Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results
Sometimes just to wrap my head around really large numbers like this, I like to put things in units of aircraft carriers. The US Navy's last finished carrier cost $6.2 billion[1], meaning that $74.6 billion[2] is enough to buy Apple 12 nuclear carriers, a.k.a. a nuclear carrier fleet larger than that of the US Navy.<p>Of course this is an inaccurate and very silly comparison[3], but at least for me it does give some sense of scale. That is a preposterous number of iPhones.<p>[1]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77)</a><p>[2] Yes, I know that number is revenue and not profit. As long as I'm making a silly mental comparison though, why not have more fun by using the bigger number?<p>[3] Maintaining/staffing carriers is astronomically expensive, $74.6 billion is actually only enough for 12 empty carrier-shaped hunks of steel.