iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple's 13-Year Surge Ebbs - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/technology/apple-q2-earnings-iphone.html <comment><USER5> I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones.

We hear a few things consistently:

1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now _really know_ how much their phone costs--and many would rather save the $30 a month than upgrade their phone. This started with T-Mobile a few years ago and now is how most phone plans work. This is having a _huge_ impact on people's desire to buy new phones.

2) iPhone 5/5C/5S users have no desire to upgrade to a larger phone. The SE is going to solve some of this, but it'll more likely be a scenario of "I dropped my 5S in the toilet and it's completely dead, so I'll upgrade to a SE instead of dealing with the hassle of finding a legit used 5S." I don't expect to see a huge push toward the SE from current iPhone 5 users.

3) Repairs are so cheap, so easy and so effective. It's $79 for us to fix an iPhone 5/5C/5S screen right now, and we can fix it in less than 30 minutes typically. No reason to upgrade when your old one works just fine and you can get it fixed cheaply.

Interestingly, the SE screen is 1:1 compatible with the 5S screen, so the SE is coming out of the gate being cheap and easy to repair as well. I'm typically recommending the SE if people really want a new phone.

We also ask customers about 3D Touch (the new feature on the 6S/6S+) and if they're using it if they have a 6S. 99% of people have no idea what it is or how to use it. They bought a 6S/6S+ because it was pink. Yep, most of the 6S phones we see are rose gold, and that seems to be the #1 factor driving sales of that line. If they don't care about the pink and ask me what phone I recommend, I recommend buying a refurbished 6 over any of the 6S line. (We don't sell phones, so I have no horse in that race at all.)

<comment><USER6> 3D Force Touch was one of those features I feel would have only caught on, if it was one of the original iPhone features. Tacking it on later, with little to no support in apps, makes it forgetware. I actually really like the functionality, and I completely forget it exists. There needs to be some type of small indicator reminder that a button HAS 3D touch.

<comment><USER7> To me its real problem is that it's almost indistinct from long-press. Combine that with Apple's poor UX discoverability (I'm looking at you, swipe-from-the- side-to-see-iMessage-timestamps!) and 3D Touch is basically useless.

<comment><USER8> 3D Touch should've _replaced_ long press. I hate that I have to wait, I don't care that it's 0.4 of a second. A long press is a concession to the fact that there's no physical button, and 3D Touch should've solved this problem.

But instead I end up triggering a 3D Touch when I want to delete an app.

<comment><USER9> What surprises me is that they didn't try to use it to make the keyboard more "physical".

If the OSK can distinguish a finger resting from a finger pressing, then you get closer to that of a physical keyboard.

Especially if the resting part can be tied in with the vibration engine to give a slight nudge to indicate edges of keys, or some such.

<comment><USER10> That sounds like emulating for the sake of emulating. I'm sure even you would hate it if you actually saw it in production. Typing on keyboard is shitty as it is. By making it force touch, it will be much slower to finish a sentence. When people use physical keyboards their fingers are by default resting on the keys. When most users type on mobile, they're not. It's easier to NOT rest fingers on the keys than resting for so many reasons, such as you not being able to see the keys if your finger is covering them.

<comment><USER9> And that is where the vibrate comes in.

the keyboard is of a known layout, and by marking by feel when you move from one key to the next you know where you are.

This allows the keyboard to be operated without looking, much like how most people use a ordinary keyboard today once they are past the hunt-and-peck stage.

A big reason for touch screens being a problem in many situations is that you have to actually look at it to operate it. Physical buttons, switches and knobs can be operated by touch alone.

Frankly way too much of modern computing relies on sight and sight alone.

Also, allowing someone to rest on the keyboard is why long typing sessions are not such a strain on the hands. Without it, the writs has to carry the weight of the fingers continually.

<comment><USER10> I'm guessing you downvoted me because you disagree with my point of view. I'll just tell you this: I have been thinking a lot about the stuff you talk about here and even prototyped a hardware device to try out the idea. I had the same point of view (It would be nice to have an input device I can use without even looking) but after experimenting I realized this isn't the case.

Also this "vibration" thing you're talking about--it's obvious you haven't thought deeply about this because if you took at least a couple of hours thinking more about how this would work you would realize vibration itself has nothing to do with this". I have had a phone that gave you nice tactile feedback using vibration (Prada phone), and while it does feel nice, it doesn't do anything in terms of letting me know my input was correct.

Anyway this all doesn't mean anything if you don't really believe me. So let me ask you a rhetorical question: Do you think you will be able to type into a blackberry absolutely without looking at the keyboard? Also, when exactly would you be typing while NOT looking at a _mobile_ screen? Even on a blackberry people have to look at the screen to make sure they didn't mistype something (Even with all that tactile feedback). On a desktop computer typing without looking makes sense because that's the mode in which people use the device (whereas on a mobile phone the screen and the keyboard are attached so looking at the screen means also looking at the keyboard)

Anyway if you really believe in these ideas, you should at least try an MVP or any simple experiment (or maybe even some thought experiment) before being so sure about it.

<comment><USER11> The Steam gamepad and the Macbook's new touchpads can simulate tactile borders and shapes on the surface with controlled vibration.

Combine with pressure detection and you can make Swype / SwiftKey provide a sense of where you're dragging your finger when swipe typing, plus that you can put emphasis on the right letters easily when swiping across groups of letters that would make for different words, making for better precision in the word suggestions.

It would also be much easier to implement gesture support by having areas much easier to target that you start gestures from or end them in. You'd also instantly get tactile feedback telling you if you made the gesture right or not, like for switching character sets or for moving the cursor.

Lots of gestures could be supported, where you'd essentially be "asked" with tactile feedback to push harder after making the gesture to activate the particular action. Suddenly you solved both accessibility, discoverability and precision, while reducing the error rate.

<comment><USER10> What you say doesn't change anything significantly, which means it doesn't change the way we type on mobile phones--you still need to look at the screen. Also it's a bit of a stretch thinking because it works on a game controller with limited number of inputs, it will work on a keyboard with way more keys, isn't it?

As I mentioned above, I explored into building a mobile device that you can type into without looking, and my first hypothesis was "tactile feedback is key". And turns out there are many many other factors at play. Even if Apple built something like you say, that won't make more people buy iPhones, it's just an incremental innovation that doesn't significantly change any user behavior for the better.

<comment><USER10> Like you said, you still need look at the screen to see if you're typing in correctly. I am not sure if you read my original comment, but this is one thing I learned while experimenting that's obvious in hindsight. On your computer, you can type _completely_ without looking at your keyboard because you are looking at the monitor/screen which is a separate device from the keyboard. On a mobile device, they are a single screen. Which means you still have to look at the screen portion of the "screen" even when you don't need to look at the "keyboard" portion. Which is why it doesn't make any groundbreaking improvements even if implemented. At best it's just some minor add-on convenience. Your steam controllers example is exactly the same as computer keyboards because you're looking at a large screen (which is again a separate device from your gamepad) when you're playing games.

<comment><USER11> Your assumption is that they only help accuracy. Instead they can allow you to visually hide important UX elements and yet keep them discoverable.

I'll have to think a bit longer to come up with good examples.

Edit: non-scrolling swipe gestures are where this is the most valuable.

Improved Google Photos app image selection: a hard press would start selection, and as you continously to drag to select it would provide tactile feedback for where the image borders are, making accidental selection less likely and quicker to detect. Selection would stop on release (to make scrolling easy). Hard press and swipe again to continue the selection.

<comment><USER10> If you trace this thread all the way back to its root, the guy said having tactile feedback will solve the problem of not being able to type without looking, and I said I have tried and it doesn't. Of course there are many ways tactile feedback can improve experience. But in any case, I don't think it's a significant change. Even if you could do all you mentioned it's just an incremental innovation. When iPhone first came out it changed everything by getting rid of physical keyboards because a "soft" keyboard that adapts to its container app is much more flexible than a physical keyboard. That started this entire app ecosystem. But I don't think these nifty little touch UI innovations will change anything further as far as iPhone is concerned. As an example 3d touch is an interesting and sometimes even magical technology but it hardly makes any difference in purchase decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It probably doesn't help that the subsidy model has completely changed. But personally, I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the need to upgrade right away. I was so ready to upgrade when the contract on my 4 expired. It was really a pain to use after a couple of years. But my 5S has now lasted me two and a half years and other than wishing I had more storage capacity, there's really nothing compelling in the new models for me to want to upgrade. The build quality and battery are so good that I don't feel like it's even getting worn out. The better cameras would be nice, but otherwise? I just can't justify the cost, much as I'd like to, so long as my 5S keeps performing.

I do think Apple needs to focus their money and efforts on improving their services and software integration. There's a lot to like in Apple services, but there's a lot of rough edges and weird gaps, and too often I feel like apps get written and then abandoned. If you bundle an app, it should have a dedicated team that keeps making it better, faster, easier to use all the time.

I also feel like Apple has a real chance to make a mark on the home automation market if they chose to do so. The best stuff out there is still pretty bad, and pretty much all of it spies on you. Based on how they've been adding context-aware features to iPhone in a very privacy-conscious way, Apple is the one company I would still trust to actually try to do home automation in a way that respects my privacy. And they have the money to invest in making it happen. But while I'm sure their hardware would be well-made, can they raise their software polish to the same level?

<comment><USER13> > I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the > need to upgrade right away

I have a cheap 2014 Motorola Moto G and I have the same "problem". Yes, there are hundreds of modern phones out there which are several times faster and have way better hardware but the Moto G is fast enough for me.

I usually just browse the web, type a few messages in Whatsapp, take a few pictures, ... and the phone does all of this well enough so that I just don't have any reason to invest 500+ Euro in a new phone.

Another bonus is that if I accidentally drop my phone I can just buy a new one (or two) and it will still be cheaper than an iPhone or other similar phones.

<comment><USER14> You might not even get a perceptual performance boost at all. I recently upgraded from a 2013 Moto G to a current-gen Nexus 5x and it feels about the same, maybe even slightly slower, in terms of latency for common tasks and how often it gets bogged down. I think part of the problem is that the new phone has a higher-res screen, which some apps (like Facebook) adapt to by shipping much larger icon sets, loading higher-res images and video, etc., which negates any performance improvements. The camera is definitely nicer, though.

<comment><USER15> The 5X is slower in single thread code than the Nexus 5 from 2013. It has 6 rather than 4 cores but not many apps can take advantage.

<comment><USER16> Nexus 5 is one of the all-time greats of the smartphone era.

<comment><USER17> Yep. I got one too, and see no need to upgrade anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane.

And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "other smartphone makers using Google's Android operating system continue to challenge the company with powerful, lower-price devices."

<comment><USER19> There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.

<comment><USER20> That's a big reason why private businesses are better than public ones. There's no need to push for unsustainable growth at the behest of busybody investors.

<comment><USER21> I feel Apple would be better as a private company but it's too late at this point.

<comment><USER22> Is there a way for a company like Apple to secretly buy back stock? I feel like at one point it would show up in the books...

<comment><USER23> Not really, no. There are laws in place to force transparency in stuff like this, and rightfully so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The expectation was $2.00 EPS, Apple reported $1.90. AAPL is down in after- hours trading right now, at 95.91 from 104.35 at market close (as of 5:20 PM).

This is a significant earnings report as it's the first to break 13 years of continuous growth. Revenue was down 13%.

• Q2 EPS: $1.90, down 22% YoY, versus expectations of $1.99

• Q2 revenue: $50.6 billion, down 13% YoY, versus expectations of $52 billion

• Gross margin: 39.4% versus 40.8% last year and expectations of 39.47%

• iPhone unit sales: 51.2 million, down 17% YoY, versus expectations of 50.7 million

• iPhone ASP: $644.25, down 2% YoY, versus $651 expected

• iPad unit sales: 10.2 million, down 19% YoY, versus expectations of 9.4 million

• Mac unit sales: 4.03 million, down 11% YoY, versus expectations of 4.6 million

• Q3 revenue guidance: $41 billion and $43 billion, versus expectations of $47.35 billion

<comment><USER25> > AAPL is essentially in freefall right now, down from 104.35 at market close > (~97.00 around 5 PM).

It looks like it is just going back to where it was in Feb? (90 or so). I guess if it keeps heading down below that it would be alarming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well, they had a good run. I wonder what's next.

I don't think anyone was surprised though, around 2014 we saw the writing on the wall. I mean take the Nexus 5, I have plenty of friends who have one and it's basically like they bought a microwave. It just works, it's fine, and they're expressing 0, and I really mean 0 interest in upgrading their microwave. They'll keep it for as long as the battery lasts and they don't break it. And that's really a last-generation phenomenon, before two years ago I was looking forward to new mobile tech. Now the changes aren't meaningful anymore.

And now people are openly expressing it, too. Like the CEO of sony, who spoke about the end of innovation in smartphones a few months ago. I mean take my dad, he just bought an LG G3 for $8 a month on a 2 year contract. Now this phone is 2 years old, not top of the line... but it's $8 a month and it comes with a nice screen that's almost double the PPI of the latest iphone, 3gb of ram, a nice snapdragon 801 chip, 3000 mAh battery, it just works fine and it's just really cheap. In two years, the latest G5 will be $200 too, and you'll buy G3 like phones for $100. What can we innovate in smartphones that's worth $700 to most people? That used to buy you a magical device that could do things nothing else could, in your pocket just a few years ago.

Anyway, I wonder what's next for Apple. There's no rumours of anything happening except its car. Wearables will expand. But they're all late or super late to market in these product categories. That's not a bad thing, they'll obviously make money, but it's not comparable to creating a real smartphone industry.

<comment><USER27> Nexus 5 was phenomenally good though for the price point/no-crapware bundle. Coupled with Android finally being good enough to at least rival iOS, it was the start of a new era. Certainly in the UK, since buying my Nexus 5, android has gone from like 6% to 40% of mobiles hitting the websites I manage (the EU market has always been heavily iOS skewed compared to America).

My battery crapped out rather quickly, but a replacement has extended its life.

<comment><USER26> > The EU market has always been heavily iOS skewed compared to America

On the contrary! iOS relative to Android is more popular in the US than in the EU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> In this thread: lots of people making unfounded assumuptions and drawing dumb conclusions when anyone who has been paying attention knew this was coming as _Apple even said so last quarter_.

The last year quarter was buoyed by previous quarter supply constraints causing a lot more sales in many categories and products.

It's not that this quarter was bad (it was fine) it's that last years quarter was SO GOOD and last quarter had no major supply constraints that we see this.

Basically - Apple has got so good at the supply chain it's hurting their numbers for quarters with no new releases.

But sure, start speculating about [insert your favorite phone] and writing screeds about phone subsidies/performance/innovation/whatever. It won't be right... but you'll feel better I guess.

<comment><USER29> As someone who basically looked at this as confirming what I believed about the iPhone 6/\+ (ie: that it is too big and no one likes it and Apple's sales are going to fall), thanks for this post. Changed my view.

<comment><USER28> You're very welcome!

I think sales are going to slow down but that is a case of less growth to be had in western markets.

Still plenty of growth opportunities in other markets but they'll be slower

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 50.6b net income on 39.4% gross margins. A bit early to be writing Apple's obituary or anything even close. Retail is suffering nationwide and I suspect Apple is caught up in this decline.

<comment><USER31> More likely mobile is headed quietly down the path of the PC - <USER2> generational improvements means people keep devices longer and there isn't as much of a reason to buy new hardware so sales flatline. Great business still but Wall Street hates that narrative. They want the next hot growth market -- VR perhaps when its killer app moment arrives.

<comment><USER30> I'll say this: Amazon Echo cut Apple's growth balls right off. That's a $2b revenue business Siri can kiss goodbye.

<comment><USER32> > _I 'll say this: Amazon Echo cut Apple's growth balls right off. That's a > $2b revenue business Siri can kiss goodbye._

$2b is spare change for Apple -- I don't see Echo going places anyway, it will end more or less like the Kindle is now.

In fact, Amazon's whole profit was around $100 million last year -- and it's the first year it ever had any profit IIRC. I don't see those $100 million profit per year threatening the $18 BILLION profit per QUARTER anytime soon.

<comment><USER33> If you're talking about "threats," I don't see what retained earnings have to do with anything. Amazon's revenue is roughly half of what Apple's is -- Amazon is significantly smaller, but it's in same ballpark as Apple, not orders of magnitude smaller.

Amazon prices its products for thin margins and aggressively moves into new product spaces (sometimes with spectacular failures). Apple prices its products for thick margins and returns a lot of money to investors with stock buybacks. Using profits as a metric to compare these two companies holistically is specious.

<comment><USER32> > _Amazon prices its products for thin margins and aggressively moves into new > product spaces (sometimes with spectacular failures). Apple prices its > products for thick margins and returns a lot of money to investors with > stock buybacks. Using profits as a metric to compare these two companies > holistically is specious._

I thought capitalism was a for-profit endeavour. Unless Amazon runs as a non- profit, it's just people investing in perpetuity based on pure belief/speculation of imagined future profit (and of course, on actual stock- based profits). Not that different from any pyramid scheme, which is why historically the stock market has periodical bubbles and crashes.

Those kind of rewards for the kind of actual prospects the company has are more or less a speculative bubble, with little basis on objective reality. $600 billion in "cash" on the other hand, that's something to keep you going and to talk about.

Apple could even get to be privately owned company with their buybacks -- Amazon wouldn't even stand a year as one at their churn rate.

> _Amazon prices its products for thin margins and aggressively moves into new > product spaces_

Walmart does thin margins too -- but with huge revenues and profits compared to Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The era where cell phone companies offered phone subsidies as trade for a customer's long term commitment has ended. The impact this is having and will continue to have on smartphone sales is profound. It is much more likely that customers will upgrade their devices less frequently. We are already beginning to see the impact in Apple and Samsung earnings.

<comment><USER35> I don't really buy that. Can you point to any evidence people are updating devices less frequently? Apple sold more iPhones in Q1 of 2016 then they did in Q1 of 2015 so are you extrapolating from a single down quarter?

<comment><USER36> I personally did not upgrade from the 4s because the subsidy ended. Relatively the iPhone 6 vs 5 was an unusually big jump for Apple which confuses the issue.

<comment><USER37> Data >> anecdotes

<comment><USER36> Woosh. Sure, and the laws of supply and demand change when your talking about a phone. Cost up, demand down.

The point was in most peoples minds the iPhone 4 vs 5 jump was smaller than the 5 vs 6. And the 5 needed a new connector. So, we are stuck with an apples to apples to oranges comparison.

Samsung sales also dropped that's significant and they lack a stark A vs B model year comparison due to massive numbers of phones being regularly released. [http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung- phones-9.php](http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung-phones-9.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> >Its newest smartphone, the four-inch iPhone SE, went on sale in late March, too late to affect the most recent quarterly results, but analysts hope to get more insight into how it is selling.

Went to the Apple Store in my large metro and they were out of almost every model. The associate searched other stores and there wasn't much within 1500 miles. Anecdotal, but it looks like the demand is outpacing the supply of the iPhone SE. It'll be interesting to see the sales numbers.

<comment><USER39> Two to three weeks from the Apple Store when I checked this morning. I don't know if it's heavier-than-expected demand, or if they just don't keep that many in the pipeline (which I guess amounts to the same thing). My wife just broke hers (yes, again), so the plan is to at some point give her my 6S and I get a new 5SE, because I want my smaller screen back. It would seem that perhaps I'm not the only one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> For me, the main reason to upgrade phones is to get a better camera, so I can take better pictures of my kids. Other than that, most of the features are "nice to have". Don't get me wrong, I like Touch ID, I like the big screen of the plus (but not the size and slipperiness of the phone), but nothing has been a compelling upgrade, other than camera improvements.

In many ways, this is a credit to Apple doing a great job. On the other hand, the real challenge with driving iOS upgrades is software. There's no killer app that requires the latest hardware, unless you care about games and maybe a few drawing apps on the iPad.

<comment><USER37> Dunno about you, but TouchID is indispensable to me. I would not buy another phone without it (or something as secure).

With TouchID + strong alphanumeric password, I can be secure in my person. My data is far more valuable than just the hunk of metal and glass it resides on.

I think Apple should do an expansion of their 2008 iFund, but writ bigger (and maybe focused on the watch and apple TV).

<comment><USER41> Out of curiosity, in what way do you feel TouchID makes your phone more secure than just a password? Someone could steal a glass you've touched along with your phone and unlock it with a bit of effort. From a technical standpoint, the only thing TouchID adds in terms of security is preventing someone from peering over your shoulder at a passcode as you enter it, but a would-be thief is more probably far more concerned with selling the hardware than ransoming your data. And if they want your data, iCloud and other services are the real weakpoint.

<comment><USER32> > _Out of curiosity, in what way do you feel TouchID makes your phone more > secure than just a password? Someone could steal a glass you 've touched > along with your phone and unlock it with a bit of effort._

Well, quite a lot more effort.

I don't want my data/photos/etc to fell pray to a phone thief -- or a guy that finds the phone after I dropped in a cafe. And Touch ID does that fine.

The "fingerprint on glass" scenario you mention concerns dedicated people targeting my data especially -- which is not something I realistically care about. If such people were after my data, they could also use a crowbar and beat me till I tell them my secrets...

> _but a would-be thief is more probably far more concerned with selling the > hardware than ransoming your data._

Yes, and I am more concerned about my data than about the hardware -- after all at that point it is already in the thief's hands.

<comment><USER41> It's actually less effort, though. It's basically impossible at this point to brute force an iPhone password, and even if you use TouchID a thief could theoretically still try and break in using the backup numeric password. Also it's been shown that depending on how you use your phone, usable fingerprints can be lifted right off the screen (you touch it all the time after all), so someone who is after your data doesn't even need a separate fingerprint source. To me, TouchID is a convenience feature, not a security one.

<comment><USER37> Where has that been demo'd using anything like a realistic scenario? Every iPhone since the 3GS had oleophobic glass - combine with cloth pockets and any fingerprints are not going to be high-quality enough to survive for long.

<comment><USER41> Here you go: [http://www.heise.de/video/artikel/iPhone-5s-Touch-ID-hack- in...](http://www.heise.de/video/artikel/iPhone-5s-Touch-ID-hack-in- detail-1966044.html)

The oleophobic glass coating is a joke, at least on my 5s. I can easily make out a clear fingerprint from touching the screen with a solid press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So anyone thinking planned obsolesce might move itself up the Apple priority list? Their per quarter revenue is still massive, but Wall Street always expects more. At its current rate of stock buy back, Apple could buy back all of its stocks and go private in a few years. They could rid themselves of market fluctuations in regard to stock and pump out products while continuing making the ridiculous amounts or revenue and overcome the need to take shortcuts for the sake of Wall Streets obsession with non-stop growth.

<comment><USER43> This was inevitable for Apple; their stratospheric valuation has expected growth priced in. Given the company's inability to foster the same ambition Steve Jobs instilled in it, they can only ride on their existing product line for so long.

I do find their lack of acquisitions strange given how much capital they are sitting on. There are a lot of markets w/high barriers to entry they'd have no trouble getting their foot in the door(Gaming, On Demand Streaming, etc...).

<comment><USER44> At a PE ratio that is heading rapidly towards the single digits, I would argue that they don't have growth earnings growth priced in at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tma-1 > The Company also announced that its Board of Directors has authorized an > increase of $50 billion to the Company's program to return capital to > shareholders. Under the expanded program, Apple plans to spend a cumulative > total of $250 billion of cash by the end of March 2018.

My god, that $50 billion expansion is 7% of the company at the current market cap.

<comment><USER45> It's actually an even more astounding 8.65% of the current market cap ($578 billion).

I'm glad to see them returning capital to shareholders. However I worry about the debt they're taking on in order to do so, due to most of their cash being overseas. If things continue to slide for them, for whatever reason (iPhone loses favor, smartphone sales keep contracting globally, something replaces the smartphone, etc), it will pin them into a disastrous situation of extremely high debt and crashing sales (while having committed to very large payouts to shareholders).

<comment><USER22> Well, they can always bring their cash back right? (it will be taxed, but it's still a formidable warchest) Or somehow pay back debt through some overseas shenanigans....

Not a great situation to be in but I can't imagine it getting big enough to where Apple could no longer handle it. Maybe I'm underestimating interest rates

<comment><USER46> If they ever start losing money couldn't they just move the same amount in from overseas? It wouldn't be profit so it wouldn't be taxed, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> tl;dr it's hard to find lots of new people every quarter who can afford $600 phones.

<comment><USER48> Or it's just gadget saturation in general. My MBP from a few years ago works great. Some of the older iPads I have at work are just fine. The iPhone 6/6+ also works just great. At some point, the marginal utility of a new device just isn't there. It is what happens as markets mature.

<comment><USER49> My iPad v1 still works. Not great, but it's still around.

<comment><USER50> Isn't that still on iOS 5? I'd be afraid to connect it to the internet now. (it's not supported/updated anymore)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm not surprised. I think Apple underestimated the demand for the iphone SE 64 GB. Its been out of stock in most stores since it was released. Apple's shareholders should be asking why can't anyone buy it in a store? Also many people don't want wait two weeks to receive their phone when they buy it online.

<comment><USER52> People can't buy it in a store, because like pretty much every model that came before it, they're massively supply constrained.

They've gotten better about it, but there's only so much you can do when you're producing a high-tech item being purchased tens of millions of times per week globally.

<comment><USER51> Looks like the SE didn't matter. Interesting note from Apple conference call. "2:11 pm iPhone SE not included in these results, as it launched after the end of the quarter, but demand has been very strong. Demand exceeds supply, but we're working hard to meet demand. iPhone SE puts us in strategic plan to attract new customers."

Source - [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/26/q2-2016-earnings/](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/26/q2-2016-earnings/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The key numbers from the Press Release: The Company posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion and quarterly net income of $10.5 billion, or $1.90 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $58 billion and net income of $13.6 billion, or $2.33 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.4 percent compared to 40.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 67 percent of the quarter's revenue.

So not really a surprise from what they announced at previous quarter.

</comment><comment><USER54> I love my iPhone 6+ but while overall the ecosystem is getting better, the device is more laggy and glitchy than previous models.

Apple Pay always gets triggered by accident when I try to unlock using the fingerprint, and once in a while random apps seem to heat up the phone and drain the battery before I realize what is going on.

I think small things like the minor points of perceived quality that I'm describing can have a big impact on sales. When a phone costs $800 people expect a very solid experience with no glitches.

<comment><USER55> Absolutely on point. There are numerous points where the polish is missing. For smartphones at Apple's preferred high-end price point, if the user experience doesn't feel like the designers anticipated user needs, then an Android will look "good enough". The gap between "good enough" and "just works" is gigantic, and is only breached by psychotic amounts of attention to detail:

1\. Create an appointment, set the geographic destination, start setting alarms and about half the time Calendar crashes.

2\. No gesture to make a copy of an appointment in Calendar.

3\. No API for Siri.

4\. Dial into a conference call with a passcode. Start a second call, and try to dial into another phone number with a passcode from Contacts or Calendar. It dials the number but not the passcode (iOS ignores everything after the phone number for the second call).

5\. Come back into cell range from a long absence and receive a barrage of voicemail notifications about voicemails you've previously been notified about.

6\. Add a field in Contacts, and the cursor and focus stay in the "add field" area of the record, while the actual field is above that area. You have to scroll up, find the field as the keyboard appears, then key in the field. Older versions of iOS had the behavior correct: adding a field moves the focus to the field in the record.

These and more warts arguably should not exist in a high-end, premium smartphone.

<comment><USER56> Trim a video, save as original, and then you "lose it" until you go back home and then back to photos

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Sales faltering...just wait until the margins dip. Hardware margins the size Apple has enjoyed are incredibly rare and never have lasted with any company, period. Their hardware margins are on par, or even above many software vendors, which is just unsustainable. It's a great product, but the upgrade cycle is lengthening, and margins are going to fall. Same happened to the PC, same started to happen with the tablet, and the same will happen to the phone market.

<comment><USER45> > Hardware margins the size Apple has enjoyed are incredibly rare and never > have lasted with any company, period

Intel has routinely maintained gross profit margins of 60%+ for decades on its microprocessor sales. Their hardware margins put Apple to shame.

<comment><USER58> Isn't it closer to 30% when you factor in the cost it takes to build a fab? I remember reading something about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> c-slice I think we just reached peak smartphone. What's next?

<comment><USER59> VAR - Virtual/Augmented Reality.

Also, i'm hoping my future glasses have some kind of mechanism built in that will let me text with my mind... even if that means thinking about moving shapes or colors or something to do it.

<comment><USER60> VR is still about 10 years away before it moves into the mainstream. Currently it's just looking like a gaming accessory and has a long way to go before it's much more

<comment><USER61> But VR/augmented reality is still the next big thing. The demand in commerce and advertising is for more and more invasive media, I'd say any prediction towards this goal is dead on. It's just a matter of finding well priced, socially acceptable gear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Are we past peak-smartphone or is this just noise from model release schedules?

It took PCs 20+ years to get good enough, smartphones managed the same in much less than 10 it seems.

<comment><USER63> now that phones are quite fast and have good cameras, what is the main driver towards upgrading? so that you go from 300ppi to 500ppi? not going to make much of a difference and for most people not worth the upgrade costs.

The only issue is that phone manufacturers have even more of an incentive to bloat the OS more and more (and make it slower and slower on old models) and to deprecate it faster (on older models) so they can sell more hardware if people want to get the latest security fixes / software

<comment><USER64> in general, hardware improvements will drive new swanky software, and make computing on smartphones closer to a first class citizen (remember motorola's laptop+phone dock, where the phone powers the laptop?).

another big pain point is battery (and battery consumption). still waiting on hardware (and software in conjunction) to get more efficient. you'll remember how power hungry PCs were in the beginning and how much better they are now (laptops notably).

feels to me like we still have many years to go, and many more "big" technology investments.

<comment><USER65> Xiaomi's redmi series can last a day of heavy use and even 2 days with lighter use. So i wonder why isn't this solved for others already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Sweet, time to buy more. I was holding off since it was obvious that prices over 100$/share without any new products to excite the imagination of traders with no technology background wasn't going to last forever. It' always interesting to me how wall street lacks any depth in their analysis. Direct sales and revenues are basically the only metrics they look at. Which is fine for a small company but when you are looking at a 700B company, spending 8B a year in R&D being that shortsighted is almost funny.

</comment><comment><USER67> For any exponential function comes time when its growth cannot be sustained. Smartphones are boring and mature, we haven't had killer app in ages - <USER3> to the PC market of 2007.

<comment><USER68> That's a logistic function, not an exponential.

<comment><USER67> Expecting x% growth year over year is exponential, I think

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Well besides the obvious about the decline in phone sales I think the primary reasons is Apple's steadfast refusal to get in lower margin markets. Sorry, but a four hundred dollar phone is still not cheap enough especially when you consider the monthly usage fees following the purchase.

Then we see tablets and all Apple has done is release newer models with higher price points and worse more expensive add ons.

Finally, their cheapest desktop is eleven hundred and cheapest laptop is nine hundred for a low powered system, the first realistic laptops start at thirteen hundred. No I don't really count the Mac Mini because it never seems to register on people's radar and by the time you add on the monitor and such its up close to eight and nine hundred.

I won't even touch that Watch, its price or the silliness of that is the price of just the bands.

Apple's failure is that it won't go low. They don't have to go rock bottom but they damn well need to push "LE" models or the like. Redo the first Air with a few minor upgrades as the Air LE, 299... get an iMac out for the public nearer seven hundred. Get the rest of the iMac line back into realistic pricing especially for SSD upgrades. Please update the Mac Pro, really how long are they going to ignore it?

tl;dr Apple simply priced them out of too many markets, either out of ignorance or arrogance.

</comment><comment><USER70> I just upgraded from being a long time iPhone user to a nexus6p and an delighted. Most of the UI makes more sense to me. The camera is amazing and the integration with Google apps as first class apps is a positive. Being able to voice command the device without a power cord plugged in is an added benefit. I can't imagine going back to iPhones.

</comment><comment><USER71> My wife has an iPhone 4. She's not a technical person; she just wants a phone and some apps. She has no interest in upgrading.

Moreover, her iPhone 4 was the first smartphone in our family. Since she got her phone (and stuck with it), I've gone through at least four or five phones -- always because they broke, not because I was interested in upgrading.

So I'm guessing that while there are lots of Apple gotta-have-the-latest people out there, most people just want a phone that works. And if Apple's hardware and software quality are good (or even half-good), then people will just keep using their old phones.

Which means that Apple will continue to sell phones, but the number of people who will buy or upgrade each year will shrink, at least to some degree.

It should also be noted that Apple is still very profitable! It's just _less_ profitable than it was last year.

</comment><comment><USER72> Apple is not doomed, but I think they've taken their eyes off the ball a bit. Watch and iPad Pro are me-too products, and the switch to flat interfaces cost them a lot of differentiation IMHO. They've cheapened their brand and they don't seem to know what market they should really disrupt.

<comment><USER73> The iPad Pro is actually really awesome for artists. Pro + Pencil is a better experience than a Wacom Cintiq display, and it's a whole tablet for about the same price point, not just a display.

<comment><USER74> Any experience on the Microsoft Surface? It seems it works very well for artists also.

<comment><USER75> Apple Pencil is pretty incredibly and trumps the stylus offered by Microsoft IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I've said this before but I think it's because my socks are most definitely still on my feet, and have been for the last several years. Apple used to come up with new, distinctive, products that had me gasping for air and figuratively knocking my socks off. Not anymore. I don't want to say it's because of the loss of Jobs but it sure seems that way. I really like Tim but he seems like a production guy instead of a product guy.

Come on Apple, where are the revolutionary products of yesteryear? 3D displays? AR/VR technology? Home automation? iPod headphones? Voice recognition (ala Alexa)? I used to look to Apple for a glimpse of the future; not anymore. :(

</comment><comment><USER77> The concerning part of this is how little Apple did to get ahead of the market saturation problem before it started impacting sales. They had plenty of warning. Analysts have been predicting this for years. They waited way too long to release iPhones with larger displays. Then it takes more than a year to update the 4" model and when they do it gets released with a nearly identical enclosure to a 3 year old phone. Current rumors suggest the iPhone 7 may share a very similar design to the iPhone 6/S which is just baffling to me if true. When market saturation is a problem it seems like the absolute worst thing you could do is keep recycling 2-3 year old designs.

</comment><comment><USER78> Is this something that Apple can address with more competitive pricing in China?

<comment><USER79> More competitive pricing would reduce margins. Apple has chosen to pursue high margins and high profits rather than market share. That's how it accumulated roughly $200 billion in cash.

<comment><USER78> Exactly. Does that leave them with the flexibility to fundamentally change their business model to narrower margins?

<comment><USER79> In theory, yes, but Apple sells premium products at premium prices and many people actually _like_ paying more.

There's inevitably a show-off element to it, but I think there's psychological research to show that people appreciate products more when they pay more for them. (But I can't find any evidence from a quick google....)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Cut prices on their ageing cash cow, or start flogging that faltering horse?

Smart money's on the latter. Kinda painful to re-watch the Apple II moment while android ambles off into the sunset with all the users....

</comment><comment><USER81> I'm curious what other people think about the ecosystem as a catalyst, in particular Apple Pay. It seems to be that squeezing between iPhone owners and everyday purchases would be very lucrative.

<comment><USER82>
        It seems to be that squeezing between iPhone owners and everyday
        purchases would be very lucrative

And something that Banks will very strongly oppose. How many places can you use Apple Pay right now? I _love_ Android Pay, but the only store I can use it at is Walgreens -- no where else I go takes it. Banks still hold a huge amount of power at the point-of-sale market, and they will not give up their margins to Apple.

<comment><USER83> US here… my pharmacy, grocery, gasoline station, and computer hardware store all take it. It's not like I spend money anywhere else. (Also three of those four have negligently compromised my credit card numbers in the past, so I appreciate giving them as little data as possible.)

Only one restaurant I go to takes it, the one that has little terminals at each table. I'm not sure how the mechanics will play out for restaurant payment. Personally I don't like the table terminal, but maybe someone will come up with a bill carrier that can take payment.

<comment><USER84> Here in Canada, we have mobile debit/credit terminals that the waitstaff bring to the tables. They currently support swipe, chip & pin, and tap, so I assume that they'd support Apple Pay without too much trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This is a small anecdote, but: I'm happy with my current iPhone and the current models aren't additionally compelling enough to me to upgrade.

I have an iPhone 5S and don't want a larger one. When the iPhone SE came out, I was excited until I found out it didn't have force touch, which was the main interesting feature to me about the new lineup. Other than Apple Pay it seems I have very little reason to upgrade until this one dies or breaks. I don't see being satisfied with their product as a black mark against them.

<comment><USER86> I have a 6s and I'd really like to go back to my 5s, for me that was "peak phone", did everything I wanted, in a good form factor, great battery life, was the perfect size.

I originally upgraded because I wanted NFC and "it was time", but nothing is using the NFC chip in my phone so why bother?

I'm considering buying the SE but my girlfriend is hampering me, she says a 6s is a status symbol. I guess for a lot of people they'll just upgrade anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I only see it as a matter of time before brands like Xiaomi make cheaper and better products for sale beyond their current dominance in 'developing countries'. We need to catch up.

<comment><USER65> There was recently a story saying $400 smartphones are almost as good as flagships. Also huawei is attacking the american market with a great $200 phone.

<comment><USER87> I got a phone in Taiwan 1 year ago which was a third of the price of a recent laptop/tablet I purchased in England. The phone had far better specs.

Check out the Redmi Note 3, on sale in India for about £100:

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 is available in two RAM and storage versions - <USER4> including 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage, and other 3GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage. The 2GB variant is priced at Rs. 9,999, while the 3GB variant is priced at Rs. 11,999.

The highlight of the new Redmi Note 3 is it packs a hexa-core Snapdragon 650 processor (four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz and two Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz). Other specifications of the smartphone are identical with the original, including a 5.5-inch full-HD 1080x1920 pixels IPS display and offers 178-degree viewing angle. It runs MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop and supports dual 4G SIM cards (Micro + Nano).

The Redmi Note 3 packs a 4050mAh battery with fast charging support that can charge up to 50 percent in 1 hour. On the camera front, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 sports a 16-megapixel rear camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF) and two-tone flash. It also houses a 5-megapixel front camera. It measures 150x76x8.65mm and weighs 164 grams.

For connectivity, the handset supports 4G LTE (compatible with Indian LTE bands), VoLTE, Bluetooth, 3G, GPRS/ EDGE, GPS, Glonass, Wi-Fi, and Micro-USB options.

Source: [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/xiaomi-redmi- note-3-to-...](http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/xiaomi-redmi-note-3-to-be- made-available-in-open-sale-today-830696)

<comment><USER65> There are a lot of negative reviews about xiaomi's heavilly modded OS, huawei on the other hand, is more of a pure android experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I have been a happy Android user for years but was planning on switching to an iPhone next time for compatibility with my iPads.

I changed my mind because of the Google Fi service. I can get a compatible phone for $200, and I project my monthly service plan would be less than half than my Verizon plan, given my usage patterns. I do worry that Google might drop the Fi service, or change the features/cost in the future though.

</comment><comment><USER89> Apple's probably just biding its time with the iPhone while it works to soup- up the Apple Watch - add cellular, more power, more battery, smaller package.

I reckon the iPhone (and maybe iPad) will transition into just a dumb accessory screens.

My thinking is that this follows the trend: Desktop (power on your desk) -> Laptop (power in your bag) -> Smartphone (power in your pocket) -> Watch? (power on your person)

</comment><comment><USER90> It is probably end of the era moment, like the end of PC back in 2005. Personal Computer is nothing special and even status/luxury brands does not make real difference. PC is mere cheap commodity.

Now there is moment when smartphone is just a phone. Apple or any other brand - does not make real difference.

Some, say, MicroMax or Huawey Android stuff is about $150, and it gives you everything, except 3D.

It is just a phone.

</comment><comment><USER91> The 6S and 6S plus didn't offer a ton of new features really besides being faster. The 3D-touch screen is nice for quick shortcuts but not a killer feature.

Basically, the only reason why I would personally want to upgrade is for the bigger screen on the plus model and the battery life that comes with it.

</comment><comment><USER92> I'm not surprised at all. I don't get why people are. Anyone who wants one, pretty much has one at this point. Those who have them within the past few years are most likely happy with them. The bubble won't exactly burst but it will decrease.

</comment><comment><USER93> >Apple said it would raise its quarterly dividend 10 percent to 57 cents a share and increase the amount of stock it buys back to $175 _billion._

Surely that's the NYT's typo and they mean million with an M, right?

EDIT: Not a typo, see mbrubeck's reply below.

<comment><USER94> No typo. A year ago they had authorized $140 billion, and had already repurchased more than $80 billion.

[https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/04/27Apple-Expands- Cap...](https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/04/27Apple-Expands-Capital- Return-Program-to-200-Billion.html)

($175 million would be less than three hundredths of one percent of Apple's market cap.)

<comment><USER93> Ah, thanks. Kind of a hard to parse sentence; I read it as buying back $175bn _this quarter._ Which would be 30% of their market cap and represent all their cash on hand.

<comment><USER95> They do not have that much cash on hand. Apple already has over $100B in common and exotic debt that has been used to pay for both dividends and this buy back program. So that pile of cash sitting overseas? On its way to being mostly spent. And if the Congress critters start pressing companies to repatriate, a big tax bill looms too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Apple is doing just fine. But there's been no Next Big Thing since Jobs. Apple's watch is a dud. Nest's products don't work well. It's like Sony after Akio Moreta died; the company plugs on, but the light has gone out.

<comment><USER97> > Apple's watch is a dud.

Why do certain people say this? The watch is a $6.5 billion business in its first year. That is a huge success. Nothing compares to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> I think that Apple would be wise to invest a few billion in solving the fundamental problem of batter life. That is the key missing ingredient for everything else we want in the future for mobile tech.

</comment><comment><USER99> I hope the lack of growth in hardware sales makes the company improve their services and lower their hardware prices instead of trying to increase hardware replacement rates via shorter life cycles.

</comment><comment><USER100> The most innovative thing Apple can do now to reverse the course of things is to decrease their outrageously high prices (especially in Europe) and phase out these ridiculous 16GB models.

</comment><comment><USER101> So, does this mean we shall start seeing "the iPhone is dead" click-bait articles like we see with other similar tech products when their sales slump for various reasons?

</comment><comment><USER102> I'm glad Apple has some competition with Android. I made the switch to Android after I got multiple "dud" iPhone 6's which stopped working after a few days.

</comment><comment><USER103> In weird analogies, I think the 5S is the Apple's playstation 2 ( good enough for everything and really really no incentive to upgrade except for the enthusiasts ).

</comment><comment><USER104> Apple still have $233,000,000,000 in the bank. More than the federal reserve, more than Google, Microsoft, and Facebook combined.

They could buy their way out of this I am pretty sure.

<comment><USER105> Buy their way out of it? How? They obviously don't have anything profitable to invest their excess cash in, since it is either sitting in the bank or going to stock buybacks or dividend increases.

<comment><USER104> [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-hints-at-big- acquisit...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-hints-at-big-acquisition- to-cure-growth-ills-2016-04-26)

<comment><USER105> Yeah, because Beats has been working out so well for them.

If they could get something to improve their cloud services competitiveness vs Google, maybe something like Dropbox, I could see that helping them long-term. Otherwise I don't think anything they could acquire would be anything more than a play at becoming a conglomerate ala GE at this point, there simply aren't many companies with a proven core product out there that can help Apple get out of this mess, except by expanding outward.

Not that there is anything wrong with being a conglomerate, Alphabet/Google is basically on its way to becoming one too, and GE is wildly profitable, I just don't see Apple playing well in that space. They need to concentrate on something.

<comment><USER104> It worked fine for MS.

I think Apple have no where to go than to buy companies. In fact most of their revolutionary products were products or technologies they bought.

It's typical apple strategy, they are just worth so much now that it's hard to see their acquisitions as anything but a drop in the water. Until now I guess.

They could buy Twitter, they could buy Box (or dropbox) or some other cloud solution, they could buy Stripe, they could buy Slack, they could buy so many companies and use their size to leverage those into something truly groundbreaking.

So I don't think it's that far out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Until some months ago, I had a factory unlocked iPhone 5 which I used for 2+ years. I had no reason to switch to a more recent model, other than the (at times) nagging need for the finger-print lock. Then, out of the blue, the battery on my iPhone began to malfunction, in that, it would only let the phone stay on for a couple of minutes unless it was plugged constantly to a power source.

I bought an iPhone 6S, space gray, factory unlocked at around $650 (excluding tax). I sent my iPhone 5 back to Apple for a recycle. They gave me $200 in iTunes gift money. So, all in all, I got a new iPhone 6S for $450 (excluding tax).

</comment><comment><USER107> I wonder if Apple is going to find a new market with the potential for massive growth any time soon. So far smartwatches don't seem to be such a market.

<comment><USER108> The Apple watch outsold the iPhone in it's first year, so a bit premature to write it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> No surprise. I mean... at the end of the day these are flat touch screens... it couldn't last forever. This is great - onto the next!

</comment><comment><USER110> Apple incapable of breaking the laws of thermodynamics and physics by continuing uninterrupted growth forever. Film at 11.

</comment><comment><USER111> Well there will always be regression to mean. I wonder what is the case with their App revenue.

</comment><comment><USER112> Apple is the Ford of smartphones. As the auto industry currently stands, the top selling model each year doesn't earn more than 1% of the industry's total revenue. The question is whether smartphones will eventually become similarly fragmented, or if the ecosystem network effect will maintain a "winner take most" effect.

<comment><USER113> Even with such results the iPhone sells much better than "1% of the industry's total revenue".

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> Every year I see a similar post over hyped a few months before a new major model is released. Then it won't be long before I see a post stating Apple's sales and stock are at an all time high. I swear this happens every year.

</comment><comment><USER115> I'm happy with my iPhone 4S

</comment><comment><USER116> So now we found out how long Apple was able to ride Steve Job's coat tails.

<comment><USER117> Because under Steve Jobs they would have continued to increase revenue and profit by the same margins every year until they owned the entire planet, and then continued to grow by colonizing Mars with Elon Musk. Or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> why sales drop?

</comment><comment><USER119> Appointing process optimizer Tim Cook was the biggest mistake of Steve Jobs

</comment><comment><USER120> Perhaps in small part due to recent FBI case?

<comment><USER121> Tim Cook has stated there is huge room for growth in China. I believe their inflated currency and recent market issues/corruption plays a big role on why the guidance isn't stronger. The emergence of cheap Xiaomi dominance doesn't help, either.

</comment></comment><comment> noir-york $175 billion in buy backs?! Wow, its expensive propping up the share price to keep Wall Street happy...

There is only so much hardware innovation, there are only so many people on the planet with $600 to spend on a mobile phone.

Apple should really move whole heartedly into services (as evidenced by revenue up 20%); build a gmail / dropbox competitor - stop thinking of itself as a consumer hardware maker, that era is over.

<comment><USER122> You don't know how buybacks work do you?

<comment> noir-york Buybacks decrease outstanding shares, and increase earnings per share, which drives up share price. But its not a great way to increase EPS, as opposed to increasing EPS via operational means.

<comment><USER123> If you know EPS is a terrible price inflation tactic, why did you automatically assume it's Apple's motive and gripe about it?

If the market price is lower than intrinsic value, then the buyback is a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER124> I don't know. My iPhone 5s recently died. I went to the Apple store. I looked at the new models. I looked at the version they have that looks like the 5s with better mechanics. I paid $269US for a replacement iPhone 5s. I just couldn't figure out a reason to upgrade. I have the same problem with the iPad. I'll probably upgrade at some point, but the battery life isn't better (and in fact I'd have to repurchase all of the extra phone-sleeve type batteries I have to buy due to Apple's inability to comprehend there are customers that care more about convenience than slimness and weight), and of course storage capacity (which hasn't really changed).

I can't be that unusual a customer. I think a lot of people are just done upgrading. For a while there in 2009/11/13 (or was it 10/12/14?) every time you upgraded it really did make a difference... a "quantum leap" in technology. Now, I feel like upgrading just changed the style (and unfortunately accessories) of my phone. Rumor is the 7 is going to do away with standard headsets. That would be a deal breaker for me. I am fatigued of not only replacing the phone, but the $300 in accessories it takes to power/add accessories/run the phone every 2 years.

This whole subject around quarterly earnings at Apple always makes me think about this larger trend here called peak stuff. Material consumption is falling in Western countries. Steve Howard did that great interview on the subject on NPR: [http://www.npr.org/2016/01/22/464013718/ikea-executive-on- wh...](http://www.npr.org/2016/01/22/464013718/ikea-executive-on-why-the-west- has-hit-peak-stuff)

Apple's products were the pinnacle of aspirations besides a car or home in much of the world, and now... well... they're less so. Still popular, still great products, but maybe there is starting to be some fatigue. It's probably good. Anyone who things unlimited growth as a model on a planet with finite resources is still living in the 20th century anyways.

Maybe that's contributing.</comment>


My Greatest Pitch - <AUTHOR> http://coreyblinks.com/my-greatest-pitch

<comment><USER2> Good job, blink-man! I have a feeling you're going to be a superstar before long...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I hope so...</comment></comment>


Why Windows 10 is the most secure Windows ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.in/feature/why-windows-10-is-the-most-secure-windows-ever?utm_source=computerworldalert&utm_medium=email&utm_term=wnl1&utm_campaign=computerworldalert-04Oct2015&utm_content=windows-10%3a-the-most-secure-windows-ever <comment><USER2> Except for that whole spying thing...but other than that, it's peachy.</comment>


Cloud Firewall (FF addon): block major cloud services - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cloud-firewall/ <comment><AUTHOR> Cloud Firewall by Gokulakrishna Sudharsan

Block connections to sites, pages and web resources hosted in major cloud services if the user wishes to do so.</comment>


The perovskite lightbulb moment for solar power - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/02/perovskite-lightbulb-moment-abundant-solar-power-britain <comment><USER2> The biggest roadblock to widespread adoption of solar as a baseload power source is the storage problem. Photovoltaics stop producing power when the sun goes down, that's not just inconvenient it's unworkable with the way power is used today. Until we can economically shift the output curve of solar power plants to match demand rather than supply it will always fill no more than a niche. Today the only way to do this is to work in concert with hydropower, but that is a very limited solution.

Also, it's not strictly necessary to solve the problem on a large scale, even at a small consumer-grade scale it could be helpful. If every house had a battery pack or supercap bank or what-have-you and it allowed for smoothing out power demand or perhaps enabled charging electric vehicles overnight, then it could have a huge impact on energy usage patterns. Even with the PV -> battery -> battery losses it would still be a substantial net win.

<comment><USER3> That's only a problem that's much farther down the road, say when solar penetration goes above 10% or 20%.

In the mean time you could just throttle hydro plants and natural gas plants to account for both usage variations as well as wind and solar production variations.

Too bad coal is very very cheap right now.

<comment><USER2> It's a problem _preventing_ solar penetration beyond a niche market. It also, as you point out, prevents solar from actually displacing existing power plant _capacity_. That means that solar power comes at an extraneous cost, since it doesn't obviate the need of building even a single non-solar power plant. Those are big problems and it's not as though we're magically going to start building lots and lots of solar power capacity without solving those problems. The sooner their tackled the faster those technologies will be on the amortization/improvement train and their costs will fall.

Solar and wind are today just sideshows in power production, if you want them to be otherwise the smart move is to invest in storage technologies.

<comment><USER4> I agree with your sentiment, but solar prices have plummeted and clever new financing arrangements from Solar City et al. have made them much more accessible, in the US at least.

[http://www.urbanphotovoltaic.com/Portals/0/solutions/photovo...](http://www.urbanphotovoltaic.com/Portals/0/solutions/photovoltaic/GlobalSolarInstallation-92-12%20Download.JPG)

We're slowing getting there, ~100GW of capacity installed in 2012, up from ~40GW in 2010.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An older but more detailed article about this: [http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i8/Tapping-Solar-Power- Perovs...](http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i8/Tapping-Solar-Power- Perovskites.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this going to be another one of those products that are cheap in small quantities, but are simply not available in large quantities?

The reason we keep going back to silicon is the planet (the crust) is basically made out of it. It's available in any quantity.

<comment><USER7> "methylammonium trihalogen plumbates"

Methylammonium ions can be had from methylamine, which is dirt-cheap (made from methanol and ammonia, usually).

Halogens are fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine. All common and cheap.

Plumbates are lead and oxygen. Again, common and cheap.

So, no, there shouldn't be any supply problem.

Disposal might need some watching due to the lead, but I doubt this would involve anywhere near the volume that's used in (e.g.) lead-acid car batteries.

<comment><USER6> Chlorine is available in quantity, but fluorine, bromine, and iodine are not. Bromine and iodine are actually quite rare - there's more uranium than either of those.

Lead is also somewhat rare.

> All common and cheap.

Exactly what I'm talking about. In the small quantities we use currently - common and cheap. In the quantities needed to make energy? Not common at all.

> So, no, there shouldn't be any supply problem.

Actually, if that's what it's made of there will be huge supply problems.

Based on all this I suspect this is the last we will hear of this technology. It works in the lab, but is not practical at scale.

Although maybe those elements are just used at ppm levels, and the bulk of this is silicon, then this could work.

> but I doubt this would involve anywhere near the volume that's used in > (e.g.) lead-acid car batteries.

To provide energy at country level scales? It would use WAY more. I once calculated that there is not enough lead on the planet to make enough batteries to store enough energy for overnight use. (In the context of batteries to buffer the diurnal nature of solar energy.)

<comment><USER7> > Chlorine is available in quantity, but fluorine, bromine, and iodine are > not.

All of these are available in quantity. Bromine is available in tank-car lots. Iodine is available in tonne lots.

"Lead is also somewhat rare."

"Somewhat rare", perhaps, but it only sells for about $1/pound, and 8 million tonnes are produced annually.

"Actually, if that's what it's made of there will be huge supply problems."

Actually, you're totally wrong. Sorry.

"I once calculated that there is not enough lead on the planet to make enough batteries to store enough energy for overnight use."

Batteries use multiple heavy plates of solid lead. This is a micrometer scale thin film on a substrate. There's a difference.

<comment><USER7> Assume the film is entirely lead (likely the limiting component -- as others have noted there is no shortage of bromine, chlorine, and iodine in the ocean) and 10 micrometers thick.

Lead has a density of 11,340 kg/m^3.

A ten micrometer thickness means that each m^2 of material will use about 0.11 kg of lead.

While the earth receives something like 1,000 watts/m^2 in full sun, other factors (e.g., night, clouds, different sun angles) mean that the mean is closer to 250 watts/m^2.

This stuff is expected to reach 20% efficiency, so each m^2 of collector will produce a mean output of 50 or so watts.

Human civilization as a whole produces about 15 terawatts of power, so replacing it would require about 300 billion square meters of collector.

At 0.11 kg/m^2, that would require about 33 billion kg of lead.

World production of lead is about 8 billion kg per year.

So, unless I messed up the arithmetic (please correct if so) total replacement of _all existing power sources_ would require only about 4 years of lead output. Given that that will never happen (and even if it did, the time scale would be much longer than 4 years), it is safe to say that the availability of lead is _not_ a limiting factor for this technology.

<comment><USER6> Your arithmetic is correct except for lead production figures and optimism on iodine. You are including recycling, so real production is about half of what you wrote.

The trouble is that at current rates of consumption the world will run out in 42 years (according to wikipedia). So this project would use 20% of all the remaining lead in the world. (Well not really, the film is not 100% lead, but it's still quite a lot.)

I call that "not enough". Although it might be worth it anyway. But what do you do when energy use goes up?

And despite people saying there is bromine and iodine in the ocean, there is no practical way to get it _out_ of the ocean in quantity. There is _everything_ in the ocean - in huge quantities! For example 1/10 as much gold as has ever been mined by humans exists in the ocean - but no one can get it out in quantity.

World production of iodine is about 1/200 of lead production and we already see that we barely have enough lead.

And world _existence_ of iodine is 1/100 of lead. And considering we need a significant percentage of the lead in the world, there is no way there is enough iodine.

But we are ignoring the substrate. It won't be so thin, so we'll need a lot of it. I wonder how much of it is for mechanical strength (i.e. replaceable) and how much is essential.

Maybe this could work - using a thin film is very promising, but I'm skeptical this could be scaled.

<comment><USER8> I still don't understand where you're going with this. Just because it's not capable of entirely providing our current power consumption doesn't mean it's a bad idea for deployment. After all, our current majority power source is a finite resource that's going to run out, and similar resourcing issues apply to uranium.

You're probably going to reccomend Thorium, but the barriers to commercialisation there are more serious.

Personally I suspect we'll end up with 30% solar, 30% wind, 40% other (tidal, nuclear, geothermal, biomass etc).

<comment><USER6> > I still don't understand where you're going with this.

This is a useful technology _only_ because it is inexpensive. If it were more expensive it would not have value.

Because it relies on rare elements it can not be used in scale because as soon as you do the price goes up, it is no longer inexpensive, and no longer useful.

This feedback loop has killed every solar technology I've read about except silicon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> EU regulators, the people who brought us lead-free solder, are going to love the "plumbate" part. It might as well be plutonium.

<comment><USER10> You're not one of those RoHS deniers are you? I hate to break it to you, but EVERYTHING made in the last ten years is made with lead-free solder and ta-da: it all works perfectly well.

<comment><USER11> Yes, they've figured it out now. There was an ugly transition period though.

<comment><USER12> Agreed, but I'd add that the transition period coincided with the switch to water based flux processes, and the headlong rush to China. All of those things involved their own sets of birthing pains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These sorts of comments always set off alarm bells for me -

"If we could capture approximately 1% of the X on Y"

I think in a lot of countries the labour costs are the major factor in the price.

If this is true then what we really need is longevity and efficiency rather than cheaper panels.

<comment><USER14> It's a useful statistic, particularly as it places a minimum bound on the land area requirements. In fact most renewables (solar, wind, biomass, wave, tidal power) can be translated into land-use requirements: so many kW/m^2 or MW/hectare. Useful conversion: 1 kW/m^2 is about the average insolation at Earth's surface, which translates to 10 MW/hectare, or 1 GW/km^2.

Knowing that 1% of the incident sunlight on Britain would provide the nation's energy requirements, and that solar cell efficiency is 20%, means that Britain could be energy self-sufficient with 5% of its land-area covered with PV cells. The land area of the UK is about 229 million km^2, so roughly 11.5 million km^2. Knowing what the material requirements per m^2 for perovskite solar cells would give us a first-order bounds check on how viable the technology might be for this application.

The challenges for solar are not just cost (of which installation and infrastructure costs are a significant component), but substrate abundance and, unmentioned by this article, storage.

Still, it seems an interesting development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is why I never understood the argument "but solar is so expensive right now", when it was still very early days for solar investment. If you start pouring the billions of dollars nuclear gets into solar panel research, and bring it to a high enough scale, you eventually start getting not just a real alternative, but potentially a much better alternative to any other energy source.

Once we "fix" the cost of solar panels, then we need to figure out how to store solar energy cheaply and easily, too, and then it can be a source of energy that's not just for day time and sunny seasons, too.

</comment><comment><USER16> RIP organic photovoltaics.

<comment><USER17> Not so fast.

We're working on it.

<comment><USER16> We too ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Choosing names for your computers - s-phi-nl http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1178.html <comment><AUTHOR> A nice naming scheme (for server names) I read about somewhere suggested following the periodic table. Element names can be used as the server names and corresponding element numbers as corresponding IP addresses (subnet suffix) of the servers.

<comment><USER2> There are other advantages to this naming scheme. Element abbreviations can be used as short DNS names. For example, both lithium and li could resolve to 192.168.1.3.

Also, groups of elements can correspond to types of computers. Halogens can be embedded devices, noble gasses can be gaming machines, alkali metals can be file servers, etc.

<comment><USER3> I'd use radioactive elements for Windows servers.

Also, hydrogen - firewall/GW, oxygen - mail server, carbon - public web server, iron - source repository.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While looking at the serverfault thread linked somewhere in this post, I found the following site: <http://www.namingschemes.com/>

It's a whole wiki full of naming schemes. It actually included the one I am using (Battlestar Galactica callsigns), which I though should have been pretty unique.

<comment><USER5> BSG callsigns, cool - I've been naming my machines after 80's transformers for years!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I heard of one organization that used disasters. Titanic, Hindenburg, Ishtar... the nice part is that you keep getting new ones all the time.

I'd probably avoid Eyjafjallajokull, though.

<comment><USER7> Especially since the technically correct spelling is Eyjafjallajökull. :-)

<comment><USER8> In IDN that's xn--eyjafjallajkull-jtb, quite the server name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My first naming scheme revolved around monkeys, I had spacemonkey, funkymonkey and.. I forget the third. That one didn't scale well.

For a short while I used characters from children's books (mom is a librarian who loves children's books), this included lafcadio, lorax and grinch.

Right now it's robots from Futurama. Bender, flexo (the Win XP dual-boot of bender, which is OSX), clamps, roberto (the crazy, stabbing robot), calculon and my dedicated server, robot-devil.

Not that anyone asked, but hey, naming schemes are fun!

<comment><USER10> Hah, so I'm not the only one to go the Futurama robots route. My personal fave is Boxy (Is he objecting or backing up? I can't tell!)

<comment><USER9> Good name for a Boxee box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Finally, a use for Google Sets: <http://labs.google.com/sets>

<comment><USER12> I've never seen that before. When I was in college, I named all my machines after songs by Orbital. This worked pretty well since they were, back then, cranking out a new album every couple of years or so. I added chime, midnight, and halcyon to Google Sets to see what it would come up with and every other suggestion on its list was the name of an Orbital song. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Only time I remember having interesting computer names out side of college, the companies lawyers put a squash to it. Infectious diseases just has so much creativity to it.

I suspect they were ok with "cholera", but someone in the legal department got upset with "ebola". I think the rest had been disabled by that point, and I'm sure they were already off the internal dns.

</comment><comment><USER14> My naming convention is naming conventions. My server is named slogan, my tablet is named color, my netbook is named protagonist, my car (a Nissan Quest) is named Tribe, my ad-hoc wireless network's ssid is synonym, my external drive is named planet, and my server's replacement will be named category.

</comment><comment><USER15> Previous article and lively conversation on this subject: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=834817>

</comment><comment><USER16> Classic. I have a naming scheme for my personal laptops--female characters from sci fi series. I've had an aluminum PowerBook named Kira, a black MacBook named Dee, and an aluminum MacBook named Kara so far.

<comment><USER17> My current naming theme is Song Of Ice And Fire characters. The netbook I'm writing this in is named Tyrion, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My boss is the sysadmin for my school's CS department; there is an IT department that every other department uses, but they're slow and useless.

For the longest time, their servers were named after ships, such as Bismark, Arizona, Enterprise, etc, while all of our servers were named after things that sink ships, such as Broadside, Salvo, Crash, Leak, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> Fittingly, we name our servers after universities. Ivy League colleges are web-facing, the Pac-10 are database servers, and the Claremont colleges are dev boxes. Ultimately no scheme will hold up, but at least we have a few thousand pre-made names to use.

</comment><comment><USER20> I name our servers after the asset tag numbers. DNS can then be used to provide an inventory of our data centers. It also ensures we have a programatic and automatic way to name machines, and numbers are remarkably memorable after a while.

<comment><USER21> Any scheme based on a pool of names does not scale. If you have big plans, a sequence is the way to go.

<comment><USER4> There are lots of pools you could use that offer a vast amount of names, assuring that you never run out even if you have a very large number of hosts. Good examples in my opinion are names of things existing in real life, e.g. band names, names of famous (CS) people, ..., while fictional names (characters from some book) tend to run out too soon.

You could even partition hostnames, e.g. all workstations in room 1 are named after famous rock stars, all workstation in room 2 are named after famouse rappers, etc.

<comment><USER22> I get that there isn't a serious argument here, but how do you reconcile when the guy using 'megadeth' moves to a different cubicle?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For my personal systems, I choose names of demons (since they run lots of dæmons). I get a little thrill out of not knowing what to name something, and taking it as an excuse to go look up cool names.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm quite fond of using typefaces -- you can be surprisingly descriptive:

Arial (laptop), Futura (internet tablet), Minion (home server), Courier (router), Perpetua (VPS), etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> _Don't use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names._

Oops. My work computer is _Spaz_ , my iPhone is _Dirty Sanchez_ and my laptop is _Dingleberry_.

</comment><comment><USER26> At the risk of self-promotion, a while back I did a presentation on naming schemes for network devices, which have slightly different requirements than servers:

[http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog31/abstracts.php?pt=NjExJ...](http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog31/abstracts.php?pt=NjExJm5hbm9nMzE=&nm=nanog31)

</comment><comment><USER27> A big(ish) hosting company I once worked for used Caribbean islands. This rapidly turned out to be a mistake and it quickly turned into any islands, then cities, then god knows what :-)

My current scheme is using major LA thoroughfares (Pico, Victory, Ventura, etc) but as I'm unlikely to scale beyond two digits, I'm not worried ;-)

<comment> s-phi-nl Did you did consult the following list: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Caribbea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_the_Caribbean)?

<comment><USER27> Very cool! I suspect they did not exhaust _that_ list :-) Though "Barrel of Beef" doesn't seem like server name material to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We used Tintin characters: tintin, haddock, calculus, snowy.

<comment><USER29> Going on a tangent: Did you read Tintin while living in America? Because from what I've understood, those comics are almost unheard of there. Is that not true?

<comment><USER28> I don't know about the rest of America, but they were pretty well known in Cambridge, where I first discovered them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I use random names from Firefly - there is actually a goodly number of you think about it for a bit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I use names from various books, in no particular fashion. Most of my names are from Tad Williams books, but I've been known to use the names of Anne McCaffrey's dragons as well, with some names from Norse mythology tossed in for good measure.

My current workstation is pfefirrit. In the past, I've had fizz, click, karthwine, ninebirds, nuzzledark, nipslither, bast-imret, earnotch, and knet- makri as servers. My old workstations were cloudleaper, bite-then-bark, pop, hushpad, and tailchaser. My firewall was meerclar.

As far as laptops go, I've used munin, hugin, odin, krelli, skoggi, krauka, nrefa-o, mnanth, and caylith.

Back when I did IT for a couple of schools, I used chemical compounds in a certain fashion to reflect room numbers.

</comment><comment><USER32> We use names of beers and liquors. Works well enough.

</comment><comment><USER33> In college, I had a lecturer who named companies in an assignment after characters in The Wire (Avon Barksdale etc). It's possible he downloaded this from the internet though. It certainly made things a little more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER34> Bond women. Kissy, Pussy, Solitaire, Domino, Vesper, Honey, Goodnight...

<comment><USER11> Bonus points for when someone asks which computer you are using and you say, "I'm on Pussy."

I worked at a place that gave female names to all the computers. It was a little awkward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Mine are named after Star Trek characters.

Troi (MacBook), Picard (iMac), Locutus (Mini), Crusher (MBP).

At uni, most of the computers were named after distilleries. i.e. Livet, Morangie, Grant, Islay etc.

</comment><comment><USER36> I once used programming languages for a small lab. They were identical machines and the weird thing was 'java' was the slowest and 'arc' always needed to be rebooted.

</comment><comment><USER37> For my own devices, I just name them anything related to space exploration. I make it memorable and appropriate. Launchpad was where I did all my creative work. Pocket Rocket was a Mac Mini. My iPod was Cassini (comparatively small / weak spacecraft); when I lost it, I posthumously renamed it Atlantis (after the Shuttle).

Originally I named devices after computer science visionaries — the computer I built, I named Kilby, after Jack Kilby.

</comment><comment><USER38> In the 90s, fruits. Coconut, kiwi, orange. Had a Cisco named passion. When you'd ping it from the Solaris box (pineapple) it would say "passion is alive".

Around 2000 with Grub I did bugs. Ant, roach, mosquito, brainbug (from starship troopers).

2005 or so a buddy got started using Roman names for servers. Dido, Leptis, Aeneas, Ulysses, Spartacus.

My home computers are super heros/villains. Superman, ironman, greenlantern, jeangrey, magneto, thing, hulk.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've always had (what I would guess are) odd schemes. My first naming scheme was based around beat poets (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs), but currently, my scheme is 'cool Jacks that I like', which includes Bristow, McCoy, Kerouac, Kevorkian, Kirby, etc.

BSG callsigns sound awesome, and somebody else mentioned colors, but I think scaling that gets confusing, especially if you're color blind, as I am.

</comment><comment><USER39> My main home computer, a laptop, is named Workhorse. But after seeing some of the creative naming techniques people in this thread have used, the next machine(s) added to my home network will be named using Klingon swear words.

I quite like the idea of using the word 'petaQ' to name a computer, especially if it happens to be a Windows machine.

</comment><comment><USER40> Probably not very original, but I use titles of SF books I like that also reflect on the machine (sometimes).

Here's some I've used:

\- tau-zero

\- subtleknife

\- Dark Light (iPhone)

\- Omega Device (iPod Nano - I like this one :)

\- skyroad

\- zodiac

</comment><comment><USER41> My most successful naming scheme was using the names of Cheeses. There's a crapload of cheeses out there.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think the idea is straightforward: Use short names you use rarely, and preferably give all your computer a theme.

I'm currently using Greek Gods, but surely Roman Gods should be just as efficient. Planets should work as well, if you include imaginary planets (From, say, Star Wars)

</comment><comment><USER43> Doctor Who characters for my home systems here; my black MacBook is called Tardis, because it's bigger on the inside, and the Dell server was obviously styled by Davos, so it's called Dalek.

Naming schemes help keep the fun in managing computers.

</comment><comment><USER44> I usually pick a name based on some piece of music that's nearby the first time I get asked to set one. Sleepwalk (Santo & Johnny), Skyscraper (Underworld), Hinterland (William Orbit), Zoolookologie (Jean-Michel Jarre)...

</comment><comment><USER45> I've gone the Lord of the Rings route before using locations: shire, barrowdowns, moria, lothlorien, isengard, mordor, rivendell, etc. The only bad thing was that only about one in ten people knew how to spell isengard.

</comment><comment><USER46> Amusing take:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/verity_stob_name_you...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/verity_stob_name_your_pc/) \- Don't call me Ishmael - Choosing a name for your new PC

</comment><comment><USER47> Coruscant, Hoth, Yavin, Dagobah, Tatooine, Dantooine, and of course, Deathstar

</comment><comment><USER48> My workstation is named Casper, because it had a fried motherboard and I thought it was dead. Other option was Lazarus. Notebook is Pegasus, because it's powerful and can "fly around". Render nodes are RNn.

</comment><comment><USER49> Our sysadmin insists on using numbers to name systems, in combination with an abbreviation representing the OS. For example, RHL015 is our 15th server running CentOS (Red Hat Linux). It's quite maddening!

</comment><comment><USER50> Thundercats. I name all of my machines after the Thundercats.

</comment><comment><USER51> Roman emperors: augustus, tiberius, caligula, claudius, etc.

</comment><comment> a-j-h I have in the past used characters from the Wheel of Time.

Currently using types of peppers in work.

Using characters or items from Neuromancer for personal stuff. My netbook is onosendai.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm following the Futura characters. My Unibody MacBook is called Bender because it indeed has a shining metal ass (although different kind of metal) :D

</comment><comment><USER53> I just name them after whatever I feel like. Among them: alpha, hiro, zoidberg, LOKI (VMS box), fafnir, glenda, p9, illiac, jerq, perq, and beer.

</comment><comment><USER54> Disney chose to name their computers like some planets; while the NASA chose to name their computers like some Disney characters :p

</comment><comment><USER55> I used to name my computers after Cathedrals but there weren't enough that sounded neat. So I switched to names of English cities.

</comment><comment><USER56> My portable is always DeepThought, my desktop/workhorse machine is always Earth, and my backup volume/server is always Magrathea

</comment><comment><USER57> We used Babylon 5 characters on one network, but kept getting "duplicate name exists on network" when we got to "Zathras"

</comment><comment><USER58> I kept running out of names with various schemes, but right now all my machine names are words that end in x.

</comment><comment><USER59> I go with colors. My main machines are Indigo and Violet, and I have a server under my bed called Aubergine.

</comment><comment><USER60> Transformers names have worked well for me. FortressMaximus and OmegaSupreme being some highlights.

</comment><comment><USER61> All my computers are named after Star Wars planets. The recently acquired MacBook Air is "naboo".

</comment><comment><USER62> Google sets and Greek mythological figures . For my personal list of 7 computers that's fine.

<comment><USER63> The twelve classical olympians were always enough for me, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> My computers and devices are named after popular females of the 1920s:

\- myrtle

\- mindy

\- mabel

\- ilene

\- irma

\- iris

\- patsy

\- floy

\- agnes

\- nellie

Nellie, of course, is my beautiful NeXT cube.

</comment><comment><USER65> My names are always the planets, and 'SOL' is always the name of my PDC.

</comment><comment><USER66> I want a computer like Tony Stark's in Iron Man, so named mine Jarvis.

</comment><comment><USER67> I use names of Star Wars planets and my wireless ssid is The Outer Rim

</comment><comment><USER68> I like naming systems after ex-coworkers, and especially ex-managers.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is, incidentally, the same Don Libes of Expect and Tcl fame.

</comment><comment><USER70> I've got a pretty simple naming convention: interstates.

</comment><comment><USER71> f@@k, s@@t, c@@t, crap, fart, bollocks, ar@e, etc all work great for computer names for me.

<comment><USER71> I knew I would risk karma on this one. but I'm not trolling, and these are the names of my computers and servers. It has worked well for me for years.</comment></comment>


Google Chrome Comics - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

<comment><USER2> I love the way they use the comic strip format to explain software, very fresh.

<comment><USER3> Also very 'fresh' are the javascript 'next' links which prevent me from sending individual page urls to friends. Awesome usability.

<comment><USER4> And they flicker oddly, in such a way that you can click next, see a few things happen, and then wonder if you have gone forward one page or three.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting blend of marketing and informational material.

I had to laugh when I read the contrived comment of one character asking "why is this application downloading the entire Internet?" when looking at the Chrome task manager.

<comment><USER6> Look at the process list. The task is "Omnivore". This is the rumored name of the application that the NSA runs to grep through all internet traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Wouldn't it be great to start from scratch?"

Uhh, no, it wouldn't, because chances are strong you'll screw something up. Whichever technology takes the current model and extends it gracefully but usefully will succeed in taking the web another step forward.

<comment><USER8> Chrome _is_ a browser, you know. It's the current model, extended gracefully. It's even built on top of a current engine.

They're using the phrase "start from scratch" to explain their _thought process_ , not what they actually built at the end of that process. And that's generally okay. You can use any method you want to figure out where you'd like to go, before you try to work out how to get there via small, continuous changes to the status quo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man that was a weird thing to read. I read a lot of technical documents and a lot of web comics, but please don't combine the two. The art was... words fail me.

I found the new JS vm the most interesting part, I bet Steve Y. had something to do with that. I can't wait to read what he'll write about Chrome. I bet he's very happy right now... in his pants! (Sorry couldn't resist.)</comment>


New session of Stanford's online crypto course by Dan Boneh - <AUTHOR> https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto

<comment><AUTHOR> Another session of Dan Boneh's online crypto course starts up tomorrow.</comment>


Amazon Wants You to Code the AI Brain for This Little Car - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-wants-you-code-ai-brain-car/ <comment><USER2> This is amazing. However, I'm concerned about the vendor lock-in. I want to buy this car because it's a complete package with proper documentation, but I'm worried about being tied into solely AWS for model training.

Is there word on whether it will be "fully hackable," as in being able to train models on my own hardware to work with the car?</comment>


Why doesn't speculation decrease volatility like HFT reduces spreads? - <AUTHOR> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/10/05/4-gas-get-used-to-it/?hpt=hp_t3

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few folks here who understand HFT and how it decreased the buy- sell spread. Why doesn't increased trading reduce volatility across time?</comment>