Re: Apple don't have 5 years - @loan 09:52 GMT

"Because that money sitting in the bank will explode?"

Actually, it will. Investors allow Apple to sit on the cash whilst the share price rockets, or when investors believe you are using or will use that cash in a good way. At the moment Apple pay for R&D out of revenues and still add to the cash pile, so they don't really need it. Corporate investors aren't fanbois, and they'll be pushing the board to hand the money back before long, particularly now the share price has topped out.

As one of, or the world's most valuable company by market capitalisation, they can't continue the meteoric rise in share price. So investors will let them bide their time for a while. But Cook is no Jobs, and unless Apple start to show a use for the cash, then the investors will want it back. My guess is that Apple's management will eventually start splashing out buying companies because they've no better idea of what to do with the money (and they'll be in no hurry to give money to the shareholders, even if they do own the company). And ARM are currently the obvious number one target. The only reason that ARM haven't been hoovered up by a cash rich US firm yet is because of the fear that the first mover will trigger a nuclear bidding war, with Google, Apple and Microsoft slugging it out, possibly with some incoming from the likes of Samsung or Qualcomm. Intel would probably be barred by market share reasons, although if Apple owned ARM then suddenly Intel have the custom of every other phone and tablet maker.

Doesn't really bear thinking about, with Apple's twatty management, and their childish approach to patents and litigation.

Re: Caganer

Nope, I think that the current location is just outside the front door of a swanky London law firm in the More London office development. I vote for it to stay, just be turned round so that it's backside faces the door. Either that, or to face the neighbours, PwC.

Re: "More people have a mobile phone than a toilet"

"And, critically of course, a mobile (usually) fits in one's pocket."

So would the vast majority of turds. Icon for obvious reasons.

Re: Must watch more news@Matt Bryant

"you might have actually learned something about the realities of the Mid East conflict."

Nope. Your one sided agressively parroted tripe doesn't inform anybody of anything, other than that you are an israeli fanbois, wilfully blind to the fact that all conflicts have two sides. In Palestine terrorism is practised by both sides, although you obviously believe that if a missile is fired from an American supplied and funded attack helicopter, and kills Palestinian civilians it has some special attribute that makes it permissible, whereas a crude Iranian made rocket fired by Hamas that kills Israeli civilians isn't.

"Best if you just live in ignorance and parrot whatever some clueless celebrity tells you to think, right?"

Actually I'm fairly well read on the Middle East - you could be as well, but it certainly doesn't shine through in your shouty contributions. In all your whiney accusations of liberalism against anybody who has the temerity to disagree with you, I wonder what you actually know of the situation on the ground, or of being at risk of terrorism. I've been in situations where, working for my country's defence services, I've had to check my car daily for explosive devices. I've separately worked in low income locations as a commercial consultant where lawlessness, murder and kidnap are common. I suspect when it comes to comfortable people spouting crap without any relevant experience, you are the one.

"After all, pretensions are so much easier for you than actually forming an opinion."

You really are weak on this logical argument business, aren't you? You've typed several thousand words in this thread, blustered and shouted, and mouthed off abusively precisely because I have an opinion of my own. In this respect your approach to polite discourse is a bit like israel's approach to anything - loud mouthed, agressive, and counter-productive.

"/I'd use the Paris icon "

You should have, because it shows your true colours - a complete lack of respect for others, and for views that differ from your own rigidly held belief system. I've chosen the unhappy icon, because I'm sad for you. If this is truly how you are, then you must be a really unpleasant person to be around - rude, agressive, and bigoted.

Re: Apple is certainly in a rut@Thad

"Microsoft, on the other hand, would have done much better to produce something that did look like a bit more of the same."

Well, to be fair, the bulk of Windows 8, 7 and Vista appears to me to be common code. Since the three household machines run this vile mix, I think I've done enough prowling around to know. There's some tuning to 7 to make it run more fluidly than Vista, otherwise they are near enough identical, and 8 looks like 7 with a sticking plaster application launcher (TIFKAM). Again, 8 has some performance tuning over 7, but start getting into the administrative bits and it all looks familiar (and ancient). At a guess most of the code is still Windows Server 1802, or something similar.

Same with Office. Other than performance tuning between editions, and the ribbon (Office's TIFKAM, but a year or two premature) there's stuff all to commend upgrading. Xbox - yadda yadda.

There's certainly a few bits they've tinkered with, but (as an Apple hater myself) I really can't see how anybody would believe that MS are doing more innovating than Apple. Admittedly Apple is beginning to look like the same old same old, and MS have temporarily gone into branded hardware (with a few problems now, dare I say, surfacing?).

So my take: MS are not innovative, they are a mature franchise milking the cash cow. Apple, unfortunately appear to be reaching the same stage, and what Woz is seeing is simply the corporate middle age spread.

Re: Must watch more news@Matt Bryant

"I'm betting you only consider a view "balanced" if it agrees exactly with your preconceptions, and the real problem is I would have to have a labotomy to reach that level of obtuseness"

There we go yet again - presuming what other people think, and resorting to weak ad hominems. Given that's the best you can offer I didn't read the rest of your rant any further. Hopefully, releasing the bile soaked invective that it doubtless contains will have made you feel better, and on that basis I've achieved something positive today for your unfortunate anger management problems.

Your difficulties with the Arab peoples would appear to be unfortunately beyond help.

Re: BYOD Policy

"Or, it might be that they have a shiny laptop with no warranty and a load of piratey software on it that they use for work purposes and then land the company in hot water with because.... "

These issues are easily fixed. I use my car for work, and the company check my licence directly with DVLA, ask to see MOT and insurance documents, and could (and should) extend that to seeing the service records. So in the unlikely event that I wanted to use my PC for work, I'd see them being within their rights asking me to prove that the software is under a valid licence, has suitable malware protection, allow monitoring what I do during working hours, and requiring that I use disk encryption and suitable password routines. Backup is something for the company to make work.

Personally I can't see many people wanting their personal hardware fouled with the repressive hand of corporate BOFHs, so the answer to BYOD isn't "no", but "yes of course, on our terms". Mind you, the BYOD problem arises largely because companies hand out such poor quality and restricted functionality kit in the first place. Fix that, and most of the pressure will go away.

Re: popcorn

Bollocks to popcorn, commentards.

Think what could be achieved with .wav "icons".

Re: the sphyncter as a whole

Or cropdusting HR, ..... and ..... every government building I can get my ass into"

No longer, young padawan, no longer.

Having 'fessed up on El Reg, the homeland security people will be on your case, and you are looking at a future every bit as gloomy (and every bit as undeserved) as Bradley Manning.

@b166er

"My personal preference is to let one go in a full lift, pause and then look with an accusatory glance at a chosen victim :D"

You do know that perverting the course of justice can carry a sentence up to life imprisonment?

Re: Why do we need to @ JaitcH

"The USA and Europe don't always agree with each other and having Galileo gives Europe the ability to give the Americans the finger sign when the need arises."

Maybe. But I'd expect there's lots of US export controlled tech in Galileo, which is fully likely to enable the US to have its way - eg degraded public accuracy when intending to attack someone. Most likely by consent (ie the US phone up and say "turn down the volume"), but if you were cynical enough you'd presume there may be by backdoors in the technology, or that the US might develop active countermeasures (and not just for the EU system).

And if the dispute's serious then I've no doubt that the US, China, and Russia have the means to ensure that somebody else's satellite is "accidentally" lost. But I can be pretty sure that the EU, who can't agree on anything defence related, probably would have neither the means nor the will to reciprocate. Worse still, the EU system becomes the warning shot target, the one that somebody takes out to show the Americans that they could do it if they wanted to. I think that, along with the US control issues above rather dismisses the "we need control of our own" argument.

So Galileo is sadly an expensive EU vanity project, unless there is an incremental €20 billion of benefit in improving the accuracy of positioning from around 3m to perhaps 20cm. And even then, the current location accuracy of GPS on the move is (in practical terms) better than the theoretical value, so actually about 1m, which is why devices can offer lane guidance.

I'm open to offers, but since my existing phone could (if I allowed it) already tell a shop that I'm right outside it, where's the €20bn value of being able to tell the shop which pocket I keep my phone in? How often do emergency services go looking for a reported crash, but miss it because the reported location was inaccurate by twelve feet?

Re: Nokia maps are incredible...

Agree with your views on Nokia maps, but they haven't given the crown jewels away because they've only enabled foor navigation, I believe. Although that also means that IPhone users will still need to use Apple's maps for road navigation, and personally I can't see that working in Nokia's favour.

A far better strategy might have been to offer a two month free trial of the full function Nokia maps, and then offer an annual licence for say thirty quid a year. That way verybody can try for free, then choose to buy if they want without changing their phone, but when it comes to renewal time they start to think "Nokia maps is free when I buy a Nokia, not a sixty quid premium on top of the Apple tax".

Re: Fiesty Finns...@Andus McCoatover

"Nokia's fighting back"

Well, actually Nokia is just delivering Elop's master plan. Trying to use Maps as a lure for other phone users is a nice idea, although in my view unlikely to actually draw many users away from their shiney iPhones.

Nothing has changed since the burning platform memo, Nokia is entirely dependant upon MS producing the goods in a popular phone OS, and as a company is coasting, trying to avoid burning too much cash whilst hoping in future to capitalise on Nokia's huge legacy user base not using full fat smartphones. The lukewarm reception for Windows 8 is a real problem here for Nokia - it seriously tarnishes WP8, and all because some arrogant twerp in MS wouldn't listen to desktop PC users, and foisted TIFKAM on an unwilling world.

Unfortunately, I think Google have just torpedoed Nokia's strategy - not per se with Android, but with the latest Nexus, which has delivered a proper smartphone at a previously unheard of price. Assuming that reflects a lower manufacturing price, then Nokia are in deep trouble, because the Lumia 820 is way too pricey to compete - and by such a margin that I can't see a theoretical stripped down 720 being cost or functionally competitive with the Nexus. Whilst Nokia have piffled around with their corporate woes, and prepping high end hardware for MS, Google have worked with LG to get the costs down.

In emerging markets, the rich will continue to covet the iPhone, but the emerging middle income groups will seek a balance of value and quality, and Nokia's not going to be in the running.

Re: Boom or bust?

Maybe, but this still strikes me as poor deal for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Live in Britain. Enjoy British weather. Suffer British prices. Have a British standard of living. Get paid a British salary. Be packed in to our over-crowded island. Be subject to our rubbish infrastructure and useles spublic services. Watch your savings being diluted and half your salary being frittered by the incompetents and criminals who govern Britain. But work to make Aussies rich.

I wish my great grandad had stolen a loaf of bread. Or more likely, I wish he'd been caught.

@Mark .

"Google maps on Android is great, but I really miss Nokia maps from my old 5800"

So in fact Google Maps isn't great. Like you I had a 5800, and really appreciated proper offline navigation, and all the bells and whistles, all available back in 2009, and working well on hardware that was fairly poor. Google Maps in 2012, by comparison, is a very mediocre application, of zero use in a reception black spot because you can't search the limited offline maps cache, you can't get directions if already driving, and even where there is reception it is lacking decent lane guidance, or any speed limit and camera reminders. And on any handset I've yet seen Google maps seems to take forever to locate the user, in large part because it is busy communicating with servers half way round the planet over an often slow and congested mobile data connection.

When Google Maps works it is OK, and I do use it. For free that can be considered good value, but it could be so much more if they'd actually try using it themselves, and work out what a smartphone navigation mapping device needs to accomplish. They've had plenty of time to sort this out, and the improvements over time have been fairly paltry - like improving the orginally dreadful digitised speech. That was a worthwhile change, but the app shouldn't have gone out with such poor speech in the first place.

Given that (fanbois not withstanding) there is not really much to choose between any modern phone OS, I think that the mediocrity of Google Maps might be enough to make me choose a Nokia (and hence Winpho) device next time round, although there's a year for me to think about it on my contract.

Incidentally, Nokia releasing HERE for foot navigation only is a bit pointless - nobody will see the quality that the service really has, and it won't drag iTards over to WinPho. Personally, given the poor quality of Google Maps, I'd buy the full functioning Nokia app for £50 outright on Android, or pay fifteen quid a year for it; Not sure how many peasants would actually put their hand in their pockets, though.

Re: Sod the clock - @ I Am Spartacus

"WHAT - A public train service makes a profit?? COME ON NETWORK SOUTHEAST - Get your act together, and find out how!!!!"

I'll tell you how: On 2010-ish data, Swiss Railways income is 25% above the combined UK rail industry's income (that's gross revenues per passenger km). I've not adjusted for freight traffic because ICBA, but my fag packet calculations suggest that would actually increase the difference by a few per cent.

So if you want Swiss style railways, no problem, we do know how it is done, and it involves paying out 25% more than at present. With UK government rail support to the tune of about a third of the total, to raise 25% of gross revenues through fare and freight increases would require the rail user to see a circa 35% increase on tickets.

Go sell that one to Network Southeast's punters!

Re: what do you expect them to do@DanDanDan

"You can't tax sales, that's ridiculous"

Of course you can. Petrol, fags, booze have punitive sales taxes added, and most items are subject to VAT; property has stamp duty charged. In the case of VAT these costs are mostly reclaimable by all except the retail customer, but the other taxes usually aren't. Arguably personal income tax is simply a sales tax on the sale of your labour to an employer.

A sales tax where avoidance of corporation taxes is clear is a damn good idea, and could even be simplified by tweaking the rules on VAT to make it reclaimable except in those circumstances. Somebody will now say "you can't do that because" but there's already situations where companies can't reclaim VAT, usually of a fairly technical nature (for example certain retail loan administration costs).

What is lacking here is (as usual) the political will to take a problem, and fix it. Grandstanding on a palrliamentary committee is a nice bit of fun, but this shower aren't accountable for anything, and I can't see that flea-brain Osborne fixing this ever.

Re: Totally agree.

"So what do you expect them to do - just ignore it?"

No, what I expect them to do is copy the practice, and that's exactly what Margaret Hodge's family company Stemcor does. UK revenues of £2.1bn, and paid taxes equating to 0.01% of those revenues. Good socialist values Margaret! Not that the rest of the Westminster leeches of any political persuasion are any better.

Remember, fellow commentards, having the one job and paying your fair share of tax applies to us, not them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/9668396/Margaret-Hodges-family-company-pays-just-0.01pc-tax-on-2.1bn-of-business-generated-in-the-UK.html

Re: What the West should be doing...

"But local robots are cheaper still. In both the latter cases unemployment rises, but in the latter case, money is clawed back through local taxes and less money going abroad."

How will money be clawed back locally, given that there will be fewer and fewer people in employment to pay for the product, generating revenues and taxable profits for the makers?

In some utopian future we might need some means of sharing out machine generated wealth amongst a largely idle population (not that the "idle consumer" model has worked terribly well in the oil rich Gulf states), but in the transitional phase that we appear to be approaching there's going to be a lot of difficulty as some people have to work, and an increasing number do not. The UK is one of the most de-industrialised societies in the world, but even we've found that services don't make up the gap, nor do welfare payments make for a balanced society.

Re: "isn't not"

That's called a "typo". But good of you to raise this important point - slack day at the ranch?

Re: And the USA wonders why @Matt Bryant

I call Godwin.

The rest of your spittle frothed invective doesn't really merit a response, but can I ask why do you let yourself down like this? Sometimes you're capable of reasoned thought and make good contributions, but only the other week you made an ass of yourself in a discussion with h4rmony, in exactly the same manner as you have here, spiralling down to abuse when you don't seem to be getting the better of the argument. It's not the name calling that I mind - I can do that when I choose, and I'm not posting under my given name - but that you're cr@pping on your own lawn needlessly.

All of us are wrong sometimes, but I find it better to slink away quietly on those (hopefully) rare occasions that I mess up - you might want to try that.