This will fail if you can't "cut the cord" to the cable and satellite providers for TV programming. It's what Steve DIDN'T want. He always said that unless you reinvented the entire chain and get rid of the extra boxes and remotes that it would not succeed and I agree 100%.
Bill
Well, they could cut the cord. Force-cut that is.
Comcast's market cap today was about $24B. Comcast has ~23M customers.
With Apple's cashstash they could buy Comcast, Viacom and TIme-Warner and have tens of billions left over, after selling the odd bits. Cable systems are fast losing customers, so they are comparatively cheap right now.
Once Apple owned a significant fraction of the "pipes", they could set the standard for a new way of doing business, and have a ready market that is not obstructed by the pipe-owners trying to maintain their leverage. I suspect that Apple does not want to have to go through the AT&T experience again. Once the cable providers are locked in, Apple could IPO them and get their money back.
Apple's newfound cash (remember it has only been a few years) may have been Steve's magic bullet to solve the TV problem.
For my sins I work as an electronics engineer coding RTL for IP for SoCs that are used in DTVs. Most, if not all of these are more complicated than Apple's magical A5. They contain multiple CPU cores along with demods, dsps and frcs ( frame rate converters, the things that do all of the 240Hz post processing nonsense ). Coupled with this is platform SW to tie the entire system together.
All of this good stuff is sold in a chip that sells for 10$ per unit. I say again, 10$ per unit for a chip that is more systemically complex than your wizzy Intel CPU that sells for 150$+ This industry is broken. Big players like Intel and Broadcom have killed development of DTV SoCs. Even the mighty Samsung are losing money in the DTV business.
The only way Apple can make money out of this is to own the chain from the headend ( broadcaster/cable company ) down to the TV in your living room. People aren't going to pay big bucks for a TV, Apple logo or not. It will need to be priced aggresively to at least compete in the market although not necessarily undercut it. Revenue, as is the case for the iPod will come from the content, not the HW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KaptainK
"Big players like Intel and Broadcom have killed development of DTV SoCs"
You misunderstood. Intel and Broadcom killed their respective DTV SoC development because it was not profitable based on the required R&D. They themselves did not kill the industry, the likes of Samsung and the demand for lower and lower prices for consumer electronics did that.
The problem in the development of SoCs is that no one wants to pay for the SW. This isn't the application SW, middleware or even OS. This is the SoC specific platform SW which enables all the IP on the chip to work together. It has to be developed and maintained by the semi company and is now a high proportion of the overall R&D.
I have not seen any of your posts before... so I have no way to evaluate your reasons for posting here.
You seem to have knowledge of the chips that are the heart of Digital TVs.
You indicate that these chips have been [unfairly or unreasonably] commoditized because of the TV manufacturers relentless efforts to reduce costs.
Who makes these chips?
Has anything of marketable value been sacrificed by this commoditization?
The reason I ask is that often a commodity can become disruptive if value can be added to it.
The so called "smart phones" were commodities before the iPhone.
I know of a company that is very good at packaging SOCs and POPs while adding value.
Could this in anyway be related to the statement that Steve made re solving the TV problem?
Well, the fact is that AAPL did drop, what, $25/share?
And ALL of the coverage led with "Apple misses projections".
You're getting closer, but still not quite there.
You see, Apple stock dropped (only 5%, by the way, which is WAY less than I would have predicted it would drop after its first miss in 5 years) because investors sold it, and didn't buy it. It didn't drop because of what analysts said (what you originally claimed, which was stupid) or because of what a news headline said (do you really think investors are that dumb?).
Here is what analysts, those people who you claim "were quick to call Apple a failure", said:
Goldman Sachs suggests lowered expectations may result in bigger blowouts for Apple:
As consensus estimates are now likely to hug guidance more closely, we expect next quarter’s expectations to remain realistic and perhaps even conservative.
Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu remarks:
We are not proud modeling 18.5 million iPhones which turned out higher than actual 17 million shipments but we were materially below consensus of 20 million, not to mention some analysts who assumed as high as 23 million units. It turned out that a concern we raised in our earnings preview (see our 10/12/11 note) that consensus didn't factor in enough of a "product transition" that management talked about was valid (which turned out to be iPhone 4S launching in October).
Likewise Morningstar predicts a big fourth quarter, commenting:
We continue to believe that the capabilities of the new phone, a large base of existing customers ready for renewal, and new price points for existing phones have positioned Apple for tremendous success during the next quarter, which will be 14 weeks long instead of 13 (due to a quirk in Apple’s fiscal reporting calendar).
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch attributes the glitch to "pent-up demand" and suggests that the iPhone 4S will be a smash hit, writing:
Apple missed revenue and EPS due to an underestimated pause in iPhone sales ahead of the 4S launch. That said, we do not view this as a sign of softening iPhone demand. In our view, solid pent-up demand, combined with incremental unit sales from new carriers added in F1Q12 (Apple deferred the new carrier addition to F1Q12 because of the iPhone 4S launch) should drive a healthy rebound in iPhone sales. We remain buyers of the stock heading into perhaps the most successful product launch in company history, with the iPhone 4S.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggests that some customers are playing the waiting game, hoping to upgrade to an iPhone 5 next summer. But he says a more-bullish-than-usual earnings guidance from Apple for calendar Q4 2011 could point to a blowout quarter. He comments:
We see this as a disappointment, but given the strong start to iPhone 4S sales, we believe it is clear that units were pushed from the Sept. quarter into the Dec. quarter as customers waited for the "iPhone 5"... We believe Apple's Dec-11 quarter guidance is evidence of the company's confidence in iPhone 4S and iPad sales in the Dec-11 quarter.
Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty was similarly bullish dismissing the miss as a "hiccup". She writes:
We believe the Street underestimated the degree to which September was a transitional quarter for the iPhone but with strong iPhone momentum out of the gate in October, we don’t see the light iPhone shipments as a cause for concern... [L]ower than expected uptick in iPad shipments was the only real "flaw" [in the quarter].
She predicts the company's stock to rise 14 percent within the next year, reaching around $480 USD/share.
You can keep thinking that Apple is beaten down by the world. But you're an idiot if you believe that.
I've never seen such fawning over a miss from any company. The fact that you can't see that makes me wonder how likely it is you would ever be able to understand the market. Doubtful.
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
It should be possible to filter out any sound coming through the TV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cameronj
You're getting closer, but still not quite there.
You see, Apple stock dropped because investors sold it. It didn't drop because of what analysts said (what you originally claimed, which was stupid) or because of what a news headline said (do you really think investors are that dumb?).
Here is what analysts, those people who you claim "were quick to call Apple a failure", said:
You can keep thinking that Apple is beaten down by the world. But you're an idiot if you believe that.
And you'd be an idiot to think that all those people just arbitrarily decided to sell their stock that day. Obviously, it was the "Apple misses earnings target" nonsense that caused it. If you bother to read the story you cited, the fundamental problem is that the analysts made up numbers that were substantially higher than Apple's guidance and when Apple failed to meet the analysts' numbers, all hell broke loose (even though Apple handily exceeded their guidance by about the same percentage as they have every quarter but one for the past 2 years.
I wonder if Siri's "personality" will stay the same with iOS 6 or will she all of a sudden be different.
One could expect Apple to evolve her personality - as well as her functionality - to cult status. I keep applying the face of Jessica Rabbit to Siri's voice and imagine her functionality as a TV interface not so different to the remote functionality of Max Headroom.
Siri's not fly-by-night. Siri will drive all our Apple voice-driven gadgets in the future.
Siri seems to do a pretty good job ignoring background noise (maybe related to the 2 microphones, distance and noise-cancelling software).
Also, Siri appears to train herself to recognize your voice (or you her needs). Anyway, Siri gets more precise over time.
I assume, that Apple would supply a dedicated Siri remote that could be be set to activate to a user-specified word... "Siri" being the default.
Phil Schiller did mention a new component to the A5 chip when talking about Siri. I think it had to do with understanding commands. I'm not sure if it's a HW feature, algorithm or something else entirely but it does seem the iPhone 4S is better suited for Siri than the iPhone 4 on some level.
It should be possible to filter out any sound coming through the TV.
And you'd be an idiot to think that all those people just arbitrarily decided to sell their stock that day. Obviously, it was the "Apple misses earnings target" nonsense that caused it. If you bother to read the story you cited, the fundamental problem is that the analysts made up numbers that were substantially higher than Apple's guidance and when Apple failed to meet the analysts' numbers, all hell broke loose (even though Apple handily exceeded their guidance by about the same percentage as they have every quarter but one for the past 2 years.
Guess what happens when analysts arbitrarily (gee, you don't think it was because Apple ALWAYS low-balled their own expectations over the past 5 years?) raise their estimates? The stock goes up! When Apple missed them, what happened was that the gains that the stock had enjoyed as a result of unrealistic optimism went away. That's the beauty of the stock market. There are no free lunches. You can't pump a stock up forever, eventually reality comes in the form of financial results, and the stock adjusts to where it SHOULD be.
Going down after earnings was not the incorrect move - going UP to 425 before earnings was.
You'll understand that someday. Until then, you can pity Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
Of course. And imagine pdf files that install maleware...
Stand back and look at what Siri really is, she's (it's) a brand new way of controlling a new category of voice-driven devices. Siri is an user interface, just like Touch is, just like the Finder is for mouse-driven Macs.
Possibly the thing you are not thinking of is the fact that there are people out there *without* HDTV's in their home at the moment.
Problem is, the early adopters are the ones most likely to pay a premium price, and the early adopters are "all-in" already re HDTV.
Consider this:
? When Apple introduced the iPod, very few people had even heard of MP3 players.
? When Apple introduced the iPhone, there were virtually no smartphones.
? When Apple introduced the iPad, nothing like it existed.
But TVs? No matter how slick or sophisticated the AppleTV is - this time, Apple does not have a new market all to itself. People have TVs, and they have HDTVs. And they have TiVo and Boxee and XBox and other boxes (none of which require you dump your old TV before you can use them).
If people have to dump their TV to get an AppleTV, in this economy, the product will fail.
If you have to accept the Apple ecosystem and buy content from them, this will be a non-starter. We are not veals in cages.
Sigh. "veals (sic) in cages". I guess tdws is NOT a vegan, or even a vegetarian, since he is mentioning that important issue in such trivial circumstances - quite out of context and gratuitously, in this post.
We get a lot of negative chat on AI about "the dreaded APPLE ecosystem" but I don't get it.
I have an HTC Android (corporate issue) phone that is almost completely unusable - the phone rings, you pick it up and just by grabbing it, you have turned it off, or muted the sound - trying to take the call is "just problematic". It's hard to do anything with this device - no usability at all.
Yes, the APPLE ecosystem is a "walled garden", but I much prefer knowing what to do and how to do it across multiple devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) rather than to try to discover each product's eccentricities while I am trying to live my life. I am happy that the wheels, oil filters, brake linings, accessories etc., of my vehicle actually work with this vehicle. Open source, free software, anything goes, is a lovely concept - when it meets your needs.
Apple's walled garden is great because it works end-to-end.
Can anyone please advise on comparable, so useful, usable, alternatives?
Guess what happens when analysts arbitrarily (gee, you don't think it was because Apple ALWAYS low-balled their own expectations over the past 5 years?) raise their estimates? The stock goes up! When Apple missed them, what happened was that the gains that the stock had enjoyed as a result of unrealistic optimism went away. That's the beauty of the stock market. There are no free lunches. You can't pump a stock up forever, eventually reality comes in the form of financial results, and the stock adjusts to where it SHOULD be.
Going down after earnings was not the incorrect move - going UP to 425 before earnings was.
You'll understand that someday. Until then, you can pity Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
Read the Fortune magazine article on the subject. Apple has very consistently beaten their projections over the past two years. Every quarter but one, they ended up beating projections by 12-18%, which is not unreasonable. The most recent quarter was also within that range.
Now, an intelligent analyst (every bit as much an oxymoron as 'jumbo shrimp') would add 12-18% to Apple's guidance and they'd be pretty close. Instead, these analysts were providing ridiculous numbers.
You are partially correct that in the long run, it averages out. To some extent, performance is based on long term results. But you are incorrect in assuming that the analysts' pump and dump has no impact. First, it increases volatility - which tends to depress stock prices for the long term. Second, it rewards people who play the pump and dump game.
Maybe that's why Apple is perhaps the most undervalued stock on the market - by nearly any standard.
Read the Fortune magazine article on the subject. Apple has very consistently beaten their projections over the past two years. Every quarter but one, they ended up beating projections by 12-18%, which is not unreasonable. The most recent quarter was also within that range.
Now, an intelligent analyst (every bit as much an oxymoron as 'jumbo shrimp') would add 12-18% to Apple's guidance and they'd be pretty close. Instead, these analysts were providing ridiculous numbers.
You are partially correct that in the long run, it averages out. To some extent, performance is based on long term results. But you are incorrect in assuming that the analysts' pump and dump has no impact. First, it increases volatility - which tends to depress stock prices for the long term. Second, it rewards people who play the pump and dump game.
Be honest with yourself. You're just upset because your stock went down.
For 20 straight quarters, the OPPOSITE situation happened. Analysts arbitrarily low-balled estimates and Apple beat them. Sometimes the stock went up after, sometimes it went down. Because stocks don't go up and down based on what analysts say, they go up and down based on what the actual owners of the stock out there expect, and how that compares to reality.
I'm pretty sure you didn't bitch and moan about unfair analysts when they were purposely underestimating Apple, and allowing Apple to beat their estimates easily, causing the stock to rise. RIGHT?
No, you're just upset because you feel like someone else controls your destiny and it's comforting to have a target for your fury. But it's stupid, your fury. It shows a lack of understanding of how the world works.
If i were you I wouldn't go broadcasting that around. I'd do my best to educate myself so I didn't sound so dumb out in public, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary of your chosen point and railing against the one bit of evidence that supports it.
20 quarters in a row they underestimate. 1 quarter they overestimate and suddenly you think it's a conspiracy. How dumb.
Problem is, the early adopters are the ones most likely to pay a premium price, and the early adopters are "all-in" already re HDTV.
Consider this:
? When Apple introduced the iPod, very few people had even heard of MP3 players.
? When Apple introduced the iPhone, there were virtually no smartphones.
? When Apple introduced the iPad, nothing like it existed.
But TVs? No matter how slick or sophisticated the AppleTV is - this time, Apple does not have a new market all to itself. People have TVs, and they have HDTVs. And they have TiVo and Boxee and XBox and other boxes (none of which require you dump your old TV before you can use them).
If people have to dump their TV to get an AppleTV, in this economy, the product will fail.
The entry point is the AppleTV. The full extension will be the Apple HDTV.
People said the same thing about the iPhone and iPod.
Furthermore, people said that they wouldn't buy an iPhone 4S but would wait for an iPhone 5. We can see how that's working out.
The lesson here is that one shouldn't be talking about whether they'll buy a product or not when there's no real evidence that the product even exists, nor is there any evidence at all of features, pricing, etc.
It is absurd to even speculate on whether you'd buy a nonexistent product that nothing is known about.
I do not think I'm buying a TV. I bought an iPhone 4s. I knew I'd buy the original iPhone.
Possibly the thing you are not thinking of is the fact that there are people out there *without* HDTV's in their home at the moment.
Just as most smartphone owners didn't see the value of the iPhone right away because they already had a device that filled what they thought were their needs, anyone who already has a big screen TV and all the various boxes and content hookups can't see any need to replace it.
There are people out there who don't have an HDTV yet and at least some of them are not buying because they don't understand what it is they need to get or find the whole field complicated and off-putting. Apple will make an HDTV with built in content and make it so simple that your grandmother will buy it.
What if they either bought Netflix or subsidised it on the TV for instance? Then any fool can buy a TV, plug it in and it already has every old movie and TV show on it you ever heard of without buying another thing. I think that would be immensely popular. Big upfront price perhaps, but once you bought it, no monthly cable bill at all.
Most of the people I know with HDTV's pay something like 30 or 40 a month for Internet and then a further 69-90 for cable or TV packages. How nice would it be to just pay for the Internet hookup? This is just another step on the road to turning Cable companies, cell phone providers, and telecommunications outfits into the big dumb pipes they should be.
Quite possibly. There could be a market of people without hdtvs. I know I'd like to clip my cable bill. Just can't see myself buying a new TV even if they knock my socks off.
You rase a valid question. I like the idea of a tv with Siri interface elements: "TV, go to the Eagles game" or "TV, tape Breaking Bad tonight" or any of a dozen commands that force you to fumble for the remote and then hunt and peck through annoying menus...
BUT, if Apple can make that happen with a $100 add on box, why would people pay an extra thousand or two?
Also, Apple has made a killing on consumer items that we replace or upgrade every year or three. For most people, TVs are on an entirely different upgrade schedule. I would think long and hard before buying an Apple HDTV if I felt I was going to feel left out if I couldn't upgrade in three years!
Comments
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
This will fail if you can't "cut the cord" to the cable and satellite providers for TV programming. It's what Steve DIDN'T want. He always said that unless you reinvented the entire chain and get rid of the extra boxes and remotes that it would not succeed and I agree 100%.
Bill
Well, they could cut the cord. Force-cut that is.
Comcast's market cap today was about $24B. Comcast has ~23M customers.
With Apple's cashstash they could buy Comcast, Viacom and TIme-Warner and have tens of billions left over, after selling the odd bits. Cable systems are fast losing customers, so they are comparatively cheap right now.
Once Apple owned a significant fraction of the "pipes", they could set the standard for a new way of doing business, and have a ready market that is not obstructed by the pipe-owners trying to maintain their leverage. I suspect that Apple does not want to have to go through the AT&T experience again. Once the cable providers are locked in, Apple could IPO them and get their money back.
Apple's newfound cash (remember it has only been a few years) may have been Steve's magic bullet to solve the TV problem.
For my sins I work as an electronics engineer coding RTL for IP for SoCs that are used in DTVs. Most, if not all of these are more complicated than Apple's magical A5. They contain multiple CPU cores along with demods, dsps and frcs ( frame rate converters, the things that do all of the 240Hz post processing nonsense ). Coupled with this is platform SW to tie the entire system together.
All of this good stuff is sold in a chip that sells for 10$ per unit. I say again, 10$ per unit for a chip that is more systemically complex than your wizzy Intel CPU that sells for 150$+ This industry is broken. Big players like Intel and Broadcom have killed development of DTV SoCs. Even the mighty Samsung are losing money in the DTV business.
The only way Apple can make money out of this is to own the chain from the headend ( broadcaster/cable company ) down to the TV in your living room. People aren't going to pay big bucks for a TV, Apple logo or not. It will need to be priced aggresively to at least compete in the market although not necessarily undercut it. Revenue, as is the case for the iPod will come from the content, not the HW.
"Big players like Intel and Broadcom have killed development of DTV SoCs"
You misunderstood. Intel and Broadcom killed their respective DTV SoC development because it was not profitable based on the required R&D. They themselves did not kill the industry, the likes of Samsung and the demand for lower and lower prices for consumer electronics did that.
The problem in the development of SoCs is that no one wants to pay for the SW. This isn't the application SW, middleware or even OS. This is the SoC specific platform SW which enables all the IP on the chip to work together. It has to be developed and maintained by the semi company and is now a high proportion of the overall R&D.
I have not seen any of your posts before... so I have no way to evaluate your reasons for posting here.
You seem to have knowledge of the chips that are the heart of Digital TVs.
You indicate that these chips have been [unfairly or unreasonably] commoditized because of the TV manufacturers relentless efforts to reduce costs.
Who makes these chips?
Has anything of marketable value been sacrificed by this commoditization?
The reason I ask is that often a commodity can become disruptive if value can be added to it.
The so called "smart phones" were commodities before the iPhone.
I know of a company that is very good at packaging SOCs and POPs while adding value.
Could this in anyway be related to the statement that Steve made re solving the TV problem?
ARM Cortex A-15 announced by ARM Holdings and TSMC to stamp out at 20nm.
http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/ar...-processor.php
Thanks for the press release, but isn't this a bit off-topic?
Well, the fact is that AAPL did drop, what, $25/share?
And ALL of the coverage led with "Apple misses projections".
You're getting closer, but still not quite there.
You see, Apple stock dropped (only 5%, by the way, which is WAY less than I would have predicted it would drop after its first miss in 5 years) because investors sold it, and didn't buy it. It didn't drop because of what analysts said (what you originally claimed, which was stupid) or because of what a news headline said (do you really think investors are that dumb?).
Here is what analysts, those people who you claim "were quick to call Apple a failure", said:
http://www.dailytech.com/Wall+Street...ticle23058.htm
Goldman Sachs suggests lowered expectations may result in bigger blowouts for Apple:
As consensus estimates are now likely to hug guidance more closely, we expect next quarter’s expectations to remain realistic and perhaps even conservative.
Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu remarks:
We are not proud modeling 18.5 million iPhones which turned out higher than actual 17 million shipments but we were materially below consensus of 20 million, not to mention some analysts who assumed as high as 23 million units. It turned out that a concern we raised in our earnings preview (see our 10/12/11 note) that consensus didn't factor in enough of a "product transition" that management talked about was valid (which turned out to be iPhone 4S launching in October).
Likewise Morningstar predicts a big fourth quarter, commenting:
We continue to believe that the capabilities of the new phone, a large base of existing customers ready for renewal, and new price points for existing phones have positioned Apple for tremendous success during the next quarter, which will be 14 weeks long instead of 13 (due to a quirk in Apple’s fiscal reporting calendar).
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch attributes the glitch to "pent-up demand" and suggests that the iPhone 4S will be a smash hit, writing:
Apple missed revenue and EPS due to an underestimated pause in iPhone sales ahead of the 4S launch. That said, we do not view this as a sign of softening iPhone demand. In our view, solid pent-up demand, combined with incremental unit sales from new carriers added in F1Q12 (Apple deferred the new carrier addition to F1Q12 because of the iPhone 4S launch) should drive a healthy rebound in iPhone sales. We remain buyers of the stock heading into perhaps the most successful product launch in company history, with the iPhone 4S.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggests that some customers are playing the waiting game, hoping to upgrade to an iPhone 5 next summer. But he says a more-bullish-than-usual earnings guidance from Apple for calendar Q4 2011 could point to a blowout quarter. He comments:
We see this as a disappointment, but given the strong start to iPhone 4S sales, we believe it is clear that units were pushed from the Sept. quarter into the Dec. quarter as customers waited for the "iPhone 5"... We believe Apple's Dec-11 quarter guidance is evidence of the company's confidence in iPhone 4S and iPad sales in the Dec-11 quarter.
Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty was similarly bullish dismissing the miss as a "hiccup". She writes:
We believe the Street underestimated the degree to which September was a transitional quarter for the iPhone but with strong iPhone momentum out of the gate in October, we don’t see the light iPhone shipments as a cause for concern... [L]ower than expected uptick in iPad shipments was the only real "flaw" [in the quarter].
She predicts the company's stock to rise 14 percent within the next year, reaching around $480 USD/share.
You can keep thinking that Apple is beaten down by the world. But you're an idiot if you believe that.
I've never seen such fawning over a miss from any company. The fact that you can't see that makes me wonder how likely it is you would ever be able to understand the market. Doubtful.
Would Siri ignore the TV audio?
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
It should be possible to filter out any sound coming through the TV.
You're getting closer, but still not quite there.
You see, Apple stock dropped because investors sold it. It didn't drop because of what analysts said (what you originally claimed, which was stupid) or because of what a news headline said (do you really think investors are that dumb?).
Here is what analysts, those people who you claim "were quick to call Apple a failure", said:
http://www.dailytech.com/Wall+Street...ticle23058.htm
You can keep thinking that Apple is beaten down by the world. But you're an idiot if you believe that.
And you'd be an idiot to think that all those people just arbitrarily decided to sell their stock that day. Obviously, it was the "Apple misses earnings target" nonsense that caused it. If you bother to read the story you cited, the fundamental problem is that the analysts made up numbers that were substantially higher than Apple's guidance and when Apple failed to meet the analysts' numbers, all hell broke loose (even though Apple handily exceeded their guidance by about the same percentage as they have every quarter but one for the past 2 years.
Would Siri ignore the TV audio?
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
Siri seems to do a pretty good job ignoring background noise (maybe related to the 2 microphones, distance and noise-cancelling software).
Also, Siri appears to train herself to recognize your voice (or you her needs). Anyway, Siri gets more precise over time.
I assume, that Apple would supply a dedicated Siri remote that could be be set to activate to a user-specified word... "Siri" being the default.
I wonder if Siri's "personality" will stay the same with iOS 6 or will she all of a sudden be different.
One could expect Apple to evolve her personality - as well as her functionality - to cult status. I keep applying the face of Jessica Rabbit to Siri's voice and imagine her functionality as a TV interface not so different to the remote functionality of Max Headroom.
Siri's not fly-by-night. Siri will drive all our Apple voice-driven gadgets in the future.
Siri seems to do a pretty good job ignoring background noise (maybe related to the 2 microphones, distance and noise-cancelling software).
Also, Siri appears to train herself to recognize your voice (or you her needs). Anyway, Siri gets more precise over time.
I assume, that Apple would supply a dedicated Siri remote that could be be set to activate to a user-specified word... "Siri" being the default.
Phil Schiller did mention a new component to the A5 chip when talking about Siri. I think it had to do with understanding commands. I'm not sure if it's a HW feature, algorithm or something else entirely but it does seem the iPhone 4S is better suited for Siri than the iPhone 4 on some level.
It should be possible to filter out any sound coming through the TV.
And you'd be an idiot to think that all those people just arbitrarily decided to sell their stock that day. Obviously, it was the "Apple misses earnings target" nonsense that caused it. If you bother to read the story you cited, the fundamental problem is that the analysts made up numbers that were substantially higher than Apple's guidance and when Apple failed to meet the analysts' numbers, all hell broke loose (even though Apple handily exceeded their guidance by about the same percentage as they have every quarter but one for the past 2 years.
Guess what happens when analysts arbitrarily (gee, you don't think it was because Apple ALWAYS low-balled their own expectations over the past 5 years?) raise their estimates? The stock goes up! When Apple missed them, what happened was that the gains that the stock had enjoyed as a result of unrealistic optimism went away. That's the beauty of the stock market. There are no free lunches. You can't pump a stock up forever, eventually reality comes in the form of financial results, and the stock adjusts to where it SHOULD be.
Going down after earnings was not the incorrect move - going UP to 425 before earnings was.
You'll understand that someday. Until then, you can pity Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
Would Siri ignore the TV audio?
Imagine ads designed specifically to hijack Siri...
Or Apple ads that inadvertently commanded Siri.
Of course. And imagine pdf files that install maleware...
Stand back and look at what Siri really is, she's (it's) a brand new way of controlling a new category of voice-driven devices. Siri is an user interface, just like Touch is, just like the Finder is for mouse-driven Macs.
That's a category game changer.
Possibly the thing you are not thinking of is the fact that there are people out there *without* HDTV's in their home at the moment.
Problem is, the early adopters are the ones most likely to pay a premium price, and the early adopters are "all-in" already re HDTV.
Consider this:
? When Apple introduced the iPod, very few people had even heard of MP3 players.
? When Apple introduced the iPhone, there were virtually no smartphones.
? When Apple introduced the iPad, nothing like it existed.
But TVs? No matter how slick or sophisticated the AppleTV is - this time, Apple does not have a new market all to itself. People have TVs, and they have HDTVs. And they have TiVo and Boxee and XBox and other boxes (none of which require you dump your old TV before you can use them).
If people have to dump their TV to get an AppleTV, in this economy, the product will fail.
If you have to accept the Apple ecosystem and buy content from them, this will be a non-starter. We are not veals in cages.
Sigh. "veals (sic) in cages". I guess tdws is NOT a vegan, or even a vegetarian, since he is mentioning that important issue in such trivial circumstances - quite out of context and gratuitously, in this post.
We get a lot of negative chat on AI about "the dreaded APPLE ecosystem" but I don't get it.
I have an HTC Android (corporate issue) phone that is almost completely unusable - the phone rings, you pick it up and just by grabbing it, you have turned it off, or muted the sound - trying to take the call is "just problematic". It's hard to do anything with this device - no usability at all.
Yes, the APPLE ecosystem is a "walled garden", but I much prefer knowing what to do and how to do it across multiple devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) rather than to try to discover each product's eccentricities while I am trying to live my life. I am happy that the wheels, oil filters, brake linings, accessories etc., of my vehicle actually work with this vehicle. Open source, free software, anything goes, is a lovely concept - when it meets your needs.
Apple's walled garden is great because it works end-to-end.
Can anyone please advise on comparable, so useful, usable, alternatives?
Guess what happens when analysts arbitrarily (gee, you don't think it was because Apple ALWAYS low-balled their own expectations over the past 5 years?) raise their estimates? The stock goes up! When Apple missed them, what happened was that the gains that the stock had enjoyed as a result of unrealistic optimism went away. That's the beauty of the stock market. There are no free lunches. You can't pump a stock up forever, eventually reality comes in the form of financial results, and the stock adjusts to where it SHOULD be.
Going down after earnings was not the incorrect move - going UP to 425 before earnings was.
You'll understand that someday. Until then, you can pity Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
Read the Fortune magazine article on the subject. Apple has very consistently beaten their projections over the past two years. Every quarter but one, they ended up beating projections by 12-18%, which is not unreasonable. The most recent quarter was also within that range.
Now, an intelligent analyst (every bit as much an oxymoron as 'jumbo shrimp') would add 12-18% to Apple's guidance and they'd be pretty close. Instead, these analysts were providing ridiculous numbers.
You are partially correct that in the long run, it averages out. To some extent, performance is based on long term results. But you are incorrect in assuming that the analysts' pump and dump has no impact. First, it increases volatility - which tends to depress stock prices for the long term. Second, it rewards people who play the pump and dump game.
Maybe that's why Apple is perhaps the most undervalued stock on the market - by nearly any standard.
Read the Fortune magazine article on the subject. Apple has very consistently beaten their projections over the past two years. Every quarter but one, they ended up beating projections by 12-18%, which is not unreasonable. The most recent quarter was also within that range.
Now, an intelligent analyst (every bit as much an oxymoron as 'jumbo shrimp') would add 12-18% to Apple's guidance and they'd be pretty close. Instead, these analysts were providing ridiculous numbers.
You are partially correct that in the long run, it averages out. To some extent, performance is based on long term results. But you are incorrect in assuming that the analysts' pump and dump has no impact. First, it increases volatility - which tends to depress stock prices for the long term. Second, it rewards people who play the pump and dump game.
Be honest with yourself. You're just upset because your stock went down.
For 20 straight quarters, the OPPOSITE situation happened. Analysts arbitrarily low-balled estimates and Apple beat them. Sometimes the stock went up after, sometimes it went down. Because stocks don't go up and down based on what analysts say, they go up and down based on what the actual owners of the stock out there expect, and how that compares to reality.
I'm pretty sure you didn't bitch and moan about unfair analysts when they were purposely underestimating Apple, and allowing Apple to beat their estimates easily, causing the stock to rise. RIGHT?
No, you're just upset because you feel like someone else controls your destiny and it's comforting to have a target for your fury. But it's stupid, your fury. It shows a lack of understanding of how the world works.
If i were you I wouldn't go broadcasting that around. I'd do my best to educate myself so I didn't sound so dumb out in public, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary of your chosen point and railing against the one bit of evidence that supports it.
20 quarters in a row they underestimate. 1 quarter they overestimate and suddenly you think it's a conspiracy. How dumb.
Thanks for the press release, but isn't this a bit off-topic?
What do you think will be powering all these devices?
Problem is, the early adopters are the ones most likely to pay a premium price, and the early adopters are "all-in" already re HDTV.
Consider this:
? When Apple introduced the iPod, very few people had even heard of MP3 players.
? When Apple introduced the iPhone, there were virtually no smartphones.
? When Apple introduced the iPad, nothing like it existed.
But TVs? No matter how slick or sophisticated the AppleTV is - this time, Apple does not have a new market all to itself. People have TVs, and they have HDTVs. And they have TiVo and Boxee and XBox and other boxes (none of which require you dump your old TV before you can use them).
If people have to dump their TV to get an AppleTV, in this economy, the product will fail.
The entry point is the AppleTV. The full extension will be the Apple HDTV.
People said the same thing about the iPhone and iPod.
Furthermore, people said that they wouldn't buy an iPhone 4S but would wait for an iPhone 5. We can see how that's working out.
The lesson here is that one shouldn't be talking about whether they'll buy a product or not when there's no real evidence that the product even exists, nor is there any evidence at all of features, pricing, etc.
It is absurd to even speculate on whether you'd buy a nonexistent product that nothing is known about.
I do not think I'm buying a TV. I bought an iPhone 4s. I knew I'd buy the original iPhone.
Possibly the thing you are not thinking of is the fact that there are people out there *without* HDTV's in their home at the moment.
Just as most smartphone owners didn't see the value of the iPhone right away because they already had a device that filled what they thought were their needs, anyone who already has a big screen TV and all the various boxes and content hookups can't see any need to replace it.
There are people out there who don't have an HDTV yet and at least some of them are not buying because they don't understand what it is they need to get or find the whole field complicated and off-putting. Apple will make an HDTV with built in content and make it so simple that your grandmother will buy it.
What if they either bought Netflix or subsidised it on the TV for instance? Then any fool can buy a TV, plug it in and it already has every old movie and TV show on it you ever heard of without buying another thing. I think that would be immensely popular. Big upfront price perhaps, but once you bought it, no monthly cable bill at all.
Most of the people I know with HDTV's pay something like 30 or 40 a month for Internet and then a further 69-90 for cable or TV packages. How nice would it be to just pay for the Internet hookup? This is just another step on the road to turning Cable companies, cell phone providers, and telecommunications outfits into the big dumb pipes they should be.
Quite possibly. There could be a market of people without hdtvs. I know I'd like to clip my cable bill. Just can't see myself buying a new TV even if they knock my socks off.
You rase a valid question. I like the idea of a tv with Siri interface elements: "TV, go to the Eagles game" or "TV, tape Breaking Bad tonight" or any of a dozen commands that force you to fumble for the remote and then hunt and peck through annoying menus...
BUT, if Apple can make that happen with a $100 add on box, why would people pay an extra thousand or two?
Also, Apple has made a killing on consumer items that we replace or upgrade every year or three. For most people, TVs are on an entirely different upgrade schedule. I would think long and hard before buying an Apple HDTV if I felt I was going to feel left out if I couldn't upgrade in three years!
I agree. Great insights there.