Apple's Upcoming Product Transition

[MacRumors]

Forbes explores some hints that Apple gave yesterday on upcoming products in the current quarter.

Apple's projected relatively weaker earnings for the current quarter, citing higher component costs, back-to-school discounts and a "product transition" will cause Apple earnings to come in lower than expected.

Could that mean Apple is about to introduce some new products? If so, the possibilities include anything from a new version of the iPod music player to fresh versions of its hot-selling notebook computers. With Apple reporting surging sales of both its computers and music players, that would mean the company is about to go from one strength to another.

Apple's current quarter ends at the end of September 2007. Apple has been rumored to be releasing new iMacs and iPods in August. What's unclear is why Apple expects this product transition to decrease earnings rather than increase earnings.


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[kskill]

that's a pretty sweet spin on bad news

[thejadedmonkey]

Originally Posted by kskill

that's a pretty sweet spin on bad news

Or a pretty bad spin on sweet news, depending on how you look at it

[cruzrojas]

could that mean that people are waiting for a product transition, ipods and desktops are all overdue, and apple doesn't plan to do any on this quarter? I guess is the iPhone fault.

[Yankees 4 Life]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

Apple's current quarter ends at the end of September 2007. Apple has been rumored to be releasing new iMacs and iPods in August. What's unclear is why Apple expects this product transition to decrease earnings rather than increase earnings.


Article Link

it decreases its earnings because discounts and product turnover decrease your earnings on the balance sheet.

[Peace]

It's quit simple.

Apple has always had a category for iLife revenue..
This money stream is going to dry up because iLife will be integrated into Leopard.The price point for Leopard will remain at $129 however iLife will no longer be considered as separate revenue thus causing revenues to be lower.

That along with potential component costs for new backlit LED iMacs will bring the total profits down.

[Chisholm]

The transition to new iMacs could easily be seen as a problem. If they introduce the new iMacs with a 6 week lead time, that would pretty much be 6 weeks of near zero sales. Its happened several times before.

[jstoller]

I would guess they're referring to the Leopard transition, scheduled to happen in October, which may cause people to put off buying a computer this quarter. That is how a product transition decreases earnings in the short term, though it will likely increase earnings in the following quarter.

[Eric Lewis]

this is good..everything needs to be updated...imacs,macminis,macpro,nanos,ipod,shuffles etc

[swingerofbirch]

I theorize different.


Transition sounds different than new models or upgrades.

I have wondered for some time, and more so with the rumored iPhone nano, whether the iPod line will eventually be phased out in favor of an entire iPhone line.

It doesn't make sense in the short run, but neither did shipping an iMac with only USB ports and no floppy disk drive.

iPOD has always connoted a small digital "pod" for holding things, like a pea pod. iPhone takes the idea of a small pod that holds things and adds communication. To me it seems inevitable that Apple will add communication to small devices moving forward. I think in some ways you could look at the iPhone as the next generation over iPod G5.5. And maybe the next product will be the next generatioon over iPod nano G2.0

But an iPhone shuffle? hehe...... In another thread I made a joke about apple coming out with an iphone shuffle that holds a thousand random phone numbers...the joke didnt go over well there...here? anything?


An interesting way of looking at the market that I just thought of while writing this, is that we have had communication devices for aw hile now (cell phones) which in recent years have been trying to add content (Vcast and all that crap)..Apple on the other hand has made content devices to which they are adding communication functionality. i think apple has a good standing in that way of looking at it, because computers were content devices long before they became communication devices. And the reason they were so useful as communication devices was because of all the content already on computers that was ripe for sharing as the WWW came of age.

[whooleytoo]

Originally Posted by Peace

It's quit simple.

Apple has always had a category for iLife revenue..
This money stream is going to dry up because iLife will be integrated into Leopard.The price point for Leopard will remain at $129 however iLife will no longer be considered as separate revenue thus causing revenues to be lower.

That would be excellent news - though it could significantly sour relations with MS?

Another possibility - it's the iPod -> iPhone transition?

[IJ Reilly]

Originally Posted by Peace

It's quit simple.

Apple has always had a category for iLife revenue..
This money stream is going to dry up because iLife will be integrated into Leopard.The price point for Leopard will remain at $129 however iLife will no longer be considered as separate revenue thus causing revenues to be lower.

That along with potential component costs for new backlit LED iMacs will bring the total profits down.

A nice theory, but I don't think I buy it. The iLife applications have always been included with new Macs but upgrades cost. Are you suggesting that all iLife upgrades from here on will be free for Leopard users?

[psingh01]

Transition means they will cut the Mac Pro model...yep that's it!

[Squonk]

Maybe the product transition is a code word for "fix the problems with the MBP screens and this is going to cost us money to do"?

[shawnce]

What bad news? They expect lower margins because they are going to refresh some products this quarter presumably using the latest chipsets, etc. which will cost them more then what they are currently using (thinking iMac and Mac Pro primarily here, I somewhat expect MacBook and Mac Mini to stay on the prior "generation" for differentiation and price point).

Of course Apple could be mixing up the product matrix more then I currently expect and expect some thrash in the short term as well as having to use new product cases, etc. that raise cost in the short term (lowering margins). I thinking about a possible Mini tower here.

[cbetta]

Uhh, isn't the lower profit not simple an issue of lower margins? If they replace a product with high margin (lets say iPod) with something with low margin (say iPhone-iPod) than they would for now drop in profit. In time, the parts of the new product will cost less which will increase there profit. Apple always tends to work like this.

[smartalic34]

I just don't think Apple will kill off the iPod name. it's too synonymous with mp3 player. no way does Apple get rid of it in favor of iPhone. that brand is popular too, but the company won't undo years of marketing and developing the brand for nothing... they're too smart for that

[oscuh]

Hello, Apple! A transition to a new iMac would be nice. We're waiting!

[Soba]

Originally Posted by Chisholm

The transition to new iMacs could easily be seen as a problem. If they introduce the new iMacs with a 6 week lead time, that would pretty much be 6 weeks of near zero sales. Its happened several times before.

Exactly. Most notably with the introduction of the G5 iMac when they went for 3 months with no iMacs to sell at all and had to post an apology on their web site about their "less than perfect" planning. (The G5 chips were in short supply at the time, for those who don't remember.)

Another part of that transition was the air freight expenses they had to incur to ship the completed systems over to customers from Asia. People had been waiting so long for iMacs and there had to be so many shipped by air, it significantly hurt their earnings.

This "product transition" is most likely the iMacs. We've known for some time that a new model was coming, and it stands to reason that a new design is on its way; the current design is over 3 years old. I don't think there's anything to see here, though I am looking forward to new iMacs - or whatever it turns out to be!

[ortuno2k]

Originally Posted by Peace

It's quit simple.

Apple has always had a category for iLife revenue..
This money stream is going to dry up because iLife will be integrated into Leopard.The price point for Leopard will remain at $129 however iLife will no longer be considered as separate revenue thus causing revenues to be lower.

That along with potential component costs for new backlit LED iMacs will bring the total profits down.

I don't know where you are getting your news from, but where did you find out or read that iLife is going to be part of Leopard? You sound like you KNOW.
There hasn't been any official announcements from Apple, and I'm sure Jobs would have mentioned something about that in June.

[BornAgainMac]

I wish they [Apple] could just post everything they know in here. The roadmap for the next 18 months. Just don't tell anyone.

[Analog Kid]

Originally Posted by Peace

Apple has always had a category for iLife revenue..
This money stream is going to dry up because iLife will be integrated into Leopard.The price point for Leopard will remain at $129 however iLife will no longer be considered as separate revenue thus causing revenues to be lower.

Wow, we can only hope... Jobs had made comments about "everything's included" in the initial Leopard discussion, but didn't reiterate it at the WWDC in-depth preview. Rolling iLife in would certainly buck the current Apple trend of fragmenting their product line into lots of little products each a distinct revenue source.

The iPod family has been an example. Turning the bundled iWork into trial software on new Macs is another.

Maybe iLife has just matured to the point that development will be slowing so bundling it makes more sense.

Originally Posted by jstoller

I would guess they're referring to the Leopard transition, scheduled to happen in October, which may cause people to put off buying a computer this quarter. That is how a product transition decreases earnings in the short term, though it will likely increase earnings in the following quarter.

This was my guess when the story popped up on MacBytes.

[Schtumple]

Be nice if apple litterally all of its mac line up in one fell swoop, it'll never happen i know, but, in an alternate universe, where the iphone didn't put a near freeze on all mac R&D it could...

[cube]

Product Transition == Leopard

[ravenvii]

It's obvious!!!

They're going to transition back to PowerPC!

And the PowerBook G5 will finally come out!!!