Apple's Q4 'most profitable quarter ever'
Apple has once again run the recession's undershorts up the flagpole during its fiscal fourth quarter 2009. Record sales of iPhones and Macs helped Cupertino's profits soar 46 per cent in the quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Revenue also increased 25 per cent in the quarter over last year. Apple describes the …
Remember when Sun was thinking of buying the "beleaguered" Apple?
No stupid "mactard", "fanbois" or "microsucks" comments? Where are the trolls I love so much?
Other than that - too bad I don't own any Apple stock. (Fail on my part!)
Guess he has the iTouch2 in the pipeline with the book size screen to enhanse my Internet Reading.
Keep on selling Steve!
The Apple store in the Trafford Centre was so packed at the weekend, I had to tell one of the staff that they could use some air freshener - there were more bodies and B.O. packed into that shop than anywhere else in the building.
Where's the peg on the nose icon?!
(Anyone think MS might be spoiling for a fight in the wrong place by opening their own stores?)
I'm sure plenty of deluded mactards will be along soon to put a positive spin on their latest failure
The Applephobic Anonymous Coward Windozers seem particularly quiet about this story. Why is that, do you think?
As soon as Apple's stock hits $230 ish they will have overtaken Microsoft on market capitalisation. Way to go Steve Ballmer - so much for the iPhone never taking off.
I think, in the interests of bitter Apple-haters, someone should make the obligatory derogatory comments about Apple, c;'mon you know the ones. Let me prime the pump:
1. Apple is only succeeding is fooling people into buying 'cool'.
2. Apple stuff is over-priced fluff with no inherent value...errr...or something...'cause it doesn't do some stupid manly thing.
3. Jobs is Satan with a reality distortion field commonly obscuring the sight of the faithful....or was it a distorted reality field...some bitter old coot want to help me out here?
Wasn't there a piece in the Evening Standard recently saying that the Regent Street store was the most profitable floor-space in London?
They did indeed (http://bit.ly/4yt29u). £2000/sq ft to Harrods £751/sq ft and rival electronics retailers £771/sq ft. It's no wonder Microsoft want a piece of the action—I just cannot see it being as successful, would be happy to be proved wrong though!
Rumours on teh interwebs are abound that a refresh is due, and a potential price drop may be in the offing too.
@Wonko - Don't forget these -
The imminent launch of Windows 7 and the forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 are about to burst Apple's bubble as they both contain teh awesome
Apple still have a measly market share (and market share is more important than share of revues/profits)
Apple is not for gamers (at least not for basement-dwelling Jabba-the-Hut lookalike gamers - casual iPhone gamers don't count)
I guess it's just a few Reg posters who are bothered by the iPhone being so closed and restricted. The important people are going out and buying them anyway.
"I think, in the interests of bitter Apple-haters, someone should make the obligatory derogatory comments about Apple, c;'mon you know the ones."
The question we might ask is whether a continued rise in the fortunes of Apple would be good for us as buyers, or for society as a whole.
We know that its good for Apple employees and shareholders, and maybe for Apple buyers.
However, the answer to the question has to do with the lockdown lockin model. If we are happy to have our ibooks sold only through iTunes on the bookstore, and have it be impossible to use our ibook reader with anything but Mac and Windows, and if we are happy to buy all our hardware from Apple with no alternative, and if we are happy only to be able to install the software they say we can...
...and if we are happy to be denied access to an application because it might allow us among other things to download a copy of the Kama Sutra, a perfectly legal if rather dull and old fashioned publication, which for some crazed reason they do not approve of in Cupertino....
Then we can say how great Apple's success is for us and society.
Not me however, and not you too, if you start to really think about it.
LOL! Good try too...
Unfortunately, I think people got scared when they realized Dell only generated ~$13B, barely more than Apple, this quarter, and on that profited less than $400M; less than 25% of Apple's profits on less income...
The apple-haters only seem to come out when they can put in a quick jab and run. (usually anonymously here as well). Dell shipped just over 13M PCs, and made $400m. Apple shipped just over 3M and made $1.7B? How can you possibly use those numbers against Apple...
They're just hiding in the corners waiting to explaim how overpriced the new iMac lineup is when it is announced in a few weeks...
The Apple fans out there should be thanking Microsoft for this -- their pushing of Vista onto people, and the pissing around with Netbooks to drive up costs and fight Linux seem to have more people wondering just what they use their computer for and how they want it to work.
MS also, somehow, managed to get manufacturers like HTC to put it's OS on phones -- while, personally, I liked the "hackability" I'm sure many people steered well clear due to the less than spectacular appearance.
While I'll admit I don't particularly want to see Apple do all that well, because I hate locked-down tech, at least this may mean that less people browse the web using IE and the last remaining MS only websites can finally disappear. It may also mean less MS-only (at least out of the box) devices out there.
I hope you feel proud, buying inferior crap and getting sucked in by cheap marketing and brightly coloured plastic crap.
I still can't come to terms how something as crap and badly sounding as a iPod Touch can sell itself as a music player (does it still sell itself as one of these, or is it now just for the "there's an app for that" iTards).
Personally, I can't see why anyone would get worked up about how other people dispose of their own personal assets in a legal way.
(How about a "I know better than you how to live your life" icon? Perhaps a Hillary Clinton picture would do.)
I would buy an iphone but it fails at the first hurdle, which is...
Can I buy it unbranded and unlocked?
I want CONTROL over my life more than I want SHINEY. I want the phone clean of telco bollox and I don't want to be tied into a contract.
Once the iphone has dealt with that, the next question is...
Can I customize it to the way I work and purchase apps from wherever I choose?
You can see it's going to be a while before I buy one, can't you?
FREEDOM, my friends, trumps TECH every time.
What would you rather have - a TV in a prison or a book in your own home?
michael Dell was so spot on when he said that apple should be liquidated and the money returned to the share holder. Absolutely right..... much like Bill Ray's "why the iPhone will Fail and fail badly" so spot on.
Well, considdering evidence presented recently, that 1/3rd of people can't tell the difference between 48kbps and 256, it'tsnot all that surprising. Granted the sample size was so small I'd barely call the survey science, but it's been done over and over with different groups of people for years with similar results. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49303980,00.htm
However, and I ask this in all seriousness, when exactly have you compared an iPod playing a lossless AAC file to any other player which using the same headphones on both for a fair comparrison? See, if you're going around stating that a 128kbit audio on stock headphones sucks, well, you're pretty much right. It's good enough for people out and about, in noisy places, and where other activity makes the quality difference irrelevent. Yes for an Audiophile this sounds glaring vs what you might listen to in the quiet comfort of home with $200 noise canceling hadphones. To get superior quality, even Apple reccomends the purchase of superior headphones, typically not less than $100 for a pair of earbuds.
Over 80% of people simply can not tell the difference betwenn 256bit AAC and lossless audio. about 75% of people can't tell with MP3. (yes, high quality AAC is generally considered supoerior to PM3 quality, though the reverse is true at lower bit rates). http://pcworld.about.com/news/Oct022001id64123.htm.
Using the same headphones on multiple devices, you're telling me that even though 80% of people can't tell the difference between 256bit and uncomressed (and when 33% can't tell the difference between 48kbps and 256), that you can tell the difference between a Zune and an iPod? BULLSHIT! Maybe with scientific grade quality gear and perfect test conditions, but honestly, in a blind test, vs an open test, I bet the numbers would be radically different (with results crealy showing perceived quality is subject to brand discrimination).
What's more likely is you;re an apple hater by default, and some time ago, a friend with a new Ipod, showing it off, pissing you off, offered to play some songs for you, likely tyhat were 128bit at best, and you listened to the in less than ideal consitions on the sub-par headphones they used to ship with iPods (the current model is somewhat better, but still worth replacing, as are the Zune headphones, Sony, and everyone else). You formed an opinion, and are simply convinced, and unwilling to accept your test was unfair to the Apple device, and unwilling to attempt another go at it since you simply are uninterested in elarning your perception is wrong and Apple is just as good.
You can buy the iPhone unlocked, and it's always unbranded anyway. So that's that straw man dealt with.
The iPhone doesn't have any "telco bollox" on it and you can buy it without a contract. That's another straw man up in flames.
I can customize my iPhone to the way I work and purchase all the apps I can possibly ever imagine I would want (and then some). And no, my phone is not jailbroken. Your NerdTard arguments about control and freedom are just conceptual. In reality it makes no difference. I bought an iPhone because it does what I need and want it to do, and does it brilliantly, in a way nothing else out there even gets close. The fact that it looks nice, or is "cool" is utterly irrelevant, but it's a nice bonus. And to your last point (another straw man about to burst into flames), I'd rather have a phone that does everything I want it to do extremely well rather than one that does some of the things I want in a mediocre and often overly complicated way but hey, it lets me install some nerdtastic software written by some Bosnian teenager just in case I might want to. Thankfully it's only you and half a dozen other RegTard nerdamentalists who think like you do. The rest of us can just get on with life and enjoy spectacularly good product, not because it's shiney, but because it WORKS.
For the record I hope MS fail too but, in the area of phones at least, the shitty product that MS make is more open, yes.
Apple deserve credit for being "user friendly", shiney, and doing what they say on the tin (mostly) but in terms of freedom they're on a par with Microsoft.
Isn't quarter 4 2009 actually in progress now ? Crystal ball gazing or typo ?
