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Tim Cook to Address Q1 Earnings Concerns at All-Hands Meeting With Apple Staff
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Regardless of whether Apple gave birth to the technology in question or bought the companies that did, the argument remains the same, in that Apple made the investment, not the other copy cat companies that followed suit.
You don't have hundreds of billions in pure cash by being stupid. Apple has screwed up before, they will again, but they'll figure it out. No one person or company is perfect. the fact Tim even has to do this stupid dog and pony show for all the wall street frat bros is beyond stupid.
Absolutely. We're seeing a live case study of business management unfold before our eyes.
we can only speculate based on the data and numbers we're provided. Nobody here is guaranteed to be right, we don't have a crystal ball.
with the amount of cash available, Apple can take some time to get it right. But you can't take al the time in the world. The argument that "_____ has cash, they've done well in the past, so they'll be fine in the future" has other case studies however that we can examien to get an idea of potential outcomes. One of the most recent examples of this was Blackberry, who at the time of their peak had several billion in the bank as well and figured they could ride a couple years of burning that while they developed new phones.
it didn't work out for them.
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But this ignores the fact that other companies are spending just as much and in some cases more on R&D and bring a lot of features and functionality out prior to Apple. Agai I am not discounting that Apple does some amazing refinement, But your comment seems to try and imply that the entirety of what we have today in smartphones is exclusively the result of Apple's hard work (Which they have definitely done) and absolutely nobody elses.
That sort of commentary is just asinine and so far removed from fact
Let's be honest. If they dropped prices by $100 everyone would jump ship because "Oh no! Apple's going down and they know it! Get out while you can!"Alternatively they could reduce the price of their product lines to increase sales. It would still be a premium brand if they dropped prices by $100 or so!
Having said that, I wish I was concerned over only $84 billion revenue in a single quarter
Yeah I’m sure the research and development costs are massive for the Mac Mini. They probably dropped hundreds of billions over the four years it took to bring out a refresh with some new colors.
Apples financial issues are probably down to a loss of trust with the consumer.
Sure, I trust Apple more with my Data than Google, Facebook or Amazon, but I am talking about trust in their products.
Mac mini, languished for years
Mac Pro, languished for years, and still is languishing
Airport, DOA
Time Capsule DOA
OSX Server, so many bits deprecated my next “upgrade” will be an Intel NUC running Ubuntu
Wireless charger, MIA
Took how many years to make a wireless extended keyboard
Buy an overpriced USB-C power supply and Apple does not even supply the cable
Automator has languished for years
Apple script has languished for years
And for me personally
Siri for the ATV4 in New Zealand, the ONLY Siri compatible device in NZ that does not actually support Siri
HomePod, completely missing in action in NZ, made WORSE by the fact the NZ online store is the exactly same building as the Aus Online Store
All the iPhones are now too big, when my SE dies it will be Android as my only option
New Zealand did not get any iTunes bonus like the US, Australia, EU and others did, that’s Apple telling us to F**k Off, you are irrelevant , last time I saw iTunes cards discounted was about 4-5 years ago. We used to buy them as stocking fillers for the kids, we have not bought any for 4-5 years now.
Piss poor design decisions
Lack of headphone socket on devices, I use mine daily.
Headphone sockets on the rear right side (of laptops that still have them), headphones have it on the LHS.
Wireless mouse, you got to have it looking like a dead turtle to charge it, why not have it plugged into the front so you can use it and charge it.
Try turning text 90° in Numbers, so much for that font technology, it works in Excel.
The USB-C cable supplied is power only, not USB-C data and not Thunderbolt 3, and USB-C cables are not thunderbolt 3 either, but they all look the same , I bought 3rd party ones that are coloured.
Laptop keyboard, this generations Apple III
Laptops non upgradeable, RAM or SSD or Battery
Laptops with ZERO standard ports (USB-A, Ethernet, etc) forcing everyone to buy bloody dongles
Get off the bloody “Thin” bandwagon, how thin a computer/phone has been has NEVER been part of my buying decision, that’s pure marketing wank , reminiscent of the MHz wars
Apples "Green" credentials are another pure marketing wank, the FIRST option is upgrade, the SECOND option is repair, only when these first 2 options fail should a product be put into the waste stream which is the only real option Apple offers. My desire to buy Apple is dying as quickly as Apple is killing off 3rd party repair outlets.
I know lots of people who have gone down the Hackintosh routine, if only so migrating to Windows can be done gradually
Me, I have free access for home use to the Microsoft suite of software as well as the Adobe software.
Do I dump Final Cut 7 which has served me well for my home movie editing, and head to Adobe ?, because to be frank I have little faith that Apple is all in on its software for OSX anymore.
And to be brutal, its getting damned hard to justify Apples prices, combine that with the loss of trust that Apple is actually going to support any particular piece of hardware or software and you get a slump in sales.
Me, everything is working, so I will wait and see, but with what I have played with so far, Ubuntu is looking like a better long term option, some of the software I use has a Linux version that I can transfer my licence to and that is not also a deciding factor in my purchases .
I used to go into every Apple Store I could when we travelled internationally, bought my 12" G4 MBP in one in New York when I was there. Now I walk past them.
Tim Cook may be extremely competent at his job, and that's good, but he is NOT inspirational nor imaginative and does not have that intuitive grasp about what is right/wrong technically , and at the end of the day, I think THAT is starting to tell.
This year will tell if its a blip, or a slide.
Sure, I trust Apple more with my Data than Google, Facebook or Amazon, but I am talking about trust in their products.
Mac mini, languished for years
Mac Pro, languished for years, and still is languishing
Airport, DOA
Time Capsule DOA
OSX Server, so many bits deprecated my next “upgrade” will be an Intel NUC running Ubuntu
Wireless charger, MIA
Took how many years to make a wireless extended keyboard
Buy an overpriced USB-C power supply and Apple does not even supply the cable
Automator has languished for years
Apple script has languished for years
And for me personally
Siri for the ATV4 in New Zealand, the ONLY Siri compatible device in NZ that does not actually support Siri
HomePod, completely missing in action in NZ, made WORSE by the fact the NZ online store is the exactly same building as the Aus Online Store
All the iPhones are now too big, when my SE dies it will be Android as my only option
New Zealand did not get any iTunes bonus like the US, Australia, EU and others did, that’s Apple telling us to F**k Off, you are irrelevant , last time I saw iTunes cards discounted was about 4-5 years ago. We used to buy them as stocking fillers for the kids, we have not bought any for 4-5 years now.
Piss poor design decisions
Lack of headphone socket on devices, I use mine daily.
Headphone sockets on the rear right side (of laptops that still have them), headphones have it on the LHS.
Wireless mouse, you got to have it looking like a dead turtle to charge it, why not have it plugged into the front so you can use it and charge it.
Try turning text 90° in Numbers, so much for that font technology, it works in Excel.
The USB-C cable supplied is power only, not USB-C data and not Thunderbolt 3, and USB-C cables are not thunderbolt 3 either, but they all look the same , I bought 3rd party ones that are coloured.
Laptop keyboard, this generations Apple III
Laptops non upgradeable, RAM or SSD or Battery
Laptops with ZERO standard ports (USB-A, Ethernet, etc) forcing everyone to buy bloody dongles
Get off the bloody “Thin” bandwagon, how thin a computer/phone has been has NEVER been part of my buying decision, that’s pure marketing wank , reminiscent of the MHz wars
Apples "Green" credentials are another pure marketing wank, the FIRST option is upgrade, the SECOND option is repair, only when these first 2 options fail should a product be put into the waste stream which is the only real option Apple offers. My desire to buy Apple is dying as quickly as Apple is killing off 3rd party repair outlets.
I know lots of people who have gone down the Hackintosh routine, if only so migrating to Windows can be done gradually
Me, I have free access for home use to the Microsoft suite of software as well as the Adobe software.
Do I dump Final Cut 7 which has served me well for my home movie editing, and head to Adobe ?, because to be frank I have little faith that Apple is all in on its software for OSX anymore.
And to be brutal, its getting damned hard to justify Apples prices, combine that with the loss of trust that Apple is actually going to support any particular piece of hardware or software and you get a slump in sales.
Me, everything is working, so I will wait and see, but with what I have played with so far, Ubuntu is looking like a better long term option, some of the software I use has a Linux version that I can transfer my licence to and that is not also a deciding factor in my purchases .
I used to go into every Apple Store I could when we travelled internationally, bought my 12" G4 MBP in one in New York when I was there. Now I walk past them.
Tim Cook may be extremely competent at his job, and that's good, but he is NOT inspirational nor imaginative and does not have that intuitive grasp about what is right/wrong technically , and at the end of the day, I think THAT is starting to tell.
This year will tell if its a blip, or a slide.
Totally agree with this 100%. Bring back Aperture, as it is the only field where they do not have a pro software like they used to (Photos was supposed to be iPhoto and Aperture combined, but it is much more iPhoto and much less Aperture). Having file access to a USB drive on the new iPads seems like a no-brainer, and headphone ports are really not that large.
I'm still on a 6s - I used to upgrade quite often, but the trend to make things bigger has turned me off (the 6s is actually bigger than i wanted, coming from a 5s).
BTW, you have a typo in your signature
'you' instead of 'your')Just bought a used Airport express so I can hook my stereo to my iTunes , Apple does not sell the HomePod here in New Zealand.
I get it, technology costs money....I bit on the iPhone X. Sure it can send emails, sure it can take nice pictures. It pairs with my watch, syncs with my mac, yada yada yada. But for $1,000 could it at least make crystal clear phone calls. Or better yet, could I at least unlock the phone every time it rings without fail. There are many times, I push to accept the phone call, and nothing happens. The call inevitably goes to voicemail. I do appreciate all of the other stuff, but in the end, I rely on it most for phone calls.
As an original Mac user of 34 years, and shareholder, I am disappointed and frustrated. Bring in some VISION!
As an original Mac user of 34 years, and shareholder, I am disappointed and frustrated. Bring in some VISION!
What’s a niche product like the Mac mini got to do with this debate at hand. Keep up
Actually I said I had investigated it. And from the evidence I saw stock buy backs are bad for companies. They are good in the short term for stock prices and that is all they are good for. Whenever you decrease supply for something the price increases ceteris paribus.
But, I’d be interested to know why you think they are good for a company.
I think for all the talk about cash on hand and investments in R&D, apple is EXTREMELY slow at releasing things. Its astonishing. People have been talking bout ios deficiencies on tablets for at least two years and nothing. What i will remember modt of the tim cook era is how slow everything moves.
Well I have 4 Mac minis at home, 2 used as servers, one drives my Logic Analyser and the other links into my Arduino gear.
So many bits of OSX server has been deprecated that its no longer an option for me. Sure I can add them back in myself and config them using command line tools, but the whole point of OSX server was that I did not have to do it the hard way. And now that I have to I may as well do ALL of it that way, so my next machine will be an Intel NUC, the more I use Linux the better I will get at it.
So now Apple has me moving away from OSX to Linux, so I may as well swap my laptop over too.
Do you see the trend here ?
I have owned over 20 Macs over the years, but I am slowly but surely disengaging.
Software I have bought recently has Linux versions and I can transfer my licence across.
I have $70 sitting in iTunes/App Store for over 2 years, there was nothing I wanted to buy. I had bought 100% of the Apps on my iPhone using my Mac to browse, I can not do that anymore, so I don't bother.
I want a headphone socket, mine gets used daily.
My iPhone is an SE, I don't want anything bigger, so Apple does not make a phone for me anymore. When it is no longer working/repairable I will probably end up being an Android user.
Do you see the growing tend here now ?
I have just bought 50 iMacs for our teaching lab , my mission over the next 3 years is to see if we can do it all with Intel NUCs running a mixture of Linux and Windows.
I do the IT support for my family, they too will get moved over the Linux
NOW do you see the growing trend ?, it snowballs.
Not really. This is pretty standard how a market goes from growth to mature.
People bring up BB all the time, but never explain why. You think Apple and BB are similar because they both sell phones? At its peak BB had 79M subscribers. Apple has almost sold more iPhones in a quarter. At BBs peak they had ~20B in revenue for the year. Even after the downward guidance, Apple's revenue this quarter is expected to be 4x that.
Bringing up BB without explaining why is intellectually lazy. BB was cut off at the knees by Apple and then Android with a completely different phone concept. What change is going to happen that is going to cause a mass migration away from the iPhone?
The problem is Apple’s version of innovation anymore is nothing more then to make it smaller and lighter. Their products don’t really do anything very new and exciting anymore.
Your train has left the station for headphone jack. However, i totaly agree that apple has shifted focus away from a lot of their products with the argument itd make their core products stronger. Disagree, i havent seen sny fruits of that labor.
Because something more serious is afoot that Cook hasn’t dared reveal yet?
Apple is so out of touch with reality. iOS 12 was a joke, iPhones with notches until 2020 is ridiculously lazy R&D. Price cuts should be happening already but Cook doesn't want to give up any margins. So their stock will continue to tank for the inevitable future. 84 billion lost so far and counting!!
Alternatively they could reduce the price of their product lines to increase sales. It would still be a premium brand if they dropped prices by $100 or so!
Having said that, I wish I was concerned over only $84 billion revenue in a single quarter
Unpopular opinion, but if we are indeed seeing signs of economic slowdown in China and a maturing smartphone market, issues like pricing or lack of headphone dongles are really inconsequential. Not that including a free fast charger or headphone jack adaptor would be bad, but this isn’t the reason why iPhone sales are in a slump, and doing those things you mentioned still wouldn’t revitalise sales in any meaningful way.
And personally, I maintain that the sheer level of pessimism facing iPhone everywhere (the press, forums) is over exaggerated.
Nevertheless, I feel the right move would likely be to accelerate development of wearables and move beyond the iPhone. As for pricing of the iPhone, increase the price, cut it, leave it the same....i doubt it will make much of a difference with regards to sales. So in this regard, raising iPhone pricing was absolutely still the right thing to do from Apple’s perspective.
I can appreciate your personal circumstances and if I were in your position may also follow a similar path, however in the scheme of things your usecase scenario, albeit of no lesser relevance or importance than anyone else’s, is unfortunately a minority market. And market forces tend to dictate product releases.
What bugs me is that the economic slowdown in China has been on the radar.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahe...ity-of-chinas-economic-slowdown/#2a7dcf0b4d86
How did Apple miss this? I think there are other factors. It also may be overblown as you state.
Pricing is certainly a factor. This research from early last year from Piper Jaffray put it as second on the list of reasons why people didnt upgrade. 30% said the phones were too expensive.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/ap...t-cheaper-bigger-iphone-says-piper-1520259215
It’s good for Apple in particular.
Look at the cash just sitting there at Apple.
Look at the low interest rates over the last decade.
Look at the massive profits every year.
Look at their confidence in their own companies future!
How many years to double up when you have double digit growth rate? (Years = 77/%growth is the answer) Services revenues will be doubled from 2016 to 2020! Wow! Services must be growing faster than 15% per year. It is! Look at the scale of what Apple reports “services” to be - how many $Billions? It’s huge in of itself! It’s no wonder Apple has confidence In Their own stock isn’t it? They are a publicly traded company with responsibilities to shareholders. That is #1.
Should they take a chance and buy Tesla?
Netflix? Chipotle Grill? Lol. Look at the profits and looks at the earnings per share of Tesla or Facebook. Look at the Earnings Per Share of AAPL! Compare the stock price to earnings per share. P/E ratio.
Apple could/should Quadruple R&D? Yes maybe, but it will bite into the bottom line until the next hit product comes, and it’s not so easy to get return By throwing more money at R&D - probably they should know what they need to spend it on. This is a big company already! Inefficiency is a distinct possibility if you quadruple R&D. Look at all the Google half bakeries - super geniuses for sure, but it’s a country club not a money maker.
Triple the dividends? Yes, this is a good reward for the shareholders too. It does cause immediate taxes though
By reducing the number of shares outstanding, there are less dividends to pay out. I know some people will say it’s the cat eating it’s own tail, but they forget about the big picture. Apple is buying its own stock because it’s the best stock on the stock market! Lol. True.
Make sure when you look at Apple financial statements you are aware of the scale of things. Don’t mix up millions with billions. Make sure you realize they just announced $84 Billion for the last quarter! NOT a full year
. Just that quarter!Their product is good right? Ecosystem is huge too! It’s all huge!
Maybe I’m not that good at explaining all aspects - but hopefully this opens your viewpoints on why it is very good for Apple in particular to buy the best stock. Their own self
Extrapolate the buyback to 100%. How many years would it take for Apple to buy all shares at this current price? Of course the price changes and if they take out 20% of shares every couple years then the shares themselves increase in price due to supply and demand. But does anyone not believe that huge Apple revenues are here to stay? It’s not like this 7% Revenue shortfall is doomsday. Cripes they have done amazingly well predicting guidance for a long time. 7% less is not the same as the sky falling. It’s still a ridiculous $84 Billion.
Warren Buffet want the whole company. Why?
I think it’s because of the fundamentals. As a small biz owner you’d be happy to make a 10% return yearly for the life of your business. More than 10 is terrific. Just imagine the worlds largest company doing that? No point to run my business anymore. Just liquidate and put all the cash into AAPL. Apple is doing the same.
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