A fair point. I did cherry pick for emphasis, but recent stock trends favor Google. Would anyone dispute that? For what it's worth, I invested more in Apple than any other single company (and have owned almost no Google). If anything, I'm biased the other way. I fondly remember buying Apple at 80-90 in 2008. Unfortunately, I sold in 2010 (before the 2012 bubble).
A comparison of price/earnings (P/E) ratios would tell yet another story. Google's price is where it is
because the market is more optimistic about its future. At the moment, Google's P/E is 31.82 ($1211.51/share), Apple's is 13.6 ($548/share). If Apple was selling at a P/E of 31.82, its share price would be $1,289.
Apple's P/E has barely budged since the iPhone was introduced - just chugging along in the 11-14 range (except for a few brief months in 2012). The P/E was actually higher in the years prior to iPhone. At its "irrational" 2012 historic high, Apple's P/E was around 18-19, still way lower than today's valuation for Google. Based on Apple's earnings today? If Apple was selling at a P/E of 19, it would be at over $765/share.
Contrary to all the talk, based on P/E ratio (which measures investors' willingness to pay a higher price now because they expect greater results later) Apple has not been a "growth stock" since 2007, or even before. Growth stocks trade at much higher P/E ratios than the 11-14 range.
Google is most definitely a growth stock. It's not a growth stock solely because it
has grown, but because investors expect it to
keep growing at an above-average rate. Yes, Apple certainly has grown prodigiously since the introduction of the iPhone. Those who invested earlier in Apple have seen huge growth in the value of their stock. But the market? The market has been expecting the iPhone "fad" to evaporate since the day it was introduced. Essentially, they expect a return to the days when Apple was, in their estimation, a Quixotic salmon swimming upstream against the WinTel flood.
The laws of chance say that if you repeat the same incorrect prediction long enough, eventually you'll be right. Someday, the conservative valuation of Apple will indeed come true. Nobody knows when that will happen. Maybe Chicken Little will be right this year, or it could be in 2037 (Happy 30th Birthday, iPhone!).
What does this have to do with Apple's advertising policies (to bring things back on topic)? Once more, Apple is perceived to be swimming against the tide, and that, to the business community, is a bad thing. Those are the people who firmly believe "Think Different" is "Think Wrong." Apple's not running its business the way they would, if they were in charge (Apple believes a long-term customer relationship is more valuable than a quick bump-up in the share price). And for so long as their beliefs depress the value of Apple stock? I'm getting Apple at a bargain price.