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Without its roots an organism will die. Apple has abandoned its roots, the Mac business, and will start to wither and die without them. Apple has a fatal disease, the Wall Street disease of short term profits first.

I feel that Apple's roots lie not in any one product, but rather, their underlying philosophy to make great products which can change lives for the better. I agree with your premise but not your conclusion.
 
Unless they swing and miss with their product line again.
Or they don't bother even swinging again.

Coasting on your market reputation to sell, while not updating your computer product line in 3,4,5 years and then chopping off parts of it that start to die... hell of an unstable way to reach a trillion dollars.

Apple Watch with an interconnected ecosystem of medical devices. There's your next big platform right there - wearables.

No doubt Macs still have their place, but I think many people here vastly overestimate their importance in the greater scheme of things. No doubt the critics here would love to see Apple crash and burn, perhaps to serve as some sort of divine karma for daring to neglect their beloved Mac line.

These people will be disappointed as Apple continues its ascent all the way to the top.
 
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Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Services category is already thesize of a Fortune 100 company, with hopes to double the category's "revenue" by 2020. :- Macrumors quote

Remember Once Former CEO of Apple Said :-

"I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25 and... it wasn't that important — because I never did it for the money."

"Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.... We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are."

Times have changed,seems like now it's more for the money,Well done Tim Cook

Tim Cook has always been a business man, and not a tech visionary. The unfortunate truth is that replacing a tech visionary with another tech visionary was always going to be hard to do.
 
Apple may have the potential to become a trillion dollar market cap company but I think it's a very slim opportunity. They can't just keep only selling iPhones to make that necessary revenue. They've got to find another revenue stream apart even from selling computers and smartwatches. It's a shame they never tried to get into the cloud business like all the other major tech companies have done. I'd like to see Apple making devices for the health-care industry because I feel that could do a lot of good for consumers.

Apple needs some hook to become as valuable as the FANG stocks with their nice, fat P/Es. Even Microsoft's sweet P/E makes Apple's P/E look downright pathetic. Why is Apple always being seen as the doomed company with no future growth prospects while lesser companies are given free passes to unlimited growth prospects? I have an uncomfortable feeling that Amazon or Google is going to be worth far more to Wall Street than Apple will ever be. The big investors just love those two stocks. Every day there's some article saying Amazon and Google are going to be worth over a $1000 a share before the year is out. Each day those stocks climb higher and higher with never a sell-off. Even Facebook is likely going to leave Apple in the dust in terms of share gains.

What makes those companies' stock so much better to buy than Apple's stock? Apple has a decent EPS, gives relatively high dividends, has a loyal customer base and then there's that mountain of cash (minus debt). Yet, whenever the market goes down, Apple gets hit the hardest and then is the slowest to recover. It doesn't make much sense to me, at all. What is it going to take for Apple to have a secure future in Wall Street's eyes? Everything the FANG companies do is always seen as being a smarter move than what Apple does. I honestly don't get it because I can't see the future as well as those genius analysts. Why is it believed that Jeff Bezos can never make a mistake? He's human, so I figure he can make mistakes. It's always Apple said to be making mistakes and I don't see how that's possible. Apple seems to manage its finances quite well, so they can't be that stupid to only make mistakes.

Suggest you chart these three stocks together over the last year. Your takeaway will be that AAPL is by far the better performer. A lag in the year before that? To be expected, since Apple just got through posting several consecutive quarters of declining earnings and revenue. Investors hate that. You will also see that all of these stocks sell off periodically. None of this matters much if you are an investor, not a trader.

As far as AMZN is concerned, this is a bit of special case, in that they aggressively plow profits back into growth and by so doing, are raising the revenue line rapidly. That investors do like. Eventually they will be expected to convert more of that revenue growth into earnings, but so long as revenue continues to rocket, investors will remain patient. They missed on revenue just last quarter and the stock was hammered. And so it goes.

Anyway, guessing who gets to a trillion dollar market cap first is little more than a party game. The company that makes it first doesn't win anything.
 
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Services category is already thesize of a Fortune 100 company, with hopes to double the category's "revenue" by 2020. :- Macrumors quote

Remember Once Former CEO of Apple Said :-

"I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25 and... it wasn't that important — because I never did it for the money."

"Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.... We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence, we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are."

Times have changed,seems like now it's more for the money,Well done Tim Cook
Not to be rude, but... you understand what marketing is, right? Steve Jobs was the absolute master of shaping narrative. Think Different was a masterwork in this regard. Of course he said they weren't in it for the money. That doesn't mean they didn't/don't have ideals beyond that. But come on.
 
Money has become their greatest enemy right now.
It has forced them into a defensive/incumbent position and stalled ambition to make new, revolutionary products. Thus alienated them from their original mission, which is exactly what SJ warned about.
Look at the latest iPad, a 4/5 years old design that denies every form of inspiration/innovation.
Disruptive innovation (launching new products, initially cannibalizing existing products)
has become the opposite of what they want: keep marketshare, remain leader, do not disturb current business. Move up the premium laddder, rebranding existing stuff as Pro (adding some gimmicks to justify price increases)
So superfluous budgets, massive R&D, but hardly any incentive to use them. Thousands of patents, but mostly defensive, keeping them unused to prevent the competion to innovate.
Leading to very few new products and designs.
What essentially drives Apple now is greed on a massive scale, requiring TC to save the humble image ("caring" for the impaired, pleading "accessibility", to distract public attention from inaccessibility due to increased prices)
Health: lots of incentives in the approach to conquer new markets. But difficult or impossible to get accreditation in medical world, which they grossly underestimated.
Same for autonomous vehicles: failed partnerships, difficult to innovate, absolutely no position to make an inroad in entirely new market. Huge investments to be written off already. Facial loss will prevent them from getting out. Lack of position/momentum will force them to buy themselves in somewhere. Only then, if any, the race begins.
iPhone will remain strong (it is and remains the cash cow) but it will take them utmost energy to stay current. And with all the attention going into paraphernalia activities, that will go at cost of the mid-segment (Mac, iPad, IT)
Innovation level remains incredibly low: companies of this mammoth size should bring 10/20 new products a year (compare with the car industry to realize what true competition would do)
The secret pact with Samsung (going to its limits supplying key technology on a mass scale, despite being "sued") impairs every form of an open smartphone marketplace currently.

I'm an investor and I trust in Apple. 10-20 new products a year? Are you insane? That's never been Apple's approach. Apple is secretly working on many products, but only one of them will reach market. The Apple Watch is a new product and it has largely been successful. The issue is that critics like you believe that in order for Apple to stay relevant, they need a new product as successful as the iPhone. I don't think that's true and the market agrees. Apple has expanded their non iPhone products/services quite a bit and their non iPhone revenue is larger than all of Google's revenue.

Apple has the stickiest ecosystems out there and with every passing year it becomes stronger and stronger. At this time, I don't see any other tech company overtaking Apple's business. Apple will stay profitable for a very long time.
 
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Not to be rude, but... you understand what marketing is, right? Steve Jobs was the absolute master of shaping narrative. Think Different was a masterwork in this regard. Of course he said they weren't in it for the money. That doesn't mean they didn't/don't have ideals beyond that. But come on.

Further, we need to put Jobs' remarks about wealth in perspective. Of the two Steves, he was clearly the one who understood the power of profit from the very start. If it wasn't for his money-making ambitions, Apple would never have graduated from the garage.
 
Further, we need to put Jobs' remarks about wealth in perspective. Of the two Steves, he was clearly the one who understood the power of profit from the very start. If it wasn't for his money-making ambitions, Apple would never have graduated from the garage.
Exactly. People seem to prefer to focus on the times he said and did things they liked and agreed with and just ignore the mountain of evidence that contradicted it. Reminds me of Trump supporters.
 
You know, it's the first trillion that's the hardest to get.
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Exactly. People seem to prefer to focus on the times he said and did things they liked and agreed with and just ignore the mountain of evidence that contradicted it. Reminds me of Trump supporters.
or Hillary supporters, or Obama supporters, or athletic suppor... wait... strike that last one.
 
Exactly. People seem to prefer to focus on the times he said and did things they liked and agreed with and just ignore the mountain of evidence that contradicted it. Reminds me of Trump supporters.

Without turning this into a political discussion needlessly, it's worth keeping in mind how contrary Steve Jobs could be. He could believe firmly in something one day, then just as firmly in the opposite thing the next. As for Cook, he is going to come under constant criticism from Steve fans whether he makes more money for Apple or whether he makes less. Either way, in their minds, his flaw will always be not being Steve.
 
Dude, honestly the watch band comments are getting really old and it doesn't sound as witty as you think it does. Apple has a lot of R&D going on right now in autonomous vehicles and health functions for the Apple Watch. I'm part of a research study right now on my Watch, they're collecting my heart rate data from the Cardiogram app in an effort to make the watch detect heart beat abnormalities, heart disease and cardiac arrest. And yeah, they release bands in pretty colors too. Your point?

Do some research and have some faith. Buy some stock and you may very well make a tidy profit from it. Or just miss out on it, up to you.
Typical response on a pro-apple forum. Sure, I've got an Apple watch now and sure, it has great potential but Apple has to show us that potential. So far they've only had twice a year band releases. In fact, one could argue that Tim Cook's greatest impact thus far has been watch bands.
 
Typical response on a pro-apple forum. Sure, I've got an Apple watch now and sure, it has great potential but Apple has to show us that potential. So far they've only had twice a year band releases. In fact, one could argue that Tim Cook's greatest impact thus far has been watch bands.
One could argue that...but one would be incredibly uninformed and shortsighted if one were to argue that. :)

You hang out on an Apple forum and criticize people's positive feelings about the future of Apple? Time to reevaluate your life...
 
Analysts predict the future earnings and stock prices every day of the week. The only difference at the moment is an otherwise meaningless "goal" - $1 trillion in market capitalization; a less than 25% increase in current share price.

Market capitalization is a very simple and simplistic number - the number of shares in investor hands, multiplied by the price of those shares.

The prediction boils down to three questions:
1. Will share price increase by 25%?
2. How long will it take for share price to rise 25%?
3. Will Apple's stock buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding, therefore requiring a greater than 25% rise in share price to reach $1 trillion?

Yawn!

This is little different than looking forward to your next birthday. When "the big day" finally arrives, you're just one day older. It doesn't begin to take on meaning until you compare your life today with what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah, I own Apple shares, it'd be cool if the predictions turn out to be true. But that's (pardon the expression) trumped by a much greater truth: The future is unpredictable.

So let's compare Apple to where it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. One billion Apple computing devices in use today (iPhone, iPad, Watch, Apple TV, and Mac combined). 30 years ago? Apple sold about 4 million Macs annually. The only other computing device sold was Newton, which barely made a blip. They now sell about that many Macs quarterly. If we assume an average useful life of 5 years for a PC, then there were around 20 million Apple computers in use. 30 years later, there are 50 times as many.

As to the inevitable chorus of Mac-focused complaints/demands, it's besides the point. Conventional PCs are becoming less important with every passing year. There will never be a time when every worker and every member of a household will have a PC, and it never came close to happening. It's a totally unreasonable to expect that every person on earth (over the age of 5 or 10) would carry a laptop wherever they go. However, a remarkably huge number already do carry a computer in their pockets, a computer that is far more non-tech-user-friendly than any PC..

Apple changed its fortunes by following a dream that goes back to the foundations of the company - putting the power of computers into everybody's hands. The conventional PC form factor and design philosophy could only take that dream so far. Anyone who believes Apple needs to stick to its roots... that's exactly what they are doing. It's only a matter of how you define "roots."
 
You are only half right. I have an old MBP that still works, but that they quit supporting 6 years ago. Their current products, just like the ones from other tech companies, are made with a roughly 4 year obsolescence model. This is further reinforced by no longer offering user replaceable batteries in any product offering. That's how they make more money. They get you to buy more often, and at high prices.

"4 year obsolescence" is too much an exaggeration. "7 year" is more truthful. And, a lot of them can stay usable for several years after that 7 years, though without official support venue.
 
The prediction boils down to three questions:
1. Will share price increase by 25%?
2. How long will it take for share price to rise 25%?
3. Will Apple's stock buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding, therefore requiring a greater than 25% rise in share price to reach $1 trillion?

The analyst report refers to valuations being constant. That being the assumption, it also means earnings increasing by 25% over the coming 12-18 months. With a potentially major iPhone upgrade cycle coming, the growth of income from services, and possibly a new product category, it's easy to see how this outcome is being modeled.

One minor point I'd make on (3): the impact of buybacks on the market cap is pretty much a wash because in theory at least they support the share price proportionally to the amount of stock bought back. Again assuming constant valuations.
 
Which other company makes quad core processor laptops in an enclosure so thin and with such high tolerances? Then see how upgradeable they are.

The Razer's aren't user upgradeable; certainly not the blades. We've had a few in the office and there's nothing user accessible about them. Even the manual on the website says taking it apart would void the warranty. Besides, they're absolute junk. The cooling system is horrendous and it immediately hits CPU/GPU TJ. max under stress.

Hmmm...Not that I am an expert but I think the other manufacturers know how to make machines with tight tolerances. There are plenty of ultrabooks in the market that are thinner and lighter than the Macbook Pros. But when it comes to making a similar machine with quad core processors, most of them shy away from making a machine with the same tolerances. I think this is because they prefer functionality over form. Quad cores in a thin, sealed body will undoubtedly lead to thermal issues in the laptop's lifespan. The number of repair programs Apple has for its Pros affected by video issues is a decent indicator of this. Apple will probably get the formula right one day ... their cooling system keeps improving, processors keep getting more efficient but until then, consumers pay the heavy cost.

To me, Apple's Pro laptops are all Macbook Airs in different sizes. I dont have an issue with that per se cause there is a market for that. There is also a market for a thicker Macbook Pro...one that is not shy about its weight and size...Proud to be big and beautiful :)

Razer Blades have upgradable SSDs. But perhaps, user upgrades might violate warranty. This was the case even with Apple when they were producing those upgradable Pros back in the day.

And the blades hit high temps cause the graphic cards in them are much more powerful and power hungry. So in that sense, it is not an Apples to Apples comparision. I mentioned the Razers to highlight the build tolerances we were speaking of earlier. Because Apple did not put in a 1060 in their laptops, they will beat the Razer when it comes to temps.
 
You must run in a limited crowd. Personally, I see a lot of Macs - mostly owned by students (I live in a college town) - but nearly all of them are at least 2 years old or greater (that's easy to discern, as they still have the lit up Apple on the back and sport MagSafe). Nearly all non-Apple businesses I see, including the said university, use PCs. They provide much more bang per buck for business needs, which don't generally include being pretty and thin. I guess things would be different in areas close to Cupertino.
[doublepost=1495458797][/doublepost]Toward the end of my career in computers, from which I retired some while back, my job was to support Windows servers and Active Directory front end products. The last couple of years before retirement, people I worked with (myself included) began purchasing Apple laptops for personal use at work, even though our jobs were to support Windows software and PC hardware. At one time, that included DEC Alpha servers, which were already 64-bit in 1996, and could run Windows NT, DEC Unix, or DEC VMS. By the time I retired some 12 years later, DEC was out of business, NT became Windows 2000 (etc), and Vista was replacing XP. This was when folks began buying personal Macs - for front end use, both the hardware and software had become superior to the Windows offerings. All this wordiness is to say that if you begin to see more and more people in places close to, let's say, Cupertino, sporting PCs, Apple will have reached its high end threshold - at least with laptop/desktop computers. It's interesting to watch trends over time.
You must run in a limited crowd. Personally, I see a lot of Macs - mostly owned by students (I live in a college town) - but nearly all of them are at least 2 years old or greater (that's easy to discern, as they still have the lit up Apple on the back and sport MagSafe). Nearly all non-Apple businesses I see, including the said university, use PCs. They provide much more bang per buck for business needs, which don't generally include being pretty and thin. I guess things would be different in areas close to Cupertino.
[doublepost=1495458797][/doublepost]Toward the end of my career in computers, from which I retired some while back, my job was to support Windows servers and Active Directory front end products. The last couple of years before retirement, people I worked with (myself included) began purchasing Apple laptops for personal use at work, even though our jobs were to support Windows software and PC hardware. At one time, that included DEC Alpha servers, which were already 64-bit in 1996, and could run Windows NT, DEC Unix, or DEC VMS. By the time I retired some 12 years later, DEC was out of business, NT became Windows 2000 (etc), and Vista was replacing XP. This was when folks began buying personal Macs - for front end use, both the hardware and software had become superior to the Windows offerings. All this wordiness is to say that if you begin to see more and more people in places close to, let's say, Cupertino, sporting PCs, Apple will have reached its high end threshold - at least with laptop/desktop computers. It's interesting to watch trends over time.

I'm not sure if it is a limited crowd, but I live in NYC and I work in Manhattan. It is certainly an unusual crowd as compared to the rest of the US. But you've heard of business being run out of NYC and the crowd I run in has lots of money going through it. I have been working in a unique environment for the last month or two. My company moved out of our old offices (building in midtown Manhattan owned by our parent company) into a WeWorks (temp rental space with communal aspects, but very corporate) while our new office space was built out. Since the WeWorks has lots of glass walls I see lots of companies in a relatively small space. Macs are vastly more represented than PCs. Since I've been doing a bit of my own companies IT, I've been experiencing the cost associated with using PCs versus what I suspect would have been the costs if we used Macs.

Here is an issue we had setting up our new offices. When people use a smartphone every day and even their retired Mom uses a smartphone, the fact that we need four separate specialists doing individual setup appointments so that we can print in our new offices is kind of crazy. Apple would never consider that acceptable. And since every executive in the company is familiar with Macs and iPhones, Apple and smartphone level simplicity is the expectation that all the decision makers have. That is the reality that we are experiencing setting up our new offices. Folks want their PC to works as easily and consistently as their smartphone. PCs are being judged on that standard. So all OS updates need to be free. Everything needs to connect to WiFi and probably Bluetooth, because that is what our phones do. If it doesn't, then it is a fail. We can work around the fails, but it is a fail if it doesn't.

I know PCs are still huge. But the performance is really a problem. You can look at the cost of the hardware and see a savings. But if PC support from a tech guy consultant is $100 an hour, it doesn't take much work to eat significantly into that hardware cost savings.
 
One could argue that...but one would be incredibly uninformed and shortsighted if one were to argue that. :)

You hang out on an Apple forum and criticize people's positive feelings about the future of Apple? Time to reevaluate your life...
but my life doesn't revolve around MacRumors so I don't have to reevaluate anything :)

Plus you started the picking on forum members. I simply disagreed with the bullish analyst.
 
I'm an investor and I trust in Apple. 10-20 new products a year? Are you insane? That's never been Apple's approach. Apple is secretly working on many products, but only one of them will reach market. The Apple Watch is a new product and it has largely been successful. The issue is that critics like you believe that in order for Apple to stay relevant, they need a new product as successful as the iPhone. I don't think that's true and the market agrees. Apple has expanded their non iPhone products/services quite a bit and their non iPhone revenue is larger than all of Google's revenue.
Apple has the stickiest ecosystems out there and with every passing year it becomes stronger and stronger. At this time, I don't see any other tech company overtaking Apple's business. Apple will stay profitable for a very long time.
Thanks for your sincere concern about my sanity, I am considered to be quite well, generally.
"It has never been Apple's approach" => No, and Apple has never been the size it currently has, and never been so big and slow either.
It has become a sleeping mammoth, performing well on merely a single product, but average on the rest of its product line, where it has merely lamenting on. Given its unlimited resources, huge R&D investments and gigantic size, its performance is subpar at best when it comes to new products (AppleWatch, MBP, Airpods/Dental-floss box...)
Compare with car manufacturers that are a fraction of its size but launching 5, 10 or more new models (of far more complexity) year over year.
AppleWatch is getting better but not nearly at the level of their success-stories.
Wealth and financial leadership are imminent, but also have become their greatest enemy right now.
It has forced them into a defensive/incumbent position and stalled ambition to make new, revolutionary products. Thus alienated them from their original mission, which is exactly what SJ warned about.
Look at the product catalogue - how stationary it has become.
Look at the latest iPad, a 4/5 year old design that denies every form of inspiration/innovation.
It is supposed to attack the mid-segment in the tablet market (did you say "never been Apple's approach" ?), but its limited price cut shows that Apple doesn't know or want to compete there.
Disruptive innovation (launching new products, initially cannibalizing existing products) has become the opposite of what they want: to keep marketshare, to remain leader, to not disturb current business. Move up the premium laddder, rebranding existing stuff as Pro (adding some gimmicks to justify price increases)
AppleWatch is subject to a worrisome refreshing/mehpgrading cycle already...
So insane budgets, massive R&D, but hardly real incentives to use them. Thousands of patents, but mostly defensive, keeping them in reserve to prevent the competion to innovate. Introducing very few new products and designs.
So looking at financial metrics, you are right to say they perform well (not to say superbly) currently.
But on other metrics (that may or may not interest you), sadly NOT.
 
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Thanks for your sincere concern about my sanity, I am considered to be quite well, generally.
"It has never been Apple's approach" => No, and Apple has never been the size it currently has, and never been so big and slow either.
It has become a sleeping mammoth, performing well on merely a single product, but average on the rest of its product line, where it has merely lamenting on. Given its unlimited resources, huge R&D investments and gigantic size, its performance is subpar at best when it comes to new products (AppleWatch, MBP, Airpods/Dental-floss box...)
Compare with car manufacturers that are a fraction of its size but launching 5, 10 or more new models (of far more complexity) year over year.
AppleWatch is getting better but not nearly at the level of their success-stories.
Wealth and financial leadership are imminent, but also have become their greatest enemy right now.
It has forced them into a defensive/incumbent position and stalled ambition to make new, revolutionary products. Thus alienated them from their original mission, which is exactly what SJ warned about.
Look at the product catalogue - how stationary it has become.
Look at the latest iPad, a 4/5 years old design that denies every form of inspiration/innovation.
It is supposed to attack the mid-segment in the tablet market (did I hear you say "It has never been Apple's approach" ?), but its limited price cut shows that Apple doesn't know or want to compete.
Disruptive innovation (launching new products, initially cannibalizing existing products) has become the opposite of what they want: to keep marketshare, to remain leader, to not disturb current business. Move up the premium laddder, rebranding existing stuff as Pro (adding some gimmicks to justify price increases)
AppleWatch is subject to refreshing/mehpgrading already...
So insane budgets, massive R&D, but hardly any incentive to use them. Thousands of patents, but mostly defensive, keeping them unused to prevent the competion to innovate. Introducing very few new products and designs.
So looking at financial metrics, you are right to say they perform well (not to say superbly) currently.
But on other metrics (that may or may not interest you), sadly NOT.

It's never been Apple's approach to release 10-20 new products a year. Big and slow? Find me another company as large as Apple and as nimble.

Apple's "average" non iPhone product is larger than Google. What do you make of that?

Apple doesn't need another iPhone like success to stay relevant or profitable. They're so big now that a similar growth is very difficult. What product do you think in the future will overtake the iPhone? Keeping in mind that Apple's hardware and services are always advancing, I just don't see one.
 
It's never been Apple's approach to release 10-20 new products a year. Big and slow? Find me another company as large as Apple and as nimble.

Apple's "average" non iPhone product is larger than Google. What do you make of that?

Apple doesn't need another iPhone like success to stay relevant or profitable. They're so big now that a similar growth is very difficult. What product do you think in the future will overtake the iPhone? Keeping in mind that Apple's hardware and services are always advancing, I just don't see one.
Nero playing the Lyre as Rome burns, under no illusion that Rome will fall.
 
:cool:... more $$$ in the piggy bank.. Bet Apple will waste it on advertising and building more stores, more and a small percentage of it for improving services.
 
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