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By every measure one would measure the success of a company, Apple isn't floundering now. To me, it doesn't "show" as you put it.
I didn’t say they were floundering, I said they aren’t great. Their technology is just becoming kind of boring.
 
No I’m not saying that Apple is doomed. They have so much capital they will be around for a long time still. I’m saying that Apple needs to get back to what really makes Apple Apple.
Actually, you did. You expressed your “concern” that Apple under Cook wasn’t as smart or in tune with technology as Jobs was, and closed out with
That will cause their ultimate demise.
 
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Well you may be right.

However, services growth was 31% or something YOY (Year over year for same quarter), so let's say it was 30% growth for 6 years, how much revenue would it be then? It would be big! Still not the same as iPhone revenues perhaps, but the point is that services revenue is growing fast! Tim Cook said that by 2020, services revenue would be double what it was in 2016. It's growing FASTER than that! Wow! 9+ Billion dollars from "services". Compare to other companies revenues, and compare to other companies revenue growth. Wow again!

Services are growing fast but are also starting from a very low base. We'll also have to see how profitable that revenue can be - for their home-grown services it can be very profitable, however services with high cost outlay like the Music business the profit is much lower. Also, ultimately the growth in service revenue has to track their iPhone sales, and with those flat there will be an inherit cap on how big their service business can get unless they really branch in a bunch of different directions.
 
Actually, you did. You expressed your “concern” that Apple under Cook wasn’t as smart or in tune with technology as Jobs was, and closed out with
Yes if they follow the same track they are on I think they will eventually become irrelevant like a lot of companies do after they hit their technological peak and I think Apple has hit theirs. Don’t get me wrong I love Apple products, I’ve bought lots of them over the years but I don’t like where Apple is headed.
 
Yes if they follow the same track they are on I think they will eventually become irrelevant like a lot of companies do after they hit their technological peak and I think Apple has hit theirs. Don’t get me wrong I love Apple products, I’ve bought lots of them over the years but I don’t like where Apple is headed.
I’m sure Apple appreciates your “concern”.
 
Yes if they follow the same track they are on I think they will eventually become irrelevant like a lot of companies do after they hit their technological peak and I think Apple has hit theirs. Don’t get me wrong I love Apple products, I’ve bought lots of them over the years but I don’t like where Apple is headed.
Having an opinion of not liking where the company is headed, does not necessarily mean that the opinion of Apple becoming irrelevant will follow. You're right though, it could happen. Anything can happen.
 
Well. $999 phones generate a lot of profits. Who would have guessed? At this point, Apple can mark up all of their products and people will still eat that up. I’m not saying that it’s evil or anything. They do business afterall. But it’s getting harder and harder to justify buying an iPhone or a Mac.
 
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Bad products sell all the time: Windows Vista, Ford Pinto, cigarettes

WTF point is that, those products were major disasters that damaged their companies' reputation for a decade (except cigs which were addictive so people could not quit even if they knew it was bad... so heh).
So, take those fracking false equivalence and shove it. Try harder. Make an honest argument next time.
 
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Yes if they follow the same track they are on I think they will eventually become irrelevant like a lot of companies do after they hit their technological peak and I think Apple has hit theirs. Don’t get me wrong I love Apple products, I’ve bought lots of them over the years but I don’t like where Apple is headed.


The track they are on will lead to becoming irrelevant you say?

I disagree. I mean Apple is nearly a Trillion Dollar market cap company now, with Double Digit Growth all over the place.
Billions of dollars. Tens of thousands of employees. The biggest or nearly biggest global brand.

Blackberry is nearly irrelevant it could be argued. But Apple? It's the biggest and the best. Maybe they are not moving fast enough for you, but hey - they changed the world in 10 years with the iPhone, that's quite the opposite of becoming irrelevant I'd say.
 
No I’m not saying that Apple is doomed. They have so much capital they will be around for a long time still. I’m saying that Apple needs to get back to what really makes Apple Apple.

What makes Apple Apple is improving the user experience/life, not crapping out techie oriented "dreamboats".
Considering people still seem to be buying their products even in a down market, they should do nothing like you suggest at all.
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Maybe Apple does know what they're doing after all. Yeah... #dongles :p

Except it's not dongles, but Airpods, Watch, Homepod, etc. Yeah, they know what they are doing.
 
Apple and Huawei are both Chinese made phones with comparable build quality but Huawei has higher battery capacity and better value. So, not surprised that Huawei surpassed Apple.
 
Look at the Mac revenue, it hasn't grown in 6 years.

That does look to be correct - the graph is pretty tight, so a few thousand million here or there is easy to miss :)

But yeah. Take a look at the iPad revenue graph - it sorta peaked out in 2013. It was the "age of the iPad" I guess. Today in 2018, they still sell a ton of Mac's and iPads- but it does look like Mac revenues are not growing, and probably it could be said that they are not growing exponentially! Maybe it means global "home computer" sales have been declining or maybe it means something else.
 
Look at the Mac revenue, it hasn't grown in 6 years.
Since Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, sales of desktops and laptops have been in a rather steep decline. The Mac isn’t immune, but luckily Apple has iPad. It sells about twice as many units as Mac. (Apple’s never been afraid to cannibalize their own products; iPhone pretty much killed iPod.)


2010:
157 million desktops
201 million laptops
358 million total

2017:
98 million desktops
162 million laptops
260 million total


The market overall has shrunk by about 27%, though laptops haven’t been hit as hard as desktops. Since Apple’s sales have been relatively steady, they’ve gained market share vs. PCs. Figuratively, they’ve got a bigger piece of a smaller pie.
 
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Looks like a record for the third quarter, correct? Even with the Mac sales down. People wonder why they neglect the Mac, and here is your answer. Of course people would buy more if they updated it regularly, so it's mostly their fault.

I don't think so. My last iMac lasted almost 10 years. It went through 2 major updates and I ended up with the new iMac Pro. I expect to get 10 years out of it as well.
 
Apple's growth in Services seems to be really propping them up at the moment, everything else is either pretty flat or somewhat down.
 
I don't think so. My last iMac lasted almost 10 years. It went through 2 major updates and I ended up with the new iMac Pro. I expect to get 10 years out of it as well.

There is something going on with that for sure.

I had a c2015 or something MacBook Pro, then I got the first MPB with the touchscreen in 2016, and I just received my 2018 MPB. And actually I still miss the 2015 machine, and I dunno how much slower it is or whatever - really it doesn't matter much.

I used to do more video editing and stuff, but I am getting older and am not so much "on the edge of the latest" computing technology. It's mostly reading web pages. So maybe I do not even need a powerful computer. I just get the latest, because.

I thought Moore's Law was supposed to make it an obvious choice to upgrade often, but lots of people have old stuff that works just fine. These new machines without MagSafe and without SD ports and with these bad keyboard sounds and bad keyboard feeling - it's like - "what? - I paid for this "improvement"?" (pardon the bad punctuation)
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Apple's growth in Services seems to be really propping them up at the moment, everything else is either pretty flat or somewhat down.

No - how can you say that! Jeez!
 
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These figures will never cease to amaze me.

Indeed! I'm still at a loss what Cook means by Apple trying to 'cash neutral' ... is that the AAA+ loans and debt vehicles still being employed to cease being used in the future by Apple?

Stats are phenomenal!

What happened to all the "iPhone X is a failure."?

I had the iPhone X recently for 14 days, purchased at full retail $17xx CAN (after tax). I loved the screen, notch never was an issue for me. Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations: Apple Pay using FaceID was TOO slow compared to TouchID (even using Accessibility> Reduce Motion). This takes getting used to to double press Sleep/Wake Button then place your face in front of the phone before tapping to pay. Next, I felt the UI animations where purposely limited (slow) for a phone of this amazing technology!! That erked me because the same chipset used in the 8 is lightning fast! I know iOS 12 will bring great improvements ... but paying that amount of my hard-earned cash and waiting until October was not enough. Lastly, a great time out with my love ... the pictures at night was not clear as I've seen with the '8' and I'm not much of a shutter bug to understand why Portrait is so slow to use and save.

I'm use to using a case, even with AppleCare+ but I think that'll change going forward given examples of how I've dropped my phone in the past. DBrand or a similar skin will help with minor scuffles I've endured on past models. The X deserves to be naked, save the screen protector (front/rear).

That's quite a dip in Mac sales. Hope to see some really good numbers in the 4Q 2018 and an even better 1Q 2019 with the rumoured updates for the remaining Mac lineup.

Apple has for too long neglected the Mac.

iMac is the ONLY model that's really received some love every year .. the 2016-2018 MBPs is a great refreshing design and only the current mid-2018 tb_MBP got a decent refresh; which will be reflected in Q4 sales. The MacMini and Mac Pro are BOTH in desperate need of being updated with modern chips/chipset and overall design!

Worse ... is that iPad revenue is almost equal to the Mac revenue. Should iPad revenue and sales continue to increase over the Mac and get close to performance ... then Apple maybe compelled to combine both OS' or maybe even change it's focus to replace the Mac. You all remember 'The Apple Navigator' right? It's basically an iPad + Siri.
 
I don't think so. My last iMac lasted almost 10 years. It went through 2 major updates and I ended up with the new iMac Pro. I expect to get 10 years out of it as well.
Of course, because clearly users who upgrade their computers every 10 years are the super common majority. You’ve figured it out!
 
Apple Pay is launching in Germany later this year.

This is going to be big and very welcome. Will we see the chancellor finally give up that BB10 device? ;)

Cook says AirPods remind him of early days of iPod, when he saw white earbuds everywhere he went.

I have purchased 2 pairs of AirPods this month. I can honestly say that despite my initial (non-purchased) assumption it was all hype .. it’s delivering on its ‘magical’ perception that Apple was known for in all their products. I’m a believer.

B&O Beoplay E8’s really and royally let me down as: a product, a brand, customer service, product return and replacement time over a month. This with their depot for N. America is in the USA and I’m in Canada. This affected my intended purchase for their M5 speaker … instead I’ll be buying Apple HomePod to complete my Apple ecosystem experience or reality distortion field affect. ;)

Apple now has over 300 million paid subscribers.

Is this totalling subscribers from Apple Music, iTunes Match, iCloud storage, iTunes Music/TV/Movie rentals?
In the future will we see:
Hosted OSX VM's offered as SaaS in a sense?
combine this for iPad users with no Mac's to use resources?
Xcode and Swift evolve to Saas entirely?

Apple's Wearables Revenue exceeded $10 billion over the last four quarters. This primarily includes Apple Watch, AirPods, Beats. 60% growth year-over-year. Apple Watch had a record June quarter, with growth in the mid-40-percent range.

Apple’s Wearables will continue to grow and eventually evolve to replacing the 60% revenue base in the next 7-10 years. I personally see, initially, new Watch models, new high end product lineup of Beats and upper end Apple branded over-ear headphones! AirPods to get sweat and splash resistance just before Christmas this year (being the perfect stocking stuffer in which demand exceeds supply). Eventually the Apple Watch will become extremely powerful and self containing (not unlike iPhone that received ‘cutting-the-cord’) … eventually, considering the HUGE AR push, will be interfaced with Glasses … and over a period of at least 5yrs after introduction will eventually replace the iPhone as the mid to top their communications device from Apple. The iPhone will remain though.

It was never about that for us. It was about doing something great for the user. I think if you treat the user and customer well, you have a great business over time.

honestly, the core of Apple.
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If 10% of sales are Macs, isn't it time to trim the price on them? Doing so would boost sales, market share and overall revenues. Computers aren't going away, and tablets will never fully replace them - not for another 10-20 years, anyway.


Hmm.

Many of Glencore LLC's former Australia site employees would argue that point. All corporate resources are available via iPad, high speed routers, onsite (telecommuting / remotely connected) VPN and VMs are accessible. I'd wager a few other corporations may also be working or investigating on alternatives to the typical personal computer for resources ... as the cost is a LOT cheaper. We'll see though ... there is a very informative and longer debate on the forums here.
 
What happened to all the "iPhone X is a failure."?

You should know by now..... it is always the case, always have been the case.
People call a product a failure, then it turns out it isn't, people retreat in the dark areas of the internet and wait to strike again :)
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7% = Other
(read: Dongles)

Lol nah... AirPods, Apple Watch, AppleTV, HomePod, Beats and sure some adapters. But Apple has left the market for cables and adapters mostly to third parties.

Try Apple Watch, Apple TV, airpods, beats headphones.
You know everything else.

The fascination of people with ports amazes me. I had a MacBook pro, one of the first to only have 2 usb c ports and coped very well with only one USB c to standard usb dongle (from Amazon) And I do a lot of photography and video editing.
I can only imagine the outrage of people when floppy disk was removed :)
 
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Can some one explain this in simple words to me, they made $11B profit in only 4 months?! Or is this the total of 9 months...as in up until the 3rd quarter?
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The more money this company makes the worse the products seem to get (maybe not worse but “meh” compared to the quality they used to put out), at least that has been the case under Tim Cook’s Apple. They seem to be good enough for most people though because it is still Apple and the brand more or less sells itself at this point with some of their stronger points still in tact, like their; ecosystem, stance on privacy, customer service etc that keeps users ‘locked in’. Doesn’t mean their products and software are as good as they could and should be though.

This is not surprising, its like how McDonalds makes more money than say a high end cuisine restaurant in a fancy hotel, mass market opt for the "good enough" product. Windows always sucked but people bought it, it worked "good enough".

Unfortunately, this is what makes Apple, its not the "good enough" company its the usually "best in class" company. When people were making Nokias and BB, Apple made the iphone. When People were using Internet Explorer, Apple Made Safari. When Compaq was making the Presario, Apple made the iMac. Thats why it gained loyal followers.

Unfortunately, this seems to be changing.
 
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Apple and Huawei are both Chinese made phones with comparable build quality but Huawei has higher battery capacity and better value. So, not surprised that Huawei surpassed Apple.

Ehh, this statement does not make sense for a number of reasons. Huawei did not surpass Apple because it 'has a comparable build quality but has a higher batter capacity and better value.' Huawei surpassed Apple because it is a Chinese brand. The people of China have a certain loyalty to Chinese brands that Apple has not figured out how to overcome.
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Can some one explain this in simple words to me, they made $11B profit in only 4 months?! Or is this the total of 9 months...as in up until the 3rd quarter?
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In the last 3 months, Apple sold $53.3 Billion worth of products. This is their revenue. However, in order to design and produce those products, Apple had to spend money on R&D, Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing, and had to buy the components. After all of these expenses are taken into consideration, Apple made a profit of $11.5 Billion. All in the last 3 months.

Quite impressive, huh?
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Can some one explain this in simple words to me, they made $11B profit in only 4 months?! Or is this the total of 9 months...as in up until the 3rd quarter?
[doublepost=1533102614][/doublepost]

This is not surprising, its like how McDonalds makes more money than say a high end cuisine restaurant in a fancy hotel, mass market opt for the "good enough" product. Windows always sucked but people bought it, it worked "good enough".

Unfortunately, this is what makes Apple, its not the "good enough" company its the usually "best in class" company. When people were making Nokias and BB, Apple made the iphone. When People were using Internet Explorer, Apple Made Safari. When Compaq was making the Presario, Apple made the iMac. Thats why it gained loyal followers.

Unfortunately, this seems to be changing.

Companies need to make products that obsolete their current products. Using your examples: when people were loving Blackberrys, Apple made a better phone. When people loved IE, Apple made Safari. Now that Apple is a top smartphone producer, they need to find a way to obsolete the iPhone and create the next great product. However, since they have such a commanding position in the field, why would they prematurely obsolete themselves? They are waiting for the right time. Apple invented the touch screen category. They know how to make it obsolete. But again, why would they do it now when revenue is at an all time high?
 
worth of products. This is their revenue. However, in order to design and produce those products, Apple had to spend money on R&D, Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing, and had to buy the components. After all of these expenses are taken into consideration, Apple made a profit of $11.5 Billion. All in the last 3 months.

Quite impressive, huh?

I understand this but the number is so huge, I had to ask for re-assurance.
 
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