Is Apple's silence killing it right now?

Rogifan said:

I agree with pretty much everything he says. Apple needs to start controlling their narrative better and I don't know if Cook is the guy to do it. ....

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Apple's perception issue started before Cook took over. Apple stopped controlling their narrative when they became a huge corporation, and people started looking at them more critically.

They're still a good company, but they went from a company that looked "perfect" to a company that looked "imperfect". It doesn't matter if it's 10% perfection or 99% perfection, it's not perfect. And everyone is starting to see that now.

Apple isn't any different, they're simply no longer "perfect". But yes, Apple needs to fix this problem of theirs before it eats away any more at their stock prices.

GermanyChris said:

Should we look at the revenues of each of the other products relative to total revenue?

**edit**

I attached it, over half of apple's revenue comes from a fashion accessory, and like all fashion is not lasting and is at the whim of groupthink.

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iPhone as a "fashion accessory" is an interesting notion... The "fashion" is now entering its 6th year and sales are still growing tremendously. Maybe that is "fashion" in your world but I beg to differ.

In your nice graph, you will notice that red slice of the pie representing 1/4 or 1/5 of the total, the iPad. I would just like to remind that 3 years ago, that product didn't exist (and the "tablet" category was infinitesimal). That category is now growing like crazy too and 5 to 6 device sold are iPads.

Finally, after tomorrow, Apple will release it's Q4' 2012 numbers and I predict the general discourse about Apple's demise will be quite different from today's.

Bernard SG said:

iPhone as a "fashion accessory" is an interesting notion... The "fashion" is now entering its 6th year and sales are still growing tremendously. Maybe that is "fashion" in your world but I beg to differ.

In your nice graph, you will notice that red slice of the pie representing 1/4 or 1/5 of the total, the iPad. I would just like to remind that 3 years ago, that product didn't exist (and the "tablet" category was infinitesimal). That category is now growing like crazy too and 5 to 6 device sold are iPads.

Finally, after tomorrow, Apple will release it's Q4' 2012 numbers and I predict the general discourse about Apple's demise will be quite different from today's.

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Who is talking about Apples demise?

That's cool and that's what makes us human and different.

And the tablet market will reach saturation also, which mean that revenue stream will drop.

I shall restate Apple needs to work on generating more revenue that is not based in HW sales, now while they are fat and can actually R&D without immediate expected gains.

Rogifan said:

There's that "innovation" word again. what exactly is all this innovation everyone else is doing that Apple isn't? 5" screens? Widgets?

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I don't look at arbitrary time frames. Plus I think AAPL is the most manipulated stock on the market. Someone stood to make a ton of $$ if they got the stock price around $500 and lo and behold it closed on Friday at exactly $500.

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Google Glass maybe? Table touchscreen from Microsoft ?

Rogifan said:

More FUD. Apparently someone at Fortune thinks Apple needs to license iOS to other handset makers to bring more customers into iTunes

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Legally and, more importantly, commercially Apple doesn't need to do anything different. Certainly - as you allude to - not in relation to licensing iOS.

But more importantly, Apple doesn't need to do anything different to squelch the blizzard of silly rumors surrounding its upcoming products, sales, future releases, etc. For a host of legal reasons it can't. And from a practical standpoint, rebutting rumors is like battling the hydra: for every bogus story you refute, two or three new ones will crop up in its place.

I'm sorry to say this, but sites like MacRumors are becoming increasingly less valuable to me, as both an investor and a consumer. In simple terms the "signal to noise" ratio has dropped to unacceptable levels. Its increasingly hard to sift out the valuable insights from the spam, idiocy, and self-involved blathering.

There is little doubt that Tim Cook isn't Steve Jobs, at least as far as the "reality distortion field" is concerned. But thats not really so bad, is it? Apple makes its most important statements when it ships fantastic new products, and when it publishes its financial results. Chumps who buy and sell Apple shares based on froth generated by who know who on internet sites have only themselves to blame when they get burned.

Rogifan said:

Widgets are subjective. Not everyone who owns an iPhone wants widgets.

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That's the beauty of features. If you don't use it, well, don't use it. But if its there, it's not hurting you. Like backgrounds, if you like having a flat color, doesn't mean some of us don't want an image instead. Like the notifications, you can turn them off by app, well maybe I want Gmail notifications and you don't.

Options, aren't they grand ?

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Rogifan said:

More FUD.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/17/apple-risks-repeating-the-1980s/

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Already discussed in this thread :

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1527686/

Feel free to take your comments on that article there.

Rogifan said:

I guarantee you if iOS 7 has widgets the first thing people will scream is Apple is ripping off Android, NOT finally Apple is innovating. Same thing if they come out with a larger phone. That's why I scratch my head when people complain about lack of innovation but their answer to it is for Apple to copy Google and their OEM's.

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Companies always try to out do each other. Apple just isn't doing that. The more the iPhone stays the same and Android improves the gap is widening. People want innovation, they don't want stale.

MacNut said:

Companies always try to out do each other. Apple just isn't doing that. The more the iPhone stays the same and Android improves the gap is widening. People want innovation, they don't want stale.

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Correction: A handful of enthusiasts want innovation. The target market, the average consumer, doesn't care. They want it to work and they don't want to have to relearn how to use their mobile devices (or even computers for that matter).

The problem that many people fail to recognize, is that enthusiasts make up a very small piece of the market share for Apple mobile devices.

Rogifan said:

I guarantee you if iOS 7 has widgets the first thing people will scream is Apple is ripping off Android, NOT finally Apple is innovating. Same thing if they come out with a larger phone. That's why I scratch my head when people complain about lack of innovation but their answer to it is for Apple to copy Google and their OEM's.

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Well, no duh they would be "ripping off" Android and Android OEMs... I put that in quotes because frankly the whole "they stoles from us the preeeeecious!" bit that people have gotten into is inane, on both sides.

Apple is not the only source of good ideas and frankly, as an iOS user, if there's some good stuff in Android, I'd like to see it make its way in iOS, and the opposite is true for Android users too.

All this "theyz copies from us!" crap has got to stop, and that applies to everyone. Take the best ideas from multiple source, come up with some good ones yourself and ship a damn product, who cares that it is innovative or not.

And you really seem hung up on the whole "innovative" thing, let it go man. Innovations aren't something that are going to pop up everyday. Few and far between.

Rogifan said:

Still agree with the first post. Where is Apple PR? What exactly does Phil Schiller do?

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They're doing exactly what they need to be doing : Not feeding the trolls.

SpyderBite said:

Correction: A handful of enthusiasts want innovation. The target market, the average consumer, doesn't care. They want it to work and they don't want to have to relearn how to use their mobile devices (or even computers for that matter).

The problem that many people fail to recognize, is that enthusiasts make up a very small piece of the market share for Apple mobile devices.

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Reading this just shows how learning and doing things is such a terrible lazy effort for so many people.

It wasn't that long ago I was reading nerds/techies freak out at Windows 8 because there's no start button. Yet elderly people have no issue with it once guided. Which is like a few minutes.

Stale or change... which is it....

Wow the sky is truly falling isn't it

The knee jerk reactions of bloggers wanting clicks and others astounds me. Its like the sky is falling. They had RECORD sales last quarter. They own the tablet market and make something like 66% to 75% of all PROFIT in the cellular phone market. They have something like $120B in cash around the world. They have a retail presence and sales per square foot that is the envy of the entire retailverse

Their stock is down to $400+ a share? oh no?... now Exxon is bigger? oh the horror. They are in a position that thousands of companies would sell their collective family members to be in.

Companies go up and they go down. Microsoft and IBM are still humming along with far less focus on them.