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Apple Reports First Quarter Results
- ericmay 5y agoQuarter after quarter Tim Cook just mic drops these earnings. Remember all the “Apple is doomed, Tim is a bean counter” comments when Jobs handed over the reigns? Yea. Ok.
- chunkyguy 5y agoWho is surprized by these numbers? Since Cook took over from Jobs earnings are the only thing they're focused on. The product quality, developer experience, user experience,.. everything that made Apple great is declining.
- nice_byte 5y agodeveloper experience was never a strong suite of apple tbh.
- thewarrior 5y agoAnd yet competitor products are still worse.
- chunkyguy 5y agoI find that as the biggest difference between Jobs and Cook vision for Apple. Jobs wanted Apple to deliver the best of the technology that mankind has to offer whereas Cook wants Apple to deliver the best in the market.
- thewarrior 5y agoApples moat is simply enormous. From SoC design to camera design to manufacturing to software and compiler engineering. Competitors could spend 10 years catching up. Cook simply needs to keep the machine going till he retires.
- ksec 5y agoYes. I will add Steve's Apple made new product and services, and "hopes" the market will buy it. Tim's Apple look at which market has potential profits and tries to enter it. It is a product based strategy vs a market based strategy.
- zerkten 5y agoIt seems they have arrested some of the decline since Jony Ive left. The newest MacBook Pro has gone back to a formula that works well with processors that blow away the competition. Things are less rosy on the software side though.
- sharikous 5y agoThey had an exodus of top engineers lately. I suspect the hardware gap will shrink in a few years and the software is, as you say, not rosy. The decline for pro users will continue, I think. Of course a behemoth of 2 T$ won't fail tomorrow
- e4e78a06 5y agoThey also poached the head architect from Arm. Now that M1/M1 Pro/Max are out I think a lot of top engineers have seen their project to completion and are moving on to new interesting things. No amount of money is going to bring them back but you can be sure they'll be back in 3-4 years if Apple has a compelling project (like say, their AR/VR headset).
- tedunangst 5y agoEveryone who said they only care about short term profits three, six, nine... months ago.
- thewarrior 5y agoNobody uses Facebook anymore. Apple is doomed. Google search results are terrible. Amazon is terrible. And every cycle of quarterly results there’s surprise on HN.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoWhat percent of revenue is from iPhone? This is what makes me nervous. They struck absolute gold with the iPhone, what happens if they don't catch the next wave?
- dwaite 5y agoApple typically tries to enter an existing product category that they think they can execute better on or otherwise disrupt. Depending on your viewpoint these can be highly disruptive plays - smart phones were going no place for many demographics until the iPhone came out. Android was going to be a cheaper blackberry clone until they saw what iPhone was doing. But another view of the iPad famously was the Slashdot single-line review, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." Phones were a bit of a blind spot in the market. There should have been a lot more investment going on. Phones are expensive devices that people update often (with "often" really being a function of the demographic), where the price was disguised in many markets via carrier subsidies and cellular contracts. The carriers were often trying to figure out how to get more customers and get them to pay for more services, so charging for data tiers on top of minutes and messaging was attractive. Nokia had teams that understood this and obviously the company in general was capitalizing on how much money was going into phones, but they were highly dysfunctional in terms of massive amounts of duplicated work (e.g. little commonalities between hardware or OS on dozens of phones released every year). An example of Nokia trying to leverage cellphones to go into a new market would be the N-Gage. In terms of markets they tend to go after, VR would be the one where I might worry they missed the wave. Some of that is not knowing if VR actually has broad demographic appeal though - there are technology leaps still needed for many people to tolerate longer headset usage, and most computer applications aren't really VR as much as they are 'large virtual monitor' - you don't see N-dimensional word processing as much as games and experiences. Their money is obviously on AR having much broader appeal. There are certainly cases where market disruption attempts have failed, such as the HomeKit ecosystem. The more open (and cheaper) ecosystems that Google and Amazon have had managed to get significantly more adoption by manufacturers. For that reason they now seem to be aligning much more with and driving new industry standards instead, such as Matter. All the rumors about them investing toward a full self-driving car product is really odd, because it goes against so much of their formula for incremental evolution of product lines - seems about as likely as them releasing a television or refrigerator.
- Eric_WVGG 5y ago25.1% Mac growth. For professionals and enthusiasts, you either just got your M1, you’re saving for one, or waiting on the Pro Desktops. I’m curious to see if there’s any change to the replacement rate of Macs. It seems normal for people to use the same laptop for four or more years — a far sight longer than the two-year life expectancy of laptops twenty years ago, but about half of the replacement rate of smartphones. There's one benefit of these DIY designs that seems under-reported: Apple can now develop stuff like the "neural engine". Chips that aren't just faster or more efficient than Intel offerings, but also do different things. I think there's almost no chance that I'll be upgrading to an M2 Pro next year or the following, but there's every possibility that the M3 Pro won't just be a faster Apple Silicon chip. If future Macbooks are more than just "the same thing but faster," dorks like me will be retiring our computers a lot faster.
- olliej 5y agoI'm hoping for a pro desktop with something more advanced than the current M1s - e.g not just an M1 with more cores. I want a Nvidia/amd class gpu, etc.
- peregren 5y agoDoes your hope have any foundation in reality?
- gjsman-1000 5y agoAbsolutely. Rumors that have been correct so far (and correctly predicted the M1 Pro and M1 Max 16 and 32 GPU core configurations) say that Apple is planning a 2 and 4 M1 Max multi-die design in the future. The M1 Max already has a die-to-die interconnect bus that is unused. Also, according to reverse engineer Hector Martin, the interrupt controller on the M1 Max theoretically allows for up to 8 M1 Max dies (though whether Apple is planning such an insane layout is unknown and unlikely.) If the (very likely) 2-die version is released, that'll be 64 Apple GPU cores. If the (likely) 4-die version is released, that'll be 128 Apple GPU cores. Coupled alongside that would be up to 32 Performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. That should be good competition for anything NVIDIA and Intel Xeon.
- fartcannon 5y ago
- gjsman-1000 5y agoIf you consider Foxconn slave labor, maybe. Except Foxconn wages are generally considered to be good for the area (thus why so many employees do it seasonally for a few months during the ramp-up each year). It's a better factory than many. Yes, the netting to prevent suicides looks really bad... until you consider Foxconn employs 1.2 million people. Their suicide rate once that is considered is lower than the general population. Perfect? No, but within reason. Finally... every tech company uses Foxconn, from Intel to Google to AMD to Lenovo to Sony. Don't blame Apple when everyone is to blame.
- fartcannon 5y agoYes blame Apple as they have the most money and thus the most responsibility to do better. 3 trillion dollars is worth how many human lives?
- gjsman-1000 5y agoMarket cap is not money they can just spend within factories they don't own.
- roflulz 5y agothe US was built on the back of slaves and continues to be run on stolen land. How is doing business with any American business any different?
- MisterSandman 5y agoWhat a stupid fucking comment. It's been decades since Slavery was a thing and anyone with half a brain cell condemns it. To say that it's okay for Apple to exploit workers because "that's how America was built" is mind-bogglingly stupid.
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- carlycue 5y ago-
- MattGaiser 5y agoI don't want to have to configure anything. I don't want to deal with setting things up. I don't want to deal with the mediocrity of every other company out there. I just want a phone that works well, works with everything (virtually nobody builds serious apps just for Android and not iOS), and allows me to go about the rest of my day with ease.
- jb1991 5y agoJust wish the quality control was the same as in the Jobs era.
- aetherspawn 5y agoI have never bought an Apple device that so much as had a spec of dust in the box. But I’ve never had a Dell or HP laptop come without a bezel scratch or something like that. So in my books, Apple are still a league ahead on quality, even.
- jb1991 5y agoI’m talking about myriad software bugs.
- joering2 5y agoit blows my mind every day how they screwed up somewhat very good native mail client. once I've updated to iOS14, daily: - my mail will disappear. I would open a folder and see emails from 2007 at the top... wait and see he is loading them again and more are popping up.. takes few minutes to catch up with 2021. - my contacts will not work when I start typing email. literally sometimes the do sometimes they don't - emails that previously were formatted well, would be crashing with odd CSS issues I never seen before - I would click email.. start reading, then it would shift to the next email.. on its own! - I had few emails automatically disappear for good... only to find them in trash folder. Its a disaster. A classical situation where after a system update I'm banging my head against the wall "why the heck did I do that??"
- r0fl 5y agoServices, which include iCloud, Apple Music, search licensing and App Store fees, continued growing strongly, rising 25% annually to $19.52 billion. Keeps blowing my mind how consistently services keep growing. Highest margins too. Just printing money!
- lukewrites 5y agoI feel like I get great value for my Apple One Premier subscription. I already was paying for the largest available iCloud storage. Paying a bit more and being able to host email addresses for private domains, plus having iCloud Private Relay, plus a music service (and my library in the cloud), plus Apple TV+, plus Fitness (use it occasionally but would never pay for it on its own) is a no-brainer for me.
- Hamuko 5y agoI've on the other hand yet to find one Apple service that I'd actually want to pay for. Apple Music might be the closest one, but I'm probably not subscribing after my free trial ends. I had the free Apple TV+ trial when it launched for like 9 months and I barely watched it.
- Karupan 5y ago> Paying a bit more and being able to host email addresses for private domains Woah I had no idea this was a thing! Since Google is forcing the old free workspace users into paid accounts this year, this will be a great replacement. Thanks, I'll have to look into this.
- hughrr 5y agoYeah this. I’ve got three kids, my mother and (spit) my ex wife on my Apple One sub. Couple of domains and two apple fitness users, storage and Apple Music for all is a bargain.
- malshe 5y agoI Before Apple One I was paying for iCloud Drive, Apple Music family, and Apple Arcade separately which added up to $30 per month. With all the extra stuff thrown in, Apple One was a no brained for me.
- paxys 5y agoFinally some good news in this bloodbath of a market
- svnt 5y agoYeah Apple are definitely not on the table for more anti-trust action as they have been squeezing out other major companies with large revenue streams based on information coming from Apple devices.
- zepto 5y ago> revenue streams based on information coming from Apple devices. Indeed. There is no evidence of them abusing streams of user information.
- newaccount2021 5y ago
- mensetmanusman 5y agoAs Apple continues to dominate, we can’t forget that the iPhone is approaching >90% utilization by the youth: https://www.howtogeek.com/778355/new-study-says-87-of-us-teens-have-an-iphone/ https://www.howtogeek.com/778355/new-study-says-87-of-us-tee... This means we will soon enough have a situation where a corporation controls the primary medium of communication of the citizens. At this point a smart society would consider how to regulate this situation to safely prevent domination abuse, but I doubt it will happen.
- zepto 5y agoIf you care about communications platforms, Facebook what you should care about. Future concerns about what Apple might do in future are nothing by comparison.
- avalys 5y agoGive me a break. Those teens can choose between Twitter, Youtube, Discord, iMessage, Signal, Telegram, TikTok, Reddit, Twitch, along with, you know, the rest of the public internet. But 90% of them will still be doing all of this on an Apple device. Yet you think Facebook is the company to worry about, not Apple?
- supernova87a 5y ago> Those teens can choose between Twitter, Youtube, Discord, iMessage, Signal, Telegram, TikTok, Reddit, Twitch, along with, you know, the rest of the public internet. So you just demonstrated that teens have so much choice. Why are you concerned that they're doing it on an Apple device then, if an iPhone is just the hardware on which all these apps operate, and has nothing to do with what's said within the apps?
- avalys 5y agoBecause regardless of which service they choose to use, Apple controls the platform they’re running on in every case. They actually don’t have a meaningful choice in that area. Imagine it was Amazon in this situation. Or Microsoft. Or Google. Or, gasp, Facebook. Where 90% of teens were using a hardware and software platform made by one company. Seems like a problem, right? Imagine how much people would be freaking out if Facebook came out with a phone and OS and had 90% of teens using it. The wailing and gnashing of teeth could be heard from the Moon.
- bigtones 5y agoTheir huge China derived revenue is an increasing problem for Apple from a company stance perspective. They have to increasingly walk a tightrope between servicing that market, kowtowing to the Chinese government, and upholding the values of a California based US Company.
- thewarrior 5y agoThis is the case for all companies in the world eventually. China will overtake the US economy in the next 5 years.
- Notanothertoo 5y agoWhile I don't disagree so you have specific things to read on this topic?
- thewarrior 5y agoHere you go https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55454146 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55454146
- zepto 5y agoThere is no serious analysis that presents this scenario with any certainty.
- thewarrior 5y agoLet’s not miss the forest for the trees. China will continue to grow and get very close to the size of the American economy. China is already the worlds largest economy in terms of raw output (PPP terms). China is already the worlds largest consumer market. There’s a reasonable chance it exceeds USA in nominal GDP it if it grows at 5+% till 2030. This year they grew at 8.5 %
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
- lvl100 5y agoMan, I wish Steve Jobs were alive to witness the total domination. I imagine he knew but perhaps not to this extent.
- intrasight 5y agoFunny - I was thinking the same this morning. But more along the lines of "I hope his spirit is watching this"
- thomassmith65 5y agoThat sounds like a different Steve Jobs. For starters, the Mac has a notch now.
- decafninja 5y agoIIRC, he was also adamant against a bigger iPhone and a smaller iPad, both which ended up being hit products.
- dwaite 5y agoAlso adamant against iTunes for Windows
- lvl100 5y agoAlso adamant against App Store!
- decafninja 5y agoThose happened while he was alive though no? Whereas the iPhone6 and iPad Mini came after his death.
- michelb 5y agoWell, big difference is that Jobs was playing company with the shareholders money, while Cook is doing something else, like returning shareholders money.
- klelatti 5y agoApple is the ‘Personal IBM’: a premium systems integrator where ‘you never blame yourself for buying Apple’ in the era when everyone has a handheld computer. Edit - just to add that IBM dominated computing for a long time with this model. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Apple has become so big in what is a much bigger market.
- mdoms 5y ago> you never blame yourself for buying Apple How quickly we forget that Apple just had 2 generations of complete dogshit laptops.
- smoldesu 5y agoIt was more than that, pretty much everything between late 2014 and late 2018 is just... not really usable as a daily driver. Luckily they fixed the keyboard and quit stringing Intel along under the pretense that they could "make things work" by modifying ACPI tables, but I don't think I'll ever be truly comfortable using a Mac until I can drop one at waist-height and not be down $2000. Different strokes for different folks though, of course.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago>It was more than that, pretty much everything between late 2014 and late 2018 I don't know, the 2015 MacBook Pro was well regarded.
- nicbou 5y agoI carried my MacBook in my motorcycle luggage for over 40,000km, and I dropped it from waist height at the airport. It's still running smoothly. The only issue is the keyboard, which is now on its third replacement. The extended replacement program ran out last year, but they still replace keys for free. This is a 2017 MacBook. They upgraded my 2012 model for the price of a battery swap because the 2012 parts were out of stock. In other words, I've been going for 10 years on the same laptop purchase. They're not perfect laptops, but they're still the best ROI I've had on a laptop, and far better than any laptop I've had before.
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