Apple

[Grieve]

One thing is for sure, the 5C has turned out to be a joke.

I don’t see how you can possibly claim that. Based on what? In just a few weeks they’ve sold millions of them, more than many phones sell in their entire lifetime.

Earlier this year, Tim Cook was asked if Apple would ever put out a “cheap” phone to compete with Android, and he said no. Despite that, when news leaked out that Apple was working on a phone called “5C” every analyst assumed that meant it was a “C”heap phone. Then when it wasn’t, they all declared Apple had “failed”. Which is pretty stupid, since Apple obviously never intended it to be a cheap phone, just a replacement for the 5 at a $99 price point.

There seems to be a lot of anxiety over the fact that Apple has sold more 5S models than 5C models. Um…that’s a good thing! Every 5S is higher revenue and higher margins (so more EPS) than a 5C!

Most of the analysts who downgraded AAPL after the phones were announced have now backtracked and upgraded them again. In fact just this morning Societe Generale upgraded AAPL citing:

data he’s gathered from Taiwan and China, which “correlated to Apple handset revenues,” indicate “strong rises” in the iPhone 5S and 5C since the two phones hit 9 million in unit sales in their first weekend of sales, in September.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily...s&ru=yahoo

He also pointed to weakness in Android…

And apple couldn't even beat others to the punch in the idiotic wearable iproduct line..

Samsung obviously rushed their watch out before it was ready in order to beat Apple to market – one of their execs even admitted that. And they are paying the price – it was panned, and looks like being a massive (and expensive) failure.

It’s not about being first to market, it’s about bringing to market a compelling product. Apple wasn’t first with a smartphone, a tablet, an MP3 player, an app store, or many other things. But when they did bring them out, everyone wanted them, to a level never seen before in any of those markets.

One thing Apple is famous for (with a few exceptions like Maps) is not shipping snuff til it’s ready. As a software engineer, that something I admire a lot. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been forced to ship a product that isn’t ready in order to “meet a date”, which ends up being way more expensive in support calls and lost reputation that just shipping it when it’s ready.

This also applies to Maul’s criticism. We know they’re working on a lot of big ideas in TV and wearables and other areas, and the fact they haven’t rushed them out early to appease shareholders and analysts is very reassuring.