retrogusto

22july2013 said:

What's the real reason for not giving us this information?

I like knowing these numbers, but based on the market’s reaction to Apple’s latest impressive record-breaking quarter, it looks like those numbers just confuse investors because too many of them are unable to see the bigger picture. So Apple is just going to show them the bigger picture without the distraction of knowing exactly how they achieve their enormous profits. 

Apple was was not going to be able to keep increasing iPhone profits forever by selling more and more units at the same prices. The only answer was to increase average selling prices, which they have successfully done. But some investors are always going to get hung up on unit prices and market share, which are really only relevant* as a means of driving increased profits, not as an end in and of themselves. 

*once you have the critical mass necessary to support an ecosystem including a strong developer community, which Apple clearly has

The reports saying how much he contributed to modern computing surprise me a little. I think of Microsoft’s relationship to technology like McDonalds’ relationship to cuisine—sure, they have been innovative over the years, but not in terms of coming up with outstanding breakthrough products, just very good at getting a huge number of customers to buy a few standard products over and over again. It would be interesting to see an in-depth DED piece (is that redundant?) covering significant MS innovations over the years, if such an article is possible.  

It’s easy enough to not use a Gmail account. What’s a lot more difficult is not e-mailing with anybody who uses Gmail, which matters because presumably Google can read incoming messages too, and so often the incoming message content is included in a response, so third parties can read your e-mail whether or not you ever agreed to anything. 

This is impressive, but maybe there should be more of an effort to simulate real-world situations. For example, HomePod is designed to adjust its sound quality based on the space where you put it, so ideally they would have a typical kitchen or two, a typical living room or two, a typical bedroom or two, rather than a room with acoustic paneling. And the thing holding the phone should use a material with the same capacitive properties as human tissue--maybe it does, hard to tell.

Weird, my “B” key is the one causing the most trouble on my late-2016 MBP too. I wonder if some keys are more prone to failure than others.