Fine, I'll source you.
Go back to MR's reporting on conference calls for quarterly reports. Hopefully, they should still have articles for the last year or so (4-5 reports). That gives some information.
Next, go back to Apple's feed for MWSF 08 and the recent iPhone event. Particularly, the pieces regarding the apps being brought to the touch, and the tail end of the Enterprise announcements for the iPhone (I believe) when they bring up the iPod Touch.
Great. That answers about one question. The rest is speculation. Thanks anyway.
Strawman. You take one motivation, and turn it into another.
Nonsense. It is certainly not a strawman to test whether your logic and argumentation holds water. One of the classic ways to do that is to see where else that argument will fit, and to what extend that same logic can be applied. To check if it can be used to support (or go against, as it were) absurdities. And your argument, that the
only reason you're defending the corporation is that people think the motivation is greed can be used to defend even monopolies bad behaviour. It's called reductio ad absurdium – and let me remind you that r-a-d is not a logical fallacy, it's a method to test whether an argument holds water.
If you could show how abuse of a monopoly-like position is taking place, great. Greedy as it may seem, this isn't exactly a move that helps further cement their monopoly position, if this forum's reaction is any indication.
Hmm. Abuse of a monopoly-like position doesn't have to "further cement" anything. It just has to be abuse, you know.
Originally Posted by Tosser
Haha, that's poor. That's like saying that "Nothing is never black and white", and therefore you can be "just a little pregnant", or even worse: The girl who was raped and beaten aren't a victim, because it's "never" that simple. Well, sorry, but sometimes it IS. Go take a look at MS's business practices in the past.
Strawman, twisting of words.
Again. I am certainly not twisting words, and I think it's about time you looked up "strawman argument", as this isn't one either.
You're generalising in the comment I react to, by saying thing's are
never that simple. That you have seen stupidity etc in both consumers and corporations, and you thereby imply, that this is also the consumers fault. That there can never be "a screwer" and "a screwee": In other words, there can never be a clear cut attacker and victim.
I said that the company and consumer are never always right. If you think I insinuated that Apple would never be malicious, you misinterpreted. The problem is that stupidity is just as likely a cause for a bad situation as malice. And yes, sometimes it is just that simple that someone could make a mistake and the consumer and company both wind up paying for it in the end.
Ah, yes. See above.
Originally Posted by Tosser
Who gives a hoot? That has absolutely no bearing on people defending apple practices by merely claiming it's because og S-Oxley. And especially not when other american companies doesn't do this, and doesn't make the consumer pay extra. It's a crap excuse.
It does have a bearing as an example of how employee stupidity caused consumer to believe that there was corporate malice when it was unwarranted. And also provides a good example of how little a consumer knows about the workings of a large company, and how schizophrenic it can be.
Ah, well. Stretching it a bit, methinks. If you recall, my argument is that this defending Apple and blaming SOX for any and all business practices is bull, and that people have no reason to believe this is anything more or other than business practices – Especially considering their recent past and their competitor's practices.
In that light your argument is at best irrelevant, at worst a (true) strawman argument.
You have to remember, that most of what you're arguing
for a corporation. You're defending a corporation by all means, just like any of all the rest who claims they're forced by SOX to do these things. Hell, I even read that they "had to" remove the Disk Mode because otherwise they couldn't live up to SOX because of the accounting.
Despite some real attempts at reform inside a company like Microsoft, some individuals in a position of control over certain situations have made poor choices that have produced consumer outrage recently (and rightfully so). However, it doesn't suddenly make the rest of the company guilty by association.
LOL. I really don't care which part of the monopoly-like company screws customers over. It's still the company that screws people people over. You'resaying that until each and every department and employee have screwed you over, you cannot claim that a (any) company is screwing their customers over. Great logic.
Originally Posted by Tosser
Occam's Razor …
Besides, it's about plausible reasons. Since Apple haven't in any way implied this is anything more than getting extra revenue, which is further supported by Apple letting the user pay exorbitant prices for RAM (even more in the past), Apple having the highest "pay per product" (no idea, what's it called in english: "The pay above cost"?), and that no other company I'm aware of let people pay like this _because of S-OXley, it really is a matter of deducting. And making up excuses based on S-Oxley certainly doesn't adhere to Occam's, neither to common sense.
Common sense also says to never attribute malice to something that can be easily explained as stupidity. So again, we can argue this around in circles until the moon explodes quite randomly and for no apparent reason. Until we have data from Apple (gathered via leaks, investigation, etc) that provides evidence one way or another, we are both simply speculating.
It's true that common sense dictates that. However, you have to look at what is happening. If you write too much off as "stupidity on their behalf", you, yourself will quickly be fit for the monicker "naive".
How can you write this off as "stupidity"? You're telling me that the crippling of the touch and the iphone should be written off as "stupidty". That the tie-ins and lock downs should be written off as "stupidty", that the "pay if you want a less crippled Touch" should be written off as "stupidity" and on and on. No, frankly, that is extremely naive, considering this is not a new, small company, that is coming to market. This is huge corporation, with 18 billions in cash, with some of the best marketing in the world, with enough lawyers and business strategists to think this true. How anyone can even think these things happen because of error (or "stupidity", if you will) is laughable.
Originally Posted by Tosser
Yet another poor excuse.
I am certainly not. People are saying that the S-Oxley means that something that really add features (and therefore "value") force Apple into having the customer's pay.
I think you skipped or missed the part where subscription-based accounting models are handled differently in terms of regulation. That makes a world of difference here. While the product may be sold as a single lump sum up front, it may not be accounted for by the company as a single lump sum up front. TiVo is a good example of where you can buy a lifetime subscription with the box, and yet the revenue you gave TiVo is not being accounted for as a stand-alone product. It is a subscription-based service.
I didn't miss anything. I chose to go after the premise, the foundation. Building atop invalid premises doesn't suddenly make it valid. It the giant on clay feet.
It's still just blaming SOX for everything crap Apple does. It's still just blindly writing things of as something Apple are forced to because of SOX. It's still defending any and all business practices, no matter how they screw people over, by blaming SOX – even though other companies practices are the proof in the pudding: If it were SOX, the other companies would have to do it too. And it really doesn't matter how much you add to that premise. Your premise is just that. Clay feet.
Originally Posted by Tosser
let me tell you a little about SD: They have not only made Bugfixes and small changes to the firmware in their recorders. They have added - mentioning just a few big ones: MP3-recording, MP2-recording, FLAC-recording, and dumping audio to an external drive. Now, that last bit, including simultaneously recording to all discs (HDD, CF-card and the external drive) was added, not just in the firmware, but by having all their recorders shipped back, at their expense, to Wisconsin, to have the board with the FW-chip switched so these features could be added. And get this: Apart from the MP3-recording, nothing of it were promised when they sold the previous recorders (incl. mine).
Besides, the Law is _all about_ generalities.
If the law was about generalities, the supreme court would not slap down laws that were 'overly broad', and we wouldn't have multiple degrees of a particular crime. The law is written in specifics, cases revolve around specifics, and precedents don't always apply in similar cases if the right set of specifics are different.
I see we interpret "generalities" differently. When defined like you do, then I can see your point in that area. However, I defined it as "equality" (you cannot make a law that only applies to white people. That only applies to black people, only to women, only to men, etc.). You have to make a law, that includes or excludes everyone - you can't go "Only black/white/yellow/pink/cream people may apply" or "This grass is off limits to pink people" and so on. Either the grass is off limits, or it's not.
An upgrade to a product that is part of a subscription model is not the same as an upgrade to a stand-alone product. And in the case of regulations on accounting and reporting, it is how the product is accounted (subscription/stand-alone) that matters, not how it is sold to the public. And it does suck that it is the case.
Yes it does suck. What I cannot for the life of me fathom, that even when presented with examples of other companies that do not do it like Apple is doing, you're still blaiming it on accounting. Yet, you somehow utterly fail to recognise – even as you're saying it - that the only ones to blame for this set-up is indeed Apple. How can you argue that it's because of accounting, yet blame SOX, and all the while arguing it's _not_ a choice on Apple's part, that they're
not the ones to blame?
When other companies can do even more, without having people pay extra to get a less-crippled product, it's obvious Apple chose this model - not out of "stupidity", but because they chose this business strategy with their eyes open and on purpose.
And happily enough, they make sure you can get iTunes via bundling with the product or as a download.
Ah, yes. Well, then there's no problem with lock-downs, tie-ins and crippling
The question here is how much of the decision to charge, and how much, is Apple and how much is regulation? We don't know enough specifics to say either way.
Nope. We don't. But we do know that other companies are able to provide upgrades, even to hardware, to add many and very large upgrades to functionality without the consumer paying for it. With that knowledge, we can deduct that it's certainly not necessary to charge for these things, especially at the price Apple charges, that it can be done. And because of this, we can deduct, that this is a business strategy. Unless, of course, you're trying to argue that all the rest of the companies out there, are simply too stupid to recognise what SOX is about. In that case, I guess we cannot blame Apple, it's all the rest that is not going by the law, and all of this is because Apple is just following the law …
First off, don't put in my mouth words I haven't said. I have made it clear my position on Apple charging, and that I don't believe a fee on the order of what was asked for in January makes a whole lot of sense.
That's not putting words into your mouth. The reality is, you're using the accounting model as an excuse. As if the accounting model is something that dictates the business model and strategy to the extent that Apple's hands are tied.
Secondly, you have no more information than I do, and any conclusion you draw is as much based on speculation as any conclusion I draw.
The difference being, that your conclusions, that Apple's hands are tied because of accounting, and we are to blame SOX (and therefore the accounting), that Apple had no choice in this, is contrary to the facts. Just because we both conclude, doesn't mean, that any speculation and conclusion is equally valid. In fact, why is it, that you think that you can blame this on accounting, yet utterly fail to see, that the way these things are accounted for is entiurely Apple's choice – especially given that other companies can do it?
If anything, the difference is that I have seen how big corporations actually operate from the inside, and realize that while most people in a corporation are usually fairly well-meaning people looking for ways to please the most customers with the resources available, as early as possible... all it really takes is one idiot or malicious individual out of 30 thousand to create a fiasco with the customers.
Ah, yes. So because you claim to have seen corporations from within, these choices (business strategy, how they're accounted, and all the crippling) is likely to be just one individual making mistakes. Once again, you utterly fail to recognise that this is not some employee
leaking false information, creating a PR-disaster as per your example. This is a busines strategy. YOu cannot write it off as stupidity of one empleyer, when both the crippling (for instance the no Disk Mode), the Tie-Ins, The lock downs, and the "pay-extra" modus is so clear cut. This is by no means a mistake – each and every indicator points in the direction of "strategy". Writing it off as "it could just as well be one employee turning it sour" is so far fetched and out of touch with reality, no matter how much you claim to know corporations from the inside.
- it's an in-your-face flaunting of the "smooth user experience."