Author: Brandon

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The New MacBook Pro with Retina display

On June 11, Apple introduced the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. But what has changed? Well, the screen’s resolution is 2,880-by-1,800, which is about 5.1 million pixels on a 15.4 inch display. Compared to an HDTV, which has a screen resolution of 1,920-by-1,080, the Retina Display has a significantly larger amount of pixels. This gives the screen a clearer, crisper look. It can change the way you look at a computer screen when you see how finely defined the images are on the screen, and at a certain point, it can make you forget that you’re looking at a screen in the first place. Apple also noted that the new Retina display reduces glare, making it easier to see the screen even in the sunlight, which is very helpful in outdoor environments. The New MacBook Pro with Retina display is only 0.71 inch thin and 4.46 pounds, so it is lighter and thinner than previous MacBook Pros, which increases ease of portability by a significant amount. The only aspect of the new MacBook Pro that  you will have to watch out for is compatibility. There are still some applications and websites that aren’t suitable for the Retina Display which may look pixelated, but they will hopefully be updated to suit the capacity of the Retina Display.

The New MacBook Pro with Retina Display takes full advantage of the all-flash storage to make the MacBook faster, quieter, and lighter than previous MacBook Pros that used optical drives. The MacBook Pro with Retina display also uses the Intel Core i7, Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. These components give it amazing performance and have the capabilities to produce vivid images, videos, and games on the screen. Although it is a high-performance notebook, it still packs a 7-hour battery life due to the large 95-watt hour battery.

What else is different? Well, the ports have definitely changed. On one side, we have the MagSafe 2 port. This poses a disadvantage to those who have the older MagSafe Power Adapter. Without a $10 MagSafe to MagSafe 2 Convertor, you are forced to use the new MagSafe 2 Power Adapter. Also, Apple got rid of the FireWire 800 port and Ethernet port, but it now has two USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt ports. They also included an HDMI port and the SDXC card slot. The HDMI port is a great addition to the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, since adapters always had to be used to hook up previous MacBook Pros to HDTVs and projectors. To keep the MacBook Pro with Retina Display slim, they also removed the DVD drive.

When it comes to pricing, the MacBook Pro with Retina Display starts at $2,199.00 for the 15-inch compared to the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which is $1,799.00. That’s an extra $400 for the Retina Display. It does also come with 8GB of memory, compared to the 4GB of memory in the MacBook Pro. So you have to decide whether the extra memory, Retina Display, and flash storage is worth the extra money or not.

In conclusion, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display has an amazing display that surpasses previous MacBook Pros, as well as better performance, while still having great battery life. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display does deviate from previous models, as the ports are very different, but mostly in a positive direction. OS X Mountain Lion will also really compliment the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as will other applications when they are updated for the Retina Display.

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What will Apple do with all that cash?

On March 19th, Apple announced that it would give dividends and buyback about $10 billion dollars of stocks a year for the next three years. Apple has approximately $100 billion in cash and will begin to pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share beginning in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins on July 1st. On September 30th, which is the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year, the company will begin buying back shares. The dividends will attract more investors who only look for companies that give dividends. The stock repurchases will increase the earnings per share and will prevent earnings-per-share dilution caused by future employee stock grants and purchase programs. Apple has stated that it will use domestic cash holdings to pay for the dividend payments and stock repurchase program instead of using overseas funds due to repatriation tax penalties.

Apple hasn’t paid dividends since 1995. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 when it was near bankruptcy and brought the company up. Jobs opposed the idea of giving dividends, but with Tim Cook as the CEO, Apple is changing. This change has worried some investors, but Cook has reassured them that there is plenty of money to finance the product pipeline and insure innovation.

Apple dividends would make it one of the top dividend payers in the nation, but in comparison to percent annual yield per stock, it is relatively low at 1.8%. One key reason that Apple dividends may not attract investors as much as other companies is that the percent annual yield is so low. Many investors buy stocks with dividends to later reinvest that money into more shares, but with Apple at such a high stock price and such a low dividend yield, it would be impractical to do that.

If you are thinking about buying Apple shares because of the dividends and share buybacks, that may not be the best reason to purchase shares. If you are thinking about buying Apple shares because of large revenue growth rate, then that is more realistic.

Feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

Photo Credit: Yahoo! Finance

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What’s changed with Apple with Tim Cook?

After Steve Jobs, Tim Cook took over as Apple’s new CEO. Tim Cook brought about very subtle changes to Apple ever since taking the position as CEO. When working with Steve Jobs, they both disagreed about certain components of the company.
One thing that Tim Cook had in mind was using Apple’s cash to pay a dividend or  to buy back stock. Steve Jobs did not agree with that, but now with Tim Cook in control, things may change.

Tim Cook also set up a charity program. Apple isn’t known to be charitable and Steve Jobs wasn’t into giving away Apple’s money. The program is a match employee contributions to non-profits program. It matches up to $10,000.

It was also noted that Tim Cook emails more frequently and addresses Apple as a “Team.” He also promoted Eddy Cue to senior vice president of cloud services. Other changes include dividing up the company’s education division into sales and marketing groups.

With Tim Cook as the new leader of Apple, people are keeping their eyes open as to see what else he will do next. Without the creativity of Steve Jobs, will the company be able to maintain its products and services?

Feel free to leave questions or comments.

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Apple Looking for Cloud Executives

Based on the Wall Street Journal, Apple has started to search for senior-level executives that are familiar with the cloud. Apple has also approached an Internet entrepreneur about a job position, but the information is undisclosed.

Apple is taking steps to improve their products and appeal to those who don’t want everything to be separated by device and want to have everything made available to all computers and devices that rely on Apple’s operating systems and programs. The first step is with the new iCloud that allows content stored in the cloud to be pushed wirelessly to devices.

The company has already begun to employee lower level positions that are related to Web software and services. Apple doesn’t have a solid record when it comes to past Internet products that did not succeed as expected, such as MobileMe and Ping. iCloud is a big improvement and is currently working very well.

One difficulty that Apple faces is that many higher level potential employees are more interested in other companies rather than working for Apple. Apple’s Web services don’t appear to be as high of a priority to Internet engineers and look elsewhere for jobs. Nonetheless, Apple is a strong company and turnover rate is low in Apple’s higher positions.

What do you think? Feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

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What’s the cost of an Apple Store?

How much does each Apple Store cost? Based on Horace Dediu from asymco, each store was about $8.5 million per store, but now it is probably about $10 million per store.  These costs do not include the lease, operating costs, and inventory costs. How did he come up with that figure? Dediu took advantage of Apple’s balance sheets and took a closer look at the “Leasehold Improvements.” At first, there was no correlation between the Leasehold improvements and stores opened, when taking into account that spending occurs before a store opens, there was a consistent pattern. Over the time period illustrated, Dediu noted that Apple opened 220 stores and observed that Apple spent $1.9 billion, which accounts to about $8.5 million per store. It was about $8.5 million per store then, but now it is most likely $10 million per store now.

What are your opinions? Feel free to leave a comment!

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