News - iPhone 6 Plus costs $16 more to produce, demands $100 premium

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Originally Posted by DeludedGuy

Really? Check this out....other phones being put to the test, end of story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IROcoJeVfSI#t=105

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Makes the new Moto X seem quite appealing!

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

How is it unfair?

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It's unfair as the vast majority is complete unsubstantiated rubbish that is spouted just because it's Apple. Or it's a common problem in competing products which are suddenly defended en-mass, again just because it's Apple. They are not the only company to market their devices as being the best in the world - all the big brands do it..every company markets their products as "the best". You would never create a product and try to sell it as "its just OK". It happens every year - people pour over their devices and look for the tiniest potential weak point and then go crazy on the internet kicking up a huge fuss over nothing. The antenna issue with the iPhone 4 was just as bad - and again the vast majority of competing phones exhibited an identical problem but it was largely ignored as they were not Apple.

Apple just seem to get the worst of it, probably because they position themselves as more premium than the rest with their pricing and general quality, admittedly much more so in the earlier days than now when they are really starting to fall behind imo and have not done anything interesting at all since the iPhone 4, which was their last "good" phone. That really was the best device on the market at the time and no other phone has come close design wise since then..from anyone.

It's kind of ironic really as non-apple fans constantly harp on about the "sheep" that buy their products, without realising that they are just as bad by following the Apple Bashing trend ;)

I don't remember any other phones having the reception problems the 4 had.

Echoing what someone else said previously, criticism is not 'Apple-bashing' if it has reason. To produce a phone, put it on a pedestal as a wonder of wonders, then find it bends in people's pockets, deserves criticism. Why didn't they test it for bendiness as part of the pre-production phase?

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Originally Posted by Spud1

It's unfair as the vast majority is complete unsubstantiated rubbish that is spouted just because it's Apple.

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Awwwww poor Apple. poor disgustingly wealthy Apple, why doesn't everyone just leave them alone and stop picking on them...
There is clear evidence for all of the issues, so they are far from unsubstantiated. The main ones being the Antenna, the scuffing and now the 6+ bending.
The video posted above, whilst not completely scientific, is pretty clear that there is a weakspot on the 6+ but many other current flagships dont suffer from it.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

Or it's a common problem in competing products which are suddenly defended en-mass, again just because it's Apple.

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As far as the bending goes, its not a common problem on competing products, see the video. Perhaps devices from other companies have suffered from it before, but all we have seen is images of people with bent phones, not a video where they were all tested side by side in similar conditions. For all we know they could have stood on it, drove over it in a car, hit it with a mallet... who knows. THE VIDEO IS VERY VERY CLEAR.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

They are not the only company to market their devices as being the best in the world - all the big brands do it..every company markets their products as "the best". You would never create a product and try to sell it as "its just OK". It happens every year

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Indeed, and other companies do get bashed. As i said before, the level of bashing is directly proportionate to the scale of the advertising and hype. Apple generate more so they get more.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

- people pour over their devices and look for the tiniest potential weak point and then go crazy on the internet kicking up a huge fuss over nothing. The antenna issue with the iPhone 4 was just as bad - and again the vast majority of competing phones exhibited an identical problem but it was largely ignored as they were not Apple.

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It wasnt an identical problem at all. The iPhone 4 reception was bad, even in the best of conditions, and we actually did a test in our office as we were all curious about this deathgrip issue.
We were all on vodaphone, all within a few meters of each other, there was HTCs, Blackberrys, Samsungs and even a couple of Nokia symbian phones. The iPhone reception dropped off incredibly easily with normal pressure, wheras all the other devices (after experimenting and finding the antenna location, this was much easier with the dumbass, 'external antenna' on the iPhone) you had to really grip the devices hard to make them drop bars, and where the iPhone would drop to no signal, the others just lost some signal and could still phone. For a device that was twice the price of the others, this is not acceptable in my opinion.

The real problem here is the people saying, 'well it doesn't affect my iPhone so it must have just been that one'. People should demand to get what they pay for, which in the case of Apple with their marketing methods and high cost, should be the absolute best. Instead they just accept it and ignore the flaws until the next device comes out when suddenly everything is fixed and the new features are added... now all of a sudden these things are relevant?!

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Originally Posted by Spud1

Apple just seem to get the worst of it, probably because they position themselves as more premium than the rest with their pricing and general quality...

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Which is why they deserve it, they sell 'premium and quality' but what people receive, is often not up to the standards it should be.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

admittedly much more so in the earlier days than now when they are really starting to fall behind imo and have not done anything interesting at all since the iPhone 4, which was their last "good" phone. That really was the best device on the market at the time and no other phone has come close design wise since then..from anyone.

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Well thats your opinion and you're entitled to it, but from where im sitting, every generation of iPhone has been behind in terms of features, value, build quality and technology.
The best iPhone i have ever used is the 5c. Loses none of the 'style and quality' but gets given a really solid feel from the unibody plastic shell.

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Originally Posted by Spud1

It's kind of ironic really as non-apple fans constantly harp on about the "sheep" that buy their products, without realising that they are just as bad by following the Apple Bashing trend ;)

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Perhaps we should all just shut up and allow Apple to continue to shaft the world with their questionable, overhyped, hypocritical products? I think i would rather criticise them and push them to more more competitive.
Apples products are flawed, and they will continue to get called out over it, no matter how hard they, or anyone else, tries to persist that its just jelous anti-hype.

Spud1, you have failed to produce evidence for your claims, in fact the videos I posted counter your claims yet you are still going on about how other phones suffer the same issue.

Just to reiterate what biscuit said, this is not about bashing Apple, it's about setting out the facts and not falling for the marketing spiel - they are marketed and priced as the highest quality mobile phones but time after time they fail to properly test their devices before releasing them, once with the antenna issue which they initially handled poorly and now the bending issue which they haven't addressed yet, why would anyone associate the words high quality with Apple? If a company repeatedly fails to test their devices properly why would you buy from them?

I can answer that question, maybe its for the same reason one would purchase a Ferrari or a Lamborghini instead of a Mercedes, all three can get you from A to B, the Mercedes engine will probably handle a couple of hundred thousand miles, it's probably safer in an accident, probably more reliable, cheaper too, but a Ferrari is a Ferrari, no one is going to look at you in your C Class Mercedes, but they will look at your Ferrari and this is what Apple have tried to do, they want to be a Ferrari.

Maybe it's nonsense.

I don't know where Spud is coming from here, there was an interesting thread on reddit which had engineers rushing to defend the 6000series of alluminium. Someone had made a simple model showing why the Samsung didn't have a bending problem, but if he moved the volume control, all of a sudden it did.

You can see that the iPhone bends around the volume rocker, so there is probably a lot of truth that it's a unique design flaw to apple.

This reminds me of when they were defending the iPhone 4, I had a UK launch day model, and if you touched the outside antenna, it dropped the call. No other phone I'd ever owned did that, no phone I've owned since has done that. Apple directly tried to spin it as a problem all phones have, this is nonsense, but you could even see on the videos they did of competitors phones, that they were squeezing so hard the plastic was discolouring.

Yes, other phones will bend, but not from normal use. The idea you shouldn't use your front pocket, is beyond retarded, the fact BBC had advisors spouting this, again, insane. I've had touch screen smart phones for 8 years now, I've always kept it in my front right pocket, I've never had any deformity, or failure from fatigue.

The guy who did the original bend video was having none of this '9 users' BS

iPhone 6 Plus: The Bend Uncut: http://youtu.be/gJ3Ds6uf0Yg

COME ON MAN! That is appalling, doesn't even look like it bent on the typical weak point that time.

The title of this forum thread led me to think that there'd be posts about Apple's flagrant profiteering, made all the more obscene by the company's already huge cash pile (bigger than the GDP of many small countries) and use of international cross border tax tricks to pay next to no tax to anyone.

Well, more fool me...

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

The title of this forum thread led me to think that there'd be posts about Apple's flagrant profiteering, made all the more obscene by the company's already huge cash pile (bigger than the GDP of many small countries) and use of international cross border tax tricks to pay next to no tax to anyone.

Well, more fool me...

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Osbourne (in his Tory party speech yesterday) has said about "aggressively" going after technology companies who "actively avoid tax". I'd assumed he was meaning Google and Amazon, but I guess that TCAAX (Technology Companies Actively Avoiding Tax) label also applies to Apple. Don't they do the "base in Eire" trick same as Dell and others?

After all we all pay our Apple-related tax - VAT when we buy the latest gadget.

Although my most recent Apple gadget was secondhand from eBay, so no VAT for me. :)

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Originally Posted by crossy

Osbourne (in his Tory party speech yesterday) has said about "aggressively" going after technology companies who "actively avoid tax". I'd assumed he was meaning Google and Amazon, but I guess that TCAAX (Technology Companies Actively Avoiding Tax) label also applies to Apple. Don't they do the "base in Eire" trick same as Dell and others?

After all we all pay our Apple-related tax - VAT when we buy the latest gadget.

Although my most recent Apple gadget was secondhand from eBay, so no VAT for me. :)

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On Osbourne, given that the public outcry about the tax position of the likes of Starbucks and Amazon happened over two years ago he has done very little about it to date - and I'd treat anything said by him to the media and a party conference a few months before a likely tight general election with a spade full of salt.

As for the VAT thing - remember that VAT is a transaction tax which is ultimately only paid by the end consumer -

e.g. Co. A buys widget for £x plus VAT adds value to it and sells to Co. B for £y plus VAT. Co A then pays HMRC the it VAT charged to Co. B on £y less the VAT it paid on £x. Consequently, Co. A doesn't actually pay anything, it merely adds the tax man's slice and passes it on.

When Co. B converts the widget and sell it to the public for £z plus VAT it claims back the VAT it has paid but the public can't claim it back at all and so takes the hit.

So, the VAT issue is one of us being ripped off by companies using corporate structures to allow them to claim back VAT they incur whilst not charging it to their customers. That rips us all off as it reduces the public purse - remember, it's not the government's money, it's ours.

The real tax dodge is the use of offshore corporate structures, centuries old Corporation of the City of London rules, transfer pricing and trust ownership structures to pay no corporation tax. That's the real issue, and something Apple is adept in exploiting.

A really good book about this is 'Treasure Islands' by Nicholas Shaxton. Very well worth a read!

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

On Osbourne, given that the public outcry about the tax position of the likes of Starbucks and Amazon happened over two years ago he has done very little about it to date - and I'd treat anything said by him to the media and a party conference a few months before a likely tight general election with a spade full of salt.

As for the VAT thing - remember that VAT is a transaction tax which is ultimately only paid by the end consumer

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Firstly, what can you do? One big issue (as an amazon stock watcher) is Amazon genuinely makes sod all profit anyway. Secondly, who do you think pays corp tax? If the VAT is paid by the consumer, who do you think really pays for corporation tax?

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

Firstly, what can you do? One big issue (as an amazon stock watcher) is Amazon genuinely makes sod all profit anyway. Secondly, who do you think pays corp tax? If the VAT is paid by the consumer, who do you think really pays for corporation tax?

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I really don't know where you're looking for your Amazon stock information then or whether you understand it (and I really have no wish to be insulting).

It's most recent figures, as found on it's 2013 Form 10A as released to NASDAQ, showed that in 2013 it had net sales of $74,452 million, Operational Income of $745 million and net income of $274 million (i.e. a lot more than sod all profit). As a matter of policy it does not pay dividends on standard shares and is a clear 'growth' stock, rising from $39 to $322 over the last 10 years.

Also, I am well aware that corporation tax is paid on the taxable earnings of companies (which are legally distinct entities), net of any VAT. But how those profits are calculated for tax purposes is crucial. For instance, employees of companies (and that includes directors who may be significant shareholders) can be paid salaries and get stock options - both of which are deducted from profits before they are taxed.

As an example, and as a matter of fact, Amazon's founder, chairman, CEO and president is Jeff Bezos, has personal net worth of $82 Billion. So again, to say that Amazon does not make money is incorrect.

But to get to the real nub of your post - what can you do?

Well, in our country, which is something of a tax haven and controls most of the tax havens in the world (Corporation of the City of London, Channel Islands, the Carribean Overseas Dependent Territories etc.), you could simply stop things. With thanks to Nicholas Shaxton (mentioned in my last post), we could:

1. Pursue transparency - under current accounting rules the 60% of world trade that happens inside multi-national companies like Apple and Amazon need only be reported in aggregated form and so cannot be examined for all the international movement of profits and costs (hence you thinking Amazon makes sod all). This could be changed.
2. Reform on-shore taxation so that taking money offshore is less attractive.
3. Tackle the intermediaries in the spiders web of off-shore tax avoidance, including the private users of it (such as Jimmy Carr and Robbie Barlow).
4. Reform the financial sector significantly more.
5. Re-think corporate responsibility.
6. Change the culture of fawning over the rich who got there by abusing the system, getting around tax and regulation and forcing everyone else (us) to shoulder the risk and taxes (corporate bankers being a good example).

All of these things need political will - which will only arise if we the people make them realise that we are seriously unhappy about these things. So, get up and shout!

Cheers

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

I really don't know where you're looking for your Amazon stock information then or whether you understand it (and I really have no wish to be insulting).

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You are welcome to question my methodology. Many people on this forum know my background on this, and whilst it's more applied than academic, it's certainly not in question.

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

As an example, and as a matter of fact, Amazon's founder, chairman, CEO and president is Jeff Bezos, has personal net worth of $82 Billion. So again, to say that Amazon does not make money is incorrect.

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On paper, I'm £0.5M richer than I was this time last year... I've got considerably less cash in my bank account, and I'll probably be getting a tax refund, rather than paying anything. Do not get too concerned with these measurements. The liquidity of that £0.5M is pretty moot.

The fact is Amazon at best makes sod all profit, considerably less than half a percent, heck at best we're talking about one third of a percent, as Bezos famously said, your margin is my opportunity. They are a growth stock as you mention, that often means posting no profit, often just losses.

None of your solutions actually get to the issue. How can a government say what is a fair price, and what isn't. Take coffee. Brand is so damned important, people flock to a brand they know. How much is it worth to pay for a franchise for a famous brand? Who gets to decide that?

Even just simply say I started my own coffee place, I buy my cups from China. I pay 15p per cup. Is that tax avoidance? I mean it could just be really nice artwork I'm buying. Is my 10p more than other cups ok, or dodging?

What about software? What's a fair price? I've seen something that I replaced in 4 hours, being billed at £15k per month. Market value is in utility after all.

Would the government start inspecting every trade? How can this realistically work.

It would be so much simpler just to tax income the same as capital gains, and abolish corporation tax altogether. That won't happen, as it would require political will, people love corporation tax, it's a victimless tax, like punching someone in the dark.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

On paper, I'm £0.5M richer than I was this time last year... I've got considerably less cash in my bank account, and I'll probably be getting a tax refund, rather than paying anything. Do not get too concerned with these measurements. The liquidity of that £0.5M is pretty moot.

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You really didn't need to let me know so much about you! :/

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

None of your solutions actually get to the issue. How can a government say what is a fair price, and what isn't. Take coffee. Brand is so damned important, people flock to a brand they know. How much is it worth to pay for a franchise for a famous brand? Who gets to decide that?

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I don't think its a matter of the fair price at the point of sale of something. In a free and appropriately regulated market (theme for another thread perhaps) the parties to the transaction will agree that. What I'm talking about is the manipulation of the framework of international rules so that multinational corporations, like Apple and Amazon, can avoid paying tax on the profits they make where they make them.

At present such corporations save paying tax by shuffling money between jurisdictions to create artificial paper trails that shift profits into low zero-tax havens and their costs to high tax countries. That, alongside the use of secrecy in tax havens to hide profit altogether (like in Liechtenstein where you can set up an anonymous company called an 'Anstalt' with a single secret shareholder, which may be another company). So, given the extent of reporting you simply can't know whether Amazon makes little ROI.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

Would the government start inspecting every trade? How can this realistically work.

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No, that would be silly - that's what accountants and auditors do, under the rules and regulations that I'm saying need to be changed.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

It would be so much simpler just to tax income the same as capital gains, and abolish corporation tax altogether. That won't happen, as it would require political will, people love corporation tax, it's a victimless tax, like punching someone in the dark.

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No it wouldn't be simpler - for a start the concepts are completely different. Income is generated cash revenue in the short term whereas capital gains are increases in asset value over the long term. Corporate and non-corporate business tax uses systems of deduction for costs incurred generating income before tax is paid. Capital taxes sometimes allow for asset development costs or inflation. They are separate concepts of accounting and taxation and so its not a matter of political will, just one of common sense.

And I'd also suggest that it's important for businesses to pay tax - they depend on the investment of the state in providing a stable environment to do business in as well as educated and healthy employees and customers and so should pay their fair share to support that.

Also, tonight, here's Apple's latest 'problem' to tarnish its sheen further: http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...nment-tax-deal

Cheers!

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

As for the VAT thing - remember that VAT is a transaction tax which is ultimately only paid by the end consumer

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The "end consumer" was the person I bought the device from, so he'd had to absorb VAT and the depreciation hit too. :) I did say it was secondhand.

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Originally Posted by RobbieRoy

A really good book about this is 'Treasure Islands' by Nicholas Shaxton. Very well worth a read!

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Thanks, I'll give it a look if I can find an inexpensive copy.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Thanks, I'll give it a look if I can find an inexpensive copy.

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Perhaps you'll find one on Amazon....:)