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Apple Posts 4Q 2008 Earnings Results

- Q: Tablet and touchscreens? When you look at tablet computing, does that get to be a more attractive opportunity? A: I think we have such creative people that are looking at a lot of things, but can't talk about products we're working on.
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Hmm, at the notebook keynote he made it seem like they were not working on touch. However, considering the above - I may still hold out hope at macworld.
 
Apple could buy Dell...

... and give the money back to the shareholders!

It's true. Dell market caps = $24.66bn. Apple cash is about $25 bn. But somehow I don't think that was what Steve Jobs was thinking about when he was talking about "market opportunities".

IJ Reilly said:
So am I. Some appear to believe that Apple's motive for refusing to enter the low end of the market is somehow vaguely sinister, or just plain dumb. Like any other company, they'll be in any market where they feel they can make money.
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Gateway used to sell about as many computers as Apple (Ok, that was a year ago or two). But they only made a dollar per computer sold in profit in a good quarter; in a bad quarter they lost a dollar per sale. Apple could have bought that company for $700 million and doubled its computer unit sales and market share. Just glad they didn't.
 
Bob Fraggle said:
Which part do you disagree with in particular? I only ask because I see much of what you said in the same way as you. While I like the Mini, it always kind of struck me as somewhat of an oddball in Apple's product line. For what it is and it's price, it's a great piece of bait for the switchers but it just never seemed to fit into the grand scheme of Apple's business. That is, exactly what you said about the higher pricing model with higher margins.
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There is a thread for the mini, that may say it is dead once and for all....
 
Bob Fraggle said:
Which part do you disagree with in particular? I only ask because I see much of what you said in the same way as you. While I like the Mini, it always kind of struck me as somewhat of an oddball in Apple's product line. For what it is and it's price, it's a great piece of bait for the switchers but it just never seemed to fit into the grand scheme of Apple's business. That is, exactly what you said about the higher pricing model with higher margins.
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My bad, I read your post incorrectly.
 
This reinforces my several posts that Apple is targeting price points and general device classes and simply ramping capabilities into those product categories as margins become practical. I see no change going forward. He also really downplayed the possibility of an iPhone slightly larger (ATNN), my fave. Of course there was no discussion of a more upgradable Mini or better, a super cube. Keep those wet dreams alive gents. Don't whip out the credit card.

Rocketman
 
shervieux said:
Hmm, at the notebook keynote he made it seem like they were not working on touch. However, considering the above - I may still hold out hope at macworld.
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Mac Tablets in January! The Rev has spoken!!!

Any chance Steve will come down from the mountain with 2 tablets????
 
Bob Fraggle said:
Which part do you disagree with in particular? I only ask because I see much of what you said in the same way as you. While I like the Mini, it always kind of struck me as somewhat of an oddball in Apple's product line. For what it is and it's price, it's a great piece of bait for the switchers but it just never seemed to fit into the grand scheme of Apple's business. That is, exactly what you said about the higher pricing model with higher margins.
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If a customer goes to the Apple Store to buy a Mac Mini, and leaves with an iMac, that's not bad for Apple at all. And there is a market for it. My seven year old Quicksilver will die one day. What do you think will replace it? Lots of Macs are handed down when a new one is bought; when these old Macs eventually break down they have to be replaced.
 
TwinCities Dan said:
Exactly! And to tell you the truth, I'm ok with that.
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So am I. Some appear to believe that Apple's motive for refusing to enter the low end of the market is somehow vaguely sinister, or just plain dumb. Like any other company, they'll be in any market where they feel they can make money.
 
Headline from "Barron's Online"

"Apple Stock Rises 12% Despite Q4 Revenue Miss, Lower-Than-Expected Forecast"

Is there a variant of the "Reality Distortion Field" at work? :mad:
 
I'm glad my one-person protest of withholding my iPhone purchase until Rogers offers pre-paid voice on iPhones in Canada reduced Steve's reverie to a more sombre "giggling with glee" level. Next stop: make Ted Rogers lose 5 seconds of sleep from being racked with a vague sense of guilt and loss.
 
j26 said:
Not to be stupid, but with figures like that, why has Apple not paid a dividend since 1995?

There's a huge war chest, with plenty of money for R & D and such like, so surely it's time to give shareholders some return.

(I'm not a shareholder, btw, so I've no axe to grind)
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I'l honestly sell my Apple stock the day they pay out a dividend, that is the day they become a Microsoft and stop innovating. Apple needs this cash to buy into markets, maybe a music publisher, movie distributor, Yahoo, TV network, etc.

Dell has currently market cap of about 25 billion and going down, think about all the company's they can buy with there cash. 25 billion is a load of cash, this economic downturn is a golden opportunity for Apple.
 
gnasher729 said:
"Apple Stock Rises 12% Despite Q4 Revenue Miss, Lower-Than-Expected Forecast"

Is there a variant of the "Reality Distortion Field" at work? :mad:
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I swear my local media hates Apple. They always spin the news into some negative headline. Remember when the iPhone price dropped by $200, and then Apple decided to offer everyone a $100 credit? The credit could be used for anything in the Apple store except for iTunes (or something like that). So the next day it was in the paper, and what do you think the headline was? "Apple offers $100 credit to early adopters"? No, that would be too positive. They ran with the headline: "Apple not allowing iTunes purchases with store credit"!
 
Bonte said:
I'l honestly sell my Apple stock the day they pay out a dividend, that is the day they become a Microsoft and stop innovating. Apple needs this cash to buy into markets, maybe a music publisher, movie distributor, Yahoo, TV network, etc.

Dell has currently market cap of about 25 billion and going down, think about all the company's they can buy with there cash. 25 billion is a load of cash, this economic downturn is a golden opportunity for Apple.
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You go ahead and do that, then. Apple should offer a dividend, and the sooner the better. Sitting on a huge and growing pile of unused cash is not good business; in fact, it's probably the most unsettling aspect of Apple's current business practices. Not only is this amount of cash completely unnecessary for acquisitions, an acquisition of the magnitude which this amount of money could theoretically support would likely be a disaster for Apple. You want to see AAPL coming really crashing down? The watch what happens if they announced a major takeover.
 
IJ Reilly said:
You go ahead and do that, then. Apple should offer a dividend, and the sooner the better. Sitting on a huge and growing pile of unused cash is not good business; in fact, it's probably the most unsettling aspect of Apple's current business practices. Not only is this amount of cash completely unnecessary for acquisitions, an acquisition of the magnitude which this amount of money could theoretically support would likely be a disaster for Apple. You want to see AAPL coming really crashing down? The watch what happens if they announced a major takeover.
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I agree, can you say cisco when it decided to go on a huge spending spree and buy up all the little companies out there, when they had some cash left over back in the early 2000's.(if I remember correctly).
 
Bob Fraggle said:
Which part do you disagree with in particular? I only ask because I see much of what you said in the same way as you. While I like the Mini, it always kind of struck me as somewhat of an oddball in Apple's product line. For what it is and it's price, it's a great piece of bait for the switchers but it just never seemed to fit into the grand scheme of Apple's business. That is, exactly what you said about the higher pricing model with higher margins.
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I agree that Apple definitely cuts a huge ratio of margin for itself...... thats about to change and the changewave has already begun!

The new MB/P for instance.... LED Backlit display and a laserjet precision aluminum unibody construction does indeed cost a lot! Probably why they had to chose a lesser powerful than previous processor in the low end Al MB!

The new iPods.... take the nano - a 4GB version was intended! Why? Simply because though Flash is getting cheap... it isnt enough cheap that Apple uses 16GB with the new nanos.... but they still did.....

The iPod Touch.... an out of order $229 price makes one wonder if Apple is taking extreme measures by cutting out its margins!

---

In all I believe the iPhone (unsubsidized), iMac and the higher end Mac Pros to be the only ones with high margins! Makes one wonder if Apple is finally heading for international growth!
 
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