Posts by Phormic

Apple CEO: We've hoovered up your cash faster than ever before

That's Odd...

Curious how the Reg's "peak Apple" snark has mysteriously disappeared lately.

'PATHETIC' Galaxy Gear sales skewer smartwatch HYPE-O-GASM bubble

Apple, fanbois, copy, iSheep, fandroid, round corners, holding it wrong, Samsung, plagiarism, copyright infringement, fashion statement, Steve Jobs, such and such did it first, lack of innovation, it's all because of marketing, blatant rip-off.

There we go. To save us time, I managed to cross off all the Register comment thread, flame war clichés in one fell swoop.

Apple 'happy ending': BULGING iPhone WAD - but can it ever be enough?

Yep. When will Apple realise that the true path to success is by selling cut price, high volume, low margin, budget, cheap rubbish and their rise to being the biggest company in the world, through selling premium products, has been some sort of fluke or aberration?

I'm sure normal service will resume any second now. Just wait. Aaaaaany second...

Dog bites man: Apple's Macs trounce all Windows PCs in customer love

How about...?

It's fascinating looking at the mental contortions some of the above commenters are tying themselves in. A quick run through gives us that this survey result is due to: statistical error, Windows 8, some weird self-justification process from spending a lot of money, a sexual attraction to an inanimate object, blind religious devotion and this all being down to Americans being stupid, to name a few.

I might have an alternate explanation here. Now bare with me here while I spout forth with crazy talk. Are you ready? Maybe this survey result is a result of, y'know... Macs being quite good.

Magpie Apple plunders the competition for cosmetics, as egos run wild

Re: What's does everyone have against skeuomorphisms

There's nothing inherently wrong with skeumorphic design, provided it's used the right context. An animation of a page turn provides context and meaning. A window surrounded by a tacky faux stitched leather surround provides neither. It's just ornamentation.

You could even argue that the parallax layering in iOS7 is a form of skeumorphism, in that it mimics the 3D natural world on a 2D artificial surface. However is has purpose in that it provides hierarchical information. Skeumorphism that brings with it meaning and inferred information is fine. It's just when it's used as decoration that things fall down. That's what the current version of iOS is guilty of.

Sorry, Apple-haters, but Cupertinian doom not on the horizon

Re: Mac sales decline is the problem

"Phone and tablet markets are far too volatile for such a large company to peg its future on,"

Oh OK. I guess they should be pegging their future on a product category that's now more than a quarter of a century old, declining rapidly, which Apple makes barely 10% of it's revenues on and which no other company in the market can make money in.

Tim Cook will be ringing for more advice any second now.

iPhone hangs on in US, Japan, but EVERYONE ELSE bought an Android

I'm well aware of that and indeed, I reside beyond those shores. I'm merely amused how the Reg colours (see the spelling there) their story titles to please the preferences of their target audience.

Anyway, Apple's financials are out tomorrow so we'll see how desperately they're "hanging on" in the face of the unstoppable bone crushing market dominance, that is the relentless Android juggernaut, that's sweeping all before it.

So in the US, the iPhone captures 63% of smart phone sales at Verizon, 77% at Sprint and over 80% at AT&T.

I don't know much longer the iPhone can "hang on" for. It's getting desperate.

Apple's former retail boss spills magic beans on store strategy

Or maybe...

It's always fascinating to read the rational and well studied reasons for Apple's success by the Register's brains trust. "It's a cult", "it's just marketing" and other knee jerk reasons suggesting that Apple's success is an aberration and one day very soon, the world will wake up from their zombie-like trance and come to realise that poor designed, poorly made and difficult to use consumer electronics, that offer no customer support, are if fact what they really wanted after all.

There is indeed delusion at work here but it doesn't live in Apple stores.

iPhones, iPads to be FULL OF FACEBOOK and NOT GOOGLE

Re: What a silly argument!

Of course fragmentation is a problem for consumers. Any customisation of Android is invariably a degradation (particularly when done by phone carriers) and the prospect of normal people ever upgrading and improving their phone's software is often remote at best.

When you add in the fact that most developers would be hesitant in using Google's latest API's and new functionality with the vast amount of legacy software still in use, you can only come to the conclusion that the slow upgrade rate is an anchor that holds back the platform's progression and improvement.

Ice Cream Sandwich was meant to be the grand unifier for Android according to Google at its launch (in itself an admission of a problem). At that it has simply failed.

'Apple will coast, and then decelerate' says Forrester CEO

Does this guy know anything about Cook?

I wonder if George caught the earnings call yesterday where Cook announced that he eschews a legal approach to competition as his preferred option.

Cook is the principle reason that Apple is a moneymaking machine today. There is nobody in the industry better at production control and supply chain management. Apple's gross margins are now running at 47.4%, which is without precedent and doesn't happen by accident. Jobs was a product guy. Cook turned those products into colossal mountains of money.

I also wonder if Colony realises that this supposedly grey bureaucrat (as he paints it) has pretty much run the company for quite a few years now, not just now but also previously as Jobs's illness advanced. It's sad, but Jobs planned for a future where he wasn't around and Tim Cook and Jonny Ive, were specifically groomed by Jobs to take over the reigns.

If Cook can hold onto Ive, there's no reason why Apple's success can't continue for a little longer yet.

Apple: Yes there are horrendous accidents, but we CARE

Correction from BSR

It's probably worth mentioning that the corporate responsibility consultant firm BSR, corrected some of the accusations made in the New York Times article, the main being that Apple knew and could act tougher against worker rights abuses but had purportedly chosen not to. Although the main thrust of the article isn't questioned, some of the more incendiary accusations are.

Apple iPhone owners are the most loyal smartphone buyers

Two Explanations for This – Pick One

1. The iPhone is quite good, people like them, they tend to work reliably and they make people happy.

2. iPhone users are complete idiots. Mindless zombies under control of the baby eating, jackboot wearing oppressors who hate freedom and whose success is due to marketing, fashion and absolutely no other reason whatsoever.

One of these explanations belongs on planet Earth. One is borne out of unhinged nutzoid hate. Pick which is which.

Despite Android lead, iOS devs slurp scads more mazuma

Excuse me while I wade through this veritable tsunami of bile and vitriol but did we stop to think that maybe it's because iPhone users tend to have a higher disposable income and so are more likely to buy apps? It's kinda the same reason why the software market on the Mac tends to be fairly healthy as well, disproportional to it's market share.

We'll now return you to your normal scheduled programming of fanboi foot stamping, insults and unhinged conspiracy theorising.

Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom

You Have to be Kidding

Kids buy Android? What complete rot. They might GET Android but what do they WANT? From a Piper Jaffray report published this April:

"Teen buying trends in portable devices show the rising popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod. The market share of iPhone rose to 17 percent, and, in the next six months, 37 percent of surveyed teens intend to purchase an iPhone (up from 31 percent one year ago)."

Which is a nice segue to my next point. There's also a thing called an iPod Touch which runs iOS and a bazillion games. Hazard to guess who buys them? Or because it's not a phone it doesn't count?

One per cent of world's web browsing happens on iPad

No! It Cannot be!

But...but...but...it's just a big iPod Touch! It's just a fad! My netbook can do so much more! It's just marketing, it just spin, I give it six months tops, it's, it's, IT'S...brain explodes...

Apple's next iPhone planned for September, says report

Attention. We Interrupt This Programme with a Dose of Reality...

Sorry, I don't want to inject any semblance of reality into this forum of gleeful Apple bashing but you did hear about Android's growth in the US stalling didn't you?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8590205/Googles-Android-phones-lose-market-share-in-US.html

Anyway, never mind, normal service will now be resumed...

Hark! Do I hear millions hear the clarion call of openy open source freedom? They flee the jackboot tyranny of the baby eating Jobs and his plan to enslave the world in a walled garden of software oppression and enslavement...etc...etc...ad infinitum...

Behind Apple's record sales are signs of desperation

Another Commoditised Market

I'd be fascinated to hear why the author feels that Apple is more vulnerable than Android in the commoditisation of the smartphone market, especially when looking at another market that is well and truly commoditised – the PC market. That would be the same market where Apple just had a 47% leap in sales in the US and a 28% jump overall.

It must have been an incredible challenge to reach those conclusions written in that article despite all evidence pointing to the complete opposite. Kudos to the author for his dogged determination.

Android, Steve Jobs, and Apple's '90%' tablet share

Er yes. Apart from that...

Apple is fantastic at fostering growth in new markets. It is terrible at maintaining market share. Why? Because Apple is not a market-share leader, with very few exceptions (e.g., the digital music market).

Ah yes. The digital music player market Apple have sold 150 million units of and have consistently seen off all competitors over the course of a decade but we'll just put that inconvenient little minor market to one side for this argument shall we?

Operator gang gunning for iTunes

Oh dear.

"Hit a whole lot of people with a slightly less-good service then that's enough for most people."

What an inspirational and motivational call-to-arms that is. "Let's do something that barely good enough for the lowest common denominator!"

Jobs: One million iPads sold

I'm very, very clever!

Speaking as an IT professional, one who is very CLEVER with computers and has heard of Linux distros NOBODY else has heard of (and written them), can I just write off these one million customers as "stupid" and "fanbois" because obviously people who want well designed and easy to use products are DUMB. It's obvious! Spending hours getting barely functional software operating on barely functional netbooks is what everybody should be doing. Well, people intelligent enough to do so anyway (like me).

EXPERTS like myself, pride ourselves in wrestling with technology and mastering it in a mighty battle of will. Technology is hard and therefore people like myself are indispensable. Technology made simple, personable, approachable and available to all people (even stupid ones) is offensive and a possible threat to my livelihood.

So let me finish with a few more elitist "fanbois", "one born every minute" and "evil locked down technology" comments while I sit back and polish my ivory tower. Thank you.