Robert Paul Leitao on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Index futures are red (again this morning!) with the Russell 2000 small cap index off 1.32%. Apple is currently off $0.80 at $260.01. Oracle, which rose more than 9% yesterday to finish up $13.72 at $163.12, is ahead pre-market $0.75 at $163.87. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin which dropped $1.75 on Wednesday to close at $649.47, is off $3.39 pre-market at $646.10. Today’s session begins in fifteen minutes.'
on In September, the Pentagon spent $5.3 million on Apple devices - 'Money well spent. Troop Morale: These premium food items, which also included $15.1 million in ribeye steaks, are traditionally served in military dining halls to support troop morale, particularly before deployments. Department-Wide Contracts: The records reflect institutional purchasing across the Department of Defense (DoD) for thousands of service members, rather than personal “elite banquets” or private events for Hegseth. Institutional Practice: Similar end-of-year spending spikes for luxury food and equipment have been documented under previous administrations as a standard, albeit controversial, federal budgeting practice'
on Apple's MacBook Neo: What the critics are saying - 'A Macro event?… “Macro event” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.'
on The Computer Museum celebrates 50 years of Apple - 'David Pogue looked like a kid in candy store, and I get it. He gets to geek out with all the Apple legends. Not sure if I should be annoyed by it, but I did enjoy watching the event.'
on Apple's MacBook Neo: What the critics are saying - 'Rick, you are right, so upvoted. David, you are also right, so upvoted. The death of eaten crowns will not be celebrated, because there are too many vultures hoping for Apple’s demise.'
on Premarket: Apple was green, turned red - '”As usual, just who has the sustainable business model?” Which is exactly why I went negative on AI as an investment strategy. The winner in AI development is going to to be the holders of the gateway to AI. There is only one firm that controls its customers as does Apple. And now it’s branching out from the PREMIUM sector to ALL sectors of the desktop and mobile market. This is why Apple didn’t comment on its vision for AI, and why it wasn’t developing another LLM/data center model. Silence is not the same thing as inaction. It won’t be long before Apple is the Master, and everybody else are slaves to it.'
on Premarket: Apple was green, turned red - 'Papa Larry Ellison should use some of his stock profits to immediately retire at least 1/2 to 2/3rd of the $79 billion debt ($54B in new debt financing) his son David’s combined Paramount-Skydance / Warner Bros. Discovery HBO merger is going to have if and when it closes. Of course, they are already eyeing $6-8 Billion in layoff cost savings and redundancies, but since when has any entertainment leveraged transaction actually worked before the financing and debt service costs caught up with them? Most of the cost savings are borne by the regular studio workers and very little in mid to upper management and of course, none by ownership. I swear it’s just a perpetual game of debt service which eventually dooms studios, restaurant and food service and now probably some sectors of AI overspending. All the while Apple maintain fiscal and operating discipline, maybe missing out on initial waves, but also not being sucked out to sea by the eventual vacuum of consolidation and overspending come due. Apple has shown over the past 3 fiscal years + 1 Quarter consumers have been willing to spend $1.33 Trillion on Apple products and services. Cory Doctorow estimates AI companies have “skyrocketed” enterprise AI revenues to about $37 billion in 2025, but net profits remain elusive because of major spending, expenses and operating cost outweighing profits, leading to near zero or negative profit margins. And that’s in 3 years of this “AI boom”. As usual, just who has the sustainable business model?'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'Frankly my dear, I don’t give a DRAM. Couldn’t agree more with you. I’ve not seen any mentions, so maybe this isn’t true, but with the unified memory, doesn’t that protect Apple from the DRAM prices since they are just part of the system processor?'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'I don’t. First, Windows is very inefficient with computing resources. Second, 8GB of conventional memory won’t cut it, that’s a system architecture constraint. And finally, there are applications where lots of RAM is pretty much necessary. But the Apple integrated memory shows you can be stingy with RAM -if- the rest of the system accommodates paging and other memory management techniques that the user doesn’t notice.'
on In September, the Pentagon spent $5.3 million on Apple devices - 'How many government agencies spend (waste) money just so they don’t loose it as a budget item? Count the number of government agencies that exist, and you will have your answer. Find someone who can fix this problem, and they can have my vote.'
on Playing Apple's MacBook Neo for laughs — from both sides (videos) - 'Actually, it’s great to highlight all that’s missing, because …. It negates the cannibalization issue. In contrast it may push buyers to ‘model up’ once in the buying mood. Best of both worlds.'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'Another benefit for using previous year’s iPhone chips is that it allows Apple to amortize the expense of each silicone node over large number of devices instead of just iPhones. As each future node progress requires ever increasing R&D by TSMC which are passed on to its customers, Apple’s cost per chip for node advances go down as well as lengthening the number years that each node remains in production, which may be an incentive in negotiations between Apple and TSMC – I am sure Nvidia is not interested in anything but the latest node, so all that TSMC equipment may sit idle while Apple can continue taking advantage of previous gen nodes for continued chip manufacture'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'I have a cousin who works for a medical device company “Stryker” who just had their systems hacked by Iran and all data wiped. I told her that they ought to be using Apple products as the iOS operating system is the absolute best. I just read the report online and this quote was inside the article from the Daily Mail: “The company’s staff found that remote devices running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, such as cellphones, laptops and others configured to connect to Stryker’s technology systems, had been wiped.”'
on Horace Dediu: Apple's jui jitsu AI strategy - 'So funny to me. Poor Tommo_UK (for all his verbiage) just isn’t in the same class as Horace!'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - '@Greg I forgot about the Windows license. They also have to pay for the CPU from Intel and probably the customer needs Office from MS. For Apple I’ll bet the CPU is almost free. macOS doesn’t cost Apple much and they supply a free version of iWorks. Using “only” 8GB of RAM works to Apple’s advantage. It’s cheaper and macOS is more tolerant of less RAM.'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'Digant, That is an excellent point. Upvoted.'
on PC makers shocked, shocked by Apple's MacBook Neo - 'The Neo is platform expansion move, not just a product launch. Think of it as another leg to the ambient AI context that the iPhone, AirPod Pro (with camera) Glasses, HomePods (with or without robotic arm) enable. They’re putting a stake in the ground that says the Apple ecosystem is now accepting new club members. Come on in, the water is fine.'
on In September, the Pentagon spent $5.3 million on Apple devices - '272 doughnut orders at ~$500 per order??? I’ve never heard of a $500 doughnut order. That’s a lot of doughnuts. And to think they could’ve gotten 272 Neos instead 😉'
