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posted by cmn32480 on Friday October 30 2015, @10:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the half-eaten-fruit-strikes-again dept.

Apple Doesn't Want You Weighing Things With Your iPhone Just Yet

Can you turn an iPhone 6S into a working digital scale? The answer, apparently, is yes, but Apple doesn't want you to right now.

In an interesting post on Medium, developer Ryan McLeod explains how he and his friends built a digital scale app for the new iPhones by taking advantage of Apple's new pressure sensitivity feature, 3D Touch. The company only uses 3D Touch for a few functions — adjusting how quickly you scrub through music and video, for example, or quickly accessing app shortcuts from the home screen — but McLeod says he was inspired by all the "creative workarounds" on the App Store to hijack it for something else.

-- submitted from IRC

Apple Sales, Profit Surge On iPhone Strength

Apple logged another healthy rise in sales and profits for its most recent quarter on the strength of record iPhone sales and strong results for Macs.

The company's revenue rose 22 percent from a year earlier to $51.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 26. Sales of iPhones reached a fourth-quarter record, and the company said it sold more Macs than ever. Sixty-two percent of revenue came from outside the U.S., and revenue in China nearly doubled.

The company's profit grew even more strongly than sales, up 31 percent to $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per share. For the full year, Apple made $53.4 billion.

Both sales and profit beat the consensus forecast of analyst polled by Thomson Reuters.

What will Apple do with its mounting pile of cash?


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday October 30 2015, @12:29PM

    by ledow (5567) on Friday October 30 2015, @12:29PM (#256432) Homepage

    Is it just me that's incredibly suspicious when a company makes SO MUCH profit?

    I mean, it sounds great - guaranteeing the future of the company whose products you've bought, etc.

    But the logical side of my brain just says "They could probably cut the cost of every product they make in half, sell more, and still make a shed-load of profit for their shareholders".

    It always worries me when people say "Ah, but after R&D and reinvestment costs, corporation X only made a few billion in profit". To me, that just says that they overcharged their customers by at least half a billion. Divide that by the number of products they make and it probably means they are making over 75% profit on everything they make. I don't begrudge a 50% profit at all, but when I see announcement like this I just draw this line from the customer's pocket to the shareholder's bank account.

    I mean, it's a salesmanship feat, that's for sure, competing with products that cost less than half the price and still making billions, but it just irks me.

    Sadly, Apple aren't even the biggest sellers. That just makes me much more suspicious of the way they treat their customers.

    "According to research firm IDC, [Apple] was responsible for just 18.3% of smartphones shipped globally in Q1 of 2015. Despite this, it is taking the vast, vast majority of profits in the industry — a staggering 92%."

    Shame that they focus precisely ZERO of that profit into managing their other products BYOD-wise or the education markets that bouy those up.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mmcmonster on Friday October 30 2015, @12:42PM

    by mmcmonster (401) on Friday October 30 2015, @12:42PM (#256436)

    We all want cheaper devices, but who are we to judge how much profit a company makes? Presumably Apple has some people on board who help them decide how much an item should cost. Supply and demand curves are the hallmark of capitalism, aren't they?

    Playing Devil's Advocate here, consider this hypothetical situation:

    Apple lowers the price of new iPhones to manufacturing cost + only a small profit. Sells the 64GB latest phone for $200, no contract.

    Questions:
    1 - What will that do to the market? Their competition?
    2 - What will that do to all the smart phones that are currently in peoples hands? Will they ebay them or repurpose them?
    3 - What will that do to their market share? Will they become supply-limited?
    4 - What will that do to the Android App Store (or whatever they call it)?

    While I'm not happy spending so much on a new iPhone, at least I know that if I don't like it, I can switch to a Samsung Android or some such device. If the android market implodes due to cheap iPhones, I won't get that option.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday November 02 2015, @03:04PM

      by isostatic (365) on Monday November 02 2015, @03:04PM (#257521) Journal

      We all want cheaper devices,

      I don't, I want better quality devices. That was what I used to get with an iphone/ios/osx ecosystem, not so sure now, but there isn't really a good quality phone elsewhere.

      I've just replaced my SSD in my 5 year old laptop, moving from a 120GB without TRIM support to a 24GB one. It's got a good keyboard and screen, unlike 90% or more of the machines out there. Originally the laptop cost $3000, but it's enabled over $1 million worth of work.

      If a $500 laptop made me only 1% less efficient, it would actually cost $7k, not save $2500.

      The same happens when I'm flying, sure some people are happy spending $1000 and flying in cattle class across the world, I'd rather spend $2500 and fly in something approaching civilization.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by quacking duck on Friday October 30 2015, @02:22PM

    by quacking duck (1395) on Friday October 30 2015, @02:22PM (#256466)

    A lot of Apple fans are pissed that Apple is still starting storage at only 16 GB, the same amount the iPhone 3GS started with in 2009. Personally I'm also pissed that optical image stabilization is only available in the larger 5.5" 6/6S Pluses, not the smaller 4.7" 6/6s. So to get a reasonable storage amount and OIS, I have to pay an extra $200 USD and carry a bigger phone than I want to.

    That said, this is not a life-saving drug selling for extortionist amounts of money (looking at you pharma bro, you entitled asshole), it's a luxury item selling for exorbitant amounts of money.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Friday October 30 2015, @02:53PM

      by SanityCheck (5190) on Friday October 30 2015, @02:53PM (#256483)

      I think these are all valid complaints. As a defacto "luxury" brand the entry level specs should be much higher. I am unsure why they have decided to go that route. There might be a more hidden motive there, like they want to ensure that people are compelled to use their cloud for storage of images, so this is a way to force people to do it. Very sinister, but usually that's how poor engineering decisions are made.

  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday October 30 2015, @02:36PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Friday October 30 2015, @02:36PM (#256471)

    Apple sells to the top 20% of income earners. That's their niche. They have targeted people for whom the annual cost of an iPhone cellphone plan is essentially nothing. These are high-income earners (or wannabe posers stretching themselves) can drop a few thousand dollars each year on the latest Apple whatever and literally not miss the money. They're the same people who can drop money on Amazon Prime and not miss it, even if they never use it. These are people who have moved beyond making ends meet to using money to mark their status. Apple can play these people like a fiddle. Apple's marketing campaigns to convince these people to buy stuff are absolutely incredible to watch unfold. The "leaks", the buildup, the product launch, the immediately sold out product during orders... it's a Pavlovian thing that gets these people to buy. I am in awe of what Apple does. I mean, it's everything a guy like Eben Pagan teaches, only instead of worthless dating advice or stock market tips, Apple has a real product that actually has some value.

    Now, if Apple devalued their product, and sold more units, they'd essentially destroy themselves. Their niche is the top 20% or people who aspire to it. If their products were as common as Samsung's, they'd be in Samsung's position now, fading into irrelevance. The fact that Apple has kept their customer base buying all these years is remarkable.

    The other niche that Apple sells to, professionals who want reliable laptops and desktops, is being neglected and almost totally ignored.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @06:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @06:31PM (#256595)

    "They could probably cut the cost of every product they make in half, sell more, and still make a shed-load of profit for their shareholders".

    The luxury goods bunch often hurt themselves if they sold their stuff at half price. So a similar thing could apply for Apple.

    Most of their target customers are happy to pay more. Why sell stuff cheaper and have their customers start asking more questions regarding price?