Linked List: January 26, 2016

Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Perspective on Apple’s Financial Might 

Tom Gara on Twitter:

Apple lost more revenue to foreign exchange fluctuations in last quarter than *ALL* of Facebook’s quarterly revenue.

20 Years Ago Today, Sun Almost Bought Apple for $4 Billion 

Business Insider:

On January 26th, 1996, exactly 20 years ago to this day, early tech blog Suck.com reported that Sun Microsystems was in talks to buy up Apple, then worth $3.89 billion.

“Back in late 1995 early ‘96, when we were at our peak, we were literally hours away from buying Apple for about $5 to $6 a share,” former Sun President Ed Zander would later recall in 2011.

Today, Sun is out of business and Apple is the most profitable company in the world. Not sure where Michael Spindler is.

The Chickening 

Kottke:

It mostly defies description, so just watch the first minute or so (after which you won’t be able to resist the rest of it).

Tim Cook on Q1 2016 

Tim Cook on Apple’s record-breaking quarter:

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. Today, we’re reporting Apple’s strongest financial results ever. We generated all-time record quarterly revenue of 75.9 billion dollars in the December quarter, in line with our expectations, and have 2 percent over last year’s blockbuster results.

This is a huge accomplishment for our company, especially given the turbulent world around us. In constant currency, our growth rate would have been 8 percent. Our record revenue and continued strong operating performance also led to an all-time record quarterly net income of 18.4 billion dollars. We sold 74.8 million iPhones in the December quarter, an all-time high. To put that volume into perspective, it’s an average of over 34,000 iPhones an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 13 straight weeks. It’s almost 50 percent more than our Q1 volume just two years ago, and more than four times our volume five years ago.

The big news, though, is that Apple’s forecast for this quarter has iPhone sales dipping year-over-year for the first time ever. Here’s why:

We see that Q2 is the toughest compare. We believe it’s the toughest compare because the year-ago quarter also had catchup in it from Q1; if you recall, we were heavily supply-constrained throughout the whole of Q1, and so some of that demand moved into Q2. Plus, we’re in an environment now that is dramatically different from a macroeconomic point of view than last Q2: from a currency point of view, from the level at which we’ve had to adjust pricing in several of these markets, and sort of the overall malaise in virtually every country in the world. It’s really all of those factors that play in there, and it’s difficult to sort out how much is due to which one.

Abe Vigoda, Still Alive in 1988 

“Dave, instead of a time killer, this one is more a public service tonight.”

Abe Vigoda Dies at 94 

Hillel Italie, reporting for the AP:

Character Abe Vigoda, whose leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for playing the over-the-hill detective Phil Fish in the 1970s TV series “Barney Miller” and the doomed Mafia soldier in “The Godfather,” died Tuesday at age 94.

Vigoda’s daughter, Carol Vigoda Fuchs, told The Associated Press that Vigoda died Tuesday morning in his sleep at Fuchs’ home in Woodland Park, New Jersey. The cause of death was old age. “This man was never sick,” Fuchs said.

Tell Mike it was only business.