Wall Street expects iCloud to drive sales of Apple's iOS devices - Page 2

People are always disappointed after a big Apple event. That is, people HERE are always disappointed. People out in the real world don't really know what to expect and so have no reason to be disappointed. The problem is a complete lack of expectation management. A lot of people here get carried away dreaming up the next big thing Apple, in their view, MUST do. Being Apple fans they should know by now 'it' will never happen.
But what did happen was that we were shown Lion (again). I for one thinks it promises great things. We saw IOS 5 which also looks good. The present IOS is pretty good and there was no way anybody was going to be completely Wowed. Its all incremental from now on. For both of these OS's the beauty (and devil) will no doubt be in the details.

As far as iCloud goes its impact will be seen a year from now and it will depend on how well Apple manages to implement all these new services. (Apple doesn't have a great track record in this area.) But assuming it goes well, the strategy is brilliant imo. Managing multiple devices is already complicated. Millions of people/families with no technical skills own many devices and a simple (and free) method of managing all sorts of content across many devices will be very handy, indeed. If you already have a couple of iphones and possibly an iPad and you are planning on buying a computer, the choice makes itself. Once you're in it will be very hard to leave, which clearly is Apple's aim.

I also think there is a lot we don't know about iCloud and it has lots of potential for the future. I am still half thinking there is a IOS powered merged TimeCapsule / Home Server to come. But what I really wonder about is how I will manage multiple AppleID's (and content) across multiple devices. Will I be able to sync different content under one ID to multiple devices? My hope is that in the future I will be able to purchase under a family account and let the members of that account manage their own shared content.

This sounds like BS to me.

If you are a Mac user since 1993, then unless you started off with a clone and kept it all this time, you've never seen Apple produce anything but the same kind of computers they produce today. Desktop all-in-ones and towers.

Only an idiot would wait for 18 years for a company to produce a computer that they have expressly mentioned they won't ever make and that there isn't a market for anyway. If you have used other computers in between (instead of using a power computing mini-tower clone for 18 years), then your statement about being an "18 year Mac user" is disingenuous at best.

It seems to me that you are just one of those people that like to complain and not really a consumer of Apple products in the first place, so why should anyone care what you think about them? in any case, what you personally want, is by your own description, completely at odds with what the rest of the computer buying public wants, so again ... why should anyone care?

Ever heard of Buy the rumour, Sell the news...!?

Chart AAPL against any broad market index you like for the last three months and then get back to me.

Agreed. The thing to remember also with analysts is that basically, it's their job to explain computers and the computer business to people who know absolutely nothing about them, even though the analysts themselves probably know less about computers and the computer business than anyone who is actively involved with it. So it's a classic "blind leading the blind" situation, or at least the severely vision impaired leading the blind anyway.

Most of these guys are just performing a basic graduate school business analysis on some figures they were handed. Insight, knowledge, and all that other good stuff rarely has anything to do with it.

They are supposed to be running the numbers, not explaining technology. They don't need more than a rudimentary understanding of the technology to do their jobs. What's more, the modeling formula is far simpler than most will let on. It involves only three variables: revenue projections, margin projections, and earnings multiples. Even the worst of them actually tend to get the first two pretty close to the mark. Where everybody is falling flat right now is on the multiples. The forward PE for AAPL is now under 12, which means it's being priced by the markets as a non-growth company. Go ex-cash and the forward PE is in single digits. So how do you change the market's apparent perception that AAPL is no longer a growth story? Beats the hell out of me. I'd sure like to see one of these analysts who are forecasting $500 in a year explain it.

If you mean a midsize desktop you might as well move on then. They stated in the keynote that 3/4 of all Mac sales now are notebooks. They're not going to waste resources creating a "Mac Pro lite" that almost no one is going to buy.

I agree - if you need the power and can't afford the price of a full tower - get a used one that is a couple years old.

I have bought new and used and refurb over the years - it all depends on what compromises you are able or wiling to make.

You're being too harsh. Nothing in known finance or economics allows you to say "what" and "when" at the same time.

Wake me up when the data are encrypted in the cloud, too.

The analyst's price targets are both "what" and "when" forecasts.

Perhaps you missed my point. That's exactly what I said.

Apparently I did miss your point. Are you saying that all analyst forecasts should be ignored?

Except for those of us that hate all in ones and will never buy all in ones. What is mid sized by having to go with a 27 inch screen in order to have the fastest processor? That's not mid sized. That's big! Not everyone wants or needs a huge screen. What I want and need is an easy to open Mac that has room for two internal hard drives and an optical drive and has some jacks and slots on the front like the Mac Pro that lets me use the monitor I already have.

That is mid sized and mid range.

They are charlatans with cracked crystal balls.

Maybe they don't sell as many desktops because they refuse to sell the right type of desktop.
I do not want or need portability so no laptop or iPad for me.
I do not like all in ones and the limitations that come with them so no iMac for me.
The Mini is $699 does not meet my needs.
The Mac Pro is $2499 and huge and costs a lot of money.

Were is the $1500 product that fits in that gap? The iMac isn't it. I have plenty of money for a Mac that meets my needs. I don't have money to waste on something that isn't going to work for me.

Apple proclaimed "Back to the Mac" and if anything we are seeing less attention than ever.

It's not just the money it is the size. Why buy twice the computer I need by getting the Mac Pro?
Why buy half the computer I need by getting the Mini?

I need and want the Mac that ought to be filling the gap between the two of them. But Apple keeps throwing the limitations of an all in one at me instead of offering a real choice.

No. Sometimes, they contain useful industry or competitive information that are not easy to obtain.

I'm sorry but I just don't think that's the case. Apple has narrowed in on the machines that meet the needs of 90-95% of the market, or at least what they want for their market. Just as Apple could conceivable capture much more market share by creating a $300 Mac, dabbling in the low end isn't in their interests. And neither is trying to cater to the niches between their existing 3 desktop offerings.

It's up to YOU to either reconcile your issues with those offerings. Either make a compromise on size/price or flexibility. Your only other option is to move to another OS.

If you wait for Apple to deliver what you've described, you'll be waiting forever.

Sometimes. Rarely. As I mentioned, the formula for these projections isn't nuclear physics. The big assumption in the variables is the multiples. I'd be interested to hear any one of these analysts describe their rationale for increasing multiples when they've done little but decrease for AAPL in the recent past. Investor sentiments can change obviously, but generally not that much or that quickly.

What do you consider "mid-sized"?

Apple is focusing on mobile/cloud computing. In this model, laptops, iPad's and iPhone's are most common, with iMac's, Mini's and the occasional Mac Pro holding down the fort at home. Apple TV's and Time Capsules provide support services.

Especially now that there's Thunderbolt, I can't imagine what a "mid-size" computer would be. A Sandy Bridge quad-core has more computing power than any home user can ever take advantage of.

Are you looking for the ability to plug in PCI-E adapters? 99.9% of users have never opened the box. With Thunderbolt, you don't need to anyhow. So there's no point in having a "small tower" form factor.

The only issue I have with Apple is their dropping XServe, but I now see their focus is elsewhere, and it makes complete sense. Unless you need two processor sockets, the XServe and Mac Pro are no more potent than a Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro or Mac Mini.

Either you're doing heavy duty computing and/or video editing, which means Mac Pro, or a MacBook Pro/Mini/iMac with Thunderbolt does anything you could ever want to do.

Please explain why asking for a "mid-sized computer" isn't like asking Apple to put in a combo 5 1/4"/3.5" floppy drive.

Seriously, what is the NEED you have? What are you unable to do with a Sandy Bridge-based quad-core Mac Mini, which will be announced in the near future? What are you unable to do even with today's dual-core Core-based Mac Mini?

Which "half" is missing from the Mini? How is a Mac Pro "twice" the computer you need? Are you looking for drive bays? PCI-E slots? You want to be able to plug in graphics adapters? Please be specific. I genuinely want to understand.

A Mini + a 6-bay Thunderbolt NAS is cheaper than a Mac Pro and has even more capability.

I agree. I just noticed a few minutes ago that microsoft was up.06 vs. apple down over $5.00 !?

Multiples themselves are nothing more than a reflection of the market's assessment of a company's growth-adjusted discount rate.

For example, the forward P/E ratio is simply 1/(rE - g) where rE is the company's expected return on equity and 'g' is the market's expectation of long-run annual growth rate in earnings.

Either or both of those can can change on a dime, so investor sentiment can change in a flash. Moreover, since they themselves are a function of exogenous variables like treasury bond yields (i.e., what the Fed does), equity risk premia (i.e., the general attitude towards and tolerance for risk in equity markets), not to mention firm-specific risks and cash flow prospects. The confluence of all these confounds things even more.

More generally, there are expectations concerning important market and firm-level fundamentals that are constantly changing, than just some generic 'market sentiment' that you keep referring to (dismissively, I might add) in a lot of your posts.

Honestly, besides the synching of documents between my devices, I'm not that jazzed about iCloud. I guess I can see where some may be enamored of it enough to buy into the Apple ecosystem, but something tells me it's more a convenience for those already in it.

Contacts, calendar, email, bookmarks, iBookmarks sync is something I already enjoy so it's tough to get too jazzed about it. The music sync feature may be good, but I hope to get the customization of a hard sync. I've grown accustomed to tailoring my music to specific devices. The photo sync will be real helpful, though I'm not too concrete on the specifics of the feature.

I guess it all boils down to iCloud not being nearly as exciting to me as the iOS 5 and Lion announcements.

I like internal devices. I like to back up my data. I use an optical drive. I want to use the monitor I already have. Show me a Mac other than the Mac Pro that has room for two internal hard drives, an optical drive and lets me use the monitor I have. The Mac Pro does have a couple of features going for it that no other Mac does. It is easy to open and has some jacks on the front.

Apple has traded in function over form and is throwing designs at us that have components packed in like it was a can of sardines.
Apple wants all to fawn all over its designs that it goes to great time and expense perfecting and then forces us to buy external devices that detract from those designs because it refuses to offer a model other than the $2499 Mac Pro that has any room inside the case.

It makes no sense. You would think that out of all the consumer model choices Apple would offer just one that had a little bit of expandability and simple logical features like an easy to open case and some jacks on the front. The Mac Pro is the only computer Apple has where function comes first. but it still looks good to boot. All I want is a consumer level Mac that is made with the same balance between form and function.

I intend to use my computer not let it sit there like a piece of art.

I know exactly what PE is, and I suspect you know I know. They rarely change significantly "on a dime" -- they trend, precisely because they are representation of investor sentiments. Put it this way: for the sentiments on AAPL to return to investor sentiments of only a year ago, the value of the shares would have to move up to around $450. That would be changing on a dime. Good luck with that. Market sentiment is fundamentally generic, even as you have defined it. It is non-specific, based on general perceptions of earnings growth prospects. AAPL has not been moving crosswise with the markets for months now due to "exogenous variables," it is moving downwards relative to the markets due to declining investor sentiments regarding this particular stock. Just because we think it's wrong doesn't make it untrue.

Let's go a bit farther. What's important to Apple is whether there's a reasonably sized market and whether there are needs that can't reasonably be met otherwise.



Allow me to gather a bit more information.

It sounds as though the internal devices you need are an optical drive for backup and at least two HDD. You've also expressed that you would like to continue using your current monitor. You made no mention of needing PCI-E slots, hardware RAID or multiple processor sockets. Does this summarize your request?

Is your current monitor ADC or does it use one of the more standard connectors (VGA, DVI, miniDisplayPort, HDMI)?

Since you use your ODD for backups, may I presume that you seldom have more than 4.7GB of data to backup? Also, do you seldom need to store your data for longer than 5 years (the life expectancy of most consumer-grade DVD-R's)?

The Sandy Bridge-based Mac Mini Server is very likely to ship with two HDD's and is user-serviceable for memory upgrades and hard disk replacements. It also has a Thunderbolt port which, with an inexpensive adapter from Apple or Kanex, can connect to most any VGA, DVI or HDMI monitor. Thunderbolt is also directly compatible with DisplayPort. The latest SuperDrive ODD stacks nicely on top and shares the same form factor. The Mini Server also has analog and optical audio in/out jacks built in. The new version may also keep the HDMI port, which can be used for a second monitor.

True, the ODD is not built-in, but I believe this meets all your other requirements. The Sandy Bridge-based Mac Mini has not been announced yet, but we can reasonably assume that the prices will be the same as or at least similar to the Core 2 Duo-based Mac Mini.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/server/specs.html

Mac Mini Server w/dual 500GB 7200 RPM HDD - $999
Kanex adapter for your current monitor - $14 (VGA) to $39(DVI)
SuperDrive - $79
Dual 1TB or dual 1.5TB drives may also be available as BTO.

For under $1100, you're set! You can keep your current monitor and even add a second one. The Sandy Bridge processor has enough power for almost any computing task. All this for less than half the price of a Mac Pro. It's even small enough that you can hang it underneath your desk. Also, if you google/Bing, there are several mounts and cases available from third parties that allow you to slide in your Mac Mini and SuperDrive, rack mount them and more.

Another option is to buy a refurbished Mac Pro for $1999.

I believe this is a valid solution unless your monitor is an ADC. What do you think?