Wednesday, October 30, 2019

"Apple is laying the groundwork for an iPhone subscription" (AAPL)

Because of course they are.
From CNBC:
  • Some investors want Apple to sell its iPhone on a subscription basis to shift more of Apple’s revenue from transactional sales to recurring revenue.
  • Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t shoot down the idea during a conference call on Wednesday and suggested that Apple is working on new ways to pay for iPhones on a monthly basis. 
  • “We’re cognizant that there are lots of users out there that want a sort of a recurring payment like that,” Cook said.
Apple investors have speculated for years about the possibility that Apple could sell hardware, like the iPhone, on a subscription basis.
It’s been a hot topic of conversation among analysts because investors tend to value the predictability of recurring revenue.

Under the argument for an iPhone subscription, which some people call Apple Prime after the Amazon program of the same name, Apple would bundle hardware upgrades with services like iCloud storage or Apple TV+ content and hardware for a single monthly fee. This would let it switch iPhone sales from a transactional model to a subscription model, potentially driving the stock price up without having to increase product sales or prices dramatically.

During Wednesday’s earnings call, when analyst Toni Sacconagi asked about the idea of a prime subscription, Apple CEO Tim Cook did not shoot down the idea. In fact, he suggested that something like it was already in effect.

In terms of hardware as a service or as a bundle, if you will, there are customers today that essentially view the hardware like that because they’re on upgrade plans and so forth,” Cook said during an earnings call. “So to some degree that exists today.”

Cook went on to say that Apple sees it as a major growth area, using bullish language....
....MORE

The resemblance of the nuclear cloud in the post immediately below to Apple headquarters is purely coincidental.
On the other hand, the similarity of Apple H.Q. to Jeremy Bentham's baby...

Saaay...Has Anyone Mentioned The Circular Resemblance Of Apple's Headquarters To A Panopticon? (The New Surveillance Capitalism)
So there's this $5 Billion building in California:

https://cdn2.macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3489704/apple-campus.jpg 

Which, without too much effort, evokes this in Illinois:

http://alexwellerstein.com/collection/images/panopticon_santa.png
The linked article used a photo of Illinois' Stateville Prison which reminded me of this from Alex Wellerstein, historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

I like the idea of Santa as Panopticon. Bummer kid, ho, ho, ho...
That's from November 2016's "Can your city change your mind?" (Jeremy Bentham does a cameo).

And here's the [Surveillance Capitalism] headline story from Prospect Magazine, a major, major piece:
 How the internet controls you