Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka huruvida Apple, ett av världens största varumärken, anpassar sina reklamfilmer efter den lokala kulturen i USA och UK. För att genomföra den tvärkulturella studien användes en kombination av semiotisk textanalys och litteraturstudie. Två nivåer användes för att analysera materialet, först ett makroperspektiv över samtliga 81 reklamfilmer och sedan ett mikroperspektiv över de åtta filmer som hade en motsvarighet i respektive land. Resultatet visade att Apple anpassar sina reklamfilmer på ett flertal områden. Makroanalysen visade flera övergripande strukturella skillnader, samt att flera av de reklamfilmer som var exklusiva i respektive land anknöt till lokala kulturella företeelser och fenomen. Mikroanalysen visade flera syntagmatiska och paradigmatiska skillnader, både i de verbala och visuella tecknen.

Rapid digitization of enterprise processes and software applications simplifying daily-life routines enhance the need for software arrangements. Based on this growing trend, the underlying thesis discusses revenue recognition for software arrangements under US GAAP, the lingua franca of financial reporting framework in software industry. The thesis examines the first industry-specific guidance - SOP 97-2, its successor ASC 605 and aims at capturing the main implications resulting from the new converged US GAAP/ IFRS revenue recognition standard ASC 606/ IFRS 15 on a case study. The five-step revenue recognition model introduced by ASC 606 is applied to the US-based technology and software seller Apple Inc. and its wide range of product portfolio including software.

The main objective of this thesis is to study the impact of Apple Inc. innovation activities on its successful performance. Specification of this goal implies the existence of a direct relationship between the development of company's net sales and the development of its market value. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part where the theoretical part is focused on the issues of invention and innovation, the innovation process and, last but not least, the link between innovation, strategic management and marketing. The theoretical part also defines the understanding of the term "successful performance of the company" in accordance with the main objective of this thesis. The practical part is focused on the application of gathered knowledge. It aims to assess the impact of innovation activities on the development of Apple Inc. net sales and to analyze the competitive position of its major product categories in the context of individual markets. Furthermore, the practical part is focused on Apple Inc. market capitalization, as a defined indicator of the company's success, its historical position and comparison with major competitors in the technology industry. Applying the method of linear regression analysis, the final section of the thesis evaluates the existence of the relationship described above and provides a possible product innovation charter of Apple Inc.

Planned obsolescence is the term used to describe incentives of companies to make durable goods faster obsolete. The aim of the study is to make a big picture and real situation about planned obsolescence practising and consumer disposal behaviour. First part addresses the theoretical background and provides comprehensive overview through different aspects of the good's durability issue and planned obsolescence characteristics and influences. Second part in further reference to the information provided in theoretical part examines the situation of specific durable products - laptops. From survey's results on consumer attitudes towards durability of laptops and real case study on Apple Inc. and its reliance to planned obsolescence, recommendations to the more sustainable consumption of consumer electronics are presented.

The last two decades have witnessed the CMOS processes and design techniques develop and prosper with unprecedented speed. They have been widely employed in contemporary integrated circuit (IC) commercial products resulting in highly added value. Tremendous e orts have been devoted to extend and optimize the CMOS process and its application for future wireless communication systems. Meanwhile, the last twenty years have also seen the fast booming of the wireless communication technology typically characterized by the mobile communication technology, WLAN technology, WPAN technology, etc. Nowadays, the spectral resource is getting increasingly scarce, particularly over the frequency from 0.7 to 6 GHz, whether the employed frequency band is licensed or not. To combat this dilemma, the ultra wideband (UWB) technology emerges to provide a promising solution for short-range wireless communication while using an unlicensed wide band in an overlay manner. Another trend of obtaining more spectrum is moving upwards to higher frequency bands. The WiFi-Alliance has already developed a certi cation program of the 60-GHz band. On the other side, millimeterwave (mmWave) frequency bands such as 28-GHz, 38-GHz, and 71-GHz are likely to be licensed for next generation wireless communication networks. This new trend poses both a challenge and opportunity for the mmWave integrated circuits design. This thesis combines the state-of-the-art IC and hardware technologies and design techniques to implement and propose UWB and 5G prototyping systems. First of all, by giving a thorough analysis of a transmitted reference pulse cluster (TRPC) scheme and mathematical modeling, a TRPC-UWB transceiver structure is proposed and its features and speci cations are derived. Following that, the detailed design, fabrication and veri cation of the TRPC-UWB transmitter front end and wideband voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) in CMOS process is presented. The TRPCUWB transmitter demonstrates a state-of-the-art energy e ciency of 38.4 pJ/pulse. Secondly, a novel system architecture named distributed phased array based MIMO (DPA-MIMO) is proposed as a solution to overcome design challenges for the future 5G cellular user equipment (UE) design. In addition, a prototyping design of on-chip mmWave antenna with radiation e ciency enhancement is presented for the IEEE 802.11ad application. Furthermore, two wideband K-band VCO prototypes based on two di erent topologies are designed and fabricated in a standard CMOS process. They both show good performance at center frequencies of 22.3 and 26.1 GHz. Finally, two CMOS mmWave VCO prototypes working at the potential future 5G frequency bands are presented with measurement results. / Graduate / 2018-04-30 / amenghym@gmail.com

2001年，消聲已久的蘋果公司推出iPod，改寫了音樂產業的風貌，造成全球搶購的熱潮，自此之後，蘋果公司陸續推出許多產品，在全世界屢獲好評，在台灣亦如是。然而，台灣目前沒有Apple Store，因此欲於實體店面購買蘋果產品的消費者，會至蘋果在台的各大經銷商購買，而目前在台灣有四大優質經銷商，分別是Youth、德誼、Studio A和i Store，此四家的業績近乎佔盡台灣蘋果銷售市場。因此，本研究以蘋果公司最重要的兩項元素「服務創新」及「體驗行銷」作為本研究內涵，以此檢視台灣蘋果四大優質經銷商在「顧客滿意度」與「顧客忠誠度」上是否獲得消費者的認同。 　　本研究以調查法為主，於2011年4月9日至2011年5月7日間透過網路平台發放問卷，總計填答者471位，剔除無效問卷31份，有效問卷共440份，有效回收率為93.4 %，並以深度訪談為輔，訪問台灣蘋果四大優質經銷商於台北旗艦店之店經理與副店經理。 　　透過量化與質化的研究結果可得以下四大結論，第一，服務場景與流程創新是讓消費者辨別經銷商之關鍵；其二，消費者感受到的五感體驗將烙印於消費者心中；其三，顧客滿意度由服務創新與體驗行銷共同決定；最後，顧客忠誠度的表現是為企業獲利指標。另外，透過本研究長期觀察與實證結果，提出下列幾點建議予台灣蘋果公司參考：爭取優先上市權、舉辦活動並增加露出、播送電視廣告、提高服務品質、遵守蘋果總公司服務條款、建立專門蒐集消費者意見之管道。 / In 2001, the Apple Inc. which had been quiet for a long time announced their product – iPod, and soon rewrote the style of global music industry. The representing product – iPod also raised up shopping rush all over the world. Henceforward, Apple Inc. brought lots of products and became popular around the world, so did Taiwan. Even though, Apple Inc. didn’t institute any Apple Stores in Taiwan, the only way to buy Apple’s products personally is to visit dealers which acquire authorization. In addition, there are four APRs (Apple Premium Reseller) in Taiwan, include Youth, Dataexpress, Studio A, and istore, they also hold overwhelming majority of Apple products selling in Taiwan. As a result, this research is based on service innovation and experiential marketing that two factors the Apple Inc. emphasize most, and examine whether those four APRs had obtain identification from consumers in customer satisfaction degree and customer loyalty or not. 　This research used survey procedure to gather feedbacks from consumers during 9th April to 7th May in 2011 by uploading internet survey platform. There were 471 answer sheets on the platform above, 31 of them were invalid and 440 were valid, achieve the scale at 93.4%. We also used depth interview and had interviews with shop managers and vice-shop managers of those four APRs. 　Combining the two dimensions, this research had four main conclusions. First, Services cape and Procedures innovations are key points for consumers to recognize resellers. Second, five source of sense experience that consumers truly experience will make deep impressions in their mind. Third, customer satisfaction degree depends on service innovation and experiential marketing. The last but not least, the certain appearance of customer loyalty is as the index of company’s profit. According to long term observation and the conclusions of empirical research, we recommend few suggestions for the branch in Taiwan of Apple Inc. as follow. First, try to fight for the position of debut product, try to hold more selling activities and increase exposure, try to broadcast more TV commercials, try to raise service quality, try to obey service principles and guidelines established by Apple Inc., and try to set up a special channel to collect opinions from consumers.