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To: jjotto

Well, Tim Cook isn’t going to destroy Apple... Apple has so much cash on hand, and little to no debt... last I checked they could literally, not take in a single dollar in revenue and could continue to operate and pay all their bills and employees for 10+ years just with the cash the have sitting in the bank.

That said, Apple is still dealing with the new realities of the hardware market, in which carriers no longer subsidize upgrades, so the automatic cash printing for the annual phone upgrades, must be earned.. IE you must convince a person to shell out $800-$1200 bucks every 2 years, compared to just a few years ago where it was $200 out of pocket every 2 years.

Apple, while at its core is a hardware company, but it is also a very big services company, anymore, with an ever growing percentage of its revenues coming from services... Itunes, Apple TV, Apple Music, etc... While I think most apple services are overpriced for their offerings, there is no doubt that they are gobbling up more and more revenue from services.

The failing in the last few years IMHO from apple, is that their hardware design decisions, particularly on their laptops, has been subpar. And the mature nature of the smart phone market anymore, means less and less push or innovation is going to astound and awe.

Don’t get me wrong the apple designed chips are amazingly powerful, and I understand why Apple is talking about replacing their laptop and desktop CPU’s with them.

I also understand that their PC business is not their main business anymore... its phones... and generally PC sales have been flat and falling for everyone for a long time... However, in 2016 Apples redesign of the MacBook Pro was a complete miss... hardware specs wise, in terms of processing speeds etc they are fine machines... But the crap keyboard, gargantuan for no reason touchpad, and removal of sd card reader, HDMI port, magsafe, and standard USB ports for nothing but USBC ports were BAD moves... and lets not even get into the gimmic that is touchbar.. its no surprise at all that Apples general bucking of the trend and increasing PC sales ended in 2016...

Unfortunately Apple is not going to admit its mistake on this... it now has 3 revisions of this form factor, and its PC sales took a downward turn in 16, and been flat since.

There is NOTHING pro about a laptop that needs a DONGLE to do anything.... and I do mean ANYTHING...

This MacBook pro is a clear swing and a miss, but 2+ years in, Apple clearly is not willing to concede it.

On the positive side they did finally admit their iMAC Pro was a failure... but that was after 5 YEARS of that failed form factor....

The new Mac Mini is another MISS.... not that its a bad computer, but the 2014 model was a COMPLETE miss.... slow processors, and hardwired ram... just stupid... While they did a much better job with the 2018 Mini, apple, still being apple, priced their base model way too high... at $800.

There is no excuse at all for not having a $500 price point for your base model PC.

Apple isn’t going to go away or out of business under Tim Cook, but it is abundantly clear, he is no Steve Jobs. From the pure numbers side of things, Apple is doing fine, but its clear they aren’t listening, at least on the PC side of things, to the market or their potential customers.


87 posted on 12/05/2018 6:57:43 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: HamiltonJay
standard USB ports for nothing but USBC ports

They aren’t just USBC ports. They are double duty USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports depending on whether you plug in a USB Device or a Thunderbolt device. . . The port controller senses the difference.

141 posted on 12/05/2018 1:02:12 PM PST by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot)
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