Re: iPhone revenue fell for a second consecutive quarter (perhaps due to Apple's failed R&D efforts)

Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:

On 2024-08-04 14:46, badgolferman wrote:

Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:

On 2024-08-02 13:15, badgolferman wrote:

Andrew <andrew@spam.net> wrote:

badgolferman wrote on Fri, 2 Aug 2024 18:50:28 -0000 (UTC) :
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Maybe it is and maybe it has to do with the people being employed to
develop these things.  Are they the best and brightest developers
available, considering Apple has the money to pay them?  Or are they
DEI candidates selected to make Apple look good to shareholders and
those who demand such things?

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All I can say is I am always reasonable in all my factual assessments.
As you know, zealots never know ANYTHING about what Apple actually does.
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At least you read about Apple outside of Apple's (brilliant) Marketing ads.
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To your concerns, all I can tell you is what is in the news about Apple's
strategic decisions, which I'm sure you can handle - but the zealots can't.
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This, from midyear 2024 says, for example the iPhone accounts for "55%
($115.7 billion) of Apple's $210.3 billion in net sales", so it behooves us
to concentrate on what Apple has improved on technology for that iPhone.
<https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/05/07/apple-spent-183-billion-rd-in-12-years-674-billion/>
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Notice the fact that Apple spends far more on propping up stock than on R&D
(where the article uses the word "breathtaking" where the article says no
other company comes close to what Apple spends, not in R&D, but on P:E.
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What's a possible assessment takeaway from those two facts?
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Maybe:
a. Apple cares more than anyone about artificially propping up stock...
b. And, yet, Apple cares far less than most in terms of actual R&D.
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What do YOU make of those two breathtakingly different facts about Apple?
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It says Apple is on track to spend $31 billion this year on R&D,.
underscoring its record of increases every year since 2013. That’s
certainly no number to sneeze at, but unfortunately there hasn’t been much
innovation to show for it over the last 5-6 years. I know some will say the
mobile phone has reached its peak in features, but they’ve been saying that
for a long time. A truly innovative company would create things customers
didn’t know they wanted, not new colors or emojis.

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Give some recent examples of what you would term "things customers
didn’t know they wanted"...
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...from any smartphone manufacturer.
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Face ID,

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Not recent. The first phone with it came out in 2011, and when Apple
developed it enough to use it, it was 2017
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contactless payments,

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First used in a phone in 2004 (by Sony), but not actually useful until
Apple got it right.
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QR code scanning,

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Seriously?
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So the newest thing you can point to is from more than a decade ago.
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  and other useful things

like these. New colors and new emojis don’t count.

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So it's not like Apple is somehow unique in not rolling out the
innovations, is it?
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 Admittedly I am not an early adopter of technology and tend to wait for
stuff to become mature. I gave you examples of useful things. At the time
they were not considered important but they have become so over time. These
are the type of things smart phone manufacturers should be developing.