When we last looked in on Apple, we explained why making a large profit just wasn’t enough for Wall Street. Well, Apple had its quarterly earnings call, and revealed some pretty interesting information. Like the fact that it’s spending a huge pile of cash on research.
And when we say huge, we mean huge:
Apple boosted its research and development spending by 33 percent in the second quarter of 2013 compared to the same period last year, according to a quarterly report filed with the Securities Exchange Commission. If the rate of spending continues, Apple could drop over $4 billion on R&D this fiscal year.
$4 billion is a lot of money, even by Apple standards. So what is Apple spending it on?
Music
A large chunk of that is likely going into developing Apple’s iStream or whatever they’re going to call their Internet radio service. Apple owns the biggest record store on Earth, and they’re likely interested in leveraging that into owning the biggest radio station on Earth.
Television
Apple has already essentially bent the music and cellular industry to its will, although the former more than the latter, and it’s not a big secret Apple would like to made the cable industry bend its knee. Consistent rumors of an Apple television indicate Apple hasn’t given up, and likely they’re working on a device that can pull an end run around cable providers.
The iWatch
As much I didn’t want to believe Apple would fall victim to this dumb fad, by all accounts Apple is doing it. Expect this to be at least talked about this year.
And, of course, there’s probably other stuff that we don’t know about, but hey, at least Apple is spending its massive cash hoard, like Wall Street wants.