back to article Apple stuns Wall Street with 95% earnings surge

Apple blew past the Wall Street moneymen's predictions for its financial performance in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2011, posting record Q2 revenue of $24.67bn along with record Q2 net profit of $5.99bn. "We're firing on all cylinders," said CEO Steve Jobs in a prepared statement. "We will continue to innovate on all …

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  1. Robert E A Harvey

    Apple's only declining segment was iPods

    well, there can't be many more to sell - surely everyone who wants one has got one?

  2. nyelvmark
    Unhappy

    Fanbois pay even more money

    Why does this make me sad?

    I guess it's envy. Marketing pwns engineering.

    Sob.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Agree

      It shows how consumers have a total lack of critical thinking. Apple doles out "innovation" in a slow dribble so that it takes years to match the features they should have had a launch. And people rush out to buy anyway. Maybe humanity really is doomed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Or maybe...

        Apple actually make products people want and wait to implement features when they are ready to be implemented and not to simply to fill a nerds check list...

    2. Martin Gregorie

      A futmartin@gregorie.orgure predicted

      "Marketing pwns engineering."

      You want to see the future? Read "The Space Merchants" by Kornbluth & Pohl.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. farizzle
      Unhappy

      @ nyelvmark

      Please stay on TheRegister comments and forums for the foreseeable future; i've actually made a note to buy you a Mac so you can explore and put to rest this weird notion you have that Apple market badly-engineered products.

      Well-engineered products are not that hard to sell...

      1. M Gale

        Heh

        This would be like the Apple craptop a friend of mine has that continues to exhibit problems despite this being the third model? First a case with spontaneously-appearing cracks, then the hard drive fails, then the power supply goes kaput. Magnetic power clips are a good thing but not when it doesn't sodding work!

        Of course, we won't go into the 4th revision of their mobile telephone that is spectacularly bad at making phone calls when you hold it like a phone. Yes, I've used it. Yes, the grip-o'-death is real. No, you don't need to go out of your way to trigger it. Just hold it like a phone and not some precious pearl, and despair as your signal goes to shit. Doesn't help that the thing keeps popping up "NETWORK ERROR [dismiss]/[cancel]" in the middle of trying to aim a bird at a particularly stubborn pig or cover up an annoyingly positioned orange either.

        Well marketed, yes. Very well marketed, also yes. Pretty? Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder but plenty of people seem to think so.

        Well engineered? Oh come on. Couple of nice ideas (like the magnetic power clips on the laptops), but it's the same shitty Chinese crap that goes in every beige box I've ever used.

        1. Maliciously Crafted Packet
          Thumb Up

          Still stunning Wall Street...

          with a 95% earnings surge though.

          Given the recent results from comScore showing that Apple's iOS platform outreaches Android by 59 Percent in the US I can't say Im surprised.

          I think this is a heads up to business and corporate IT that iOS is the platform to standardise on.

          Your adversaries are using iPads/iPhones right now to gain real competitive advantage. Waiting for your chosen platform to catch up to where Apple is today in 3 to 4 years is not an option.

          Android has demonstrated it can't bridge multiple formats and is stuck in the handset space. Real fragmentation issues and poor user experience means Androids usage in the enterprise has probably peaked.

          Whilst impressive efforts have been made by RIM, HP and Microsoft on mobile devices, these organisations are just too exhausted and slow moving to swim against the iOS tide.

          1. M Gale

            Hang on, what?

            "Your adversaries are using iPads/iPhones right now to gain real competitive advantage."

            They are toys. Tell me what is the difference between browsing the web on an iPad and browsing the web on some Archos thing, asides the Archos thing maybe letting you view Flash content?

            And how in hell does the iPhone give anybody a competitive advantage over anything? You can't even make calls on the thing without the Special Jobsian Hold being applied! My Nokia 6288 has a real competitive advantage over the iPhone 4 in that regard!

            Serioously. There's marketing fluff, there's slavish adoration, and then there's that post right above.

            Real competitive advantage? Thanks, you've given me the first laugh of today.

            1. Maliciously Crafted Packet

              And how in hell does the iPhone give anybody a competitive advantage over anything?

              Lets just take one example, one productivity app. FileMaker Go. (Google it).

              Fully relational database with links to MySQL, Microsoft SQL and Oracle data sources. Charting and graphing, photo capture and display, export data to PDF, email integration and signature capture. I could go on... Its a field workers dream. Nothing this slick exists for Android let alone Android tablets.

              And thats just one app, there are many many more enterprise apps available for iOS.

              Like I said. Real competitive advantage. And thats real competitive advantage today, not in 18 months time.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                @AC... re: returns rate.

                We have an iMac in my house, it has been very well looked after, but:

                There is a crack at the bottom-left of the monitor, slowly expanding.

                The fan makes so much noise that it almost drowns out the speakers.

                Dispite the applecare package that it was bought with, Apple refuse to accept a return for either issue. The fan is "normal" according to them, and the crack is due to misuse aparently. The point that I'm making is that it's all very well to say you've got an industry low return rate, but if that is becuase you refuse to accept returns for legitimate reasons, it's not really telling the whole truth.

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Down

          @ M Gale

          And yet, for every one of you, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of perfectly working machines/phones. Who'd-a-thunk-it?

          And that return rate ratio is one of the best (but not the best, admittedly) in the channel.

          And I expect it to get better, now that the plastic models are now all aluminium - I expect to see case defects decrease yet further, and the quality feel stay for longer (Plastic does get a bit loose, creaky and can warp). They still haven't sorted out the keyboard wear though; the keys still polish up as quickly.

          I'm not an Fanbio, but damn, I'd take a macbook pro in heartbeat if I could afford it, as I bet most here would (even if it's to run your own choice of OS).

          1. M Gale

            10 people don't like it when their version of the truth doesn't match reality

            "And yet, for every one of you, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of perfectly working machines/phones. Who'd-a-thunk-it?"

            Asides the iPhone 4, which has a very well-deserved "iFlaw" nickname. Seriously, that antenna? Fix the thing, Steve. You may be happy for the call to go to nothing if you hold the phone like a phone, but I'm bloody well not.

            And it's amusing. Most of my downvotes come from telling Apple fans what they don't want to hear. Oh well, when I can truthfully say that I'd sell that MacBook in a heartbeat and get something with twice the spec that'll still be around next week despite getting accidentally sneezed on, how many downvotes would that be worth?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Headmaster

              RE: 10 people don't like it when their version of the truth doesn't match reality

              Sssshhh. My experiences with Apple products are entirely different to yours. I had a hard drive ail after 3 years of heavy use and it was replaced FoC as the iMac was under Apple care, I was made up and they fitted a bigger drive to boot! My iPhone 3G is still pootling along, still a reasonably capable device, still does what I need it to do. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it is the best mobile phone that I have ever owned. It's well made and does what it says on the box. Am I living in a distorted reality, or are my experiences just different to yours? Or, more than likely, are you a silly little troll who has been disagreed with and is subsequently having a wee bit of a paddy? Seriously, I can see the spittle as you bash those poor keys. You sound very bitter; perhaps you shouldn’t take it so personally. Or you could just stop being a bit of a knobber. Use a browser or an OS with a built in spell checker too...

        4. Tac Eht Xilef

          Mod parent sideways

          Totally unlike my laptop - the plastic's starting to discolour, the front edge of the keyboard panel is starting to chip, the touchpad button can be a little erratic but is currently fine thanks to a thin piece of paper jammed under it, and the battery life has halved from new.

          That said, it's an early 2007 Macbook that's spent 4 years being thrown in a backpack & carted back and forth daily to uni, dragged around on field camping trips to the desert / rainforest / sand islands, and had its HDD replaced twice (once because it slid 18" off a stool on to concrete - too low for the motion sensor to save it - and once to upgrade to a 320Gig). Despite the magsafe connector being one of the early ones (supposedly prone to damage & early failure) it's survived fine; the battery (despite being 51 months old, over 1500 cycles on it, and generally treated like shit) has outlasted those in equivalent-aged Thinkpads and Toughbooks used alongside it. Not to mention my partner's Acer, which has always been a slow pig of a machine and now needs a new HDD & battery at less than 2 years old.

          Now I'm hardly an Apple zealot - I've got a desktop PC that runs Win for video editing & heavy statistical stuff, a server PC running Debian stable, and a router PC running a heavily customised OpenBSD off a CF card - but bugger me if I won't buy another Macbook when this one eventually bites the dust. By my reckoning if I buy another battery soon (and maybe a top case if the trackpad gets any worse) that'll be in 2 or 3 years time...

  3. Trib

    iPods

    Even with it down 17%, it is still amazing they have sold over 9 million iPods in one quarter!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Weird, huh?

    It's just weird how all these non-Apple people get so angry about people who buy Apple kit. Weirder still, us Apple people are really happy and laid back about it all. Ho hum.

    1. David Simpson 1
      Thumb Down

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      No one is angry you buy Apple kit, we all just wish we could waste money in such a carefree way.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Jobs Halo

        @ David Simpson

        I'm still using a 12-year-old G3 as a scanning station and every Mac I've ever had that I haven't part-exchanged, sold or given to family or friends is still working. I call Macs an investment, not wasting money. When will you need to replace your latest pee-cee because it's knackered or dead?

        1. M Gale

          "When will you need to replace your latest pee-cee because it's knackered or dead?"

          I still have an old PPC640 that works. 286 processor, two 720kb DD 3.5" drives and a copy of DOS 3.3.

          Also my old peecee got replaced due to being old, not being broken.

          The G3 Power Mac on the other hand, sits there being dead through lack of a power supply. New power supplies (no, not second hand eBay ones) cost an absolute boatload, because Apple are "special". So.. what was that you said about an investment? Only I have a Spectrum +2 in the shed that would probably be more use than my Mac, currently.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      A clue ...

      Get one.

      As I currently own three Macs (although I don't have or would ever want an iPhone or iPod), I'm hardly a "non-Apple" person. I see myself as just a *nix person.

      Its just that in the space of a few years Apple have become a galloping parody, And I'M not happy about THAT, so speak for yourself.

      Apple are simply, now, today, quite evil. So are their dealers, but that's always been true.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        A clue?

        Didn't you post something about these people getting a grip? My friend, from where I am sitting it is you that need to get a grip on reality! Evil? No. Good at making money? Definitely, but the didn't used to be. They have hit a rich vein of X factor and capitalised on it. There is nothing immoral about their business practices that others don't do and as anyone with any real sense says, don't like what they do and how they do it? Don't buy their products and ignore them, it really is that simple. Meanwhile, us grown ups will move on. We will continue to buy and use the products that best suit our needs, which vary from consumer to consumer. Businesses exist to make money, it's time a lot of you nerds understood this and stopped this 'X is evil' crap. This is the real world, not fucking Star Wars...

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Chris 244
            Grenade

            @Ha Ha!

            Godwin!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ignorance is bliss

      Apparently that really is true

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Tempting fate

    Whenever someone makes a statement like "we're firing on all cylinders", you can bet that it will come back and bite --hard-- sometime further down the road.

    1. Efros

      Could

      be that they'll throw a rod. Having said that they haven't had a major marketing effup in quite a long while, even the problems they have had, antennagate, battery debacles etc haven't affected their core buyers loyalty. I've tried Apple products and I just don't like 'em, I don't find them easy to use, their user friendliness obviously works for some but definitely not for me. The obsession about locking everything down really irks as well, my one trip into OSX land was to install it onto a non Apple computer just to do it. played with it for a couple of hours and then installed Debian. I am still of the opinion that any organisation that is making those sort of profit margins (approaching 25%) is ripping some poor bastard somewhere. Microsoft would fall into the same category along with various media conglomerates. Need an Astrolube icon to show that someone is getting shafted.

    2. farizzle
      Happy

      well...

      the near future points to an upgrade on the iPhone (more sales), a new OS (more sales) a bump in spec for the machines that will run said new OS (even more sales), [insert tick-tock cycle choice here]....(more sales).. [and here] .. more sales... [big new server farm comes online].. more sales...

      I am in no way a beneficiary of Apple's sales figures, except in that it encourages them to continue doing whatever it is they do in Cupertino, that enables them to keep bringing out such decent kit year on year...

      1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

        The abused spouse votes for the rod

        I really don't understand how people shout hooray when Apple announce margins of 25--30% on hardware sales.

        They are charging unprecedented margins, and then boasting about it, which is fine, I'd boast about it too. What gets me is the Stockholm Syndrome responses from the Apple fanboys who parrot the results as if it was someone else who's being fleeced.

        If you're a shareholder, that's fine (although you really shouldn't be a shareholder anymore -- AAPL has all the hallmarks of a bubble stock; the only ones who say different are recent owners), but as a customer? "Oh, I like to overpay. It makes me feel rich".

        For the record, I have used Macs for about 15 years both pre and post OSX, I worked for Apple as a software dev for five of those years, I still run OS X on one machine, and I bought my first ever Windows-OS laptop a month ago, after getting sick of the appallingly engineered MacBook Air, and the almost complete neglect of OS X since iPhone came along.

        For those lauding Apple's engineering above: a fancy metal case is industrial design; proper thermal management (or antenna design/IO provision/hinge design/drive mounts/power-supply design, delete as appropriate) is engineering, and Apple's engineering has been on a downward slide for about three years.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @ Kirsten Walsh

          Two problems with your statement...

          "AAPL has all the hallmarks of a bubble stock".

          It's been a bubble for 4 years, with no real headwinds to cause a downturn? That's not a bubble stock.

          "Apple's engineering has been on a downward slide for about three years"

          It's so bad that the pro's are some of the quietest and reliable 'full power' laptops you can buy? The mag-power connector is so bad, that it's yet to be bettered? It's so bad they weren't the first manufacturer to commercialise multi-touch technology?

          Your comments on OS X are spot on though; and the latest lion 'updates' are just a shocking example - some of the lauded features are just "cut and paste" jobs from iOS!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          No Kristian.

          "I really don't understand how people shout hooray when Apple announce margins of 25--30% on hardware sales." It's really in response to a lot of those that like to slag them off. Puerile on both sides really, which leads nicely too...

          "What gets me is the Stockholm Syndrome responses from the Apple fanboys who parrot the results as if it was someone else who's being fleeced." Which is different from fandroids crowing about how much market share Android has? Well? It's no different, is it.

          "If you're a shareholder, that's fine (although you really shouldn't be a shareholder anymore -- AAPL has all the hallmarks of a bubble stock; the only ones who say different are recent owners), but as a customer? "Oh, I like to overpay. It makes me feel rich". Or perhaps "I like the product, it works for me and I'm prepared to pay more for it" or " "Apple make the best tool for what I do and I am prepared to pay the premium for that tool". No, they must all be fanboys, right?

          "For the record, I have used Macs for about 15 years both pre and post OSX, I worked for Apple as a software dev for five of those years, I still run OS X on one machine, and I bought my first ever Windows-OS laptop a month ago, after getting sick of the appallingly engineered MacBook Air, and the almost complete neglect of OS X since iPhone came along." Ah, so you are qualified to criticise. That's nice. Meaningless, but nice. Good luck with the "Windows" laptop, I've been using them for years, replacing Windows with Linux for that last 7 or so years. I'm tapping this on what can only be described as a "rickety" Dell laptop that is about 8 months old. It's been back once for a replacement bezel and the hinges on the screen have never been particularly great, they never have been. The power connector has PTFE tape wrapped around it because it constantly falls out. Great engineering there. This after years of Compaq and HP laptops that never seem to last beyond their manufacturers warranties. Is this just a case of "band X were cool, until they went commercial"? Were you *that* kid? Or is there some other subtext?

          "a fancy metal case is industrial design..." which is as much a branch of engineering as antenna design, and that's not all that Apple do either. Industrial Design is concerned not only with the aesthetics of the product, but also how it is made and goes together, how it works and there is also a lot of interaction design involved. Having studied industrial design at university I think I'm more than qualified to correct you on that point.

          "...and Apple's engineering has been on a downward slide for about three years." I disagree. I think that their QA isn't as good as it was because of the volume of SKU's that they are shipping. This is why, perhaps, Foxconn are looking to build a new facility in Brazil; they and Apple just cannot keep up with the demand. In my experience, the first thing to go is QA.

  6. johnnymotel
    Thumb Up

    my experience

    Ummmm....my MacPro is over 3 years old, it's still churning out NTSC to PAL conversions most days of the week. It's been seriously upgraded in RAM, storage & gfx.

    IMO it's an amazing piece of engineering, if anything it's over-engineered.

    Yes it cost more than other computers, but I figure it has about another 2 years working life, then it goes on Ebay and I'll probably reap 50% of it's purchase price.

    So yes, Apple does great marketing but they also do great engineering.

    1. Gene
      Thumb Up

      Mine's 4-1/2 years old

      Just added a Radeon 5770 and it looks like it has plenty of life left. These suckers really do last!

      1. johnnymotel
        Go

        my next upgrade...

        from my ATI 3870 to the ATI 6870 and not a Mac specific card either, an ASUS branded card. Seems Apple gave us MP users some nice 6xxx drivers to play with.

        Then next one is to upgrade the 2nd optical bay to hold an SSD & 3.5'HD.

        I'd also disagree with the internal build quality of other Apple lines. I have a laptop, replaced the HD for an SSD. Inside it looks amazing, not a single inch of wasted space. Compared to my very old Pismo, it's a work of art :)

    2. -tim
      Jobs Horns

      Good engineering? Where other than the case?

      Your MacPro is almost unique in the Apple product line of not looking like a dog's breakfast inside. Take apart any other bit of their kit and you wonder what they were thinking. You may find dozens of different sized screws or going into thin metal that has no holding capacity so normal stress cause the screws to fall out. Chip layout and even circuit board traces are not nearly as clean as other vendors stuff. There are hinge issues that date from the g4 laptop days that still haven't been properly addressed. Many of there new systems don't have enough video memory to push around the pixels modern users expect to use. Their mobile devices don't have moisture protection of any type yet a simple conformal coating would go a long way to stop many complaints about expensive gear going bad because it got too cold or got rain near it.

      1. OMGROFLSKATES
        Welcome

        Your metal fatigue may vary...

        Proportionate to the amount of force you're over-using stripping those screws. Having a proper Jewelers screw driver set for torx, Philips and flat-head and a little patience really does wonders.

        Also have you tried taking appart a Dell, Acer, HP, et al. Laptop or the crap-top aka netbook? Same screws and flimsy metal..kinda need it in such tight spaces.

        I have taken apart my Mac Mini and sent it from a 512 Core SOLO 1.5ghz 5400 60GB spinner entry level to a 2.4 Core2Duo 7200 Series (4MG Cache) with 2GB Ram and a 146gb SSD. Very nice filer I must say.

        all screws played nice, the only brick that shat was the plastic pop pin screws that keep the heat sink on...that was a bitch. I found it entertaining using a Plaster Knife to open the thing, it was different then unscrewing case screws, not to be confused with being a pain in the ass when you're tired though.

        I has a Gen1 Nehelam based MacPro with 32gb ram. Running RAID-0 with the RAID card I do CUDA research (so 2x VDO cards) and have about 20 VM's running, I have yet to pull a load of more then 4 on this thing. Only running SETI do I hit 8. Expected total re-sale valule, 3K minimum in 2 years. nice investment if I say so. Better then govt bonds....

        and finally my White Macbook 13" entry level, runs SC2 just fine once I set the GFX levels at a reasonable level that the hardware can run. Do I need to see all the cute little lighting effects. No. Not important to PLAYING the game. I grew up in 8bit Monochrome Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards time.

        You sir are one spoiled child to complain about GFX over playing the game. Kids these days.

        GET OFF THE LAWN!

        1. -tim
          WTF?

          Apples metal fatigue may vary?

          @OMGROFLSKATES: The striped screws I've seen were that way before anyone ever opened the case. I find lose screws in nearly every mac I open and almost none of them have any sort of threadlock. I've also opened lots of equipment in my life and seen the insides of hundreds of different types of laptops and I'm not impressed with the inside or construction of the current apple line. As far as the graphics, try hooking up a second monitor and you'll quickly overload most powermacs and nearly all of the imacs complete. As far as graphics memory, I'm not complaining about game play, I'm talking about just running the windowing system. The new 27 inch imac in the office can't cope with having a second 27 inch monitor without having parts of the screen forgotten from time to time. I don't see having two screens on a modern computer as being spoiled. i had two screens on an 8 bit TRS-80 COCO back in 1983. I should be able to be able to move windows from one screen to another on my mac without it backfilling the desktop with random memory patterns.

      2. Marvin the Martian
        Linux

        @Tim: "only the case is well-engineered"

        Nice argumentation but sadly reality doesn't agree with you. Compare the repair & return rates and you see Apple is clearly in the premier league. Costwise, too; they're more expensive than Asus but on the same level for the same spec with other premium brands. You get what you pay for.

        Your video memory argument is clearly made-up, if we can agree to use TheRegister's reviews and 3DMark scores etc as a baseline.

        Hm... maybe you've got a different reality.

        /written on a 2003 12" G4 1.33ghz; haven't given Apple a penny since then except for an OS upgrade.

      3. M Gale
        Megaphone

        Upvoted.

        Upvoted because I'm betting out of all the people who say "great engineering" here, maybe 5% of them have actually been inside Apple gear and maybe only 1% of those knew what they were looking for, and were drunk at the time.

        As someone who would love to get his old G3 Power Mac running if only he could invest £270 in a power supply that's in every other way a shitty Chinese 250W ATX supply but has a speshul Apple 20 volt line in it... I just wish I could give you more than one vote.

        Oh, and the gumdrop Macs weren't exactly great either, inside.

        Megaphone, because you'll need it to talk to your distant friends if you hold your iPhone wrong.

        1. Wyrdness
          FAIL

          Just buy one off ebay and quit moaning

          Apple stopped making G3 PowerMacs in the late 90's and here you are moaning because your ancient computer is broken and 'new old stock' replacement parts are expensive. Just buy a broken one off Ebay and scavenge the psu. There are tested and working G3 PowerMacs on Ebay going for £25 with Buy It Now.

          1. M Gale

            Moaning?

            No, just telling you what you don't want to hear. Probably means more downvotes for me, but given the nature of the downvotes I'm happy to soak them up. Or as some people on Slashdot might say, "go ahead, I have karma to burn."

            Might grab one of those PSUs though, depending on whether they are still working. At least that's how much an ATX supply SHOULD cost.

        2. Robert E A Harvey

          err

          why not stick a LT1073CN on a bit of veroboard and make 20V from the 5V?

          1. M Gale
            Coat

            "why not stick a LT1073CN on a bit of veroboard and make 20V from the 5V?"

            Because it's been a long while since I last got high from flux fumes and I didn't want to chance blowing something else up by reading the resistor stripes wrong or confusing microfarads for picofarads or something.

            Still, it's an idea. I'd more than likely go 12->20v though, probably be less heat generated while doing it.

            Erm, mine's the one with three feet of shrink tubing in the pocket. I'll need it for fettling that ATX connector.

  7. Dave 126
    Happy

    Marketing pwns engineering?

    You are right; Marketing does own engineering- it is its paymaster. Marketing in this case creates a nice place for engineering to thrive. If it ain't likely to sell, it won't be likely to be built.

    FFS, people will only buy a nicely engineered piece of kit if they are informed/encouraged/coerced by the marketing, otherwise they will just go by the numbers and buy a sharp-edged steel chassied beige-plastic cased machine which has been thrown together with no more thought for the user other than giving him or her the on-paper sum-of-its-components specification they are looking for.

    Some people consider their time valuable enough to pay a small premuim not to have their computer spend 30 seconds waking from sleep when they nip into their office and prod the mouse... Call that a couple a minutes a day for a couple of years and you're into the dozens of hours... and most peoples hourly rate is such that it is reasonable to consider buying a machine that won't waste their time.

    I'm not a Mac user- I don't feel that their closed system would agree with me- but if you want to knock 'em, don't do it on the engineering front. Like the policeman said when Arthur Daley is wrongly suspected of kerb-crawling - "I know he's guilty of things, and I want to get him... but not for this". Their closed system is part and parcel of their business model to recoup the vast amount of money they have spent on engineering. Their stuff is very well engineered - it flippin' has to be in order to attract people to their income-generating closed 'ecosystem'. Apple kit is very well engineered, albeit to suit Apple.

    Example- When the first iPod was released, its only competition was very clumsily designed MP3 players from players without the R&D budget of Apple- even though the likes of Sony had had concepts for many years. Apple spent a shit load of money on making the iPod refined and usable, resulting in them earning stupid money from iTunes. The huge R&D cost to them was an investment that paid off handsomely.

    You seem to be sobbing because engineering can't be done for the sheer heck of it, sobbing because engineering has to show a return on its cost and ain't like the endless summer days getting our beautifully pointless LEGO creations 'just right'. Yeah, sometimes I'm sad too because my fantasies are just that- fantasies. Please cheer up, at least take some solace from the fact that Apple's presence has forced others to up their game.

    1. E Haines

      What closed system?

      What about OS X is "closed?" It's more open than Windows is. There's no DRM, there are open-source components, the design of the system is far more open--instead of impenetrable binary blobs, you can access app bundles easily and mess around with their XML files and such as you please. The fact that Apple hasn't licensed it to other manufacturers doesn't make it "closed".

  8. Dave 126

    @ Craiggy

    Umm... OK. Look- we know how much Apple sells their kit for. We know how much their kit costs to make (ignoring R&D and marketing). We know how many units they sell.

    Knowing all this, it is easy to see why they swimming in money I don't see why you have to invoke 'creative accounting' to explain why. The maths seems pretty straightforward to me: Lots minus a littl, times a shitload equals loadsamoney.

    They gave the people what they wanted. 'The people' ain't just nerds like us. Try telling your old man why his Win7 PC won't back itself up automatically using the Microsoft tool built-in to the OS unless he firsts disables Microsoft Security Essentials (and re-enables it again afters)- or even expect him to solve this issue himself instead, rather than have him snorting in frustration and going down the pub.

    C'mon people, horses for courses.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. CarlC
    Happy

    I'm happy......

    As someone who has just moved from an iPad 1 to a Motorola Xoom, I am really pleased Apple are doing well. They may not be the engineers choice but they do push the bar up for the competition, even if, in my opinion, most of the 'inovation' is marketing hype. The Xoom is an impressive bit of kit and with Apples changes to the app store terms on subscription etc having a valid and, IMHO, technically better alternative is great. Thanks for getting your competition to step up to the plate Apple.

    1. Maliciously Crafted Packet

      Are you serious...

      the Xoom?

      This is what I have heard.

      •At 800 USD its over priced

      •So heavy it could be used as a weapon

      •Buggy, the app market crashes on app updates, the browser crashes regularly

      •Poor multitasking, slows down the more apps that are open

      •General shortage of apps

      •Regular Android handset apps are supposed to scale up but generally end up jumping off the screen

      http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/05/ipad-2-xoom-fight/

      1. Maty

        Xoom

        This is going to be a good product ... in a few years. We went to get another (er ... is it compulsory to use 'fondleslab' here?) because the single iPad in the house had two people constantly trying to use it.

        I really wanted to get a Xoom. It looks good, its more programmable and the screen is very responsive. But ... websites looked hellish on it, and one third of the apps we tried crashed - and that was on a store demo model.

        Guess what we went home with - having got it at a lower price?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahah

    The haters in this thread make me laugh.

    Yeah right, "Apple is all marketing": You mean Unix with a user interface that actually works? Real productive applications too (yes you have to pay money for those)

    "Doles out innovation in a slow dribble": Yes, with the latest chipsets. Also who really got USB (not the 3, the first one) moving after years of neglect? Now Thunderbolt (yes there are devices already, the low latency is amazing) Not to mention who finally got a touchscreen concept people liked to use?

    "waste money in such a carefree way": Well we don't mind paying money for stuff that works, instead of throwing money down the drain with broken implementations and endless driver fixes.

    What Apple does now (and I don't mean servers) it does well. Simple as that. The market is catching up to this concept.

    1. Dan 92

      The Mac UI is actually pretty crap

      I use it almost every day, not by choice. And it seems designed to slow you down. And some of the design decisions are just ridiculous. Really, what justification can there be for forcing me to only resize a window from the bottom right other than trying to make things more inefficient. Why can't I close my macbook lid and have it keep running? I guess it's not meant for any work that takes more than a few seconds to run. Why does clicking the little red x sometimes close the application while other times it just minimizes it, there's a minimize button I could have used if that's what I wanted.

      Every day a new annoyance, I can only surmise that people either don't use them for any real work, are too dumb or too brainwashed to see all the multitude of problems with the Mac UI.

      1. Fuzz

        dual screens

        and why when you run dual screens does the menu bar for the app you have on your right screen appear at the top of the left screen?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Boffin

          @ Fuzz

          ...because all apps are configured to display alerts and menu's on the "primary" display, since Apple uses a "unified" top menu.

          Try Second bar:

          http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=79

      2. Rolf Howarth

        Mac is not Windows

        They're just different. Resizing from the bottom right is no big deal, it's just what you're used to. Plus not all windows are resizable, so there's a visual cue in the corner to indicate that it can resize, you wouldn't want that in all four corners.

        You're mis-thinking what the red X does. It doesn't close or minimise applications, those concepts don't exist in Mac OS X. The red X closes the window, and that's what it always does. What you're thinking of is that some applications automatically terminate when their last window is closed and some continue running in the background, depending on how they're designed.

        You can close the lid and have it continue running if you connect an external monitor and keyboard, but having it go to sleep is what people want 99.9% of the time. I travel a lot with my MBP on trains etc. and just open the lid when I board the train and snap it shut when I get off, no need to ever shut it down or worry whether it's really gone to sleep.

      3. nuster100
        FAIL

        Google is your Friend

        Try enabling "Clamshell" mode to use it with the lid closed!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          clamshell mode is fail

          you shouldn't have to jump through hoops to do something so simple.

  11. Radelix
    Pint

    Ahh well

    As a user of non apple products. I see a marketing machine that is one of the finest as of recently. But the devices they do produce are rather nice devices with a good build quality and decent software. I myself being contrary in nature have no real need or want for apple products and find then rather annoying to use. In my younger years I have derided people for their chosen whatever, be it car, phone, toothpaste, etc, but you pays your money and you makes your choice. I see Apple becoming the Microsoft/General Motors of phones. Both great companies (enough enough I know) but at some point the ride will come to an end. Might as well enjoy it while its there.

    Cheers to Apple...Today is your day....won't buy you a beer though I think you can afford your own.

  12. ben edwards
    Unhappy

    Expectations

    Just how much profit did they expect to make? $5 on revenue of $20b?

  13. Daniel Evans

    Wall Street Maths?

    So, supposedly 1.61x = 5.36 and 1.95x = 5.99. I get x to be either 3.33 or 3.07. What gives? Especially odd as I get 1.73y = 23.34 and 1.83y = 24.67 to work for y = 13.48/49 (rounding errors are excused).

    Does Wall St use some weird mathemagical trickery?

    1. OMGROFLSKATES
      WTF?

      yes...

      why is our economy in the crapper?

  14. dssf
    Joke

    FIRING on all cylinders... and (Spoonerism alert)

    SIRING on all FILL-ENDERS

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Apple is dumb

    Apple may fool many people, but just wait until Windows 8 and Android tablets come out and destroyes it. There's android tablets for £50 now on the chineses shops, even comes with a touchpad and keyboard. Bit slow at 300Ghz but good to post things in forums.

    Touchscreen ares too rubbish to use, only a touchpad with a keyboard makes a real machine. Also can plug in usbs with songs and not use itunes.

    Then we'll see investors crying, but it's too late then. Android's cynliders will be firing nails in Apple's coffin.

    e

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      LOL

      Seriously, why do you care? that's the biggest pile of winfanboy I've ever read.

      Apple's success is largely down to the continuing failures of Microsoft and all the other tech giants. RIM released a tablet without email FFS, you couldn't make it up!!

      As for Microsoft isn't the place to work any more, you can't innovate there due to the culture at the company.

      Google and others are where the big influential people work. Google hired James Gosling recently, he invented Java. It goes to show that it's more about Google and Apple right now, Microsoft would not be a household name right now without XBox, Windows and Office.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      @ AC

      Ha, ha - good try.

      I'm storing your response for when Spock comes to visit, and I can prove there truly is no intelligent life on Earth, and he's had a wasted trip.

      Secondly - I'll have the 300Ghz one please. Though I suspect at 300ghz, it's gonna get a bit too toasty to hold.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    What's all this nonsense about "closed"?

    I see no moans about Nokia, Windows mobiles, MS operating systems, IBM mainframe systems, the computer chips in your car, washing machine etc., other non-android phones and so on and on, because they are "closed". Do you wish your disc drive firmware was "open" to your improvements too?

    Do you buy a new car, kindle or MP3 player and immediately set about "jail breaking" it?

    Anyway, as said, OS X is far from closed. The basic Darwin is published in full. Most of the command line stuff is GNU or BSD. You want to rewrite the standard C library, or X or ls? Carry on. Apple provide, with the machine a rather comprehensive set of development tools and languages, with hundreds more available from GNU, Mac Ports, Software Forge et alia. Apple's websites give you most of the links and often the kit itself. Go on, get yourself a second hand mac mini and have a go.

    A mobile telephone is, surprisingly, a mobile telephone. True, the iPhone/Android/Symbian 60s do move towards being a pocket computer cum camera cum games machine cum music player as well. But they are, primarily, mobile telephones.

    No, it is clear why Apple make good money: well thought through design and products of a good quality and a fair price for both non-technical users and genuinely capable informatics specialists that "normal" people actually want to own and use. They go back for more because their experience so far is good. They do not bother to get involved in these silly arguments. They just buy the stuff and use it.

    If you know better, I assume you are coining it in through the brilliance of your design and engineering and your ability to fool millions of gullible customers a la Apple (according to you).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Very good points

      Apple even got some very good developers like Jordan K. Hubbard which led the development of FreeBSD. Also Apple contributed massively in turning WebKit into an industry leading and open source browser, from its humbler beginnings as KDE's web browser.

      But apparently many commentards just seem to listen to spiel (mostly driven by Google, which is far from open as most companies) about open and closed and don't seem to be able to figure out for themselves what really goes on.

      They do however feel the need to give their opinion even if based on nothing but PR trash talk.

  17. Fremma
    Pint

    Respect, Steve, respect

    Normally I lean towards the "anti-Apple" side of debates here at El Reg and elsewhere but, today, I'll break with tradition and congratulate Steve on a Jobs well done. This is indeed a stunning result and all without troubling me for a penny.

    Steve, if you happen to walk into my local tonight - perhaps you could buy me a drink?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Halo

      Methinks not...

      ...if the Metro shots are anything to go by, a pint would probably kill him in his current state.

      halo icon...hopefully ironic.

  18. Mikel
    Pint

    Congratulations to Apple.

    Apple continues to make and ship products that people want. That's so simple it's almost magical.

    I wish others in the industry would apply some of this magic. They don't get paid for grand strategies, nor bold statements, nor FUD. They don't get paid by the press release for imaginary products from years hence - almost never to be realized. They get paid to make a product people want, and ship it. For most of them that's the only place their money comes from - but you wouldn't know it by how they act.

  19. cosmo the enlightened
    Coat

    Can I

    have a dividend now please...?

    No? alright I'll get my coat...

  20. Fab De Marco

    Hogwash School of Witchcraft and Marketing

    Not really magical. Fashionable. People don't want an iPhone/Pod/etc because they have read reviews of it, like the spec and such forth. They want one because its fashionable. The iPhone 5 could have a the same spec as the IPhone 4 and it will still sell. Why? because all those Hollywood folk have one of course.

    Its the same logic as Godfather part 3. "Well the other two were masterpieces, Lets just go and watch this one. It muct be Good." Apple nearly made their Godfather 3 with antennagate, so they must know it's coming.

    1. Tom 80

      It's the UX, stupid

      I don't own a smartphone (need that battery life), but of my friends who own iphones, the reason they all do is "it just works and it's easy to use." A couple of them bought Android phones but have since gone back to iphone. Why? "it just works and it's easy to use." The only Android owners are geeks, and they geek out with each other about who's got the latest Android version or the highest resolution screen.

      Apple are absolute god kings of user experience. That's why they're successful. If it was all a great big marketing con, the mask would have slipped by now.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        WTF?

        Re: "It's the UX, stupid"

        How can anyone say this with a straight face when the glaring fact is that every iPOS forces the user to use fucking iTunes, and makes them jump through pointless Apple-enforced hoops?

        UX FAIL

  21. fourlights
    FAIL

    $5.36 profit on $23.34billion sales? Questions must be asked

    "Wall Street guessmen were expecting Apple to report earnings of $5.36 on sales of $23.34 billion"

    Guess the iphone 5 components are reaaaallly expensive....

  22. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    You all who praise Apple's profits should be ashamed!

    The human rights violations and working conditions at the Apple factories are appalling. If you can feel comfortable with your blood diamond/Apple gadgets then shame on you. Who pays for an overpriced priced electronic device on the backs of 3rd world unpaid workers in horrible working conditions where all the profits go to share holders? What kind of persons are you? I have a shiny phone and I kept up with the Jones. Oh by the way the person who built my phone worked 70 hours that week and ended up fling themselves off a top of a building because life has no meaning. But damn I have my iPhone/iPad. Look at me...I am so Cool.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: You all who praise Apple's profits should be ashamed!

      Berate Apple by all means, but be even handed. It's not Just Apple who have hardware made in those regions and they are the most transparent about their working standards in these factories, rather unusually for them. More boilerplate fuckwittery from yet another myopic ABA...

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