The newest of the “Banned Apple Promos” by The Gentlemen’s…
promo
The newest of the “Banned Apple Promos” by The Gentlemen’s reponse. Really funny.
iPhone 5
iPhone 5
iPhone 5
Doc Searls on Apple’s TV Plans
doc searls, espn, itv, new tv, old tvDoc Searls zooms in on ESPN as the biggest impediment to New TV:
Doc Searls – How Apple will turn the Net’s top into TV’s bottom
The main thing that keeps cable in charge of TV content is not the carriers, but ESPN, which represents up to 40% of your cable bill, whether you like sports or not. ESPN isn’t going to bypass cable — they’ve got that distribution system locked in, and vice versa. The whole pro sports system, right down to those overpaid athletes in baseball and the NBA, depend on TV revenues, which in turn rest on advertising to eyeballs over a system made to hold those eyeballs still in real time. “There are a lot of entrenched interests,” says Peter Kafka in this On the Media segment. The only thing that will de-entrench them is serious leverage from somebody who can make go-to-market, UI, quality, and money-flow work. Can Apple do that without Steve? Maybe not. But it’s still the way to bet.
Doc doesn’t make the analogy to the old music system, where the labels owned the talent, the distribution systems, and were in tight with Tower Records and all the rest of it, but it’s very similar.
Sports programming is one of the few areas where TV is growing. So making a deal with ESPN and others (like the World Cup and other soccer leagues, as was rumored earlier in the year) could be turn out to the Gordian Knot. And who more likely than Apple?
Mind-Blowing Facts About Apple’s Business
business, Company, facts, sales, statisticsAfter every Apple quarter, we like to step back and take a look at the company’s mind-boggling performance.
Watching Apple deliver blowout earnings quarter after quarter is like watching Tiger Woods in his prime, or the Patriots during their 18-0 season.
A lot of people will hate on Apple, just like they hate on the Patriots, but it’s impossible not to be impressed by this sort of performance.
And it’s very cool to say you were alive to witness something that’s historically special.
With that in mind, we present some mind blowing facts about Apple’s March quarter for 2012 …
Apple: What It Could Buy With $110 Billion Cash
Billion, business, buy, Cash, Finances, moneyOne of the most astounding facts in Apple’s latest earnings report is how quickly the company is adding to its cash pile.
In just the first three months of this year, Apple added $12.5 billion to its cash balance, bringing the total amount of cash and investments up to a whopping $110 billion.
It may finally be time to put all that cash to good use and make some acquisitions its future.
Just because Apple can afford to buy something doesn’t mean it will or that the companies themselves would be willing to sell. But here are a few ideas for the shopping spree Apple could go on.
rtnt: How Apple Avoids Billions in Taxes For The New York…
erick, nytimes, taxes
rtnt:
How Apple Avoids Billions in Taxes
For The New York Times, Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski explain how Apple and other tech companies take advantage of outdated tax codes to avoid paying taxes.
Apple, for instance, was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed them to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes, according to former executives. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich,” which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Today, that tactic is used by hundreds of other corporations — some of which directly imitated Apple’s methods, say accountants at those companies.
Without such tactics, Apple’s federal tax bill in the United States most likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year, according to a recent study by a former Treasury Department economist, Martin A. Sullivan. As it stands, the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent. (Apple does not disclose what portion of those payments was in the United States, or what portion is assigned to previous or future years.)
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Apple’s Cash Reserves Would Fill 50 Olympic Swimming Pools With Dollar Bills
business, ipad, iphoneApple’s Cash Reserves Would Fill 50 Olympic Swimming Pools With Dollar Bills
Chinese Teen Sells Kidney to Buy iThings
ipad, iphoneChinese Teen Sells Kidney to Buy iThings:
In the United States 34% of teenagers have an iPhone and another 40% hope to buy one sometime in the next six months.
If you’re in the market, don’t do it this way:
Five people in southern China have been charged with intentional injury in the case of a Chinese teenager who sold a kidney so he could buy an iPhone and an iPad, the government-run Xinhua News Agency said on Friday.
The five included a surgeon who removed a kidney from a 17-year-old boy in April last year. The boy, identified only by his surname Wang, now suffers from renal deficiency, Xinhua quoted prosecutors in Chenzhou city, Hunan province as saying.
According to the Xinhua account, one of the defendants received about 220,000 yuan (about $35,000) to arrange the transplant. He paid Wang 22,000 yuan [about $3,500] and split the rest with the surgeon, the three other defendants and other medical staff.
"Mr. Ling has also implemented an all-black dress code–dubbed “Bliss Black”–and revamped his showroom…"
Uncategorized“Mr. Ling has also implemented an all-black dress code–dubbed “Bliss Black”–and revamped his showroom to echo the clean, simple look of Apple stores, with wood floors, white walls and oversize graphics.”
– Bio as Bible: Managers Imitate Steve Jobs – WSJ.com (via thisistheverge)
theweekmagazine: Like Xerox, Kleenex, and Google, Sony’s…
business, gadgets, money, sony, stocks, technology
Like Xerox, Kleenex, and Google, Sony’s Walkman was the rare brand that was so popular it became the thing itself. The Japanese electronics giant was ubiquitous in other ways, too, and there was a time when it seemed as if everyone owned a Sony device, whether it was a television, a camcorder, or a stereo. But in the iPad age, Sony seems to have all but disappeared from the marketplace for must-have gadgets.
The company is set to post a loss of $2.7 billion for the current fiscal year. It was worth $100 billion in 2000, but since then has lost 80 percent of its value. And it’s even struggling in its native Japan, where for the first time, Apple was just voted the country’s top consumer brand.
What happened? And how can its new CEO, Kazuo Hirai, turn the company around?
