williamh

techprod1gy said:

Interesting that in a previous article there were some posts that the mini was a low volume player. I agree that margins could be a concern but according to the data above the mini represents 30% of iPad volume...

People talk about how Apple doesn't pay attention to this or that product because it's a low volume player.  Desktops are a smaller percentage of sales, etc.  It's a kind of circular logic.  Apple doesn't sell a lot of desktops or iPad Minis because they don't pay any attention to them - and vice versa. 

Early copy protection - what a good subject. Software was pretty expensive back then.  $25 or so for a game is more than I ever pay for a game now.  Apple was right to protect the developers.  Even in those days before the web, folks connected to BBSes to trade software.  The 2(c) technique was relatively easy to defeat. The original disk would have a bad sector and the software would check the bad sector. If it wasn't bad, the software wouldn't work. When you copied the disk, you don't get the bad sector on the copy.  On the Ataris at least, when you opened up the drive there was a potentiometer to control the drive speed. If you cranked the speed all the way up or down, you could write a bad sector with a sector editor (and then put the speed back where it belonged so you could read/write normally) and this would pass the copy protection check. More knowledgeable people would modify the code, of course.

adm1 said:

"a hiring spree at china colleges"?? aren't they going to college to get a better job? assembly line jobs don't really require any qualifications surely?

I read somewhere . . . maybe in the article, that Foxcon's President is demanding that the new engineer hires start by working on the assembly line to gain knowledge. 

If you are based in the US and travel abroad, t-mobile free texting and data overseas is alone worth switching to get.  I used it all over Japan and my daughter used hers in France and the U.K.   4 lines for $120.  It rocks. 

sog35 said:

Tim Cook continues his world domination tour.

His Services business will be a $50 billion empire in 4 years.
With 50% profit margins and a 20 PE ratio.
The Services business alone is worth $500 billion

I've been talking about Apple services here for a couple years now. Many of you poo pooled it. Oh Apple sucks in Services! Oh, its too small. Bull.

In 4 years Services will be 50% of the worth of the company.

I hope you are right.  However, when many of us "poo poo" the idea of Apple dominating in services or claim that Apple "sucks in service," it's not that we don't want Apple to succeed. . It's just when we (or at least I) use the existing services and see what is offered elsewhere, it doesn't look like Apple is on a path for domination.  Say what you will about Amazon, Microsoft, Google, but their cloud services are in a different league from what Apple offers.  I like iCloud, but look how things have evolved over the many years.  I used iTools way back whenever, and .Mac, and MobileMe, and now iCloud.  We've lost some features and gained some, but it's not altogether different (except for working more reliably.) iCloud does all or most of what many people want. But look what you can do in Office365, AWS, G-Suite - very very different.  You can run large organizations in their infrastructure, they're certified for processing government data - you have whole government agencies running in there, and single private users too.  When you have the Department of Education or whatever agency relying on your service for mission critical functions, you are demonstrating qualities Apple doesn't have.