a breakdown of apple:

-computers sold with an in-house OS and in-house hardware. because of this apple could conceivably sell their computers for hundreds and hundreds of dollars less. instead, they mark them up more than any other computer manufacturer.

-they copied the iphone technology from the prada phone. google it. the helio ocean and the nokia E70 also beat it to the punch in terms of features.

-the ipod is a hard drive with software that can play mp3's. every laptop and smart phone ever created is also an ipod. more and more people must be realizing that the ipod isnt so revolutionary, since its been steadily losing market share to superior music players for the past several months.

I know nothing about the Mac so no comment but for the iPhone we had an American visitor here not that long ago and she had an iPhone, what a cool toy to play with.
That what innovation does. The iPhone is certainly innovative and even though it does lack some features I would of like to have seen it's still an innovative phone so the so called in crowd has to have one, geeks always have to have to latest cool gadget :) and so forth so even at the high price it's guaranteed to sell.

And even though the analysts expected more I do expect the iPhone to be continue to be profitable in the future for Apple and Apple has the the new standard, for now anyways.

Zune, what's a Zune :)

This outlines clearly that Apple charges consumers way too much for iPods and other devices.

This year they made about 40% more profit on about 20% more gross. Apparently they've cut cost on ipod production and have not passed any of it along to consumers.

What makes you think Apple is charging too much? To me it sounds like they are charging what the customer is willing to pay. That's capitalism. Also how do you know that the other 20% is R&D for the iPhone.

Microsoft charges way too much for Windows, its a stammped dvd that costs 2 cents, I certainly don't see them passing any savings on to the customer. when your selling a hardware device it costs money. 9 milion people bought ipod's I certainly don't think any of them complained the ipod was too expensive, especially when you have junk like the Zune out there selling for just as much along with every other mp3 player out there.

Apple has great products and do a good job, I personally would rather have new products come out and old products removed then just see a general drop in prices with no new units.

"Microsoft charges way too much for Windows, its a stammped dvd that costs 2 cents, I certainly don't see them passing any savings on to the customer."

Wow, that's the most idiotic comparison I've seen all week. Windows Vista cost $10 billion to develop. Did the iPod cost $10 billion to develop? The original poster is right. Apple is cutting production costs by a large amount and is passing none of the savings onto idiots like you who would buy a piece of turd with an Apple logo on it.

It's actually a very good comparison. Microsoft is a huge, bloated company in my books - but regardless. Both companies have employees to pay and additional projects that need funding. Cash cows such as the iPod and perhaps selling an OS after the R&D has already been recouped allows further developments.

The general rule of thumb is that companies will reinvest their earnings into new ventures to gain more stake in other similar markets. Apple will enjoy this ability until someone else develops a similar-enough product that will cause prices to go down.

I'd own an Apple and an iPod if they were cheaper. I love them. I don't have the $ for them. But I respect Apple, respect the hardware, and look forward to either a more profitable year for myself with one of their systems as a reward - or for future price breaks.

Ah - you must be living in a communist country.

(sigh)

What exactly about "whatever the market will bear" do you not understand?

People don't HAVE to buy it. The value of a product is BY DEFINITION what people are willing to pay for it. We can't ALL be idiots (I know I'm not!)

If Apple is able to cut their costs more and increase their profits (because people are willing to pay the price), then more power to Apple....buy their stock!

Whatever the market will bear.

And obviously, it bears enough to surpass previous sales records.

Democracy + Capitalism = Wonderful thing

I also see macs being product placed in almost every movie i see, which is just some of the sneaky marketing i see from apple. 818million is not bad .. but its nothing compared to microsoft's revenues.

Microsoft's os is sold on like 96 percent of all computers sold via oem. They are the most profitable software company in the world, Apple sells mac's at 4 percent market share and most revenue comes from the ipod and now the iphone and lets not forget its all a closed system on their own hardware, its not 5 oem's selling computers with them just providing the software.

Now think about the fact they do not have a server , xbox 360, mice and joysticks, video games, internet search, office suite etc. The fact is, apple has very few product lines compared to microsoft and to make nearly 50 percent the revenue microsoft has based on those few products is pretty darn impressive.

Let's just say if apple could be compared to microsoft and they had an equal product lineup, apple would dwarf micorsoft no problem. Also product quality and customer loyalty is second to none. Apple has customers out there woh worship apple practically, do you see that with any other company? Microsoft is all about cash, apple is all about quality, style and cash comes as a result of that.

"The fact is, apple has very few product lines compared to microsoft and to make nearly 50 percent the revenue microsoft has based on those few products is pretty darn impressive."

No, it's not impressive. Unless you consider ripping off customers impressive, then yes, it's impressive. All it means is that people are stupid enough to waste their money on the brand name. Apple could polish up a turd, slap a logo on it, call it iGravity and market it as an anti-gravity device. People would be lined up around the block to buy it. Personally, I don't buy into any of the iWhatever gadget of the month, but if you want to fatten Steve Jobs' wallet by paying twice what the iWhatever item is worth, all the power to you!

"Let's just say if apple could be compared to microsoft and they had an equal product lineup, apple would dwarf micorsoft no problem. Also product quality and customer loyalty is second to none. Apple has customers out there woh worship apple practically, do you see that with any other company? Microsoft is all about cash, apple is all about quality, style and cash comes as a result of that."

You don't even know what you are talking about. Only item that generate a profit for Apple is iPod, and Steve Jobs just took this simple idea/item and milking it. Just make 1 little change to it, and realize it as a new item. iPod, mini, nano, video, etc... Now the iPhone.
They are all iPod, with little added feature, yet he is able to pull it off. Why? Because he has sheep like yourself will buy and promote it. Beside iPod, everything they do fail to compete.

MS is a software company, they generate most of their profit from software, mainly Windows and Office. They invest these extra cash flow into something else instead having them sit in a bank.

Both of you guys sound pretty silly.

Both companies do everything that they can do to expand their market share. Both companies are music player, online music downloads, operating system, and productivity software developers. Microsoft might have their Office suite, but there's nothing stopping Apple from having a R&D department to develop prototypes of an Apple alternative to MS Office. You can't really predict what direction that are going in.

And xyzcb1 - Yes, all of those iPods are iPods, just like your XBOX360 is a Nintendo Gamecube and the Nintendo DS is a PSP. Unlike those companies, Apple do nothing but change one feature and repackage. Right....

Waaah. There is so much anger in this response, compared to the observation by the original poster that no matter if he's right or wrong, his post just seems to be more well thought out.

Seriously - Apple used to package what I viewed as a 'turd'. Their old OS seemed very limited, ugly, and rigid to me. I felt that they had nothing to compete with PC users with. Their sales were limited.

I bought a Creative Labs Nomad rather than an iPod and thought IT to be a 'turd'. [shrugs]. Perhaps if I had an iRiver, I'd love that and think that it smells less than an iPod?

I understand where you are coming from - the notion that Apple could polish up a turd... is like saying that Apple users would all jump off a cliff if Jobs asked them to.

I agree with the original poster - what Apple has done in the past few years is extremely impressive. That's a statistic -- Not an turd wrapped up as an opinion.

Actually, they do have servers: the Xserve, a 1U rack mountable server with OSX Server and available in multiple cofigurations, and an Xserve RAID available in 3 different configurations. These products are widely used in the business market for media production, research, and education.

Consumer wise, yes, MS has the lead in selling their OS to consumers mainly because the OS can be configured to run on different hardware configurations (different with each PC manufacturer). For now, OS X can only, and legally, be installed on Apple computer systems. People have build hackintosh systems to run 10.4

Woot I got to be part of the record mac shipments. I love my macbook pro. got vista 64 on it and all. who needs a pc other then gaming.

... why do you need a PC for gaming if you've loaded Vista on your Mac? (Curious)

For one, many of us who actually work for a living by working for The Man. If I could use a Mac with the same "ease" of a PC, I might well buy one.

However, too many business-related goods and services just aren't available for Macs. Simply put, it's a market share issue. The Mac market is far too small to justify investments (e.g., R&D, production, marketing) by many companies.

Note: I was an Apple/Mac user starting in 1981/1984 and until I joined the business world where Macs simply don't fit in.

And its easy to see why. Really easy.

the iphone?

Because they copied Sony's technique? Brag about shipments rather than sales?

How many did they sell last quarter? If it's close to the number shipped, then I'm horribly mistaken, but based on the careful wording they used, they likely overestimated demand by a longshot.