
Apple closes trading with $700B+ market cap - nerfhammer
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-10/apple-closes-at-record-market-value-of-more-than-700-billion
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zachrose
For scale:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28currency...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28currency%29)

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jameshart
Wow - the closest number on that list is "Total assessed (taxable) market
value of Manhattan real estate for FY 2014-2015" at $914.8 billion. That's the
kind of order of magnitude of Apple's worth - one New York borough, containing
the world's most valuable real estate.

(Sorry, but can't resist adding: Given that it's worth 30% more than Apple, I
guess that's why they call NYC the Big Apple...)

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startupfounder
TIL Why NYC is called the Big Apple (Question is when will they switch names?)

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rev_bird
They won't have to change, Apple will just become Bigger Apple.

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Keyframe
_The world’s largest company by market capitalization got a little bit bigger
Tuesday._

Shouldn't that be "..largest PUBLIC company by market cap..."? Isn't Saudi
Aramco's value in trillions for example?

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saryant
IIRC their revenue is about 4x Apple's.

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rgbrenner
actually, they averaged 95b/qtr last year vs apple's 75b last quarter. They
have $36 trillion in assets (consisting of all of SAs oil and gas reserves +
the state refining company that was merged in the 90s).

Considering the drop in oil prices lately, it's quite possible Apple's revenue
exceeded Aramco's last quarter

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giarc
Wikipedia tells me the company is valued somewhere between 1 and 7 trillion
but has $30+ trillion is assets. I'm not a business person, shouldn't it be
valued at more simply by the fact that is has a huge amount of assets?

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zrail
I'm not an oil or gas expert, but the low valuation vs assets might be because
many of those assets are underground in hard to reach places. Reserves may be
proven but not economically viable to access at the current price of oil, for
example.

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kralko
I wonder how much of the stock growth is due to the investor program (stocks
buybacks), how much is linked to the stock split (making the stock more
affordable and potentially more liquid)?

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bane
Here's a fun comparison. That's within spitting distance of the GDP (PPP) of
all of South Korea around the year 2000.

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innguest
It's called a bubble. Here's a company that sells grilled cheese out of 3
trucks, that has been valued at $100M:
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-09/bubble-
meet-25-mill...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-09/bubble-
meet-25-million-grilled-cheese-truck)

Now let's watch the words "worth" and "value" be thrown around recklessly. :)

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ceejayoz
> Here's a company that sells grilled cheese out of 3 trucks, that has been
> valued at $100M.

With zero liquidity.
[http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GRLD/quote](http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GRLD/quote)
indicates trading volume of 800 shares and their shares were $0.10 until
January 28th, upon which someone started trading a few hundred shares a day at
about $6.

That's not a bubble, that's someone screwing with a tiny stock. Probably
selling back and forth to themself.

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hello_asdf
Excuse my ignorance here, but why would someone sell back and forth to
themselves?

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ceejayoz
One reason might be the owner wanting to say "I'm worth $100 million on
paper!" There's also the potential it's part of one of those pump-and-dump
scams, and that people are getting emails right now saying "don't miss this
hot stock! Up 10,000% this month alone!"

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Shivetya
damn, if marketing doesn't prove its worth with these numbers. Yes they make
good products but its obvious their margins are so damn high because their
marketing has convinced people that it is worth it. (iphone/mac/airport
owner.... so yeah)

Honestly though, I would love some other choices but they competition in
general just sucks. For awhile android phones almost caught my attention but
the pc world hasn't since my first 24 inch iMac. Tablet market is just, Apple.

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somedudethere
I recently went to replace my HTC 1 M7. First I got a Moto G, but due to cell
signal, and general quirks in lollipop I thought I would try a Samsung S5.
Ugg. I don't know how people could stand all the non-standard stuff that
samsung puts on there. So I decided to settle in with a Nexus 6. It was pretty
good. But it just seemed empty. Maybe because I was used to using custom roms
on One it just seemed like features were missing. I didn't want to install a
custom rom on it because in the past I always just ended up with bugginess and
quite frankly a custom roms are a cop out. I paid for something, the people I
paid should give me a good experience not random people on the internet. But
the app store, even though it gives users a plethora of customizations like
lockscreens, locks, etc, they will never bring android up to the level of a
unified experience of the iPhone.

So I went and got a 6+. I have to say since it was my first iPhone I was blown
away. I was in the camp of "Why do I need to spend $1000 to do what this $200
moto g can do?" I really can't see how android users feel that any android
device is as polished as the iphone. I guess its subjective but honestly >90%
of people I know in silicon valley have an iphone. If the most tech centered
place in the world all use iphones, I think that says something. Its more than
just its the trendy cool thing to do. Its honestly a better experience and the
professionals can see that. If I, an engineer in silicon valley, can't get
android to do what I want when I want it, how can I expect the average user to
master it? Maybe its because I have a higher standard for software and user
design since I am in the business but everyday I find some subtle way that the
iphone manages to impress me, a feeling I never got on android.

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eropple
For a differing opinion:

I tried an iPhone 6, moving away from a Nexus 5 and then a Moto X. I enjoyed
many parts of it--Touch ID is cool, Apple Pay is cool--but I took it back two
days later because the operating system expects you to have a thumb the size
of Montana to do something as simple as going back a screen in the mail app
and I found dealing with applications and getting the phone the way I wanted
it (and I'm no iOS newbie, I had an iPhone 4 and have multiple iPads) was at
best interminable, at worst impossible. I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.
It's the first cell phone I've _loved_ since the iPhone 4--unsurprising, as it
borrows a lot from its design while being pretty unique and pleasant on its
own. (The waterproofing is great, hiding the connectors during regular use is
nice, having a real focus-stop camera button is _brilliant_. Also, it's bright
orange. My Nexus 5 was bright red. This is kind of my thing.)

As far as your _argumentum ad turtleneckum_ , I wouldn't give ninety percent
of the people I know in Silicon Valley the time of day. Their choice of phone
doesn't reflect on me or the world at large.

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matwood
I had an iPhone4 then moved to Nexus for the larger screen. I like Android,
but it was never as polished at iOS. The iPhone 6 got me to try it again and I
think it's awesome. The big thing I notice is how polished all the iPhone apps
are over their Android counterparts.

Most of my iOS complaints were fixed in 8 and phone size was finally remedied.

Admittedly, if Google had released an update Nexus5+ for $350 I likely would
have just stayed with Android for the cost alone.

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eropple
Honestly? Every app I use on Android is really nice and polished. Chrome,
GMail, Maps, Twitter, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, 1Password, Pocket
Casts, Poweramp, and Pandora are all completely satisfying. The worst app I
have is OpenMBTA...which fails to get my jimmies rustled because it's a
dropdown list and a map overlay.

There are lots of shovelware applications on Android (lots on iOS too,
though), but I don't really live on my phone so I think it's just much less of
a thing for me.

