Microsoft Passes Apple to Become Most Valuable U.S. Company

[DNichter]

I hope you’re right. I think the problem with the XR is the fact you can get an iPhone 8/8+ on better deals. I know so many friends and colleagues who have bought 8’s in the last couple of months and many more who have kept their phones and gone sim only. People used to automatically upgrade and be excited about doing so and unfortunately these companies need to realise high prices aren’t encouraging people to run out and buy new phones.

Yea that’s definitely true. Really, a 7 or 8 is a great option right now. I think Apple understands this trend, isn’t expecting people to upgrade every year like we used to, and is more so playing the long term game. Locking people into their ecosystem and focusing on service growth. As long as the next phone you buy is an iPhone, I think Apple are just fine with that. We are at a hardware plateau in a lot of ways so I am hoping this really puts the pressure on Apple to make some serious software changes to drive new adoption.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

The note 9 is pricey but Samsung can’t sell them. The “reports” of sales lower than expectations are rumors that can’t be proved with any certainty.

When we’ve got carriers and retailers confirming they have lower than expected demand and personal experiences all over the internet, I don’t think rumours/reports are a million miles away from the truth.

 

[I7guy]

When we’ve got carriers and retailers confirming they have lower than expected demand and personal experiences all over the internet, I don’t think rumours/reports are a million miles away from the truth.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

No retail outlet has the entire story, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

No retail outlet has the entire story, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

It makes no difference to me whether Apple are happy overall to be honest. What makes a difference for me is the fact I can see the difference in appeal from personal experience. Last year the iPhone X was Apples best selling iPhone yet in Europe’s largest market it was the 8th best selling. With Apple no longer revealing sales figures, we can happily rely on rumours and reports from third parties. I don’t earn any money or take pleasure in seeing Apple make billions, all I know is my friends aren’t buying new iPhones like they used to.

 

[I7guy]

It makes no difference to me whether Apple are happy overall to be honest. What makes a difference for me is the fact I can see the difference in appeal from personal experience. Last year the iPhone X was Apples best selling iPhone yet in Europe’s largest market it was the 8th best selling. With Apple no longer revealing sales figures, we can happily rely on rumours and reports from third parties. I don’t earn any money or take pleasure in seeing Apple make billions, all I know is my friends aren’t buying new iPhones like they used to.

I don't get an apple store credit for "pumping up apple". I doubt many of these stories as the quarterly financials never seem to jive with the rumors, that is my one and only point. This change in not reporting unit sales, imo, has been in the works for a while.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I don't get an apple store credit for "pumping up apple". I doubt many of these stories as the quarterly financials never seem to jive with the rumors, that is my one and only point. This change in not reporting unit sales, imo, has been in the works for a while.

Smartphone companies have not reported figures for years but Apple are joining them simply because the industry as a whole is suffering from reduced numbers of upgrades. It’s just reached that point where records don’t need to be broken anymore because the market is mature enough not to be under rapid growth. This is why we no longer sit in public places and see dozens of people with the latest device. It’s more watered down than it’s ever been and we are thankfully seeing the effect of that.

 

[sirozha]

Apple needs to come up with a new category of phones that are significantly smaller, have a small screen, a keyboard fashioned after the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, a high-end camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, can be paired with the Apple Watch, and has a 5G capability for tethering the iPad and/or Mac.

Call it iPhone Mini. The phone would let you use email and simple third-party apps written for it, such as Twitter, etc. The screen should be very small. No web browser (like Apple Watch). Photos and videos taken by its camera upload automatically to iCloud and can be manipulated on the iPad or Mac, but not on the iPhone Mini; however, thumbnails can be viewed on its small screen. The iPhone Mini would be able to be used with CarPlay, Airplay, Apple Pay, etc.

Such a phone would help people get rid of the smartphone addiction, but would enable photography and mobile tethering when a full web experience is required. Additionally, Apple Watch can be managed from the iPhone Mini.

Battery life should be several days, and the price of the 128 GB phone should not exceed $500.

A phone like this would boost iPad/Mac sales.

Personally, instead of buying a $1500 iPhone XS Max, I would buy the iPhone Mini for $500 and a Wi-Fi iPad Pro for $1000.

 

[I7guy]

Apple needs to come up with a new category of phones that are significantly smaller, have a small screen, a keyboard fashioned after the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, a high-end camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, can be paired with the Apple Watch, and has a 5G capability for tethering the iPad and/or Mac...

I'm guessing the iphone XI will have 5G. It seems the demographic majority of apple customers want bigger phones. Maybe an iphone mini foldable phone.

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

Ugh. A crappy company like that passes Apple. I don't care about Apple anymore and would like to see them passed, but only by anyone else. Seriously, Microsoft is stuck in the early 2000s, even with the new CEO, and everyone working in Silicon Valley knows that. Every piece of software they make is considered a cancer that people are trying to figure out how to rid their companies of.

Except for Excel. Excel rocks.
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Well if you bought Apple stock instead of Apple products back then...

I've found that Microsoft's quality has been going up in recent years. They still have piles of legacy garbage from the old guard which needs to either be disposed of or overhauled, and this include Windows. I don't know if they'll have the stones to do it and risk pissing-off their business users. Microsoft has always taken herculean efforts to maintain backwards compatibility with old apps, at the expense of well... basically everything. Security, stability, performance, you name it. It would be quite a thing for them to change, but the signs are there that they might.

 

[tromboneaholic]

a keyboard fashioned after the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar.

What's the difference between that and a screen?

 

[Abazigal]

Apple needs to come up with a new category of phones that are significantly smaller, have a small screen, a keyboard fashioned after the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, a high-end camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, can be paired with the Apple Watch, and has a 5G capability for tethering the iPad and/or Mac.

Call it iPhone Mini. The phone would let you use email and simple third-party apps written for it, such as Twitter, etc. The screen should be very small. No web browser (like Apple Watch). Photos and videos taken by its camera upload automatically to iCloud and can be manipulated on the iPad or Mac, but not on the iPhone Mini; however, thumbnails can be viewed on its small screen. The iPhone Mini would be able to be used with CarPlay, Airplay, Apple Pay, etc.

Such a phone would help people get rid of the smartphone addiction, but would enable photography and mobile tethering when a full web experience is required. Additionally, Apple Watch can be managed from the iPhone Mini.

Battery life should be several days, and the price of the 128 GB phone should not exceed $500.

A phone like this would boost iPad/Mac sales.

Personally, instead of buying a $1500 iPhone XS Max, I would buy the iPhone Mini for $500 and a Wi-Fi iPad Pro for $1000.

Isn’t this basically the Apple Watch with cellular?

 

[Tiger8]

There are plenty of places that don't use Office. Everyone caught up to Word and Outlook years ago, so you really only need Office if you need Excel. I haven't used Office in a very long time.

And btw, I was born in 1996 and had no idea what Microsoft was until like 2001, so idk what the 80s was like, and afaik Apple was a piece of garbage in the 90s anyway (and I consider them lame now too). I can tell you that people my age don't touch MS stuff unless it's the Xbox, and people in the tech industry uniformly consider MS a "dinosaur" among the likes of IBM and Oracle. So as time passes, they lose loyalty.

I understand your point. Just this past Friday my friend who works at a major consumer goods company was telling me how the younger generation consider older companies dinosaurs, putting a lot of pressure on them to reinvent, and buy younger start ups.

That said, you pointed a key area I forgot, x box. I'm a decade older than you so I remember being a teenager and laughing my behind when Microsoft , then under gates, made the announce to enter the gaming industry in 2001. I wasn't the only who predicted failure, and look at them now. Even if x box is the only MS product you use, I'm sure they're happy with that.

 

[639051]

Yes, Microsoft-free IT. Like the people who get all-Chromebook setups (usually for schools) or deploy Macs in businesses without Office or Windows and the cost and long-term pain that comes with it. It's pretty common.

It is the IT people who decide what tech a business will use. 90s-2000s they've all been buying Microsoft. This has been in steady decline since.

I’ve worked in several very large corporations and chromebooks are not used, macs at times (research wings in hospitals) but it isn’t anything like you’re claiming it is, not even remotely close.

 

[tromboneaholic]

I’ve worked in several very large corporations and chromebooks are not used, macs at times (research wings in hospitals) but it isn’t anything like you’re claiming it is, not even remotely close.

From what I have read, the people who get Chromebooks in school organizations are in K-6. Not even trolling....

 

[I7guy]

There are plenty of places that don't use Office. Everyone caught up to Word and Outlook years ago, so you really only need Office if you need Excel. I haven't used Office in a very long time.

And btw, I was born in 1996 and had no idea what Microsoft was until like 2001, so idk what the 80s was like, and afaik Apple was a piece of garbage in the 90s anyway (and I consider them lame now too). I can tell you that people my age don't touch MS stuff unless it's the Xbox, and people in the tech industry uniformly consider MS a "dinosaur" among the likes of IBM and Oracle. So as time passes, they lose loyalty.

Startups tend to use open-source as that is the right price. The fortune Wall Street companies always have a mixed bag of development going with many technologies and open source stacks, but Office and Microsoft appears by and large to be a standard. Windows may not run a lot of the big website e-tails and search engines, but it sure runs most of Corporate America.

 

[sirozha]

...

 

[Abazigal]

There are plenty of places that don't use Office. Everyone caught up to Word and Outlook years ago, so you really only need Office if you need Excel. I haven't used Office in a very long time.

And btw, I was born in 1996 and had no idea what Microsoft was until like 2001, so idk what the 80s was like, and afaik Apple was a piece of garbage in the 90s anyway (and I consider them lame now too). I can tell you that people my age don't touch MS stuff unless it's the Xbox, and people in the tech industry uniformly consider MS a "dinosaur" among the likes of IBM and Oracle. So as time passes, they lose loyalty.

Similar thing in my school. We prefer google docs over office, primarily for the ease of saving and sharing. The feature set more than suffices for what the students need to do, and it integrates well with google classroom and drive.

 

[ROGmaster]

But they have a lot to do with the broader tech market, which was crushed. Try to keep up.

Actually they don't. Both Nvidia and AMD have specific problems that lead to the decrease in their stock value.

 

[639051]

From what I have read, the people who get Chromebooks in school organizations are in K-6. Not even trolling....

Chromebooks in even K-12 is completely understandable. I'm talking about the notion that corporations are using chromebooks en masse being a joke, it just isn't happening. I am not a Microsoft fanboy or whatever, I just work in in this industry and while there is a shift from some microsoft products to open source it just isn't this gigantic movement.

 

[Baymowe335]

Actually they don't. Both Nvidia and AMD have specific problems that lead to the decrease in their stock value.

Point to specific issues all you want; of course all companies have specific issues.

However, the issues with NVDA wouldn't have caused a 50% decline if the broader tech market weren't selling off so hard. Just wouldn't have happened. When the QQQ is down, everyone goes for the ride...some harder than others (like NVDA).

 

[ftaok]

Don't look now, but MSFT is now in 3rd place in market cap. Behind AAPL and AMZN.

What does this mean? Nothing really. It's all just noise and headline clickbait.

 

[I7guy]

Don't look now, but MSFT is now in 3rd place in market cap. Behind AAPL and AMZN.

What does this mean? Nothing really. It's all just noise and headline clickbait.

Normally I would think people deal with this information in a certain manner, not bashing as in: "apple should be taught a lesson, hope the stock goes to zero".

That's childish.

I always thought apple has a better chance of going up than down.

 

[sirozha]

Isn’t this basically the Apple Watch with cellular?

You can tether your Mac or iPad to your Apple Watch for Internet access?
You can set up Apple Watch from your other Apple Watch?
You have a camera on your Apple Watch?

How did you get this cutting edge unreleased Apple Watch, and when is it going to be released to the general public?

 

[tromboneaholic]

You can tether your Mac or iPad to your Apple Watch for Internet access?
You can set up Apple Watch from your other Apple Watch?
You have a camera on your Apple Watch?

Those features are more likely to arrive on the Apple Watch in the very near future than Apple releasing a watered down iPhone with a touch bar keyboard

 

[Abazigal]

You can tether your Mac or iPad to your Apple Watch for Internet access?
You can set up Apple Watch from your other Apple Watch?
You have a camera on your Apple Watch?

How did you get this cutting edge unreleased Apple Watch, and when is it going to be released to the general public?

If the idea is simply a watered-down iPhone with basic smartphone capabilities to let you “detox”, that’s pretty much the Apple Watch right there.

It makes more strategic sense to Apple than an “iPhone lite” at any rate.