Giant cats videoed on iPhone 13 Pro

Screenshot from the video

Don't need to add words. This is a YouTube short made with the superb iPhone 13 Pro with super-wide lens. The quality is amazing. What a superb job the video maker did. The video is a promo for this superb smartphone. I am tempted to buy one myself although at the moment I used a Samsung Galaxy Ultra S21.

I predicted a Google shop a year ago

About a year ago, a bit less, I suggested that Google should open a shop.  At that time I hadn't read a single bit of information about the possibility of a Google shop. Well, this is the purpose of this short post: to boast that I got it right. I don't know if I was the first to suggest a shop, but I believe I was.

The new Google shops were announced in the Sunday Times today. The Times says that Google is "taking the fight to Apple" and plan to open a chain a shops across America. It is just a matter of time before they come to the UK.

At one time Apple had no shops but was still a highly successful company. Their shops are now iconic and always packed out. It you see one on a British high street or in a shopping mall,  it is humming while all the other shops have dribs and drabs of customers meandering through. The contrast is stark.

I presume that Google want a piece of that action. Google has become far more aggressive over the past year or so after they got rid of their sensible chief exec. Or was he the Chairman? Doesn't matter. Google are very aggressively competitive these days - too much actually. Sorry Google but you are going a bit too far in abusing (using I guess is a better word) small websites (for example the new image search).

Google have gradually built up some products, an inventory, to sell. Real hardware. This was always going to be a slow process. I guess they think they have enough items to sell in a shop now such as Chrombooks and Nexus tablets etc.

Did anyone else outperform my prediction? Did Google follow my suggestion?

Millionaire Employees of Apple

Apple employees, under the Apple Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) would be millionaires today (April 2012) if they had contributed to a maximum of $25,000 per year over a preceding seven year period. In fact they would have an investment worth $1,628,481 on share price of $589.58, which is already outdated and too low! The current share price is $628 (April 11th 2012). It is like printing money for the Apple employees. They are making tens of thousands of US dollars every week - on paper...that is the key. When do you convert that to cash? And what are the rules on selling shares as an employee, at Apple. There will be rules, otherwise employees could depress the share value on a mass sell off.

An Apple document in relation to the Employee Stock Purchase Plan states:

The Company has a shareholder approved employee stock purchase plan (the “Purchase Plan”), under which substantially all employees may purchase common stock through payroll deductions at a price equal to 85% of the lower of the fair market values as of the beginning and end of six-month offering periods. Stock purchases under the Purchase Plan are limited to 10% of an employee’s compensation, up to a maximum of $25,000 in any calendar year. The number of shares authorized to be purchased in any calendar year is limited to a total of 3 million shares. As of September 26, 2009, approximately 4.7 million shares were reserved for future issuance under the Purchase Plan. 

As an employee, even if you invested about £10k per year (relative small sum) the way the Apple share price is soaring you will still be a millionaire soon. The "experts" predict that the Apple share value will continue to climb creating a market valuation for Apple of one trillion USD. It is already the most valuable company in the world. That value would double the number 2 company Exxon.

It has to end. Oh, by the way Apple don't pay proper corporate taxes in Britain and this is causing consternation. They paid about $10m on about $6 bn of revenue as far as I remember. Wow..cheap. They avoid tax through clever tax dodges and there are question marks over their manufacturing ethics.

Apple Market Valuation Statistics

At 20th March 2012, Apple is worth an estimated $550 billion (USD). It just went up $50 billion in the last few weeks! It must have been the success of the third generation iPad with the fantastic screen.  The company has cash in the bank of about $100 billion. This is far more than the US government has. How will they spend it? There is one thing they can do and no one has mentioned this: improve the lives of people living near the Chinese factories that make the products (if the allegations are true) - see below.

Here are some surprising statistics that compare the current market valuation of Apple with aspects of the US and the world economy (source: Huff Post).

1. Apple is worth more than the "entire USA retail sector".
2. Apple is worth more than the combined GDPs of Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam, Puerto Rico, and New Zealand.
3. The world's entire illegal drug trade valued at $314.7 billion is worth $200 billion less than Apple.
4. The combined worth of Google and Microsoft ($202 billion and $275.3 billion, respectively) is less than that of Apple. 
5. Apple's revenue in the most recent quarter of $46.3 billion is worth more than that of Microsoft, Google (x2) and Yahoo (x3).
6. Apple is worth the equivalent of 321 Endeavour space shuttles (at $1.7 billion each).
7. The entire Apollo Space Program at a cost of $170 billion cost less than half Apple's value.
8. 526 NFL football teams = Apple's market capitalisation. There are currently 32 teams.
9. Apple is worth $141.41 billion more than Exxon.
10.  8 Bill Gates = 1 Apple.
11. 31 Mark Zuckerberg's (Facebook founder) = 1 Apple.

Spending the cash mountain

I'd love to be an Apple employee as there are probably generous employee stock options that are making many employees multimillionaires! It reminds me of the multimillionaire Google employees only Apple is putting Google in the shade.

Apple have said that they will pay dividends to share holders and of course reinvest in innovation. They must continue to innovate as the whole cash mountain and market capitalisation is built on that.

They are also buying back shares. I think the intention is to prevent diluting the value of shares due to issuing shares to employees under stock option agreements. I am not sure of the details.

One aspect has been overlooked. The invisible worker in China making the components. All the talk is about the American employee. What about the employees of Apple's partners in this gigantically successful process? And also what about the people who live near the factories that make the products. If the stories are correct these people should be paid compensation and medical treatment and the manufacturing process cleaned up. This should be done voluntarily by Apple without admission of liability. Apple have a clean public image. They need to spend some of their wealth on maintaining that precious image and doing the morally right thing.

iPad 3 screen crackles and pops

18th March 2012 - Went to the Apple White City store last Friday and having avoided the long queues had a nice chat with an Apple employee and played with the new third generation iPad. You should see this device first hand because it has impact. It changes your perception of what it is like to look at things on a computer screen. This screen crackles and pops. I have never seen images and video on the internet look like this.

HD video looks like a high definition film. It makes any website look better because it makes the whole internet look better. If you spend a lot of time on the internet it makes your world look better!

Apple call it a "retina display". It has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels (3.1 million pixels on the screen), which is higher than 1080 HD televisions. And it shows.

For me it is the quality of the display that is selling the new iPad because it really is a game changer. You have never seen stuff on the internet look like this before. Other featured improvements are faster wireless connection and a 5 megapixel camera that also allows 1080p HD video recording.