Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls AirPods 'A Runaway Success,' Says 'It's Been a Great Holiday'

[friedmud]

I will never understand a product that only works (fits) in about 50% of the consumer base's ears.

Glad you did a scientific study to come up with your perfect 50% number.

Based on the huge percentage of earbud users I see using EarPods I have to believe your number is way off.

Could it be that, gasp!, Apple actually did the extensive studies you _didn't_ and came up with a shape that fits the vast majority of people well?

Nah. I'm sure they just threw darts at a dartboard to pick the shape...

 

[GFF]

These things are dangerous, the signal from airpod to airpod - travels directly through the brain. No thanks

Cook wants to literally "cook" your brains.

The signals go from iphon to each AirPod separately - not between buds. Also, if this concerns you, you may not want to carry your cell phone in your pocket, as their is evidence of adverse effects. You can find white papers on the matter.

 

[Lappen71]

I am a highly intelligent individual

Highly doubtful.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Reviews nowadays are plain silly, I get free product ONLY if I review them 3+ stars on Amazon..... and that is for Amazon stuff, how do you think big company handle pre release stuff? Do you really think they let people "test and report" on site and youtube without asking for "protection?"
How many people do you really think are 100% sincere??

If that's the case, then Apple is not doing a good job with their protection requests. Lots of prerelease stuff from Apple have gotten flak from at least few developers over the past decade.
Also the product has already been released. There's no way of protecting them from bad reviews. If anything, most people tend to review things if they don't like it.

 

[iShater]

I have the AirPods. I like them. Definitely don't love them. I have a feeling as people start traveling on planes with them love affairs will stifle.

Can you imagine dropping one of them on a plane?

 

[Ghost31]

The iPhone has a pretty bad display to phone size ratio. It's huge for the size of the display. That's the main thing really, for me anyway.

There's a new phone that's totally bezel free that is dead sexy I wish apple would copy. Forget what it's called. Some foreign brand that isn't popular

 

[Lappen71]

There's a new phone that's totally bezel free that is dead sexy I wish apple would copy. Forget what it's called. Some foreign brand that isn't popular

Cant be very interesting if you forgot the brand.

 

[Denoloco]

Just got a message from an APR that they are being delivered to my place. Yay, Apple Store still showing 6 weeks

 

[nwcs]

Tim doesn't have a finger print on products. However, he has to buy all the parts and set up all the manufacturing processes for the parts to be made so that the highly custom hardware hardware and software Apple produces can be made and shipped out to customers in record time but Tim knows nothing of the engineering.... Do you hear how stupid that sounds?

Steve Jobs was the face of Apple but its likely that Tim Cook was the brains of the operation. Tim probably knows more about what goes into making Apple products than Steve Jobs ever did...because he has to in order to do his job effectively.

People believe the sales guy knew more about the engineering in the product than the guy to was tasked with actually getting all the parts and putting them altogether to form a cohesive product. Steve Jobs picked Tim Cook for a reason. Steve Jobs knew that Tim could handle the job of CEO of Apple better than anyone else currently working at Apple.

Tim buys all the parts? Please. He has people under him to buy the parts. But even if he personally signed off on all parts he's not an engineer by trade or hobby. He managed supply chains. You talk as if he's personally doing all these things when most assuredly he is not. Do you even know what most CEOs do for their day job? I do because I've been in the working world for quite a few years. Let's just say it's more about relationships and ways to lead/generate sales. It's not in day to day operations. They hire people for that.

Cook was the brains of the operation? You assert this as fact but have no basis to declare it to be fact. Certainly he oversaw supply chain information but the brains? Come on, that's too much of a stretch. Steve's background was in engineering as a hobby. He understood it. Cook doesn't.

I'm not one of those people who say Cook must go but I'm also not one of those people who say he's been unquestionably brilliant. What is clear is that Apple's focus has been shifting and we're not sure how it will pan out. But I haven't seen much that indicates they're doing anything risky or insanely great to meet the needs of the consumer but rather finding things that incrementally make things a bit better.

 

[cableguy84]

Highly doubtful.

Highly probable

 

[Lappen71]

Highly probable

Your replies contradict your claim.

 

[Naaaaak]

Not such a great holiday for the Mac.

 

[Carnegie]

And that's exactly where they belong, and will stay, in the accessory category. They're just wireless earphones after all.


"PR speak is one thing, but we'll see just how well the quarter went at the next call."

I'd say it's looking pretty good. Last September when Apple released their Q4 2016 report, revenue for the quarter was stated at $46.9 billion. What's interesting though, along with that report, Apple provided revenue guidance for the following Q1 2017 quarter of between $76 billion and $78 billion, a huge increase. Apple has always been very conservative on guidance so I suspect it will be somewhere around there.

Guess that can be attributed to holding back supply of Apple products to stimulate demand, right?

I expect a fairly strong holiday quarter as well. But we should put the huge (expected) increase that you refer to (i.e. between FY2016 Q4 and FY2017 Q1) in perspective. Apple always sees huge revenue increases between Q4 and Q1.

Over the last 5 years the average QoQ revenue increase for the holiday quarter has been almost 59%. And this year the compare will be between a 13-week Q4 and a 14-week Q1. Because of the way Apple times its fiscal quarters (i.e. they are normally 13-weeks rather than 3-months long), every 5 years or so they have an extra week in one of their quarters. That last happened in Q1 2012, it is happening again this quarter.

Considering those things, a revenue increase of of 62-66% (based on their guidance) is more or less in line with what they normally see in the holiday quarter. It would be better than what they saw for the last holiday quarter (47%), even taking into account the extra week, but considerably below what they saw for the previous holiday quarter (77%).

As for their being conservative with guidance, that's still true to some extent. But it's not true to nearly the extent it used to be. For the last four years they've been guiding to a range rather than to a single revenue number. Since they've been doing that they've typically been in or pretty near the guided range. Occasionally they beat their guided range by a large amount (e.g. in Q1 2015 when the iPhone 6 enjoyed tremendous success), but those occasions are outliers now rather then the norm. I wouldn't expect them to be too far above their guided range this quarter. (As an AAPL shareholder, I hope they do - I just don't expect them to.)

And, yeah, AirPod sales numbers won't be broken out in their upcoming report. They only do that for major product lines. I suppose at some point Apple might issue a press release with some kind of numbers for them, but I wouldn't expect that either - regardless of how well or how poorly they sell. At any rate, Mr. Cook would not give such numbers (for the first time) in the forum he spoke in yesterday.

 

[nmarello2976]

I love my Airpods. I'm only wondering why we are not talking about how dumb they look when you are wearing them. Looks like I have q-tips sticking out of my ears. I wold post a pic but is don't want to become an internet meme.

 

[chriscrowlee]

Can you imagine dropping one of them on a plane?

Yeah quite easily since they are a bit slippery in and out of the case. Not so worried about dropping and losing them as much as dropping it on the floor and catching a std from it. Haha

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Except for visible light, emitted from the sun, or infrared, emitted from literally everything that is not at 0K, cosmic microwave radiation, and indeed some dangerous types of electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet and X-Rays from the sun, gamma radiation from natural isotope decay which happen to be orders of magnitude more energetic than visible light instead of orders of magnitude LESS energetic than visible light like frequencies used for WiFi/Bluetooth/3G/GPS are...

But yeah sure maybe there's somehow a damaging effect of non-ionising radiation that somehow isn't shown with all the naturally occurring radiation (which is identical) that uses an unknown mechanism completely different than the dangerous ionising radiation that somehow eluded both doctors and actual patients as while cell phone use skyrocketed in the last decades the number of patients hasn't.

Yes, the things you list have existed all along and we have therefore evolved with their presence. I don't think that cavemen lived next to cell phone towers.

 

[RedOrchestra]

Not so worried about dropping and losing them as much as dropping it on the floor and catching a std from it.

I actually think you believe that.

 

[rysmtihaz]

Can you imagine dropping one of them on a plane?

I've mountain biked, run and traveled on a plan with them. Not a single drop yet. (knock on wood)

 

[ipedro]

here we go, I am sorry to say but you are so wrong !

Mac Rumors IS NOT iPhone rumors.

just because mercedes, ferrari, tesla and all the other manufacturer sell 1/10 of FORD it doesn't mean people are not interested in luxury vehicles and manufacturers can screw up.

it's actually the other way around. The press doesn't talk about the toyota corolla much but talk about bugatti, tesla, lamborghini, mercedes, BMW etc. 24/7

also the majority of people with a phone also own computers for work and/or home, they may not replace them as much but they do

Count the amount of articles here about iPhone and those about the Mac. Yep. This website is in fact iPhone Rumors. It just hasn't changed the name. The site adapted to the new Apple reality but you haven't. Tough luck. The world will continue to turn whether you like it to or not.

 

[chriscrowlee]

I actually think you believe that.

Naw. But there are some nasty things on airplane floors.

 

[BlargKing]

The fact is that long term exposure to all these EM waves (WiFi, cell phone towers, bluetooth, etc.) is not known, or, as in the case of cigarettes, is intentionally suppressed by industry. Humans evolved over millions of years without exposure to these things, and now within a relatively short time period we are heavily exposed to them. To simply assume that it's okay is not realistic.

Humans have been using and been exposed to man-made RF radiation for near a century now, with several generations born under exposure to radio, without a single issue ever being attributed to RF.

Grade school physics will teach you that radio waves are on the complete opposite side of the light spectrum from harmful radiation. Radio waves cannot cause harm at a fundamental level. The effects of RF exposure to humans are extremely well known, and it has never been sufficiently linked to causing any harm.

Finally, humans didn't evolve over millions of years without exposure to radio. Our sun, other stars, heck our galaxy itself are all big sources of radio energy that hit earth all the time. Its how radio telescopes work. So really, we have millennia of exposure to radio sources to show us that it doesn't do anything.

 

[JGRE]

I am a highly intelligent individual

And you also so modest.....haha

 

[Solomani]

I'll consider buying the AirPods when the price drops to the mortal realm, and they get rid of the long protruding neck.

 

[Stjuls]

He has no support or options other than to try to hold out until the next major release.

He has the option to buy a solid phone, like Honor 8 or Huawei Mate 9.

 

[44267547]

Evidence? Just listen to any of his interviews, stage speeches or anything he posts online. Everything is always great, perfect, best, revolutionary etc. He'd never admit that anything is wrong. Listening to him makes no more sense because he is so heavily biased.

Products Apple is releasing are his responsibility. He as a CEO decides the direction the company is taking. With Jobs it was product first, With Cook it is profit first. This can work for a short-term, but will ultimately piss too many loyal customers and sooner or later somebody starts to build much better products and there will be no reason to go back.

Competition is going speeding up while Apple is slowing down.

First, you didn't answer my questions I asked you about what products Cook had his hands on, which you were quoted.

Second, of course the CEO of a 42 billion dollar company is going to be optimistic and reflect a positive light on Apple. What would you expect Cook to say, "We are doomed" or "I wish Steve were here" or any other of the trite nonsense comments spread on this site. Let's not have any false modesty here.

How would you handle Cook speaking during Keynotes, earning calls or what very little media press invites he participates in? Like you would treat the situation any different. And you mentioned Cook is a "PR Whore." That's an inflammatory opinion and if anything, Cook is fairly private and he himself, even admitted he values his privacy. I don't think you have much of an arguement here.

Cook is different than Jobs, yes. But no one and I mean no one can speak for what Jobs would, should or could have done if he were still here today. Not even you.