjand Motorola Inc.won't be whispering nervously into their clamshells over a new threat to their business…

The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant”

 

3/28/2007 John Dvorak

Apple should pull the plug in the iPhone

Commentary:  Company risks its reputation in competitive business

“… Now compare that effort and overlay the mobile handset business. This is not an emerging business. In fact it's gone so far that it's in the process of consolidation with probably two players dominating everything, Nokia Corp…and Motorola Inc.” 

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Market may indeed be saturated but has anyone even seen what passes for the top of the line Samsung phone? On a rare walk through Best Buy last weekend I saw them and stopped to take a look, as I do once every couple years just to see where they're at. What a POS. It still looks like some confused relic from the palmOS era, and I can't believe they're still pretending like anyone wants a screen with curved edges. As is well known, this was a bad bet Samsung made in the run up to the iPhone 6 release, where the always-wrong rumor mill was flinging around the idea of a screen that curves at the edges...when of course it was just Apple curving the glass on the edges to make it nice to hold and swipe. But Samsung doubled-down on the rumor to try and beat Apple to the punch, and they did...with something no one ever wanted, and Apple never even considered.

I would never use a Samsung phone.  Not because it's Samsung (although I don't like the company), but because I would never use an Android phone.   But the fact is that unless you've done an extensive market survey or a sales analysis, you actually have absolutely no idea whether people perceive a phone with curved edges as a benefit.   Just like unless one has done an extensive market survey, one doesn't know whether the notch at the top of the newer iPhones bothers people or not.   While curved edges sounds like a useless feature, when I've seen other people with such a phone, it actually looks a bit compelling (to me) - not because of the curve so much, but because the image goes completely out to the edge.   

Furthermore, if you look at the video accompanying this thread, the Samsung blows away the iPhone in performance in most areas.  Now unless one plays games, they don't actually need that performance, but considering that Samsung accomplished it and Apple didn't, I believe that one has to give Samsung some credit.  It seems to me that with the prices Apple wants for its phones these days, they should be superior in absolutely every respect and they're not. 

>>Pre-adds are thought by Schusser to be a "great early indicator" of engagement by fans of an artist. 

So what?  If the fans are paying for streaming subscriptions or listening via free ad-supported streaming services, the artist gets next to nothing anyway.   And in most cases, it doesn't drive any physical media sales.  In North America in 2018, CD sales were down to just 52 million units (it was 942.5 million in 2000) and LP sales were just 16.7 million units.   

At best, it might encourage some fans to buy expensive tickets to a concert, which is the primary way artists earn money today.   

I use Garage Band simply as an audio editor for which it works quite well and has a better UI than most other editing software out there, especially the free apps.    I do find the EQ and Limiting functions a bit limiting (sic) and confusing at times.   It's not always clear whether it's applying those functions to an individual track or a master track, whether it's "active" (in spite of the "lights" on the virtual panels) and whether it's actually having an effect.   But for editing, it's great.  

   

apple inside her said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

wood1208 said:

May be too early but 2019 Macbook Pro upgrade announcement would be nice. Will have Intel 10nm processors, WiFi 6 and other enhancements and hopefully some versions without touch-strip. No tocuh-strip makes cheaper MBP, reduce hardware complexity and less cost to repair/replace/maintain,

I don't see Apple surrendering the Touch Bar any time soon.

I enjoy my Touch Bar, even just for volume control and muting. 

It wasn't worth the incremental cost for those functions.   I find it largely useless.   I also find the large touchpad to be a pain... my palms rest against it and constantly send the cursor to the wrong position.  My daughter just bought a brand new MBP and has the same problem.    The should make the touchpad smaller again.  They won't, but they should.  (Doesn't anyone at Apple actually use their products?).