Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: Apple's 'Ecosystem Has Never Been Stronger' and Long-Term Health Has 'Never Been Better'

Khedron said:
If Tim really thinks the ecosystem is strong there is truly no hope under him
Click to expand...

I'll be the first to say that I thought Scott Forstall should've been CEO, but my god, the amount of unwarranted vitriol for Tim Cook on this thread is staggering.

Name a better, more cohesive hardware/software ecosystem than Apple's. I'll wait. Good luck.

There are people on this thread who legitimately, with a straight face, believe that Apple is dying. Do you need to be reminded that this is a company that did 84 billion in revenues last quarter alone? For those who need to visualize that a little better, that's $84,000,000,000. In one quarter. Operating costs? About 8.7 billion per quarter. As for profits, well, you do the math.

Are prices a little high? Eh, maybe.
Is the headphone jack an issue? Nah, not for people who live in this decade.
iPhone SE2? I can't imagine why anybody would want that. Really.

If you pay attention to and understand global markets, the slowdown in China makes Apple's slashing of their forecast make all the sense in the world. Our President, for all his faults, is squeezing China very hard. Much harder than they can squeeze us, when it's all said and done. Also, as has been stated ad nauseam, the smartphone market is now in a mature state. Older phones last longer than they did even 5 years ago. Of course people are going to hold onto their phones longer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JRobinsonJr, PotatoLeekSoup, Pierrr and 2 others
ArtOfWarfare said:
I think Apple's secrecy is greatly overstated. When was the last time Apple had a major product for which we didn't have major leaks?

The original iPhone is the only one I can think of, and that was 12 years ago.

... that's crazy to think about how old the iPhone is at this point...
Click to expand...

We are looking for "the next iPhone"...

I'd say they probably are working on something completely new and possibly great, but it's impossible to tell.
 
Their high price strategy destroyed so much!

Apple is no longer “cool”, it was pushed in a direction like Bentley or Ferrari, what are cool brands in their segment, but they are not something the mass market has on it’s radar.

Apple has become unreachable for most customers now, so they simply forget about the brand, it is not part of their reality anymore.

Like in Apples past, where the Macs were something for professional use, and the private households took ibm or whatever ran windows, because as simple as it is, they could pay it!

Apple needs a midprice phone badly, something below 500 dollars. Otherwise their sales will go down every year, because brands like Huawai or Xiaomi offer excellent build quality for 200-500 dollars, their only disadvantage is the Android OS. But nobody pays 500+ dollars for iOS only. Nobody did that for macOS...
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel, VMMan, Mr Todhunter and 1 other person
bigchief said:
The year after year higher premium prices for their phones are starting to slow down their sales. I love their products but the majority of the people cannot or just will not upgrade every year or even every other year. My iPhone x is still like a new phone and I have no intention of buying a new one any time soon.
Click to expand...
Yes, but just the fact that you bought it in the first place supported these crazy prices.
I'm still rocking iPhone 6 and even though I could do with and upgrade I'm not willing to spend that much money. I wish majority would be like me so Apple can get reality check and reduce the prices. :)
 
I guess Apple is paying for Tim's continued puffery even though he knew sales were way behind expectations.

"Apple's New iPhone XR Has Been the Most Popular and Best Selling iPhone Since October Launch" proclaimed the headline on MR at the end of November. Nothing to see here, move along. There was no reason for Apple to put out the related press release other than to try to defend itself against the rumors of production cuts. The implication certainly was "look at the results from the X last year when the naysayers were saying it wasn't living up to expectations, this year will be even better". Turns out to be very misleading and I think it has cost Tim and the other executives at Apple quite a bit of credibility. In that case Apple would have been better off in the long run to have said nothing.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel
jerryk said:
Sort of. The problem that investors see with Apple is what is next?

Right now they are largely a one product company. And with the competition creating products that are "good enough" and the price of iPhones getting more and more beyond the reach of customer the big market of Asia and India (2.7 billion people), investor have been worried that Apple would trip and fall, and it did last quarter. So to investors this triggers the thought that Apple does not have a second act.

As a result you see inflows of money to the competition, like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Microsoft makes most of their money on subscription based sales. Office365, Azure, etc. Which bring in steady revenue month after month and are more tied to corporations than consumers. Amazon is everywhere with a lot of irons in the fire and a steady stream of income from AWS and product sales. Google has it's ad revenue, which also makes it vulnerable to a short fall in advertising spending.

I say this as someone who has significant money in tech companies (including Apple and Microsoft), but is reducing their exposure by switching to cash equivalents and other core equities.
Click to expand...
Wow, you’re really hitting points no one has ever observed before. You’re just regurgitating what you’ve read and I already have seen it.

Amazon also trades at 100X earnings and it dropped 30% on no news when the markets struggled.

Everyone knows subscription revenue is less cyclical and investors are willing to pay more for those earnings. Apple is growing that business by 25% and is still 3X more profitable overall than Microsoft.

As Apple dropped 30%, so did Google. Markets have been tough the last 90 days...don’t start think you have all the answers just because stocks have dropped some and it fits your narrative. Apple still has insane numbers. You really think it’s $500B different than it was 3 months ago? Apple is flush with cash, is buying back shares, and has a growing business in practically ever market except a China AND every non iPhone business including in China.

I’m disappointed in the iPhone execution in China and a couple emerging markets, but people are acting like the entire strategy is doomed and nothing is working because of that one market. Apple is just dealing with the perils of being so enormous and subject to a worldwide economy. They are also a victim of their own success. Doing $88.1B last Q1 just means investors wanted growth. So did I, but a 90 day clock makes it tough to jam more and more sales into the same window. $84B is still $84B. If the stock is worth $500B less because of that, I’m buying more (which I am). You can buy MSFT at 35X earnings and AMZN at 100x. I own both, but Apple is far more appealing to me.
 
Last edited:
Rogifan said:
Cook needs to stop talking, or at least stop being so defensive. Also if any part of Apple is under appreciated whose fault is that? The executive team that’s whose.

Everyone is now obsessed with turning Apple into a services company. That’s not the company’s DNA and I’m not convinced becoming a Microsoft or Adobe is going to be successful for Apple. I do think the company made a mistake in increasing prices to offset slower unit sales growth but I think doing a fast pivot to services, services, services is a mistake too. One the current services offerings aren’t good enough and two, if someone can get said services on someone else’s hardware for a cheaper price what incentive is there to buy Apple hardware? There’s no way services can completely make up for fewer hardware sales. Netflix has over 137M subscribers yet is barely profitable. The bulk of Amazon’s profit comes from AWS not their video streaming service. And right now the bulk of Apple’s services revenue comes from the company’s cut of IAP. In other words the bulk of service revenues are tied to iPhone.

Honestly I’d like to see Apple move faster in the ‘other’ category. They should have stayed in the router business. They should be in the stand alone display business. Heck maybe even get in the TV business or buy Vizio. There should be a cheaper companion to HomePod. Keep pulling the string on health and wearables. Apple is a product company. If it turns into a software services company it will never have the same caché or people willing to pay a premium for its products.
Click to expand...

Agree with much of this but we were shouted down and told Tim knows best. What he did was the classic MBA textbook move and shutter everything that wasn’t making x amount of dollars. But lots of that stuff (photo books, routers, displays etc) kept the magic in the brand between refresh cycles. Now it looks skinny and desperate and too many people are starting to see through it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RandomDSdevel, JRobinsonJr, MultiMan and 5 others
sdwaltz said:
I'll be the first to say that I thought Scott Forstall should've been CEO, but my god, the amount of unwarranted vitriol for Tim Cook on this thread is staggering.

Name a better, more cohesive hardware/software ecosystem than Apple's. I'll wait. Good luck.

There are people on this thread who legitimately, with a straight face, believe that Apple is dying. Do you need to be reminded that this is a company that did 84 billion in revenues last quarter alone? For those who need to visualize that a little better, that's $84,000,000,000. In one quarter. Operating costs? About 8.7 billion per quarter. As for profits, well, you do the math.

Are prices a little high? Eh, maybe.
Is the headphone jack an issue? Nah, not for people who live in this decade.
iPhone SE2? I can't imagine why anybody would want that. Really.

If you pay attention to and understand global markets, the slowdown in China makes Apple's slashing of their forecast make all the sense in the world. Our President, for all his faults, is squeezing China very hard. Much harder than they can squeeze us, when it's all said and done. Also, as has been stated ad nauseam, the smartphone market is now in a mature state. Older phones last longer than they did even 5 years ago. Of course people are going to hold onto their phones longer.
Click to expand...

Need you be reminded NONE of that matters and Apples share price has tanked 36% in 2 months and will take several more to regain, if it does.
 
I have no problem with the prices or the recent decline in device sales. I think the prices are right for the value provided (in components, in ongoing support, and R&D). I don’t think people need a new phone every year, or even every two.

I do think interviews like this come off as desperate. If they’d done nothing I’d have more confidence.
 
M2C : He's generally right. The ecosystem is pretty good. Not perfect, but better than the alternatives. They are certainly behind on Siri and her future application, along with smart home. But the big pull on Apple here are the super premium prices. Everyone here has pointed that out. But I think everyone on this board would pay a "premium" for Apple stuff…but not this stupid high premium. It's just too much. They got away with it for a long while, but the apple sparkle has finally worn off. That's okay. It happens. But Cook needs to cut prices across the board by 15% at least.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rbrian and 09872738
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back