Posted on 01/28/2015 2:42:33 PM PST by Star Traveler
Apple delivered the greatest earnings report in history on Tuesday.
That's not hyperbole. Apple earned $18 billion in net income over the three-month period of October to December 2014. That's more than any other company has ever earned over a three-month span.
Apple earned those mind-melting profits thanks mostly to the iPhone, which is an incredible business.
Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, up 46% from the year prior. The iPhone generated $51 billion in revenue, giving each iPhone an average selling price of $687.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I already did it earlier in this thread ... :-) ...
Actually I do make money from Apple as I am a shareholder. My only regret is that I did not buy more shares back when they were much cheaper.
If I could go back to 2002 - just 13 years ago - and buy $50,000 in Apple stock, that would be worth $4,000,000 today. And back in 2002, I had the $50,000. So I'm really kicking myself over that one.
Anyway, I think Apple threads definitely have a place on FR. This is the most successful American company in history and they practice capitalism in its purist form. Conservatives should be praising Apple and their achievements. Never mind that the founders started out as a couple of smelly hippies. One of them (Steve Jobs) was kicked out of the company but eventually saw the light and made a triumphant return, bringing the right people together to completely revolutionize and dominate several industries in the greatest "second act" the business world has ever seen.
Then you get a gold star.
And Amazon LOST almost $800 million dollars last year. . . because they were subsidizing them and writing OFF their Firephones and taking a LOSS on their taxes. Great for them, bad for the taxpayers. That does not mean they did not cost some huge amount of money to manufacture. Your anecdotal information is not factual evidence. WHO do you think paid for those phones? You did and so did the Amazon in their write offs.
And your $35 flipping dumb phone with two year contract STILL cost you hundreds of dollars. I repeat: and your point is?
And you have yet to get anything right. I have told you Anti-Apple people that I am educated as an Economist. . . and you guys keep demonstrating you have no clue what you are talking about when it comes to either Macro or Micro Economics, or even business. . . and you tell us we only get things right by accident? Frankly, you'd need a catastrophe to get something right! LOL!
Believe what you will. . . but Cook was acting CEO for 2 1/2 years before Steve Jobs died. . . while he was under going treatment for Pancreatic Cancer. . . and making most financial decisions for Apple. Tim Cook has been steering Apple for almost six years now.
If what you say is true, when do you think the ghost of Steve Jobs will be exorcised?
It's just FUD from the hipsters.
We have several friends who got them and they all love'em. Most are former iPhone buyers who just could not bring themselves to pay the price Apple wanted for their new iGadgets once I showed them there is a very inexpensive way to get a smart phone that has all the capabilities of the hipster phones for about a third of the cost.
Like them or not, Apple is writing the most astonishing story in the history of the business world. They are literally leaving every other giant company in the dust, including behemoths like Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, Intel, HP, Wal-Mart, Google, etc.
Ok, buy your put options a week before that date.
Engadget is not an Apple publication or an Apple supporter. They cover all sorts of gadgets ... :-) ...
In which case the socialist labor unions would infiltrate the company and eat it out from the inside - while handing the money to the "Hillary for President" campaign. No thanks.
Well tell me if you are an educated economist why do you keep making the same mistake by saying you can't buy a smartphone for waaay cheaper that an iGadget or Android?
You keep morphing the issue to try and hide your mistakes.
Now its "well Amazon isn't making any money" Tell me how does that prove your position that you can't buy a brand new smartphone for far less than an iGadget? It doesn't it is just a try at morphing the issue to hide the fact you were wrong.
Lots of people are buying Fire phones and enjoying them. And they spend far less money than buying an iGadget.
Well maybe they should try and get their facts right. Unlocked means you can use any carrier. And that is exactly opposite of what they claimed in the article.
.
>> “But the money you paid for them does.” <<
.
In a big way.
.
I just went and looked it up. The Firephone unlocked price is $650 Mad Dawgg. . . it is NO CHEAPER than an unlocked iPhone. . . but it wasn't selling, so they discounted it as low as FREE! Amazon is shipping money out the door to hook people into their mobile catalog.
As I told you it is subsidized by Amazon because they expect you to buy goodies from Amazon using that oh, so cool "Firefly" feature you were bragging about. . . because it links to Amazon pages with cool things they can undercut brick and mortar store prices with. Great. TANSTAAFL
Did you know that the Apple iPhone has about a dozen different Apps that do the same thing but are NOT LOCKED into Amazon and eBay for purchasing those things . . . and will actually show you the best price. . . or the best price in your town? I think that's a lot more cool than just letting you buy from Amazon's cut throat pricing.
Be happy with your phone. You got a good deal. . . but you are stuck with a built in Kindle. We have iBooks, Kindle, Adobe Reader, Book reader, Books for Free, Newsstand, Nook (now called Barnes & Noble Reader), Stanza, Sony's eReader, and several other eReaders. . . all free.
And, similarly, if i buy from Amazon, i can also get the digital copy free. . .
Perhaps you’ll like this one better ...
— — —
User interface – bad
This is really where it all goes massively wrong for Amazon. The user interface on the Fire Phone, like the Fire Tablets, is a bloody mess. This is a real problem, because if people are put off by how the phone behaves you’ll never sell any. Apple’s iPhone is popular because everyone who picks one up can cope with the interface. I’m a seasoned tech journalist, and the Fire Phone UI makes very little sense to me.
The main issue is that the home screen is always changing. It’s based on the actions you’ve most recently taken. So use Firefly to look up a product and the logo is presented first on your home screen. But if you follow a link from Firefly to Amazon’s website, then the first icon on the set is trying to get you to “shop Amazon”. What Amazon perhaps needs to understand about the user interface is that just because someone just did something, doesn’t mean they will then want to do it again right after. This is what prioritising “last used” does, and it doesn’t work as a design concept.
One of the big problems with any OS is finding things. I have this with Android all the time, for example, I’ll be looking for an app but won’t be able to find the app for the sea of other similar icons. Amazon makes this worse by changing the main screen, and hiding your apps in a tray.
But the UI gets worse when you attempt to change the phone’s settings. Head into the menus and everything changes from the Amazon black look, to an all-white style. There’s a drop shadow too. Drop shadows were last valid in design in the 90s, and even then the whole thing was questionable. But it’s ugly here, and jars against the more modern, darker UI.
That's how they are able to move hundreds of millions of devices and make them affordable for just about anybody.
The average cell phone bill is around $80/month. Over a typical two year contract, that comes out to about $2,000. Most people pay between $99 and $199 for a phone with a 2-year contract so it is fairly easy to bake the rest of the cost on the phone into that contract.
That's how most salespeople sell cars by the way. They focus on the "monthly payment" that the customer can afford and the down payment they can make. That is what makes it possible for your average Joe to go to the car lot and drive away in a brand new car that day.
If car dealerships required full payment up front for their cars, well, they wouldn't sell very many cars.
As another poster stated, a smartphone is a very sophisticated device. It's a powerful computer that is miniaturized to fit into your shirt pocket. It's not cheap to make them but by way of the 2-year plan, just about all of us can afford to buy them. That's not a bad thing.
"Be happy with your phone. You got a good deal. . . but you are stuck with a built in Kindle. We have iBooks, Kindle, Adobe Reader, Book reader, Books for Free, Newsstand, Nook (now called Barnes & Noble Reader), Stanza, Sony's eReader, and several other eReaders. . . all free."
Oh I know I got a good deal and lots of other people have as well. And I am sure you do understand that the Firephone can use apps too right? Being stuck with kindle is hard to take, kinda like being stuck with having to drive a Porsche or a BMW or a Rolls Royce. Though you should know we can read stuff from all the other formats as well with free apps. But why would anyone want to?
Uh, yes. . . because they've got a pot of them they are trying to unload. . . They did not sell well, so Amazon cut the prices to the bone. The AT&T website will charge you $449 for an unlocked Firephone. . . or 99¢ for one on a two year contract. It will STILL cost you $449, but you pay for it over two years. . . or you can buy it for $15 a month with a rate plan and pay $360 on a purchase contract.
Since Amazon is selling the same phone for $200, it demonstrates they are willing to undercut their own retailers. That, my Freepfriend, is not a good business practice. No supplier should EVER undercut a retailer with whom they have a relationship. If they do, they will not have it long.
I still don’t like their computers, but they make a great phone and the iPad is very good. I gave my iMac and my Macbook Pro to a colleague last week because they just sit there gathering dust. I’m not giving away my iPad or iPhone.
My friend Mike is an Apple fanboi. He gets the latest iPhones and gives me his used ones. I just got my used iPhone 5. Very good phone. I had to buy my own iPad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.