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There was a time I would say that a strong Mac line was important to the growth of iDevices, but anymore with OTA updates and cloud services the iDevices are becoming pretty much standalone devices.

If you compare the wild growth of the iDevices to the comparatively slow growth of the Mac line you must acknowledge that the majority of iDevices are being purchased by people who do not own a Mac. I have never seen a breakdown, but the Mac marketshare is much too small to be driving record iDevice sales.

The Mac is still important to Apple, but I really think we are at a point where Apple sees the Mac as a PC era device and the iDevice as the future. What that means is the Mac will see less and less investment and updates whereas most of their focus will continue to shift to iDevices as we have seen over the past few years. Windows PC builders will still offer workhorse PCs, but it is not a real profitable market. Apple will continue it's shift towards catering to the most profitable areas.

Look at the Mac Pro and tell me that Apple still cares a lot about the professional desktop market? They don't. The iMac will probably see one more update if it's lucky and then I predict it will die a very slow death over the course of 2 or 3 years. Moving ahead Apple will continue it's focus on the wildly growing iDevice market and to a lesser extent on it's portable Mac line. Basically Apple is going to let Windows have what's left of the desktop market because even though there are still desktop lovers like myself the profit margin and growth just isn't there anymore. Sad story, but true.

Now bring on the iPad Mini. People are going to go NUTS over it! Mega bucks for Apple!

Look, I get what you're saying. And at some point in time your analysis will be ripe. But the battle for the post pc (aka mobile device) market is still in full conflagration, and Apple is not about to walk away from one of their advantages in the battle. Especially not when they're making a handsome profit on every one they sell.

And your statement about the Mac Pro kind of makes my point. The Mac Pro doesn't sell iPhones or iPads. The iMac still does.

Apple decided several years ago to stop battling MS, Dell and HP head on in the enterprise segment. They did this for two reasons, IMO. First, they would be battling from way behind in an ever shrinking market. So even if they made headway, they wouldn't get great return for their efforts. Second, the iOS devices and, to a lesser extent notebooks are winning turf in the enterprise coming in through the back door.
 
Speak for yourself. Some of us are interested in knowing.

For those of you who aren't, how difficult is it to NOT read the news item? When I go to NYTimes, I don't click on articles I'm not interested in and then take the time to comment how uninterested I am in that article. :rolleyes:

I just click on the top comments to see what BS people are spewing out... ;)
 
The iMac is such a small percentage of that projected $150 billion in sales they probably forget they even make it.
500+ days since a new iMac was released. Apple manufacture their own sales figures, not based on what people demand, but how they wish to supply them.
 
Had I sold them all when the i5 was released I'd be +$450, then I could have bought them all back today plus more than half of an eleventh one, right? That's the kind of micromanaging I ought to be doing I'd guess.
Set a price target today, say $1000 and wait till it gets there and sell no matter what noise you hear. In the mean time if the price drops below a level you are comfortable with, don't sell! Buy more!

The art of stocks is much like the art of running into a burning building. It makes you crazy to do it, but it's the right thing to do. Example: March 2009.
 
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I bought 10 APPL stocks a couple months ago and after today am -$23. Should I sell, wait to the stock goes down and buy it all back cheaper in December before the new year? Most of my eggs are in this basket (IRA rollover to Fidelity brokerage account) and I've only used mutual funds in the past, so this stock trading is all new to me. Perhaps I need to only have a couple eggs here and rest in something 'safer'. I should have sold them all when they were $702 huh?

Dude. It is AAPL, not APPL ;-)
10 shares is nothing. Keep them.
I have 871 shares and that's everything I have.
EPS and cash are growing. Dividend too.
 
Dude. It is AAPL, not APPL ;-)
10 shares is nothing. Keep them.
I have 871 shares and that's everything I have.
EPS and cash are growing. Dividend too.

No, keep them. Selling them now would be a waste of time and money. Apple still has room to grow and is not capped out
 
While I know it's popular to hate on analysts, and I know it sucks having the stock drop because the analysts expected too much, I find in funny that a lot of share holders get upset about what they feel are too lofty expectations.

Then when AAPL misses a quarter (and once again last quarter was a miss) they say that AAPL exceeded their estimates, so it's ok because analysts are just pulling numbers out of their butt. Anyway it's contradictory to say analysts are pulling numbers from their butt when they have been WAY more accurate then AAPLs guidance.

Sorry for the rant I just get sick of people saying stuff like that and makes me feel less safe in my long position since extreme bullishness and complacency a lot of times signals a coming downtrend.

Last quarter was a miss in a few ANALysts eyes only. Sounds like you are an ANALyst with you pouty rant. So you disagree rip that they pull numbers out of their arse?
 
Damn I can't wait for October 25 to arrive. I'm hoping new iMacs and Mac Pros will be announced as the rumors suggest. They may even use this event to launch iPad Mini. Will this keynote be streamed live?
 
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Last quarter was a miss in a few ANALysts eyes only. Sounds like you are an ANALyst with you pouty rant. So you disagree rip that they pull numbers out of their arse?

lol I wish I was an analyst I would probably get paid quite a bit more then I do now. Also as I said they historically are way more accurate then apple's own guidance so do you think AAPL pulls guidance out of their arse?
 
Damn I can't wait for October 25 to arrive. I'm hoping new iMacs and Mac Pros will be announced as the rumors suggest. They may even use this event to launch iPad Mini. Will this keynote be streamed live?
This is a financial earnings call. Apple does not announce new products/services at financial earnings announcements.

Apple does not streaming live video of their announcements (they did it once a few years ago, but not any longer).
 
500+ days since a new iMac was released. Apple manufacture their own sales figures, not based on what people demand, but how they wish to supply them.

Huh? Manufacture sales figure? That's illegal and they won't risk it...
 
They will probably disappoint again. They couldn't make enough iPhone 5s to make up for low sales of the old model.

I'm really curious to know what about Desktop sales or
if some journalist will dare to ask :"Tim ,what about Imacs,still not updated why?Does this explain the desktop low profit ( this is the point i'm really curious about,i mean if Desktop sales are decreased or not) ?" and he "Its not Apple,we are in the post-pc era,that's why our Ipad mini...":apple::mad:
 
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I'm surprised people think earnings will miss. The average analyst expectation is actually quite lower than Apple's Q3 earnings. iPhone 5 sales would probably carry Apple to beat expectations. I could be very wrong though. People with more info than I expect earnings to miss. Stock price is down now; could be an overreaction, or maybe traders know something others don't.

extra info from CNBC: Q3, analyst consensus was $10.37 per share, actual was $9.32. Q4 consensus is $8.88. What happened in Q3? Lower than expected iphone 4s sales for the most part. There's no problem with demand, just supply. If Apple meets supply, it should easily surprise. I also know nothing about current i4 and i4s sales, and ipad sales. That may also contribute to surprise.
 
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And your statement about the Mac Pro kind of makes my point. The Mac Pro doesn't sell iPhones or iPads. The iMac still does.

I think the trend is reversed nowadays. iMacs don't sell iPhones or iPads, iPads and iPhones sell iMacs/MacBooks.

While I also don't think Apple is going to abandon the Mac, it's also quite understandable why they aren't putting much effort into it. It's a mature segment with very little growth potential. The growth is in mobile devices running iOS and that's where they are focusing.

Growth is what matters in the end, otherwise, you get earning misses based on usually conservative guidances you just barely surpassed, which is not something Apple's in the habit of doing (2 times in a decade I think it was ?).
 
Sell your stocks before the earnings. It always will be a disappointment and the stock will drop.

Usually that is my rule with every stock not named Apple. They have surprisingly done well in earnings reports since I have been holding stock in it. Plus, it takes a ton of money to take the stock down a bit. At $660 and average volume of 14 million, that would be tons of money to take the stock down more than 3%.

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I'm surprised people think earnings will miss. The average analyst expectation is actually quite lower than Apple's Q3 earnings. iPhone 5 sales would probably carry Apple to beat expectations. I could be very wrong though. People with more info than I expect earnings to miss. Stock price is down now; could be an overreaction, or maybe traders know something others don't.

extra info from CNBC: Q3, analyst consensus was $10.37 per share, actual was $9.32. Q4 consensus is $8.88. What happened in Q3? Lower than expected iphone 4s sales for the most part. There's no problem with demand, just supply. If Apple meets supply, it should easily surprise. I also know nothing about current i4 and i4s sales, and ipad sales. That may also contribute to surprise.

Stock price is down now because of the overraction in the maps app. For some reason people can't let that go. As far as the last quarter not making it, that was because there were rumors of the iPhone 5 and people were holding out on it and not buying the 4S. At least that is what they said in the conference call. This quarter will have the New iPad sales and a little hint at how the iPhone 5 has done. I think the quarter will turn out to be good.

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I bought 10 APPL stocks a couple months ago and after today am -$23. Should I sell, wait to the stock goes down and buy it all back cheaper in December before the new year? Most of my eggs are in this basket (IRA rollover to Fidelity brokerage account) and I've only used mutual funds in the past, so this stock trading is all new to me. Perhaps I need to only have a couple eggs here and rest in something 'safer'. I should have sold them all when they were $702 huh?

Personally, I would stay and that is what I am doing at least. In my opinion, the stock doing bad because of the poor map apps is an overraction. Maps not being up to par has somehow cost the company like $40 billion. The company's P/E ratio is 15.5 and that is lower than most companies. Apple is safe but still has a good chance to make decent money for you. The amount of money in the stock could be another reason to stay in. Like I mentioned in another post, it would take billions of dollars that all sell to get the stock to drop a high amount during the conference call. In my opinion, it is worth staying in a little longer.
 
772 Euro for a mobile phone ( iphone 5 )
what is happening to the world?
thanks, but no thanks.

still sticking with my 3GS.
 
Apple decided several years ago to stop battling MS, Dell and HP head on in the enterprise segment. They did this for two reasons, IMO. First, they would be battling from way behind in an ever shrinking market. So even if they made headway, they wouldn't get great return for their efforts. Second, the iOS devices and, to a lesser extent notebooks are winning turf in the enterprise coming in through the back door.

I once worked in educational publishing. Some books ins some series did not sell well but they were necessary to form a comprehensive series.

The Mac must remain a comprehensive platform.
 
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