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Apple's Braeburn Capital leaves Reno office, doesn't update address [u]

Thursday, March 07, 2013, 12:54 pm PT (03:54 pm ET)

Apple's Braeburn Capital leaves Reno office, doesn't update address [u]

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Apple's Braeburn Capital subsidiary, which manages the company's vast cash reserves as its "asset management corporation," is no longer located at its last reported address.



A year old on the corporation (which Apple named after a type of apple particularly suited to long term storage) lists the address of its principals as being at suite 225 on 730 Sandhill Road, a suburban office park in Reno, Nevada (pictured above).

A blog entry profiling Apple's Reno operations as "the world's largest hedge fund" last September that Braeburn Capital was at the time operating from that address. It visited the building and photographed the office's sign (which is now gone; note that Braeburn is also not a "hedge fund," nor is its holdings as secret as the article suggested).

However, the office at that address is now in use by another firm (Randstad finance and accounting). Asked about Braeburn, the receptionist told AppleInsider that she only knew that the firm is no longer operating at that location and that she didn't know where it had relocated. A search of Apple's record filings did not turn up a new address.

Apple doesn't appear keen on publicizing the address of its Reno operations; neither Siri nor Maps offer any help in locating the Braeburn offices the way they do direct users to Apple's stores (including the one located in Reno) and its main headquarters facilities in Cupertino.

Why Apple is (somewhere) in Reno

Apple its Braeburn Capital subsidiary in 2006, tasked with managing the company's cash and short term investments. It located the operation in Nevada for tax purposes; Reno is the closest significant city in the state to Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters, located about 4 hours east of the San Francisco Bay Area.

At the end of 2005, Apple's holdings were $8.3 billion. By the end of 2006 Braeburn's managed asset pile had grown to $10.1 billion. Today, Apple's holdings are in excess of $130 billion, and generating intense scrutiny from shareholders and other investors that are hoping to seize some portion of the cash.


Apple's critics are also bothered by the company's cash, and like to describe Braeburn as a form of "tax evasion." However, the firm is legitimately earning gains on capital invested from within Nevada, something that is no more scandalous than residents of Washington state shopping across the river in Oregon to take advantage of that state's lack of a sales tax, or Amazon's online sales that aren't subject to the sales taxes of shoppers.

Apple is not routing its American retail store revenues, software licensing and hardware revenues through any loopholes with Braeburn; Apple already pays federal and state corporate income, payroll and other taxes on its US revenues as they are earned. But its growing cash pile, even if conservatively invested, would frequently generate capital gains.

If located in Apple's home state of California, Braeburn Capital would require incremental payments of capital gains taxes at rates that are now among the highest in the nation.

Long term federal and state capital gains (profits on investments held more than one year) are now taxed in California at 33 percent, making it second worldwide only to Denmark; California's capital gains taxes are now higher than France, Finland or Sweden. In contrast, capital gains in Japan are only taxed at 10%, while tax havens in Luxembourg and Switzerland don't tax capital gains at all.

By locating Braeburn Capital in Reno, Nevada, Apple can take advantage of favorable tax rates while managing its growing investment pool. The subsidiary still pays federal US capital gains taxes, but Nevada has no state capital gains taxes of its own. When Apple distributes its cash to shareholders, or when shareholders sell their shares at a profit, those gains are taxed at the effective tax rate of the shareholder.

The question remains: where exactly is Braeburn Capital now located? (Update: reader AAPL1000 notes that Braeburn has moved to 6900 South McCarran Blvd, Suite 3020 in Reno Nevada. Additionally, a Reno Gazette-Journal blog that the subsidiary moved to the new location "about a year and half ago.")

Additionally, Apple has other plans for expanding in Reno. In addition to favorable tax rates, the area also has some other advantages that play into Apple's expansion plans, as a subsequent report will detail.

Nokia Lumia 820 vs Nokia Lumia 920 (Gallery & Video)

Let’s compare the Nokia Lumia 820 vs Nokia Lumia 920. They have similar features, but there are a few things that set them apart. Gallery and comparison video after the jump.

The Nokia Lumia 820 is the smaller device. It’s thinner, narrower, and shorter than the Nokia Lumia 920. The Lumia 820 is also lighter at 160 grams compared to 185 grams on the Lumia 920.

The Lumia 820 has a 4.3-inch display with 480×800 pixels resolution versus 4.5 inches with 768 x 1280 pixels resolution on the Lumia 920. Both support super sensitive touch so you can use the phones even with gloves on.

Internally, they are almost the same with dual-core 1.5GHz cpu and 1GB RAM. I don’t see any performance difference with apps.

The Nokia Lumia 820 has an 8 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. The Nokia Lumia 920 has an 8.7 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and Pureview technology. The Lumia 920 performs much better in low light and has more stable videos thanks to the optical image stabilizer. The front camera on the Lumia 820 is only 0.3 megapixels while the Lumia 920 has 1.2 megapixels.

For storage, the Nokia Lumia 820 only has 8GB internally while the Lumia 920 has a whopping 32GB stoage. The Nokia Lumia 820 has an advantage here though, since it has a microSD slot for expandable memory up to 64GB. The battery is also removable on the Lumia 820, but not on the Lumia 920.

The Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 both have NFC, 4G LTE, and wireless charging support, but you’ll need the wireless charging case for the 820. It’s about an extra $25.

Price and Availability:

Which Lumia is for you?

AnandTech Albatron Widio - Wireless Audio System, A Quick Look

Back when we did the CEO Forum, we already knew that the PC market was somewhat saturated in terms of having too many motherboard makers. So, we questioned if companies were already foreseeing this. The only choice that the companies had to make was whether or not they were going to change, and it was an important one at that. Changing and diversifying could actually be a matter of living or dying.

We have seen some motherboard manufacturers pursue networking products, while some have tried taking on consumer electronics, and other maufacturers have tried their hand out with displays. Others have taken even the almost fatal market saturation hit. Today, we thought we would quickly look at Widio, Albatron's latest attempt at diversification. Any by all accounts, they are trying to generate a lot of hype. Let's dive in and find out if the Widio is all that they are trying to make it out to be.

Love Triangle Dating Challenge Review & Rating PCMag.com

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Server-side update makes Siri a stickler for succinctness

Tuesday, May 14, 2013, 01:55 pm PT (04:55 pm ET)

Server-side update makes Siri a stickler for succinctness

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Siri is already well known for her wit and willingness to joke, but a recent server-side update has given Apple's digital assistant the ability to tell users they should be more into the whole brevity thing.


Siri can now respond to user requests with quotes, thanks to an apparently recent update, and users that are overly wordy will get a response that tactfully tells them so. The brevity commentary was by a visitor to the social news site Reddit, and the quote responses first on iLounge.

Faced with a long or rambling question, Siri will present the user with a choice quote from William Strunk, Thomas Jefferson, or MASH's Hawkeye. The Jefferson and Hawkeye quotes go by quickly enough, but Siri's Strunk-derived riposte is 30 words long and can take as long for her to read aloud as the request Siri's correcting.

The responses encouraging brevity are just the latest in a number of Siri updates aimed at giving the virtual assistant a "personality." The team behind Siri meant for the feature to "" with customers. To that end, they gave Siri a catalogue of witty responses to deliver, as well as . When some of Siri's more awkward answers have attained notoriety on the Internet, the assistant to give punchier responses.

Follow Kimi Raikkonen, Tony Hawk and Nero at the Gumball3000 using Live Twitter Map The Social Med

Every year, the great British institution of Gumball3000 turns 3,000 miles of public roads into an international rally course. ?The event pits around 120 of the most eye-catching and/or head-turning cars against one another in the ultimate road trip adventure. ?This year, Berkshire-based digital agency, Rawnet, have unleashed their passion in designing and developing the official website to the point where you can almost catch the whiff of petrol in the air.

As the Official Digital Partner, they were keen to apply their digital savvy to create a compelling online meeting place for all the participating Gumballers, as well as the hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide. ?Among the?more high-profile entrants in this special 15th?anniversary rally are David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff, musician and actress, Eve, skateboarding legend, Tony Hawk, bands Cypress Hill and Nero, rapper, actor and TV host, Xzibit and Formula One Driver, Kimi Raikkonen, to name but a handful.

Rawnet are helping everyone to track the Gumballers’ progress en route from Copenhagen to Monaco with their Interactive Live Map. ? Gumballers simply capture a picture on their phone, then tweet the photo adding the hashtag #rawnet. ?By enabling Location Services on their mobile devices, they can share moments and memories from the rally on the Live Tweet map in mere seconds. ?It’s a great way for Gumballers to update all of their followers, fans and fellow drivers on their position while effortlessly creating their own photo blog throughout the event. ?Whoever takes the picture that best captures the ‘Spirit of Gumball’ will win a Nikon D5100 along with a signed copy of the winning picture from founder, Maximillion Cooper.

As part of the new website, Rawnet have also built Gumball an interactive Entry Grid for 2013 that allows fans and Gumballers alike to get their favourite team on pole position for the starting grid in Copenhagen by raising money for the Gumball3000 Foundation. ?The team that raises the highest amount as of Sunday 19th May will be leaving Copenhagen first under the chequered flag.

The Gumball3000 Foundation is a non-profit charitable trust that has been established to benefit underprivileged youth through Education, Infrastructure and Environmental projects.

Show your support by donating today as all monies raised will go to this fantastic cause. Just choose your favourite team and click the donate button.? The total raised so far is ?49,789 with Team 86 from Italy in the lead

So, get involved and experience a taste of the action at? from Sunday 19th May 2013 where the adventure begins in Copenhagen. ?Accompany us on a journey that winds through Stockholm, Helsinki, St.Petersburg, Riga, Warsaw and Vienna before rocking up in Monaco just in time for the Formula 1 Grand Prix on Sunday 26th May.

AnandTech Google Announces Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Project Butter

Back at Mobile World Congress, both Anand and I heard rumblings that UI performance would be a huge emphasis in the next major release of Android. I remember being told that the goal would be to make performance smooth as butter, everywhere. Today, Google has made that official with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and Project Butter.

There are a number of improvements we're going to be going over in detail soon, but probably the most visible to end users will be those improvements to UI performance with butter. Google mentioned three key things - changes to Vsync, triple buffering (which was not enabled for the OpenGL ES UI render path in the past), and improvements to the CPU governor. The end result is that the SoC will change perf states based on touch input to dramatically increase touch responsiveness.

Nokia Lumia 920 to Launch October 21st with AT&T

There are now 2 independent sources claiming the October 21st launch for the Nokia Lumia 920 on AT&T. There’s BGR who wrote about it last Friday and now WPCentral with their own reliable source. Does this mean it’s true? We hope so.

:

BGR has confirmed with a trusted source that AT&T’s (T) upcoming flagship smartphones for the holidays — besides that flagship smartphone, of course — will be launching on October 21st. This will include the Nokia (NOK) Lumia 920 and the Samsung (005930) Galaxy Note II.

:

Windows Phone Central has now come across new documentation circulating within AT&T that does indeed confirm the date of October 21st as an important day for the upcoming Nokia flagship phone.

Previous rumors made for this highly anticipated phone, so we’re glad to hear about an earlier date. Let’s not get our hopes up too much though. This could be a pre-order date with a much later shipping date. Let’s wait and see.

Nokia, don’t make us wait too long! Nokia fans, are you getting the Nokia Lumia 920?

Nexus 5 Full Specs and Images Leak via Service Manual

Good news for those who are anxiously waiting for the reveal of the next Nexus smartphone, as a purported service manual has just leaked online.

The folks over at have managed to get their hands on what appears to be an internal service manual for the LG-D821, courtesy of an anonymous tipster.

The said manual contains an image of the upcoming Nexus 5, which we already know will be manufactured by South Korean company LG.

Since LG requested AndroidPolice to take down the manual and the images, we can safely assume that these are legit. With less than a month until Google is expected to announce the Nexus 5, it's hard to believe that LG will be able to change anything that's been listed in this manual.

Another thing that's not mentioned in the leaked manual is the version of Android that Nexus 5 will be shipped with, but I think it's safe to say that it will be the first smartphone powered by Android 4.4 KitKat operating system.

That being said, let's see how powerful the Nexus 5 will be in comparison with its rivals. First of all, according to this manual, the high-end smartphone will boast a 4.95-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution.

In addition, it will pack a powerful 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal memory.

The bad news is that the manual makes no mention of Nexus 5 featuring microSD card slot for memory expansion and from previous experiences, we know that for some reason, Google prefers its own branded devices without this feature.

On the back, the Nexus 5 will sport an 8-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), while in the front, there's a secondary 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls.

The phone will feature wireless charging, NFC (Near Field Communication), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and both CDMA and LTE support.

Last but not least, Nexus 5 will accept microSIM cards and will be packed with the following sensors and ports: accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, proximity/ambient Light, pressure, HDMI out via Slimport and Notification light.

Apple shifting its guidance to stop being blamed for missing analyst expectations

Friday, January 25, 2013, 05:11 pm PT (08:11 pm ET)

Apple shifting its guidance to stop being blamed for "missing" analyst expectations

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This week, Apple announced plans to change the way it outlines guidance, an effort apparently intended to thwart excessively enthusiastic analyst expectations that have resulted in a series of "misses" ultimately blamed upon the company itself.

"In recent years," Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer noted in his prepared comments in the company's earnings call, "our guidance reflected a conservative point estimate of results every quarter that we had reasonable confidence in achieving.

"Going forward, we plan to provide a range of guidance that reflects our belief of what we are likely to achieve. While we cannot forecast with complete accuracy, we believe we are likely to report within the range of guidance we provide. Therefore, for the March quarter, we're providing revenue guidance of between $41 billion and $43 billion compared to $39.2 billion in the year ago quarter."

Fool me once, Can't get fooled again

For years, Apple has offered forward looking guidance outlining the minimum performance that company executives were reasonably confident they could reach over the coming quarter.

As the company's performance has accelerated over the past several years of rapidly increasing sales of iPods and then iPhones, iPads and new Macs, Apple has consistently trampled its own guidance, resulting in the cynical perception that the company's forward looking figures were excessively conservative, to the point where critics began describing them as "sandbagging."

Sandbagging figuratively suggests an effort to misrepresent one's own abilities early on in order to throw off one's competition. The term is often applied to billiard, chess or poker players who deceptively play under their true skill level in order to fool opponents into betting against them in a subsequent, higher stakes game.

While Apple certainly benefits from providing conservative guidance it can be fully confident about delivering, it would be absurd to suggest the company is attempting to hustle the market over the long term in a series of quarterly guidance "sandbagging," any more than card shark could repeatedly fool the same naive players to bet against it after a series of expert hands of card playing.

Raising the bar too high

On the contrary, Apple's consistent ability to exceed its stated guidance objectives has resulted in analysts setting their own expectations for the company, at a level significantly above what Apple has stated it is reasonably confident that it can achieve.

Thus, despite a series of record quarterly results Apple has set and then shattered as the company consistently outperforms the rest of the PC industry, the smartphone industry and other players in the media and mobile software markets, Apple has not consistently hit the inflated expectations of the market set by analysts hoping to guess by exactly how much the company will exceed its own guidance.

To stop this cycle of reported "misses," Apple will now provide a range of guidance, something many other companies already provide. By providing a realistic range, rather than a conservative minimum, Apple can effectively limit the expectations analysts can set.

Following the announcement, a research note by J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz observed, "we think the new guidance commentary is not much of a change and could restore beat-and-raise potential to the model."

Moskowitz added that the recent "sharp decline" in Apple's stock "was driven by a widening chasm between Apple’s fundamentals and investor expectations. The new guidance commentary did not help either. Investors are fearful that iPhone growth has peaked and consolidated gross margin is going to collapse. In contrast, we believe a still-ramping iPhone 5 can drive reaccelerating revenue growth, particularly as more wireless networks roll out LTE. While increasing sales of iPad mini could drag on gross margin, improving yields on iPhone 5 should provide a partial offset."

He also described Apple's new guidance approach as "no need to be frustrated," and stated, "Initially, the introduction of Apple’s new guidance approach of offering a range versus a single point of reference confused and frustrated investors last night. As the dust settles, though, we think that not much has changed. The mid-point of the new guidance range results in a similar % delta versus consensus estimates as had been exhibited in prior quarters when only a single point was offered."

Moskowitz's report added, "we think the company’s introduction of more explicit guidance commentary related to gross margin signals there is no cause for alarm. In recent weeks, there has been increasing bear mongering in the investor base that gross margin could collapse this year. In our view, the Mar-Q guidance for gross margin of 37.5% to 38.5% should dispel those bearish concerns. Equally important, we also think that the new guidance approach is intended to reset some of the more outlandish estimates across the sell-side and buy-side bases, which stands to set the stage for restoring beat-and-raise potential in the model."



Restoring reality to expectations

Under Apple's new approach to guidance, if an analyst sets expectations well outside the guidance range Apple outlines, it will be more clear that the "miss" is the fault of the analyst's math, not in Apple's ability to deliver upon performance targets.

Of course, for the strategy to be an effective deterrent to stop analysts from throwing out excessively unrealistic expectations that are not supported by facts, Apple will have to offer realistic guidance ranges and then not exceed its own stated objectives by too great of a margin.

If it can do this, the company stands a good chance of breaking the cycle of "misses" that have been recorded without regard for Apple's own guidance figures. Were Apple to simply begin offering a less conservative guidance target number, analysts would be induced to just raise their own expectations even higher, based on Apple's historical practice of handily beating its own guidance.

On the other hand, if Apple continues to offer a lowball guidance range and then shatter the upper end of that range with barnstorming results, analysts will likely continue using Apple's own guidance as a foundation for building their own lofty expectations. And as in the past, Apple will have a hard time meeting those external expectations simply because they are not realistically attainable, even by the world's most successful tech company.

Providing a range of guidance isn't the only change Apple has made in reporting its financials, as another Apple analyst has detailed to AppleInsider. Tomorrow, we will outline what other changes Apple has made, and the long term significance this analyst believes is behind the changes.