[HN Gopher] Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
        
       Author : MaysonL
       Score  : 110 points
       Date   : 2021-04-28 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
        
       | InTheArena wrote:
       | Revenue up 54%, $89B in Q2. M1 macs are a hit. Services are a
       | hit.
       | 
       | It's remarkable to see the success that AMD and Apple are having
       | without Intel.
        
         | loloquwowndueo wrote:
         | Sorry, I doubt AMD would be where they are now had they not
         | been a second source for Intel's x86 chips, that's what really
         | bootstrapped them.
        
         | lurkerasdfh8 wrote:
         | M1 is meaningless. To 99% of their market it is just a new
         | vague number to justify an upgrade (like ram sizes, 3/4/5G,
         | etc).
         | 
         | What is masterful is how they redirected the desirable-number-
         | du-jour to be something that is both 1) proprietary and 2) not
         | cutting into their service revenue (e.g. larger storage = less
         | people shelling out for cloud storage)
        
           | valine wrote:
           | The M1 is far from meaningless. Apple's new MacBook Air is by
           | far the best laptop I've ever used. It has fantastic battery
           | life, stays cool without a fan, and competes with the Intel
           | i9 in terms of performance.
        
         | 1cvmask wrote:
         | The macs are unfortunately still a sideshow compared to iOS
         | devices (written on an iPad now).
        
           | faitswulff wrote:
           | All related - iOS has never run on Intel.
        
             | busymom0 wrote:
             | iOS apps do run on Intel using catalyst. I recently ported
             | over my hacker news client from iOS to MacOS and it works
             | well on catalyst with small changes to handle right click
             | and toolbar color etc. I was legit pleased to see how easy
             | it was to get it working.
        
             | ant6n wrote:
             | In the emulator, err, simulator it does, doesn't it?
        
               | qeternity wrote:
               | Only because the dev hardware ran x86. Now with M1, you
               | won't need to.
        
               | vmladenov wrote:
               | In theory, iOS can run in a chroot on the M1 Macs, right?
        
         | twobitshifter wrote:
         | I've been considering dropping Spotify for the "Apple One"
         | plan, looks like I'm not the only one from that huge jump in
         | services.
        
           | andrewmcwatters wrote:
           | The only things that keep me from moving over to Apple's plan
           | are being able to import my playlists and liked songs
           | (thousands!) from Spotify, and Discover Weekly and Billboard
           | Hot 100-esque type playlists.
           | 
           | Does Apple have equivalents of those features? Discover
           | Weekly is incredible.
        
             | dcreemer wrote:
             | I've used soundiiz.com for importing likes & playlists
             | (though from different source and target services). Works
             | well enough.
        
             | Jcowell wrote:
             | Apple Music has New Music Mixes and Continuous Playing.
        
             | pbronez wrote:
             | Spotify is way ahead of Apple Music on everything to do
             | with discovery. I tried to switch to Apple Music (mostly
             | for the Homepod Mini support) and really disliked the apple
             | music app.
        
               | immigrantsheep wrote:
               | I had the same experience. I went into it and really
               | wanted to buy into Apple Music but after a couple of
               | painful months I went back to Spotify.
        
               | kitsunesoba wrote:
               | It's interesting, I had the opposite experience. Years
               | ago used Spotify and found that Discover Weekly rarely
               | had anything I'd actually want to listen to, whereas with
               | Apple Music's New Music Mix I'm adding the songs it digs
               | up fairly frequently. Might have to do with preferred
               | genres.
        
               | andrewmcwatters wrote:
               | Some leaks in the past suggest Discover Weekly simply
               | searches through other users' liked songs and if you like
               | Artist A and they like Artist A and B, and you haven't
               | checked out B yet, there's a better chance you'll like
               | Artist B over C that neither of you have heard before.
        
             | TooKool4This wrote:
             | Transferring songs and playlist is actually very easy
             | (unless you are listening to very niche stuff). Songshift
             | (no affiliation) worked very well for my needs and moved
             | most of my playlists and songs over. Not sure about
             | discover weekly though
        
               | CubsFan1060 wrote:
               | I second Songshift.
        
           | Dig1t wrote:
           | I did this when it came out and have definitely not regretted
           | it.
        
           | asimpletune wrote:
           | Send me an email and join my family plan
        
             | busymom0 wrote:
             | Is that allowed? Don't you have to be at the same address
             | or something?
        
       | anaclet0 wrote:
       | $90 billion in buybacks is insane. IIRC analysts were expecting
       | something between $70-$80 billion.
        
       | Steve886 wrote:
       | Apple folks - if you missed Apple's earnings call, here you go
       | https://youtu.be/kTIUcdfcmF4
        
       | halotrope wrote:
       | When Steve Jobs passed in 2011 I was certain that Apple would
       | lose its way and start diluting their products/brand. To the
       | contrary the last 10 years where an absolute tour the force in
       | expansion of the spirit of Apple. Sure there where some issues.
       | There always are. But in general it is incredible how they scaled
       | to such epic proportions while maintaining this high level of
       | discipline and excellence. I am amazed. Congratulations to the
       | people who made it possible.
       | 
       | Edit: typo
        
         | perardi wrote:
         | Have they been perfect? No. Keyboards, App Store, still not
         | entirely sure what the iPad Pro does, etc.
         | 
         | But you know what Tim Cook didn't do? He didn't screw it all
         | up. Which sounds like faint praise, but I really think it's
         | inarguable that Jobs remade Apple, stem to stern, blood to
         | bone, software to hardware. And to step in and take over a
         | company that had been reborn like that, and not nickel-and-dime
         | it into mediocrity? Remarkable.
         | 
         | I don't think anyone is really arguing Cook is a product
         | visionary--I certainly don't think Cook is himself. But just
         | navigating the _political_ landscape alone is truly impressive.
        
           | ProAm wrote:
           | Cook is to Apple like Balmer was to Microsoft.
        
             | colinmhayes wrote:
             | Balmer kind of blew it for microsoft though. Cook is doing
             | well enough.
        
               | adventured wrote:
               | Ballmer didn't do much to harm Microsoft, he sales-
               | managed the company - Microsoft increased in size
               | considerably during his tenure. Sales went from $23
               | billion to $86 billion during the Ballmer years, a
               | radical increase for an already large company. One can
               | certainly give credit to Gates instead, perhaps, however
               | Ballmer still didn't botch it. Azure and cloud Office
               | were born during the Ballmer years as well, those were
               | initiatives during his years that have been perfected
               | under Nadella (who is a dramatically better product CEO).
               | I consider Nadella's willingness to abandon the Windows
               | religion as the single greatest contribution any CEO has
               | made to Microsoft since the peak Gates years. The worst
               | you can say about Ballmer is that during his reign
               | Microsoft didn't take over the world by grabbing search
               | and mobile. Which was a near impossible task, no company
               | can or should own everything in such a way. I do believe
               | if Ballmer had kept control for a longer period of time
               | (another ten years or so), the risk would have increased
               | of Microsoft getting permanently Oracle'd culturally. It
               | wasn't entirely a bad thing to have a strong insider as a
               | hand in the post Gates years (maybe a good question is:
               | was there anybody else in 1999-2000, in the upper tiers
               | of management, that would have been better fit for the
               | task).
        
           | kergonath wrote:
           | > I don't think anyone is really arguing Cook is a product
           | visionary--I certainly don't think Cook is himself. But just
           | navigating the political landscape alone is truly impressive.
           | 
           | I agree. However, he _is_ a master at providing the
           | infrastructure and logistics to make other people realise
           | their vision. And he does have a long-term plan.
           | 
           | The scale and efficiency of Apple's operations, as well as
           | their continued success is mind boggling. There have been a
           | couple of hiccups every now and then (and some tours de force
           | as well); overall it is quite impressive.
        
           | chongli wrote:
           | I can't answer for those other issues but I'm an iPad Pro
           | owner and I'll say the 120Hz screen with the pencil feels
           | absolutely magical. I think any Pro user who uses it for
           | drawing and painting will not want to use anything else. It's
           | a legit professional tool. Looks like the new M1 version
           | pushed even harder in that direction with its display and
           | colour support.
           | 
           | It reminds me of Macs back in the 90's. Very few used Windows
           | for creative work. The MacOS had ColorSync and professionals
           | in photography and print, publishing, etc refused to use
           | anything but a Mac due to the need for colour accuracy in
           | their workflows. To an outsider it may have seemed baffling
           | as to why these computers were considered professional tools
           | when everyone else in business was using Windows.
        
             | perardi wrote:
             | I fully admit I am a crusty old Mac user, who in fact
             | started on the Mac back in those days.
             | 
             | I perhaps don't see the Pro in iPad Pro because I am
             | wanting it to basically be a Mac, but tablet. Maybe it is
             | truly an orthogonal product that does pro work differently.
             | But the software story just still feels incomplete. Just
             | feels so limiting in terms of file system and such.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | I am also a crusty old Mac user from back then. I really
               | miss MacOS 8 and its simplicity and spatial Finder.
               | 
               | The iPad Pro is a pro device for creative professionals
               | in visual arts only, to my knowledge. It's definitely not
               | a pro software development tool or anything else of the
               | sort we'd use a Mac for. In some sense you can think of
               | the iPad Pro as an attack on Wacom's market.
               | 
               | I'm not a creative pro by any stretch of the imagination.
               | I use my iPad Pro for tutoring people remotely in
               | mathematics, a task it excels at. I also play some games
               | on it and use it for FaceTime calls because its front-
               | facing camera is nicer than the one on my M1 MBA.
               | 
               | I'm really happy with my iPad Pro even though I was
               | hesitant about buying one for over a year. I was
               | expecting buyers' remorse to set in but it thankfully
               | hasn't. I keep finding new things to do with it.
               | Scrolling through PDFs on the device is way smoother than
               | the MBA, for example, so I've used it as a second screen
               | for reading documentation while working.
        
               | perardi wrote:
               | I'm a creative pro who works on math software, so,
               | synergy. I just feel like I am slogging through mud to
               | work with versions of mockups, quickly bouncing stuff to
               | git or onto our damned fileserver, all that
               | administrative jazz.
               | 
               |  _(I will note my college illustration professor loves
               | her iPad Pro with a passion that would fill an Apple
               | keynote--she ditched her Wacom instantly.)_
               | 
               | But though I'm iffy on the Pro in iPad, I am pro iPad, if
               | only because my somewhat elderly parents _love_ the
               | thing. They are like some Platonic ideal of iPad users--
               | they have totally and completely ditched their Mac, and
               | do all their banking and medical records and weather
               | _(old people love weather)_ on their iPad, with a fluency
               | they never, ever came close to achieving with a mouse.
        
               | Jcowell wrote:
               | I disagree. It makes a fantastic planning tool and on the
               | fly monitor to my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.
        
           | snowwrestler wrote:
           | Jobs became Apple CEO in 1997. Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998.
           | It's easy to forget, but Cook was a huge part of remaking
           | Apple almost from the beginning with Jobs. His role has
           | obviously expanded but he's essentially running a company
           | that he helped create.
        
           | intergalplan wrote:
           | > iPad Pro does, etc
           | 
           | I get that.
           | 
           | But.
           | 
           | Having used many iPads, my favorite sizes are the 12.9" (Pro)
           | and the Mini.
           | 
           | Why (for the pro--I trust my love of the mini needs little
           | explanation)?
           | 
           | The 12.9" is so big that it's about the size of an 8.5x11"
           | sheet of paper, which turns out to be a really convenient
           | size for reading anything based on... paper. It's outstanding
           | for reading PDFs of, say, textbooks, as it's large enough you
           | might be able to get away with reading it in landscape, and
           | is _the_ best device I 'm aware of for reading comics (ditto
           | on the landscape mode, it works great, it's just _a little_
           | smaller than a real two-page comic book spread). Yet it 's
           | light enough not to be a giant pain to hold.
           | 
           | It's amazing for art (with a Pencil). Nice and big, very
           | responsive. The larger screen makes almost anything you'd do
           | on a normal iPad a little better. Movies, browsing, games.
           | Low-distraction writing device with an external keyboard.
           | It's a great companion for music where, again, the larger
           | size is really nice for displaying sheet music or... well,
           | almost anything else music-related you want to do. Last I
           | checked the cameras & mics beat the hell out of most laptops,
           | including Apple ones, for video calls.
           | 
           | Know what it's very close in size to? A 13" MBP or Air. Know
           | what it can do? Become a portable external monitor for same.
           | Damn nice.
           | 
           | 2-player board games. Again, the size helps a ton.
           | 
           |  _My_ personal uses barely call for all the extra horsepower
           | of the  "pro" line, actually, aside from maybe drawing
           | (which, AFAIK, has more to do with specialized hardware on
           | the screen than with CPU power or memory) but holy crap, the
           | screen size. It's glorious. If I could have only one
           | computing device in my house I'd seriously consider making it
           | the 12.9" iPad Pro (assuming I could keep my mechanical
           | bluetooth keyboard, too). I can always SSH/Mosh to a unixy
           | command line somewhere else, but none of my unixy machines
           | are much good for _most_ of what I use the iPad Pro for.
        
         | tolmasky wrote:
         | I'm not sure if 5 years of stagnation in the Mac lineup is a
         | blip. Perhaps as a percentage of revenue? In terms of customer
         | satisfaction, it was _rough_. Those keyboards were _really bad_
         | , and not everyone has the ability to just swap them out with
         | the new fancy computers coming out now, so many will be feeling
         | them for some time to come. Same thing with the Mac Pros. But
         | yes, things are _now_ looking pretty amazing in the hardware
         | department. Unfortunately, the concern is now with the
         | software. macOS has been going downhill for a while, and Big
         | Sur doesn 't give me a ton of confidence.
         | 
         | Of course, the Mac is some insignificant portion of the Apple's
         | footprint these days, but I have to say their mobile offerings
         | have been kind of a yawn too. Don't get me wrong, perfectly
         | competent, no need to switch or anything, but iPod to iPhone
         | happened in 6 years (!), and I don't think the Apple Watch is
         | anywhere near that level of consistent culture defining
         | technology that kind of defined "the spirit of Apple" from the
         | original iMac to the iPhone (I'd like to say "to the iPad", but
         | unfortunately the product has been kind relegated to a side
         | purchase vs. the Mac-replacement I think it honestly had the
         | opportunity to be -- and I guess could still be, its not like
         | any "window" has been missed, just hasn't really done much in
         | the last 10 years either, in terms of definitive changes in
         | workflow like the iPhone did).
         | 
         | As a customer, the subscription stuff is honestly just
         | somewhere between boring and annoying. "Apple One" with its 3
         | different plans and still tremendously confusing options (if I
         | let my parents have access to the movies _I 've_ purchased,
         | they can no longer buy their own movies -- what? why? It's
         | strictly more profitable for Apple to let them ALSO use their
         | credit card instead of locking them out of being able to make
         | their own purchases just because I shared my content).
         | Honestly, I have to strain really hard to remember what "Apple
         | One" includes aside from Apple TV+. Oh right, News or
         | something? The ability to not get annoying iCloud space errors
         | that users remain not fully comprehending?
         | 
         | Now, flip that around, and investor-wise, you are spot on! I am
         | LONG $AAPL, just short Apple products (software specifically).
         | Which is unfortunate, because they are still probably the best,
         | just no longer... "good". It used to feel like a premium
         | experience, for a premium price, now just the latter.
        
           | anonymouse008 wrote:
           | This 100% ^^
           | 
           | Apple can be seen as an excellent MBA course in operations,
           | as probably to be expected. I'm not going to say Steve was a
           | all knowing genius, but it's a pretty dang smart move to put
           | someone in place who will put the company on such firm
           | economical footing while you wait for your next big thing
           | (person) to emerge from the organization.
        
         | anonymouse008 wrote:
         | Take the iPod maturation under Jobs - each iPod embodiment had
         | a 'purpose' to fill the music / video need in your life. (One
         | could say the iPod Touch was a 'gateway drug' because of vendor
         | lock-in with Cingular/ATT than actually diluting a lower cost
         | product.) Can we say the same of the iPhone line up? or is it
         | excellently amortizing last years A{#} processor downstream at
         | lower prices?
         | 
         | I think if we peeled back the facade, we can begin to see that
         | it's been an operations play since Jobs died, and though the M1
         | is pretty dang amazing, what probably brought it over the line
         | is the insane profit margins and 'upcylcing' Mac sales for
         | folks having a M1 vs M3, etc...
         | 
         | But as everyone here has said - it could have been worse.
        
         | dmitriid wrote:
         | > I was certain that Apple would lose its way and start
         | diluting their products/brand.
         | 
         | In a sense, they are diluting their products.
         | 
         | Remember the apocryphal story that when Jobs came back to
         | Apple, he split a whiteboard into four quadrants and listed
         | just one product in each?
         | 
         | Now Apple has several dozen products. And each category is
         | anywhere from 1 to 4 different products often with differences
         | so minor as to not make any sense (iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12
         | Pro Max, the difference is slight size increase and cameras,
         | that's it; or iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12; there are four
         | different iPads; etc.)
         | 
         | Apple looks like it's trying to cover every niche, and often
         | does that semi-satisfactorily.
         | 
         | Slightly tangential: they've completely dropped the ball on
         | MacOS software side: there hasn't been a good software release
         | from them literally for years. The only exception is the new
         | Messages in BigSur, and they spent untold hours in close
         | collaboration with the Catalyst team to make it work. Almost
         | every other new first-party app from Apple on MacOS _for years_
         | has been an unmitigated disaster that has never seen a designer
         | in a vicinity and that breaks any version of Apple 's own HIG
         | guidelines.
         | 
         | That said, it could've been much much _much_ worse. So, count
         | our blessings :)
        
           | kergonath wrote:
           | > Remember the apocryphal story that when Jobs came back to
           | Apple, he split a whiteboard into four quadrants and listed
           | just one product in each?
           | 
           | He showed that during keynotes (I remember he used that to
           | unveil the first iBook).
           | 
           | The situation then was a bit different, though. Apple needed
           | to be much more focused and had fewer resources to throw at
           | new devices. They also needed a clean break from the past and
           | could not start from scratch 10 different product lines. But
           | Jobs himself did away with the 2x2 matrix, for example with
           | the eMac and the Cube. The 12'', 15'', and 17'' PowerBooks
           | used the same name, but the differences were more significant
           | than between the various iPhones 12.
        
         | justicezyx wrote:
         | What is "the spirit of Apple"?
        
           | shoto_io wrote:
           | Oh that's easy. Focus and take hard decisions that are
           | unpopular in the short term but mostly right in the long
           | term.
           | 
           | Examples
           | 
           | - first iPhone doesn't support MMS
           | 
           | - cut the headphone plug in new iPhones
           | 
           | - stop supporting Adobe Flash
           | 
           | - load apps through the App Store only in iOS
        
             | slivanes wrote:
             | We must have a different perspective, all of the above are
             | to the detriment of the consumer (flash, not so much).
        
               | shoto_io wrote:
               | I don't think they are. They are deliberate choices to
               | not please everyone. It's product management at its best.
        
             | mlindner wrote:
             | You can go back further:
             | 
             | Abandonment of the floppy drive.
             | 
             | Abandonment of the CD drive.
             | 
             | Abandonment of Firewire.
        
             | the_local_host wrote:
             | It's not easy. Apple does have a consistent "spirit", but
             | it's such a strange combination of idealism and
             | ruthlessness that it's hard to know which aspect(s) anyone
             | is invoking when they mention it. I don't know why that
             | question is getting so many downvotes.
        
               | shoto_io wrote:
               | Yes you're right. I should have said: "that's easy for
               | me" or something like that
        
           | slt2021 wrote:
           | extracting as much of "Apple premium" out of brand-loyal
           | customers as possible and keeping that "Apple premium"
           | perception in consumers' minds
        
           | halotrope wrote:
           | Focus, products instilled with culture, starting with the
           | user experience, attention to detail, cohesive ecosystem,
           | good design, delivering high quality products at the lowest
           | price possible, not shipping things that are not ready.
        
             | loloquwowndueo wrote:
             | "Quality products at Lowest price possible" you're probably
             | being sarcastic. Just look at wired AirPods, among the most
             | maligned earbud headphones and quite expensive within their
             | category.
        
               | NationalPark wrote:
               | The $19 EarPods?
        
               | FredPret wrote:
               | Airpods are expensive but amazing
        
             | haunter wrote:
             | > lowest price possible
             | 
             | You got me until this point ngl
        
               | Spartan-S63 wrote:
               | When you take into account total cost of ownership and
               | the intangible of pain or frustration from other
               | products, Apple typically comes in with the lowest cost.
               | You pay more upfront to pay less (literally and
               | emotionally) later.
        
               | halotrope wrote:
               | This is what I mean: https://youtu.be/gnU9Vgt8Hmg
               | 
               | Sure, the accessoires and e.g ram are steeply overpriced
        
               | dmitriid wrote:
               | "We don't offer stripped down lousy products"
               | 
               | 14 years later: base iMac has two ports (three more +
               | ethernet will cost you $200).
               | 
               | Not that it's lousy, but it's definitely stripped down.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | Think different.
        
         | slg wrote:
         | It is also interesting in that they are doing it in a seemingly
         | un-Jobs-like manner. For example, take a look at the current
         | models they offer for the iPhone[1]. Wikipedia lists 7 distinct
         | models in production, that grows to 20 when factoring in
         | storage size, and it likely balloons to over a hundred when
         | considering different carriers and colors. Their approach is
         | now basically "whatever your budget is, we have an iPhone for
         | you". That seems antithetical to Jobs' traditional approach.
         | 
         | [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone#Models
        
           | snowwrestler wrote:
           | Jobs put that strategy in place. He did not want to leave
           | price points unfilled with hit products. You saw it with the
           | profusion of iPod models, colors, and storage. Jobs was also
           | still the CEO when Apple decided to keep the iPhone 3Gs in
           | production after launching the iPhone 4, in order to meet a
           | lower price point.
        
           | read_if_gay_ wrote:
           | 3 out of those aren't the most recent though. Of the 4 that
           | are, the fact that they have several screen sizes is indeed
           | unlike Jobs, but Jobs wasn't infallible - he was insistent
           | that people want small phones, however given the 12 Mini's
           | mediocre sales that doesn't seem to be true save for a vocal
           | minority here on HN.
        
             | chongli wrote:
             | I love my 12 Mini and I'm really sad about the mediocre
             | sales. I hope Apple keeps the product around for us nerds
             | who love small phones. They've done the work to design the
             | thing and build out the tooling for it so they might as
             | well keep making them as long as they keep selling, even if
             | it's not their most popular version.
        
         | flowerlad wrote:
         | > When Steve Jobs passed in 2011 I was certain that Apple would
         | loose its way and start diluting their products/brand.
         | 
         | They are doing well in hardware and services. Software, not so
         | much. Design they have gone downhill.
        
           | tomp wrote:
           | > Software, not so much. Design they have gone downhill.
           | 
           | I mean, maybe compared to Apple 2011. But compared to
           | Microsoft 2021, Google 2021, Linux 2021, Android 2021, HP
           | 2021, Lenovo 2021, Dell 2021? They're definitely on top.
        
             | bch wrote:
             | Isn't Lenovo (at least Thinkpad series) being a good
             | steward of that legacy and doing well with it?
        
               | perardi wrote:
               | I'd argue...well I was going to argue Dell did well with
               | their legacy, but they haven't. They went private,
               | pivoted _(sorry)_ to strong enterprise sales, and de-
               | emphasized the cutthroat race-to-the-bottom consumer
               | computers.
               | 
               | Which ain't exciting, but, the rotting corpse of Compaq
               | over there in the corner stands as warning of what could
               | have been.
        
           | halotrope wrote:
           | Really? I think we are a bit hungover from 5 years of
           | pro/hacker neglect. Which operating system would you
           | recommend to friends and family?
        
           | adampk wrote:
           | I think that is a fair assessment but what about compared to
           | their peers? Could you say the level of excellence from 2011
           | to 2021 Apple has deteriorated at a higher rate than
           | Facebook, Microsoft, or Google?
        
           | kergonath wrote:
           | > Design they have gone downhill.
           | 
           | Ups and downs. The M1 iMac is very interesting. I am not sure
           | I love it but it is encouraging to see some more playful
           | design and new approaches.
        
         | satysin wrote:
         | I think most people thought the same. As you said there have
         | been a few blips but I suspect those would have happened under
         | Jobs also.
         | 
         | Seems Jobs was bang on with wanting Tim Cook as his successor.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | kergonath wrote:
           | > As you said there have been a few blips but I suspect those
           | would have happened under Jobs also.
           | 
           | Oh yes. Jobs could be stubborn and did make mistakes every
           | now and then. The first iMac mouse was another ergonomic and
           | reliability disaster.
        
           | halotrope wrote:
           | Yes. It is easy to forget over some bad keyboard or software
           | choices that rub HN crowd the wrong way what they have done.
           | It could have been very, very different.
        
         | wolverine876 wrote:
         | > When Steve Jobs passed in 2011 I was certain that Apple would
         | lose its way and start diluting their products/brand. To the
         | contrary the last 10 years where an absolute tour the force in
         | expansion of the spirit of Apple.
         | 
         | Under Jobs, they would regularly create whole new categories
         | and concepts of technology and revolutionize others. I don't
         | recall it happening since; they capitalize on everything that
         | was created under Jobs (and do it well).
        
           | pjanoman wrote:
           | I think apple watch was post jobs. Additionally, while this
           | is more abstract, I think Apple has continued to
           | revolutionize consumer's privacy.
        
       | MattGaiser wrote:
       | Here restarts the buyback boom.
        
       | gnicholas wrote:
       | Shares are currently up 3% in after hours trading, at $136.70.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | wombatmobile wrote:
       | "This quarter reflects both the enduring ways our products have
       | helped our users meet this moment in their own lives, as well as
       | the optimism consumers seem to feel about better days ahead for
       | all of us," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.
       | 
       | What a skilfully crafted piece of rhetoric that is. For a moment,
       | I forgot I was in the gutter and imagined we were all united,
       | looking at the stars.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | It's on par with all of their propaganda. Their WWDC and
         | product release events are all written like that.
        
       | surfer7837 wrote:
       | blew it out the park
       | 
       | AAPL is up 3% after hours (so $60bn or so)
        
         | tedunangst wrote:
         | AMD was up 5% last night and finished down 1% today, so don't
         | order your lambo just yet.
        
           | PartiallyTyped wrote:
           | That seems to happen every time with Amd. They post record
           | earnings, exceed expectations and stock tanks 5%.
        
             | dhosek wrote:
             | It's common for many if not most companies. The guiding
             | principle of buy on the rumor, sell on the news often means
             | that a lot of investors realize gains after a big positive
             | news event driving the price down. There were drops like
             | that, iirc, when Apple announced the change to Intel and I
             | think also the iPhone announcement. The drop is generally
             | short-lived as the long-term investors buy in.
        
             | scsilver wrote:
             | Its a well know rule to sell on the news.
        
         | ant6n wrote:
         | It seems most of the incredible performance is already priced
         | in.
        
           | qeternity wrote:
           | Most people don't understand that bank analysts (the people
           | whose estimates get averaged for every "Apple beats
           | estimates" headline) are complete jokes. Research departments
           | are there to support the sale of bank services, and making
           | management look amazing by having lowball estimates creates
           | good relationship with the IB desks.
           | 
           | The markets trade on whisper numbers, which are what people
           | with skin in the game are expecting. This is why you often
           | see a name that beats estimates and drops...it's because they
           | missed the whisper numbers.
        
             | microtherion wrote:
             | I doubt that this played a role here. Apple traded more or
             | less flat over the quarter. If there were whisper numbers
             | of even better results than what turned out to be a
             | massively successful quarter, one should have seen the
             | stock price go up significantly over the quarter.
        
       | smiley1437 wrote:
       | How much is due to Covid, and how much is due to Jony Ive's
       | departure?
       | 
       | The designs seem to make a bit more sense now, I was always
       | perplexed at Ive's 'thinness at the expense of everything else'
       | mindset (butterfly switch keyboard, ugh)
        
         | robenkleene wrote:
         | Here's my speculation: After the stellar early growth years for
         | the iPad (here are some graphs from 2015
         | https://qz.com/376041/the-ipads-first-five-years-in-five-
         | cha...), there was an impression at the Apple that the future
         | of the Mac is iOS. Then that growth leveled off, and now iPad
         | looks more like a comparable category to Macs (see the more
         | recent Six Colors graphs
         | https://sixcolors.com/post/2021/04/apples-record-second-
         | quar...).
         | 
         | So Apple appears to have been asleep at the wheel with the Mac
         | (which is perhaps why Ive's had so much leeway with clearly
         | unpopular decisions like the keyboard, missing escape key,
         | etc...) resulting in its worst years ever. The laptop keyboard
         | is one example, but the iOS-ification of the Mac is another
         | (i.e., moving towards the iOS security model), as is the
         | stagnate Mac Pro.
         | 
         | Now things are back to normal, see the M1, the new Mac Pro, the
         | new iMac, etc...
         | 
         | The M1 transition going to smoothly and with such an emphasis
         | on backwards compatibility (they ported OpenCL! they helped
         | with Blender!) is my favorite example of this, contrasted with
         | the complete &$@^*% you! treatment that developers got with
         | things like notarization, new security features, and pretty
         | much everything going all the way back to Mac App Store
         | Sandboxing, which I'd personally consider the start of the dark
         | years (and I'd also consider the single worst decision in all
         | of this, worse than the keyboard, that's the one that
         | fundamentally broke the Mac ecosystem, maybe forever).
        
         | ardit33 wrote:
         | maybe that's what happens when you give designers too much
         | power. They will create something beautiful at the expense of
         | daily usability.
         | 
         | You need some balance. The key is to produce the best looking
         | product without compromising functionality or usability.
        
           | anonymouse008 wrote:
           | Bam! Jobs was the counter weight in that relationship.
        
           | zukzuk wrote:
           | Designers design for usability. The idea that design is about
           | "making things pretty" is on par with the idea that software
           | development is about making computers crunch numbers.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Not sure I agree with that. The trashcan MacPro was
             | definitely not useable as far as what Pro Mac users
             | wanted/needed. That was definitely designed for the
             | designer's sake totally misunderstanding the user's needs.
        
               | davidivadavid wrote:
               | So it was just bad design.
        
               | pembrook wrote:
               | So it was poorly designed.
               | 
               | Not sure how that has anything to do with the parent's
               | argument.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | >Designers design for usability.
               | 
               | It wasn't usable for the majority of the market. Even in
               | the infamous mea culpa Apple made about it, they admitted
               | they designed themselves into a corner. It was designed
               | so poorly, they had to take years to undo it after
               | admitting it needed to be done.
        
             | lurkerasdfh8 wrote:
             | > Designers design for usability.
             | 
             | In theory.
             | 
             | In practice, designers design for two things: market
             | demand, and personal predilection.
        
               | davidivadavid wrote:
               | So like everyone who does any job, sure.
        
             | read_if_gay_ wrote:
             | So fundamentally correct?
        
           | dkdbejwi383 wrote:
           | Design isn't just about how something looks, but also how it
           | behaves
        
         | da02 wrote:
         | Which keyboard(s) do you use currently?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | flowerlad wrote:
         | > _how much is due to Jony Ive 's departure?_
         | 
         | Yes, Ive was a bit of a farce. Under Jobs he flourished.
         | Without guidance from Jobs he proved to be comically bad. It
         | will take years for Apple to recover from the damage he did.
         | For example, copying Flat-UI from Windows Phone. Apple hasn't
         | recovered yet.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | > _Without guidance from Jobs he proved to be comically bad._
           | 
           | I mean, he did basically design the Apple Watch which has
           | been an absolute runaway success, the most successful new
           | entire product category since the iPhone.
           | 
           | So not exactly sure how that's comically bad.
        
             | beforeolives wrote:
             | Runaway success is exaggerated - those watches were not the
             | coolest thing in the world when they came out (and they
             | looked the same as the current models). They gained more
             | traction as the health features got buffed up and Apple
             | stopped marketing the watch as primarily a notification
             | device.
             | 
             | I don't think that any of this is due to the design either.
        
               | unicornfinder wrote:
               | I'm sure I read somewhere that Ive actually really wanted
               | to push the Watch as a high ticket device for rich
               | people, and it was him being ousted that lead to Apple
               | taking the more health-focused direction they're taking
               | now.
        
               | crazygringo wrote:
               | There are a million ways to eff up design. The Apple
               | Watch and its OS are elegant and do a great job. It's
               | basically a masterclass in design. Remember, the best
               | design is largely invisible, when things just feel
               | obvious and intuitive. Which describes the Apple Watch to
               | a T.
               | 
               | Finding product-market fit for health is a separate issue
               | -- that's not the design department's job.
               | 
               | Ive's job was to design a brand-new smartwatch from
               | scratch and he and his team knocked it out of the park.
        
           | xiphias2 wrote:
           | Apple has recovered. It made me buy my first MacBook Pro in
           | my life, M1 was just too good to pass on even with the
           | disadvantages that I was used to Windows and I'm still not
           | sure about the differences between control, option and
           | command keys.
        
             | intergalplan wrote:
             | I have good/bad news: the command key thing, and most
             | related macOS shortcuts, are so good that once you get used
             | to them you'll be really annoyed when you use anything
             | else, and left wondering how it's been this long and no-
             | one's copied _their exact physical keyboard arrangement,
             | en-us keyboard layout, and shortcuts_.
             | 
             | Windows and Linux (desktop and server) user for ~15 years
             | before getting my first Mac (at work) around 2011 (DOS user
             | even earlier). Other keyboard+OS combos are so frustrating
             | now. Not in the "this is unfamiliar" way macOS was
             | initially, but in a "I know this _and_ the Apple way now,
             | and this is worse, why the hell do you keep doing this, and
             | not either just copy Apple or come up with something even
             | better? " way.
             | 
             | Point is: you'll get used to it, and probably like it. But
             | you might permanently be slightly irritated when using
             | anything else, afterward.
             | 
             | (Try Spectacle, or something similar, if you want somewhat
             | better window layout management from the keyboard. It's in
             | Homebrew. It's pretty much the only OS-behavior-modifying
             | thing I install on Mac--my other tweaks are just in the
             | settings GUI, mostly just making CAPS lock an extra ctrl.
             | The default spectacle shortcuts are a bit wild, but 95% of
             | what I use is just split-half-screen left, split-half-
             | screen right, and fullscreen, and it'd be worth using if
             | you never used any others)
        
             | Jtsummers wrote:
             | Command is (mostly) control under Window (CMD+C/V/X for
             | copy/paste/cut, CMD+P for printing, CMD+Z for undo, and so
             | on). It's also used for alt-tab.
             | 
             | Option is Alt. Used to modify some keyboard shortcuts like
             | the above, sometimes on its own, and often used to type in
             | alternate characters than standard on your keyboard
             | (Option+e e gives you an accented e).
             | 
             | Control is honestly something I use often outside the
             | terminal on macOS. I think Control+<left/right arrow key>
             | gets you linear navigation with multiple full screen
             | windows or multiple desktops. It probably does more, I
             | don't know.
        
               | xiphias2 wrote:
               | I wish Apple opted for an Apple key that does window
               | management (similar to Windows), so that those shortcuts
               | are separated from application shortcuts, but I love at
               | least how configurable they are.
        
           | klelatti wrote:
           | I'd like to see what a 'recovered' Apple can do when a 'not
           | recovered' version has just sold almost $90bn of products in
           | a quarter.
        
             | andrewmcwatters wrote:
             | It's not helpful to point to revenue when a scenario in
             | business like this plays out and says, "Look, clearly they
             | know better than you."
             | 
             | If you notice people complaining about something in
             | numbers, there's a reason for it.
             | 
             | There were people who held out for years because MacBook
             | Pro designs were anti-consumer and people held out for
             | compromise. I know I did. Everyone I know did. It wasn't
             | some niche. There's an entire professional class that
             | relies on good tooling.
        
               | klelatti wrote:
               | Sorry Apple != MacBook Pro Keyboard however bad that
               | latter may be and upset you may be about it.
               | 
               | The idea that Ive has somehow fundamentally damaged
               | Apple's business in a way that they've yet to recover
               | from when they've just had an almost $90bn quarter is
               | .... just wrong.
               | 
               | (And anyway they've fixed the keyboard and Mac sales are
               | up hugely).
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | andrewmcwatters wrote:
               | I never mentioned anything about their keyboards.
        
               | klelatti wrote:
               | > If you notice people complaining about something in
               | numbers, there's a reason for it.
               | 
               | MacBook Pro keyboard.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | You're focused on the horrendous MacBookPro Keyboard, and
               | forgetting the trashcan MacPro. That thing was so bad,
               | they had to make a Pro version of the iMac!
        
               | snowwrestler wrote:
               | The trash can Mac Pro was a bet on the power of
               | Thunderbolt, which for the first time was a peripheral
               | bus fast enough to connect things like SSDs and GPUs
               | without loss of performance. The idea was to make
               | upgrading even _easier_ than the previous Mac Pro... as
               | easy as plugging in a Thunderbolt cable.
               | 
               | It didn't work out that way. High performance Thunderbolt
               | peripherals like eGPUs were slow to develop, for reasons
               | outside of Apple's control. They thought you'd soon be
               | able to buy the latest GPUs in external enclosures as
               | well as internal cards, the way you can hard drives.
               | Didn't happen.
               | 
               | It's a good example of a big bet from Apple that _didn't_
               | move the whole computer industry. Eventually Apple threw
               | in the towel and went back to the traditional big box
               | case for a pro machine.
        
           | coldtea wrote:
           | > _For example, copying Flat-UI from Windows Phone. Apple
           | hasn 't recovered yet._
           | 
           | Huh? If anything, everybody and their dog were yelling at
           | Apple against the non-flat "skeuomorphic" UI at the time they
           | made the switch.
           | 
           | And while the first version was undercooked, the current (and
           | 2-3 years) iteration of the flat UI is just fine...
        
         | vulcan01 wrote:
         | Speculation on why Jony Ive pursued "thinness above
         | everything":
         | 
         | - for the first x years of apple, everything was legitimately
         | thick
         | 
         | - so each generation Ive wanted to make things thinner
         | 
         | - it entered the culture (of the design division perhaps) that
         | you had to make each generation thinner than the last to please
         | Ive
         | 
         | - Then when things got to a comfortable thickness for users,
         | people kept making each generation thinner to please Ive
         | 
         | - Ive never told them to stop making things thinner so they
         | didn't stop.
         | 
         | - snowball effect and we got those horrible products
         | 
         | - he had to leave to stop the cycle
        
           | kbenson wrote:
           | > - Ive never told them to stop making things thinner so they
           | didn't stop.
           | 
           | > - he had to leave to stop the cycle
           | 
           | Or, you know, correct people on their misinterpretation of
           | his desires, if indeed there was any.
           | 
           | I'm trying real hard to not see this comment as some sort of
           | Apple logic distortion field showing itself in an overt
           | manner, but not having much luck.
        
           | cbhl wrote:
           | Lighter and thinner products also increase total addressable
           | market by allowing products to be sold to parents and their
           | kids. See Apple Watch Family Setup; iPad Mini, the various
           | iPods...
        
             | arcticbull wrote:
             | They're also better for the environment: less materials to
             | assemble, less packaging, less fuel to ship, less waste. At
             | Apple's scale, that really adds up.
        
               | Dah00n wrote:
               | Non user upgradable products aren't better for the
               | environment though.
        
               | arcticbull wrote:
               | I think that's a fair assessment in general. As an open
               | question I wonder how much your average customer would
               | take advantage of a reparability option if available, and
               | if the additional material required to make it reparable
               | wouldn't offset the gains? I'm just thinking out loud.
        
               | joshuamorton wrote:
               | Of course there's tradeoffs here if it requires custom
               | external hardware (dongle proliferation etc.)
               | 
               | In general I think this is less of an issue today, since
               | usb-C is both generally great and very small, so you can
               | just use it. But, if thinness came at the sacrifice of
               | common connectors like USB-A (or like HDMI), the
               | opportunity cost of standard connectors might be lost.
               | 
               | I'm ignoring that like many of apple's ports are just
               | better than USB-A to focus only on the waste argument
               | here though.
        
         | jrsj wrote:
         | Covid had a lot more to do with it. Mac is at an all time high
         | yes but the last iteration of Intel MBPs was only slightly
         | different from what we had while Ive was still around, and Mac
         | is still a relative small % of overall revenue which has
         | increased _a lot_.
         | 
         | I don't really get the Jony Ive hate. The only particularly bad
         | thing I can think of him being involved in was the butterfly
         | keyboard, and the fact that the Apple Watch is the only real
         | success among smart watches more than makes up for that.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | They still don't have a day's worth of battery do they?
           | Garmin watch actually lasts a week.
        
             | soperj wrote:
             | They do have over a day's worth of battery then? Or you
             | just don't like that being pointed out?
        
             | jamie_ca wrote:
             | I've had my series 3 a little over seven months, it gets a
             | day and a half easily - if I fully charge before bed, it's
             | good two overnights and usually at around 20% the second
             | morning. No comment as yet on longer-term battery
             | degradation though.
        
             | Swenrekcah wrote:
             | A little tangential information on Garmin battery life for
             | anyone in the market. I see that the upper end of Apple
             | Watch is 800 dollars. That's around what I paid for my
             | Garmin fenix 6 pro solar which I'm very happy with. I get
             | about 15 days of battery and dropping to around 10 days if
             | I record around 1.5 hours of activities per day.
             | 
             | Never owned an Apple Watch so can't compare but I really
             | like my Garmin. It is a little large though so not
             | everyone's cup of tea. Smaller versions probably last a bit
             | shorter.
        
           | flenserboy wrote:
           | With Ive it's not the specifics, it's the trend -- always
           | thinner, always shaving away functionality, always looking to
           | subtract something without appearing to have consulted users.
           | Compare this to the work of the designer Ive has taken many
           | cues from -- Rams went for simplicity, but always with an eye
           | to functionality and a user-orientation. It's the latter
           | that's missing from Ive's designs.
        
           | hardwaregeek wrote:
           | Yeah it's pretty baffling. Is there any designer even close
           | to Ive? Is there any company making computers or phones that
           | are even close in terms of aesthetic? I know that wishy-washy
           | ideals like beauty, elegance and feel aren't that appealing
           | to a lot of HN users but Ive's emphasis on them is a
           | significant part of Apple's success
        
         | Reason077 wrote:
         | > _" The designs seem to make a bit more sense now, I was
         | always perplexed at Ive's 'thinness at the expense of
         | everything else' mindset"_
         | 
         | And yet now we have the new iMac, the "thinnest iMac ever" at
         | just 11.5mm. So it seems like Ive wasn't the only one at Apple
         | obsessed with being thin.
        
           | thesimon wrote:
           | Dropped even the Ethernet port for the thinness.
           | 
           | Really moving into the lifestyle product market.
        
             | bobbylarrybobby wrote:
             | Ethernet is still there, it's just in the power brick
             | instead of the monitor.
        
               | nighthawk454 wrote:
               | which, honestly seems fine to me. it's likely to be
               | running from the floor anyway, probably from a nearby
               | place to the power outlet. one cord on the desk.
               | 
               | some have also mentioned potential synergy with future
               | MacBooks, which might also adopt this port on the power
               | brick. that could bring a magnetic connector back to
               | laptops _and_ ethernet without a $30 dongle
        
               | thesimon wrote:
               | >it's just in the power brick instead of the monitor
               | 
               | Sure, but it was removed from the main device.
        
               | anomaly_ wrote:
               | How well does an iMac work without that power brick? It's
               | functionally part of the main device.
        
               | jeffbee wrote:
               | Too bad they couldn't figure out how to put the SD card
               | reader in there too. At least it still has an audio jack.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | angott wrote:
           | Wild and unfounded speculation: I feel that the thinness of
           | the new iMac was not an explicit design exercise, but rather
           | a consequence of bringing the M1 over to the desktop. Because
           | of how powerful the M1 is, they were just able to recycle the
           | already thin laptop designs, putting them in a desktop
           | enclosure. They couldn't do this before, because Intel mobile
           | CPUs didn't match the performance of their desktop
           | equivalents. And since those desktop CPUs had more demanding
           | thermals, they couldn't make a thin iMac.
        
             | flenserboy wrote:
             | While that seems to be the case, I bet Cook, with his
             | supply-chain focus, was very excited to save a few grams of
             | material here and there, knowing how it adds up.
        
         | mhh__ wrote:
         | I used a MacBook Air in early 2020, and I thought the keyboard
         | was broken/damaged due to the lack of give in the keys, is that
         | what you are describing?
        
           | Reason077 wrote:
           | Yes, but it's not really the feel/travel that was the major
           | problem with those keyboards. It's that they were highly
           | prone to keys getting gummed up and/or failing due to dust
           | and debris ingress.
           | 
           | To be fair, Apple acknowledged the problem and provides free
           | out-of-warranty repair/replacement for keyboard issues on the
           | affected models. But it took them years to come out with a
           | better keyboard.
        
         | microtherion wrote:
         | And yet, Apple just released its thinnest iMac ever last week.
        
           | asimpletune wrote:
           | Mostly due to M1 though
        
           | steve_adams_86 wrote:
           | That appears to be a product of merging iPad technology with
           | the Mac ecosystem. The display is basically a giant iPad Pro,
           | isn't it? They borrowed some thin from one product and
           | applied it to another. The M1 allows it, they just needed to
           | add a larger screen, remove some sensors, and flash a
           | different OS.
           | 
           | Obviously dramatic over simplification but it doesn't seem to
           | be the usual kind of thin for the sake of thin design - this
           | iMac seems objectively better than its predecessors and its
           | thickness (or lack thereof) doesn't seem like a problem or
           | unnecessary constraint.
        
             | greenknight wrote:
             | essentially yes, and even then with the current level of
             | thickness, they coudlnt fit the power supply (or an
             | ethernet port) inside the imac itself.
        
               | runawaybottle wrote:
               | It's going to be a stationary desktop item, so it is
               | expected that the wires will be tucked away elsewhere.
               | 
               | Again, they don't have to solve the mobile/tablet issues
               | on this product, it's never going to be a portable
               | device.
        
             | cactus2093 wrote:
             | If it were designed like the ipad, the components would
             | live behind the screen in a similar way. I think this is
             | what a lot of people were expecting. They could have done
             | that, but they chose to make it just a little bit thinner
             | and put all the components into a big chin below the
             | screen.
             | 
             | They made a trade-off to make it look uglier/bulkier/worse
             | from the front when actually using the machine, just so
             | that if you happen to glimpse it from the side it's a
             | little thinner. There's not even the argument of
             | portability to support the pursuit of thinness here as with
             | most of their other devices. So I would argue the opposite,
             | this new iMac is just about the pinnacle of thinness for
             | the sake of thin design.
             | 
             | (You could of course argue that it's not ugly, that's
             | totally subjective, but they clearly went out of their way
             | to make it as thin as possible).
        
               | rancar2 wrote:
               | Thin = less material, less cost, and more environmentally
               | friendly per unit
        
               | iainmerrick wrote:
               | No, assuming the same volume of internal components, a
               | thicker design would have less surface area hence less
               | material overall. Could fit in a smaller box, too.
        
               | runawaybottle wrote:
               | I think that's fine. No one is going to buy a 24 inch
               | IPad and then unmount it from the stand and go sit on the
               | couch (and stare at a giant screen).
               | 
               | They will always be two different use cases,
               | desktop/mobile.
        
           | busymom0 wrote:
           | Really wish the bezels were thinner on it and at least black.
           | White bezels with a thick chin at bottom looks atrocious imo.
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | You can always buy a competitive product running on M1. /s
        
       | johnmorrison wrote:
       | Dumb Q - why is it called Second Quarter results when this is the
       | end of the first quarter of the calendar year?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dhosek wrote:
         | A number of people have already pointed out that a corporate
         | fiscal quarter doesn't necessarily align with the calendar
         | year. There are assorted benefits to this, usually around the
         | seasonality of income. Some companies with multiple sub-
         | corporations may choose to have differing fiscal years for all
         | the corporations which can somehow create a tax advantage
         | (although beats me how that works). It's interesting to note
         | also that there's a (smallish) tax disadvantage to not aligning
         | with the calendar year in that typically tax brackets adjust
         | upward from year to year and having a non-calendar fiscal year
         | means that income might be taxed at a slightly higher rate
         | since the tax rate is based on the year the fiscal calendar
         | begins. At large corporation scale, this difference amounts to
         | a rounding error.
        
         | dinglefairy wrote:
         | corporation's fiscal year start and end could be any quarter
         | depending on when the accounting started.
        
         | throwawaysea wrote:
         | Companies often have a "fiscal year" that is their own made-up
         | 12-month period that may not align with the regular calendar
         | year: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiscalyear.asp
        
         | verdverm wrote:
         | Accounting calendars do not always align with the "normal"
         | calendar. Companies can choose their own cycles (generally)
        
         | a-posteriori wrote:
         | Apple's fiscal year (internal accounting year) ends Sept, 30th
         | instead of being aligned with the calendar year.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | halotrope wrote:
         | The fiscal year is not necessarily equal to calendar year.
         | Apples Q1 starts in October.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | jchw wrote:
       | I'm very curious to see where it goes from here. In particular
       | with M1... more memory, more cores, higher frequencies?
       | 
       | I'm pretty impressed with the M1 Mac Mini and look forward to
       | follow ups and the Linux porting efforts, too.
       | 
       | With other companies announcing their own custom CPU designs, I
       | wonder if we are entering into a new era of some kind.
        
         | MengerSponge wrote:
         | M1 is a very impressive chip, but it can't compete with the
         | Threadripper/Xeon club. It really has trouble with the high-end
         | laptop club too.
         | 
         | You can say "16gb is enough if you swap efficiently", but I run
         | models that need 100+GB on the regular. I'd love to see what a
         | super high-end Apple core can do to that workload!
        
           | jchw wrote:
           | Well, that's why I'm curious where it goes from here. I don't
           | think Apple is under the impression that 16 GiB of RAM is
           | enough to phase out their entire line-up of Intel-based
           | computers, which is apparently the goal. All eyes are
           | definitely going towards what the higher end machines will
           | look like. It's easy to doubt them, but it was also pretty
           | easy to doubt their claims regarding the M1, too.
           | 
           | All in all, I think it's impossible to draw any hard
           | conclusions from here. We all have to wait and see.
        
           | intergalplan wrote:
           | > M1 is a very impressive chip, but it can't compete with the
           | Threadripper/Xeon club.
           | 
           |  _Looks at fanless M1 MacBook Air, with 14+ damn hours of
           | battery life in my real-world use_
           | 
           | I mean... OK? My minivan isn't an aircraft carrier, either.
           | 
           | > It really has trouble with the high-end laptop club too.
           | 
           | If you're memory-constrained or doing something with GPU,
           | that might be true. Otherwise, benchmarks plz. And again,
           | high-end laptop... _looks at big desktop-replacement laptops,
           | then back over at tiny little fanless MacBook Air_
        
           | perardi wrote:
           | I, too, want my rocket car Mac.
           | 
           | But we haven't seen what they can really do yet. The M1 sure
           | "feels" like an iPad SoC, what with the weirdness with some
           | of the ports and bus limitations. _(External displays: little
           | off-kilter right now in terms of limitations.)_
           | 
           | I'm optimistic they are preparing some real firepower for a
           | 30-inch iMac and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Or at least, I sure
           | hope so, as I type here, looking at this damned useless OLED
           | strip above my keyboard as my leg hairs are slowly burned
           | away.
        
           | odshoifsdhfs wrote:
           | I find this train of thought fascinating.
           | 
           | "I am in the 0.0001% of the people that need 100+Gb ram", so
           | it seems this massive hit of a cpu/laptop, where everyone is
           | raving about it, is not so good when I compare it to what I
           | need that are thousands of a percent of what regular people
           | use.
           | 
           | I'm a developer, I bought the M1 mbp with 8 (yes eight) gb of
           | ram, for testing and was supposed to then be my gf's machine.
           | You know what, almost 6 months in, she still hasn't touched
           | it. I would maybe go for 16gb in the next one, but she will
           | pry it from my cold dead hands before I get a newer model and
           | she can keep this one.
        
         | zemvpferreira wrote:
         | I'm interested in the same question but from the opposite point
         | of view: with the M1 a resounding success, is there a need for
         | M2 through 5 to be a huge improvement? Asides from marketing.
         | 
         | My daily driver is a 2015 Macbook Pro. My iPhone is a 2016(?)
         | 6S. My iPad is the original Air. I'd be happy to upgrade but
         | for someone who lives in Books, Safari and Excel all day, they
         | all work fine. I just can't justify it.
         | 
         | The M1 equivalents are leaps and bounds faster and there are
         | plenty of people who need that power and more but... will
         | 99.995% of Apple users notice further upgrades? Where do we go
         | from here? What's the future of personal computing?
         | 
         | (Fingers crossed for lightweight fully immersive no wires VR in
         | five years)
        
         | busymom0 wrote:
         | I was looking to buy a m1 Mac mini but went with Intel only
         | because I need 32gb ram and apple for some reason only offers
         | up to 16gb on Mac mini. I bought the Intel one with 8gb and
         | manually upgraded it to 32gb. The m1 can't be upgraded manually
         | which is a bummer (but makes sense as that's what makes it even
         | faster).
         | 
         | I wish running multiple iOS and Android simulators didn't need
         | so much memory.
        
       | meepmorp wrote:
       | Mac revenues went from $5.351B to $9.102B from 2020.
       | 
       | 70% up.
        
         | andy_ppp wrote:
         | I bet what 2/3 non-Intel? That means an extra (complete stab in
         | the dark) 1/2 a billion ish $ in extra profit every quarter,
         | maybe more!
        
           | klelatti wrote:
           | Sounds about right - which would mean 1.5% or so addition to
           | gross margin - fairly material.
        
       | linux2647 wrote:
       | Six Colors offers some graphs of the earnings from the call:
       | https://sixcolors.com/post/2021/04/apples-record-second-quar...
        
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