Ben Gepp on Apple not on Iran's hit list - 'Whilst no one here is an international war crimes expert it is clear serious mistakes have been made; 175+ innocents bombed because they didn’t bother to check a recent maps, Congress and the UN were not consulted, and no one has any idea why accompanying Israel on an *excursion* into Iran was necessary. So there is certainly a legality issue that needs to be prosecuted. Your own government has taken to indiscriminately knocking off your own in public so not sure who is left holding the moral compass. Irrespective, what is clear is that this war is having global consequences that will affect, amongst other things, Apple/AAPL: Supply chains are being severely disrupted, scepticism in the US as a reliable partner/leader is growing, and China, the centre of manufacturing universe is probably more sympathetic to Iran not to its traditional trading partner, the US. This is all happening when Apple is on firing on all cylinders. AAPL should be heading way north, instead it’s tanking. I just don’t think your government has any clue as to what it is doing or cares about the unintended consequences of its actions. This is a real problem if you’re an investor as there is very little certainty that they are regulating the economy for the greater good. All appearances suggest self aggrandisement is their mission.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'This President agrees with me: A few days ago, I said: “This President’s “friends”, the hydrocarbon oligarchs of the world, are quite pleased to see their profits increase out of this badly-mannaged “war”. From Reuters on Apple News today: “Trump touts oil price gains, saying ‘we make a lot of money,’ angering lawmakers” Excerpt From “Trump touts oil price gains, saying ‘we make a lot of money,’ angering lawmakers” Timothy Gardner, Susan Heavey Reuters https://apple.news/AmTO5Kv_sSQyN2CUzbthyeA This material may be protected by copyright. “Trump, a Republican, wrote on social media: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” But stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons was far more important, he said. U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, responded that working Americans were being hurt by the war Trump started. “The only ones benefiting from gas prices skyrocketing are the big oil companies,” Kelly, a potential presidential candidate in 2028, wrote on X. “But it makes sense why Trump is happy about it because he’s only ever cared about rich people.””'
on Apple not on Iran's hit list - 'Rick Povich said: “…we are all eating shit sandwich served up by Captain Bonespurs” That’s pretty enlightening **Yeah, I was also surprised by Ben’s comment. I would have expected Ben to either say, “…we are all eating “a” shit sandwich served up by Captain Bonespurs” or “…we are all eating shit sandwich”es” served up by Captain Bonespurs” Shame on you, Ben!'
on Why Apple's MacBook Neo makes Steven Sinofsky sad - 'Quote: “being early is the same as being wrong” Like in smart phones, portable music players, wireless headphones, VR devices? And …… maybe AI?'
on Apple's easy-to-fix Neo - 'The Neo seems on its way to becoming a hit! As for most-repairable Macs, I’d include my Mid 2012 13‑inch MacBook Pro, I replaced the fan, swapped the optical drive for an SSD drive, and replaced the HDD with an SSD. And also replaced the battery. All thanks to iFixit and their great tools and guides. I still use that MBP occasionally to access Adobe CS3 which I’ve refused to update to their usurious fees. FWIW, Affinity makes superb, free alternatives to Adobe’s products. And I received no compensation for this review of iFixit Unrelated – I’ve been playing around with my beautiful 12″ MacBook (with the clackety keyboard), which, when introduced, I believe Steve pulled it from a manila folder.'
on Why Apple's MacBook Neo makes Steven Sinofsky sad - 'Microsoft clearly HAD TO DO what Jobs did at Apple, abandon the old codebase and start from scratch. There’s no way Apple could have succeeded by trying to take the old Mac OS 7-8-9 codebase into the 21st century. Obviously Ballmer didn’t see that legacy technical debt as a liability; rather it was a strength because it ran (often poorly!) on so many different hardware platforms. It -still- bothers me how so many people, including those who should know better, accept Windows chronic security and reliability problems as “just the way it is” and say “all software has bugs.” Would you accept “all cars have accidents”?'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Thinking Apple will not make one device with multiple chips. But multiple devices that could simulate one chip. I’ve got an iPhone, a laptop and a Mac mini right in front of me. How many cores is that? A huge amount of computing power. Could Apple find something really cool to do with all that power? (I am already expecting that the upcoming AVP and/or glasses will offload computing power to an iPhone, etc to lower costs.) They can if anyone can.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Horace D. — Interesting that you point this out as I long thought it strange that telephony has not, by now, become standard in laptops. Strange.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Crazy, all the + from Apple and the stock is back to trading like a steel mill going outta business.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Upvoted Horace. The iPhone IS a computer. Putting voice communications into a desktop, laptop or mainframe is a piece of cake. All you need to add is connectivity to the Public Telephone Switched Network (PTSN). That connection was exclusively via a cable supporting a single pair of wires. Motorola introduced cellular (cellphones) capability in the ‘80s and changed voice communications forever. In 2007 Apple forever changed cell phones. They were now handheld computers.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - '“The M series does compute for laptops like nothing else. The A series handles touch and other iOS abilities in a way the M series can’t.” This is not correct. The two processors are identical in their core architecture. The configurations differ in compromises on power consumption, size, memory bandwidth, graphics, neural engines, etc. Putting a phone in a computer is trivial and frankly it should shock everyone that there isn’t such a configuration. Especially since phones are put in not just iPhone but iPad, Watch and even cars. It’s not a technical reason there are not.'
on How to settle into Apple's walled garden for less than $1,900 - 'Not bad, but if you get a Neo then you probably don’t need an iPad, so you can buy AirPods instead of wired EarPods.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Neo’s positioning is genius, priced to dramatically expand the Mac base. And despite being a high quality product, it doesn’t cannibalize the higher priced Macs. The feature gap is that large. Over time, A-series chips will get more powerful while eventually memory prices will come down, giving Neo headroom to move up in price and capability, as in Horace’s stairway to heaven.'
