karmadave

A couple of things stand out, which in my opinion are alarming trends:

1. iPhone sales are falling. This could be a reflection of a maturing market and longer upgrade cycles, but I suspect Apple's 'premium' pricing strategy has something to do with it. A good benchmark would be to compare sales for Samsung phones.

2. China. Apple's sales, in China, may have peaked and are going in the opposite direction. However, I tend to think this has more to do with the above as well as competition from local Chinese firms such as Huawei.

Wearables and Services are continuing to grow, but not enough to fill the iPhone sales decline. Basically, Apple's over-reliance on one product (iPhone) is finagling coming back to bite them. While most companies with kill for these types of revenues and profits, this is a negative growth strategy...

I had one of these installed in my 2014 Honda Accord and really like it. Would have preferred a factory-installed CarPlay unit, but most manufacturers only started offering them in the last couple years. My only advice would be to make sure you have it installed by a qualified car audio shop. These can be extremely tricky to install on late model vehicles and my installation had a few hitches. Everything works great and I love the having CarPlay. It actually makes Siri useful ;-) 

When you run your supply chain, in China, your IP will be constantly under attack. Not sure if there’s much Apple or the US Government can do to combat or prevent this short of pulling out of China...

There is major distinction between the San Bernardino and Stone cases. In the San Bernardino case, the FBI also wanted Apple to provide a backdoor into the shooter’s iPhone. 

The government can legally obtain a warrant to search your iCloud account (stored on Apple’s servers) however, even with a legally obtained warrant Apple will NOT provide the contents of the device nor will they provide a backdoor.

Since data, such as iMessages and iCloud mail go through Apple’s servers the government can usually get their hands on what they need anyway. All perfectly legal...

Appointing Larry Kudlow as Director of National Economic Council is one in a long line of bad decisions/appointments. Kudlow is second only to Peter Navarro in terms of cluelessness...