Apple shareholder are not happy. If Tim does not move some metal he is toast.
Majority shareholders have more control, don't they? As does the board. I think there's an issue with phones hitting that sweet peak PCs did not long ago. The current issue at Intel or even AMD (though they've done great) is the need for future substrate materials and a refined architecture that fixes the problems of the previous era and substrate. This isn't really viable at the moment.
Mobile SoC like the A12 are fast, but they're pushing the limits and it's difficult to extrapolate them into a computer, and would bump into those issues sooner rather than later like their counterparts. Reality is the tech that goes into making chips needs to advance to open more doors towards performance. Thinking outside the box for OS level features is another issue.
I like both OSX/macOS and Windows 10. But their feature parity is neck in neck, and I see no real reason to go with one or the other only. OSX/macOS only draws me in because of two software developers who only release on Apple. They're small time, but their software is so good that no PC equivalent exists, mostly because it's very niche.
Services wise, Apple needs to open up to survive.
To me, this is a smoke signal with Apple giving the A-OK to these price reductions to move old stock/remaining stock because they want to push out something new. Apple won't take a huge hit under normal circumstances. And, of course, what you mentioned. Sales are good, even if lower than normal, but more is always better!
That's why I have faith in Kuo's predictions. It makes sense given what we've seen since Q4 2018.
