Apple

[Grieve]

I don't think an iTV would catch on in nearly the same way as other iProducts have:

1) Price.

They don't need to make as much revenue from TVs as iPhone or iPads, it's all about providing the complete solution, with everything linked and integrated. Samsung doesn't make nearly as much frmo their TV wing as from their smartphone wing either.

But if the TV sells for $3000 and they make $1500 in profit, and they sell 3 milion of them, that's $9b in revenue and $4.5b in profits right there. And bear in mind the TV industry as a whole is projected to sell 52 MILLION smart TV sets alone this year. If Apple got the same sort of share of the market as they do in phones and tablets, we'd be talking getting towards $100b in revenue a year.

2) I don't think there's a huge interest in "smart TV". If there was, Tivo would already be dominating. Everyone would own a DVR.

There wasn't huge mainstream interest in MP3 players until the iPod. There wasn't huge interest in buying digital music until iTunes. There wasn't huge interest in smartphones until the iPhone, or apps until the App Store, or tablets until the iPad.

Do you see a theme here?

3) I think iProducts sell well based partially on a "see and be seen with" mentality. Look at me! I have an iPad! Something that sits in your living room isn't going to have that appeal. Especially for friendless Apple misanthropes.

Like a iMac, that sits in your home office and no-one sees?

So people buy an iPhone or iPad to flaunt it to their friends, but a Galaxy or a Playbook purely for their utility? Based on?

4) Dirty hippies already don't watch TV.
5) Apple lovers are mostly dirty hippies.

I'm pretty sure dirty hippies can't afford quality products, so they buy the cheap Android knockoffs instead...

Bear in mind this is the stock and investing forum. I'm not here to convince you Apple products are the best thing since sliced bread. I do a huge amount of research on Apple, and I sincerely think the stock wil go a lot higher. And I sincerely would love everyone here to share those gains. But it really doesn't matter to me if you don't want to jump on the train. I know several people here have privately told me that have made money on Apple and even thanked me for getting them onboard. They probably wish they hadn't sold - I know I wish I hadn't sold various points between $100 and here...

[Grieve]

I'm currently living in a house with seven other 20-something year olds going to a college down the road - we are Apple's target audience. Taken together we have at least two dozen computers, smart phones and tablets, but we only have one TV, about six years old, down in the basement. It's used almost exclusively to play the Wii we have connected to it.

Take whatever lesson you want about the feasibility of an "iTV" from that.

Chain, I honestly don't think you are the target audience for an iTV - I think it's more the regular familes who crash on the couch after work/school and watch game shows/reality TV/cop/hospital/whatever shows all evening. Or lets say you and your friends in 5-10 years when you have a gaggle of screaming kids running around. You are young, no kids holding you back from a social life - why would you want to veg in front of the TV? In fact you are probably right in the deadzone for Apple stuff - in or just out of college with zero money!

Like I say to Slamz, non-Apple smart TVs (not even including regular TVs) are supposed to sell 52 million units this year. So there is plenty of people buying them...

[Slamz]

Like a iMac, that sits in your home office and no-one sees?

Exactly. After all these years and even in the midst of Apple hype, Macs are still a small fraction of the OS market.

What little success they've had has probably been the result of their laptop sales, not desktop models.

So people buy an iPhone or iPad to flaunt it to their friends, but a Galaxy or a Playbook purely for their utility? Based on?

Just my impression. Not everyone who buys a new BMW is doing it for show but I think most of them buy it partially if not primarily for that reason. Apple is just the BMW of the electronics market.

They're priced that way too.

I'm pretty sure dirty hippies can't afford quality products, so they buy the cheap Android knockoffs instead...

Just because someone is a dirty hippie doesn't mean they're poor! You bigot!

Bear in mind this is the stock and investing forum.

An important part of which is pondering the future of Apple and how wise their decisions are.

I think iTV will be their first big mistake. All downhill from here. Sell! Sell! Sell!

[Vanraw]

Very interesting take on Apple. Not trying to turn this into a Apple love / hate fest thread,,,,

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/28/what-if-the-next-iphone-is-a-miss-a-deep-dive-into-apples-hire-wire-act/">http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/28/what-i ... -wire-act/</a><!-- m -->

Basically he is saying what many have said, that at some point competition as well as the concept of unlimited growth has to come to a slow down.

Can Apple sell 51 million iPhones this holiday quarter? Its best quarter yet was 37 million.

I will say that it is pretty impressive to think that apple will be selling 112 million iphones in fiscal 2012. I mean this is seriously impressive. The question is can they continue to grow? Will china be the savior?

[Grieve]

As you know, I'm an eternal Apple bull. But yes, I have definitely been concerned that eventually an iPhone release just won't click with the mass public. Maybe even the iPhone 5. There are some leaked photos in which it looks very very similar to the iPhone 4, but with a longer screen (4" vs 3.5") and a smaller dock connector. That's going to disappoint some people expecting a radical redesign.

I don't care about how it looks - I'm buying it regardless. A faster processor, 4G, Siri, and possibly NFC are plenty for me to upgrade. But there are lots of people out there (especially in China) who need a new phone to "look" different from their last one, so people know they have a new phone. I don't mean the Apple faithful, I mean Joe (or Jill) Public who wants to make a statement that they have the latest thing. And companies like Samsung meet that need perfectly, spurting out a new phone every few months.

But on the other hand, Apple doesn't NEED to double revenue and profits every year. They aren't Amazon - they don't have a PE multiple of 287. It's 14 for the last 12 months, or 11.3 looking forward. They are priced to have no growth at all, but even the last "disappointing" quarter showed an 22% YoY revenue gain, and a 88% YoY increase in iPad sales.

In September they are releasing the new iPhone, a new smaller iPad, a thinner update of the current iPad, and a new range of iPods. There's a good shot they also announce iTV before Christmas. And China mobile, the largest phone company in the world, will be carrying the iPhone for the first time. I think they will be fine. Even if the iPhone 5 doesn't sell 51m phones. They might not hit $1000 in the next 6 months, but if they keep growing at 20-25% a year (which is way lower than now), they will get there soon.

Having said all that, I suspect that 51m phones is going to be way too low an estimate. There are an awful lot of people who have been holding off replacing their current phone (like my wife and I) so they can get this one. Demand likely won't be their problem - it's a question of whether they can provide enough supply.

[Grieve]

Also worth bearing in mind the article below, about Cirrus Logic (CRUS), an Apple supplier and another stock I'm invested in. They announced earnings earlier today, but it was their guidance that was interesting. Analysts, who already know about the upcoming iPhone 5, were expecting $130m. They instead forecast $170-190m. That is a huge number, and it tells you that Apple is building a massive number of phones...

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/20...BcovYl5mc0

[Breand]

well I was part of history today. Recieved my portion of the first ever Apple dividend! $53.00 I'm going on a vacation!

[strife]

well I was part of history today. Recieved my portion of the first ever Apple dividend! $53.00 I'm going on a vacation!

So you have 20 shares?

[Grieve]

I forgot all about that...didn't see the cash show up yet, though. Guess it will be credited tomorrow morning. Need to use it to buy some more shares before they hit $1000...

[Breand]

well I was part of history today. Recieved my portion of the first ever Apple dividend! $53.00 I'm going on a vacation!

So you have 20 shares?

yessir. =) 5 of them bought at $375, heh.

My first stock purchase ever (outside of 401k contributions) was Apple at $85 right before the iPhone announcement. But I sold it at like $125 =(

[Grieve]

Ironically you made more on your 20 shares on the stock rise today alone than your entire dividend. About $234, right?

New all time high today, $648.19! Looks like iTV will be coming this year after all, through AT&T and Maul's outfit. Come on, Maul, what do you know...

[Breand]

Ironically you made more on your 20 shares on the stock rise today alone than your entire dividend. About $234, right?

New all time high today, $648.19! Looks like iTV will be coming this year after all, through AT&T and Maul's outfit. Come on, Maul, what do you know...

yep I have an 18.78% total gain on the 20 shares. So $2050 if you do the math, heh.

[Grieve]

Here is a pretty crazy infographic about how much Apple is worth compares to other companies (I'm sure it will add fuel to the "that just shows Apple is overvalued!" crowd).

The 10 year performance vs other companies is particularly striking. For everyone who has been saying for years they won't get into Apple because it's a fad and won't last (not mentioning anyone in particular *cough*Slamz*cough*), that has not been a winning strategy...

[Vanraw]

Dont you think its strange that for the most part they have one product that is generating the stock price / market cap. I mean 600 billion in market cap based on iphone sales.

[Grieve]

Not really - Google is entirely dependent on search. At least Apple does have multiple other products as well. And iPads may eventually pass iPhones.

Actually I read earlier that even though iTunes represents a very small percentage of Apple's income, iTunes income alone was higher than ALL of FaceBooks revenue last quarter...

[Vanraw]

I was referencing companies like ge or cat.

I've been wrong all long so there is that.These

[Grieve]

Focusing on doing a few things well instead of doing a lot of stuff and hoping some "stick" is actually a philosophy of Steve Jobs. When he came back to Apple, with it close to bankruptcy, he immediately got rid of all of the zillions of configurations macs came in, and the way they released multiple models a year. Instead he wanted a handful of models and options, because he argued it's not possible to focus and ensure quality with a huge amount of models.

He gave that advice to Larry Page before he died - Google is the king of starting up all types of projects in beta, most of which then languish without updates for years. Page has actually killed off a number of projects since then.

You could argue Samsung's model works as well - release multiple models of phones a year, with every conceivable option, compared to one iPhone a year (and one new design every 2 years). But while Samsung has very high revenue, it has much smaller profits than Apple. So I think the Apple route is pretty smart. We'll see in another 5 years whether it has true longevity.

[Jakensama]

Considering Grieve and Co's adherence to the church of jobs, maybe they should file for religious tax exemption too... Then those numbers would be even higher.

[Grieve]

Jake, if you PM me your address, I will send you a copy of the biography in any format you like (I'll take the cost from your winnings).

You WILL believe...

[Breand]

Just wanted to post somewhere that the Apple TV not having any way to get HBO GO onto a TV screen is a big ball of ass. If you are a company that sells one product that uses it, and another that doesn't, there is something very wrong.

[Grieve]

HBO made that restriction, not Apple. They prevent you from doing airplay mirroring.

[Vanraw]

Grieve, wasn't the apple announcements disappointing?

[Grieve]

See the thread on the General forum. The problem was that there were no surprises because of so many leaks. Amazon can have surprises, because they don't get the same scrutiny. How many Amazon blogs/fan sites are there? Same for Microsoft - definitely the same for Nokia and RIMM.

I don't think it will make any difference to sales, and that is what will drive the stock higher.

Wall Street seems to agree:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/13/a...g-updated/

[Vanraw]

I was just thinking about the lack of focused big news on a 7inch tablet or iTV. I thought there was a lot of anticipation this would be part of the annoucements.

[Grieve]

No, it was already well known the iPad mini will be introduced in a seperate event in October. Two events = twice as much publicity.

Sounds like iTV may be some way off because the providers and cable companies won't play ball.

Apple at a new all-time high today, with lots of catalysts still to come.