patrick.net

It is what it is.

Again, it depends upon what the definition of the world 'is' is.

Its unlikely ATT Wireless might be considered a winner; they simply spread their legs the widest for Jobs. Keep in mind where the true money is, which is services billings. Assuming slightly lower churn than industry avg due to brand loyalty, say 20% annually. My quick calculation figures average iphone customer is probably worth about $4,250 in lifetime service revenues per activation. I wonder what percentage of service revenues Apple negotiated, is this in any of their public documents?

Apples deal analysis weighed the benefits of greater market share by selling to multiple carriers against the revenue share associated with exclusivity of a single carrier. At least this is my guess.

Depending upon Google's move or other disruption, the iphone may follow the typical market model of high initial pricing and sales margins to the point where the carrier(s) are giving away for free for the services revenues.

Apple was wise not to go the MVNO route, that business is a loser. No margins, out of control churn and subscriber acquisition costs.

After ATT merged with the cellular one Cingular properties, many of their phones were tri band capable. They worked on AMPS, TDMA, and GSM air interface technologies. It is a fairly simple proposition to these days to provide software or hardware solutions to allow this flexibility. Harder challenges were solved including facilitating call handoffs between the various air interfaces.

European market standardization on GSM eliminated uncertainty for vendors allowing more rapid innovation to occur. The US market was more complex due to the competing vendor standards in the marketplace as they each battled for the prize.

The US carriers have always had a very cozy relationship with the handset manufacturers, and have used whatever leverage they had to squeeze them, and buy them, into model exclusivity. This has generally worked in both parties favor, with large purchase guarantees limiting risks for manufacturers.

I'd love to see the language of Apples ATT contract, I wonder how long the term is and whether they have sales milestone triggers and outs.

Why should it be illegal? If you don't like the deal - as I don't - do not buy it. It's not like you cannot live without this shiny new toy.

If enough people think it's good for them to have Apple+AT&T deal, why the government should mess with it? If there were enough people not buying because of this deal - Apple would hear the message, as they did with disallowing custom applications.

This just in: do your patriotic duty and walkaway. Hey if an Iraqi vet did it, why can't you. I have to admit, though, the guy who HELOCed a pool and is now in a Mexican standoff with his bank kinda scares me. More folks like him and we might have a financial crises. Ony three or four (hundred billion dollar) bullets are left in chamber of the Fed's gun. Duck and run for cover.
PS - WiMax will liberate the airwaves.

Website To Help You Walk Away From Your Home
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Record home foreclosures in Florida and across the country are prompting some people to walk away, even before a bank steps in to take their home, and they're getting help from an unlikely source.

CBS4's Your Money Reporter Al Sunshine investigated why it might not be a good thing for you.

This is something we have never seen in this country before, a website called YouWalkAway.com, that says it can help you do just that, and at the same time is creating a bit of controversy.

Lori Nicholson is packing up, abandoning the house she and her children have lived in for more than two decades.

"23 years this year, my son I actually brought him home from the hospital in this house," said Nicholson. "It's tough, it's very tough to leave."

Six years ago Nicholson took out a second mortgage on the house to pay for a divorce. With declining home values, she owes more in mortgages than the house is worth, it's called being "upside down" in your mortgage.

"Even if you continue the payments by the time you want to sell the house, the market turns around, you're not going to get any money out of it," explained Nicolson. "That's basically what they told me."

With the downturn in the housing market, many homeowners find themselves like Nicholson, who is basically stuck with a bad loan. Even if they are able to make her monthly payments, there's little incentive to. So they are walking away, leaving the bank holding the bag.

"A home ownership has always been something that borrowers would do absolutely everything they could to avoid foreclosures and retain their homes," said Paul Leonard of youwalkaway.com

Not anymore. There's a website to help people save their home: YouWalkAway.Com

"They just see writing on the wall as far as their investment going down the tubes and they want to bail out as soon as they can before they lose any more money," said Helbert.

One financial research firm predicts that if home prices drop an additional 10 percent, 20 million families will owe more than the value of their homes.

"I can't say when people decide to walk away, it might be an epiphany in the middle of the night that they decide they're not comfortable with the 5 thousand a month payment anymore since their property is worth 2 or 3 hundred thousandless than they owe on it," explained Helbert.

For Nicholson, the decision to walk away came when the bank wouldn't help her figure out a way to stay in her house.

"I just don't know what else to do," explained Nicholson. "I'm tired of fighting the bank, I'm tired of fighting a situation. I cried for days and days and days, because I'm thinking this house is coming to an end and now I'm seeing it."

Before signing up or paying for any so-called foreclosure assistance counseling plans, make sure to double check the "fine print." Make sure you also double check all the costs and get in writing exactly what the company will be doing.

Also remember to double check with a financial advisor if possible, to see what impact a walk-away will have on your credit rating.

No IP based wireless technologies, WiMax or others coming, have been able to crack the sustainable model problem. Open VoIP standards and open wireless access seemingly would facilitate a very *free* or *cheap* service offering, but who pays for it? There are complex PSTN interconnection issues, regulatory issues, and of course taxation issues involved.

Public private partnerships are flailing, and any model that has the potential to truly disrupt faces the most powerful lobby in Washington, the Telcos. Large sums at stake.

Google executing an advertising supported model is certainly interesting but faces the same enormous challenges. I'm not prepared to say that they cannot pull that off, but it doesn't seem to be a slam dunk.

I recently heard of an upsidesidedowner who is thinking seriously about MEW'ing into cash and walking sometime thereafter. This "friend of a friend" intends to use the cash to pay for undergraduate expense for his two children enrolling academic year '09 & '10.

Apparently he has not done this yet, but is giving serious consideration. Withdrawing with no intent to pay it back is outright thievery. Blatant bank robbery with no consequences. I'm a bit surprised that this may still be possible to execute at this late date.

I know the banksters have withdrawn home equity lines for some subset of borrowers; I have little faith in the competence of their models or modelers.

Message to any bankers reading, "LOCK UP those HELOC lines immediately"! Closing the barns doors after here, but lets get 'em closed up already. Past performance is not an indicator of future returns.

What this tells me is that we may well see very soon the complete evaporation of home equity lines from the marketplace, at least in their current form. If the banks cannot reliably predict who might pull these shenanigans in this environment, its "no more soup" for everyone. More "AAA" prime paper that has no idea this trainwreck is coming.

I recently heard of an upsidesidedowner who is thinking seriously about MEW’ing into cash and walking sometime thereafter.

Such intention can be construed as fraud. It is probably illegal and it is definitely unethical.

I consider Robin Hood a thief and nothing more.

Not legal advice.

ATT is a lawless company, mainly supported by the federal government. They are big supporters of government surveillance, and are responsible for putting many people in jail, including political prisoners. They should have died a long time ago, if not for government support, and it is a shame that Apple is in bed with them.

Remember: AT&T is a member of the college of corporations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AI8mC8XucY

and also Exxon!

Gold is going crazy, what's happening?

wow $2 for bear

"Dollars dropping!"

Dollar is dropping like a stone...

"stocks are off 75 points and gold just hit 2,000"

"by tonight that will be cheap!'

Rollover - 1981

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iicB80Mwz8w&feature=related

I am more astonished at how fast Yen is advancing, at this given rate, we may go to parity with Yen before long!

Perhaps that is why Toyota is made in the USA!

$2.00 a share for Bear? Sounds kind of expensive.

Expensive is an understatement - I guess this means JPM will be the next to fall as they have taken on ALL of Bears liabilities!

All the Bear execs' retirement savings are in Bear Stocks. Poetic justice.

JPM is fine, JPM owns Fed. Fed's loan to JPM is non-recourse yet JPM's loan to Bear is recourse. JPM will make a profit out of this.

OO,

Are you saying JPM is a buy?

btw - FRB cut the target fed funds rate by 25 bps tonight.

No, I won't touch any financial stock with a 10-ft pole. But the powers within the financial system will be fine, unfortunately I am not one of them and therefore don't know the best way to take advantage of such a situation.

BSC has always been a 2nd, 3rd tier bank taking on more risk than necessary.

I agree with you comment on Bear in recent history but when 'ACE' ran it that was not the case at all!

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/19/apple-gunning-to-start-production-of-the-icar-in-2020-report/

DennisN says

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency." - V.I. Lenin

Lenin didn't know about AI.

SM says

Why should it be illegal? If you don't like the deal - as I don't - do not buy it.

It restricts consumer choices, and therefore competition. This is a way to force people to buy something they don't want - or refuse buying something they want.

Let's push it further: let's say you can buy an iPhone only if you agree to buy this medical insurance, and that brand of car. Let's say you have a choice only between certain combinations in these very different markets. Clearly you would have to make compromises you wouldn't make if you had a choice. You would have to compromise.

It may make sense to allow bundling of products within a given market to guaranty a certain experience, but across very different markets, it's a clear negative.

Free market = free consumer choice.

LOL, this thread confused me. Well-spotted, Mark D!

As for AT&T, the carrier was Apple's beachhead on a whole new continent, and what a profitable continent it's been. 7 years later,

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-signs-bill-unlocking-cellphones/

Not sure motorized transportation is the same profit opportunity for Apple, though god knows the sector could use some shaking up -- and Apple certainly has the cash to do the required R&D . . . plus favorable public opinion.

My zillionaire friend I occasionally house-sit for upgraded the Nissan Leaf to a Toyota EV RAV4, which for some reason had Tesla guts in it.

Nice car! I could drive from Scotts Valley to Bean Hollow S.B. with no range anxiety.

I still have dreams of making my own EV RV someday, basically starting from this:

http://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/strippedchassis/trim/f53classamotorhome/

so it's funny how (at least to me) how automobiles are so slickly 'packaged' as consumer goods by the branding and manufacturers that we don't see the actual product all that clearly.

http://i.imgur.com/nQwc6YM.jpg

that's a lot of 'stuff'!

But I've got my eye on the new Miata coming out . . .

http://www.edmunds.com/mazda/mx-5-miata/2016/road-test.html

My 2000 has held up pretty well but perhaps it's getting time to put it out to pasture.

But I doubt Apple would be able to make a better driving car than the new Miata.

What I want from a car is to get from A to B with a maximum of fun and minimum of fuss.

I'm a big Apple fan still but I don't need more electronics crap in a car, less is more.

Just a good engine, good transmission, good suspension, comfortable interior.

EV or CNG is the way to go I guess, but getting there is taking longer than I thought it would.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WHHNGSP/

shows natgas prices are back down to late 90s levels, making even $2 gasoline questionable in comparison and EV even more curious.

Heh, with enough Apple cars on the road, we could get a nationwide car-to-car WiFI network going.

Apple could buy some spectrum for dedicated vehicular purposes, too. Launch some satellites, whatever. They've got a market cap of Walmart and Exxon combined, and then some.

One major optimization that needs to be made with our transportation is platooning and arrival smoothing, it's retarded that drivers can't get realtime feeds of upcoming traffic signal timings.

http://la.streetsblog.org/2014/03/10/vehicle-automation-versus-connectivity-and-what-it-might-mean-for-traffic/

Driving a manual, I tend to coast up to red lights, which always pisses off the idiots behind me who want to sit and wait for the light for some reason.

With self-driving EV, traffic lights are passé.

You forgot to mention how high the initial cost of the new iCar would cost. Probably over a million.