David Drinkwater on Richard Windsor: Apple and Google — Desperate Times - '“Furthermore, Google will be incentivised to ensure that Android gets the latest AI features before Apple does, meaning that there could easily be a situation where Apple’s AI is worse than what is available on Android.” I think this thought process by “Radio Free Mobile” is highly misguided. If Apple is paying Google a lot of money, there is no way Google is incentivized to give their best products to someone else!'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'In Thursday trading the S&P 500 closed up 17.87 at 6,944.47. The day’s high was 6,979.34 and close to the all-time high set on Monday of 6,986.33. The DJIA rose 292.81 and ended the session at 49,442.44. The intra-day high of 49,581.18 was close to Monday’s all-time high of 49,633.35. In contrast Apple fell $1.80 to close at $258.21. Morgan Stanley gained $10.45 or 5.78% to end the day at $191.23. Goldman Sachs, which also reported today, gained $43.19 or 4.63% to close at $975.86. Taiwan Semiconductor rose $14.53 or 4.44% on strong quarterly results.'
on Omdia: Apple's Macs and MacBooks had a very good year - ' I finally bit the bullet and just replaced my 10-year-old Intel-powered MacBook Air with an M4 Air with a significant memory and hard-drive upgrade. That’s asking a lot of compatibility/upgradeability capability. It took a lot to complete your task. I have to wonder if you could have accomplished as much on a different platform.'
on Bloomberg: Apple feeling the pinch of soaring memory prices - 'Yep, Neal had same thought. Apple in its wisdom has not raised prices in years past when it certainly could have, thus building trust capital within its user community for when they must raise prices. They also have been growing overall GM for years, as well as managing prepurchased capacity well.'
on 'For an AI loser, Apple did an awful lot of winning last year' - 'Apple is a mammoth business, but as I said today in another thread here, Apple is not standing in place, but continually growing and improving. AND they have more money than they can possibly spend (hence buybacks). There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that Apple is precisely directing its juggernaut of a business. In spite of all the FUDD about how it has “missed out” on AI, it is fine-tuning its course to more completely take AI into account.'
on Tim Culpan: Apple can't get all the TLC from TSMC it needs - 'That bit quoted above by Phillip doesn’t reflect the full article, which has a bunch of caveats that are pretty huge, including: “First, while smartphone processors are the largest portion of chips bought by Apple, they’re not the only type. Processors for Macs come under HPC, while it also has a strong lineup of custom chips used in accessories which fall under digital consumer electronics. Second, Nvidia isn’t the only HPC client. AMD is a major buyer of capacity for its own GPUs while Amazon and Google are on the growing list of customers developing in-house AI chips. Put another way, Apple’s chip catalog is broader and more varied, while Nvidia’s lineup is more concentrated around a huge number of wafers at, or near, leading-edge. It’s for these reasons that Apple will remain important for at least another decade.” Add in the reliability of demand for Apple’s business to TSMC and the possible temporary nature of this AI chip boom – both of which the article emphasizes – and the overall message seems to be “TSMC is trying to satisfy the demand for high-performance chips, while ensuring that it’s maintaining and satisfying its long-term relationship with Apple.”'
on Omdia: Apple's Macs and MacBooks had a very good year - 'That “100%” must not include Chromebooks. I believe those are still ‘a thing’ in the low end consumer and school markets.'
on Omdia: Apple's Macs and MacBooks had a very good year - 'Bill: How did you get it to work? It said “I can’t do that, Dave.” and I gave up! I don’t have the knowledge or skills or time to put up with the hassle.'
on Bloomberg: Apple feeling the pinch of soaring memory prices - 'So does anyone think iPhone prices will go up next year because of this? At least for the base model. Especially since Apple has not raised prices the past few years.'
on Tim Culpan: Apple can't get all the TLC from TSMC it needs - 'They need to control their destiny with this important piece of the biz.'
on Tim Culpan: Apple can't get all the TLC from TSMC it needs - 'Hence the rumors that Apple is interested in the Intel Foundry business'
on Tim Culpan: Apple can't get all the TLC from TSMC it needs - 'Let’s look back in 24 short months shall we?'
on Tim Culpan: Apple can't get all the TLC from TSMC it needs - 'Does this mean that Apple is now just like Avis?'
on Omdia: Apple's Macs and MacBooks had a very good year - 'Thanks. What screen size and how do you like it now?'
on Bloomberg: Apple feeling the pinch of soaring memory prices - 'I don’t believe Tim would make this mistake but a failure of not expecting this sudden rise in memory + storage prices and not locking longer than normal purchase agreements would hasten his replacment as CEO.'
