I use a 6s, my son has a 5s, my wife a 7 and my daughter an 8. iPhone is a mature platform now and therefore older models are very viable for long-term use.
That keynote slide of Cook’s is an absolute classic piece of misdirection. We need to keep a copy for his retirement speech, you know, for a laugh.
First, a product is turned into a category ‘ipads’*, while a seperate category “notebooks” (which appeared in the slide’s title) is broken into brands to misdirect. Also, I feel like there was a notebook brand missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it.....
*it does show that Apple is selling a lot of iPads, but if all those columns to the right of them were stacked it wouldn’t fit the narrative Cook was attempting to shape. He doesn’t own an RDF.
1) What would be funny about his eventual retirement speech seeing as he's pushed Apple to where it is today? Or are you suggesting that he's not fit to be CEO?
2) How is that a misdirect when it clearly states what the graph represents? It's also pretty grandiose since Apple could've just pegged Apple v all other tablet and notebook makers and come out even further ahead, but instead they decide to limit it to just their one branding option that is just a tablet while pegging it against all the others that make notebooks, "convertibles," and tablets that are really designed to be used more like notebooks, as in the case of the MS Surface.
3) How is it more far to you that one product category from one brand be stacked against at least 3 product categories from all other brands?
I dont know about culture in your country, but in mine, retirement party speeches are usually include the funny, stupidish and embarrassing moments over ones’ career to lighten up the fact we will be losing a valuable employee. If all it was was boosting ones’ ego they would be very dull affairs indeed. At least there are drinks, right?
Its a misdirect because it is implying there it is about iPads against individual notebook brands. That didn’t tell you anything much. Its a misdiect because it excludes important things (eg Apple notebooks aren’t there), and it creates a false impression of the actual, real life market. If it was Ipads and other tablets stacked in one column against another column of notebook sales in total it would be more relevant to the case he was making, but it would also reverse his narrative. That iPads have become a replacement for notebooks.
The actual purpose of the slide was to distract from the problem of declining iPad sales. A problem probably more to do with the long, longevity of each iPad, what must be clear decisions within Apple to limit the productivity uses of the device for the time being ( eg file management, peripherals), and escalating price. iPad pros are now more expensive than quite capable laptops. That won’t help sales.
Such nonsense. First off, what "culture" do you live in where senior executives are ridiculed for their mistakes at their retirement party? You think Microsoft showed clips of the "Developers! Developers! Developer! sweaty monkey dance" or the idiotic complaints about no one using a phone without a physical keyboard at Ballmer's retirement? Second, argue all you want about whether the slide is on-point, it's 100% factually accurate and not all that important. Bringing this up at Cook's retirement would be like pulling out an old email where he misspelled the name of a random flunky.
The "purpose" of the slide was not to distract or misdirect at all. It was to put iPad sales in context. Many people might think that iPads are a niche. If that's the case the all the notebooks sold my Lenovo is a niche. That's an interesting point and the slide makes it.
What's "misdirecting" is whining about a single slide out of context. It was part of an hour long presentation with dozens of slides and lots of propositions and announcements.
That keynote slide of Cook’s is an absolute classic piece of misdirection. We need to keep a copy for his retirement speech, you know, for a laugh.
First, a product is turned into a category ‘ipads’*, while a seperate category “notebooks” (which appeared in the slide’s title) is broken into brands to misdirect. Also, I feel like there was a notebook brand missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it.....
*it does show that Apple is selling a lot of iPads, but if all those columns to the right of them were stacked it wouldn’t fit the narrative Cook was attempting to shape. He doesn’t own an RDF.
1) What would be funny about his eventual retirement speech seeing as he's pushed Apple to where it is today? Or are you suggesting that he's not fit to be CEO?
2) How is that a misdirect when it clearly states what the graph represents? It's also pretty grandiose since Apple could've just pegged Apple v all other tablet and notebook makers and come out even further ahead, but instead they decide to limit it to just their one branding option that is just a tablet while pegging it against all the others that make notebooks, "convertibles," and tablets that are really designed to be used more like notebooks, as in the case of the MS Surface.
3) How is it more far to you that one product category from one brand be stacked against at least 3 product categories from all other brands?
I dont know about culture in your country, but in mine, retirement party speeches are usually include the funny, stupidish and embarrassing moments over ones’ career to lighten up the fact we will be losing a valuable employee. If all it was was boosting ones’ ego they would be very dull affairs indeed. At least there are drinks, right?
Its a misdirect because it is implying there it is about iPads against individual notebook brands. That didn’t tell you anything much. Its a misdiect because it excludes important things (eg Apple notebooks aren’t there), and it creates a false impression of the actual, real life market. If it was Ipads and other tablets stacked in one column against another column of notebook sales in total it would be more relevant to the case he was making, but it would also reverse his narrative. That iPads have become a replacement for notebooks.
The actual purpose of the slide was to distract from the problem of declining iPad sales. A problem probably more to do with the long, longevity of each iPad, what must be clear decisions within Apple to limit the productivity uses of the device for the time being ( eg file management, peripherals), and escalating price. iPad pros are now more expensive than quite capable laptops. That won’t help sales.
Such nonsense. First off, what "culture" do you live in where senior executives are ridiculed for their mistakes at their retirement party? You think Microsoft showed clips of the "Developers! Developers! Developer! sweaty monkey dance" or the idiotic complaints about no one using a phone without a physical keyboard at Ballmer's retirement? Second, argue all you want about whether the slide is on-point, it's 100% factually accurate and not all that important. Bringing this up at Cook's retirement would be like pulling out an old email where he misspelled the name of a random flunky.
The "purpose" of the slide was not to distract or misdirect at all. It was to put iPad sales in context. Many people might think that iPads are a niche. If that's the case the all the notebooks sold my Lenovo is a niche. That's an interesting point and the slide makes it.
What's "misdirecting" is whining about a single slide out of context. It was part of an hour long presentation with dozens of slides and lots of propositions and announcements.
Every year, as Apple annoyingly fails to crash and die, the desperation of the naysayers stumbles further and further into the realms of speculative fiction.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
Maybe you're right. As an Apple shareholder, I honestly thought that the thing that really matters was revenue and profits no matter what product or service Apple got them from. I just happen to know that since Apple now derives most of those revenues and profits from the iPhone, then Apple may be trying to hide iPhone unit sales going forward. I know iPhone sales are hitting a wall as the entire smartphone market is saturated and it's unpleasant to know this. I just thought Wall Street is a little too focused on iPhone sales every quarter. To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about. Money is money. I know I'm not a financial genius so maybe I don't see things that big investors do. I get that you believe Apple is trying to hide reality in weak iPhone sales, but I'm not selling my Apple stock just because of a shortfall of iPhone sales in a quarter. A 7% dump seems a bit much to me. I'll bet Warren Buffett wasn't one of the dumpers. As far as weak guidance is concerned, I like that Apple is not trying to raise iPhone sales expectations for the next quarter. Maybe Apple is just sandbagging, but I don't care. The global economy going forward is quite uncertain for all companies. I'm not going to petition for continued iPhone sales transparency just yet. I'm going to see wait and see what happens next quarter's ER with the new method. Then I'll decide.
“To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about.”
Are you serious? You actually don’t know that iPhone revenue and profit have been steadily increasing? This is exactly why Apple will no longer report unit numbers; because people think only in terms of unit sales, as you just showed in your comments.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
Maybe you're right. As an Apple shareholder, I honestly thought that the thing that really matters was revenue and profits no matter what product or service Apple got them from. I just happen to know that since Apple now derives most of those revenues and profits from the iPhone, then Apple may be trying to hide iPhone unit sales going forward. I know iPhone sales are hitting a wall as the entire smartphone market is saturated and it's unpleasant to know this. I just thought Wall Street is a little too focused on iPhone sales every quarter. To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about. Money is money. I know I'm not a financial genius so maybe I don't see things that big investors do. I get that you believe Apple is trying to hide reality in weak iPhone sales, but I'm not selling my Apple stock just because of a shortfall of iPhone sales in a quarter. A 7% dump seems a bit much to me. I'll bet Warren Buffett wasn't one of the dumpers. As far as weak guidance is concerned, I like that Apple is not trying to raise iPhone sales expectations for the next quarter. Maybe Apple is just sandbagging, but I don't care. The global economy going forward is quite uncertain for all companies. I'm not going to petition for continued iPhone sales transparency just yet. I'm going to see wait and see what happens next quarter's ER with the new method. Then I'll decide.
“To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about.”
Are you serious? You actually don’t know that iPhone revenue and profit have been steadily increasing? This is exactly why Apple will no longer report unit numbers; because people think only in terms of unit sales, as you just showed in your comments.
There’s the problem. Reporting unit sales encourages Wall Street to focus on market share. This in itself is not a problem, except that Wall Street continues to report market share in a strangely uneven way.
Rather than saying: Samsung has this much share Huawei has this much share Apple has this much share
We get: Apple has this much share Everyone else has this much share
Which leads to this head scratching in the blogosphere: How come Apple sells a fraction of the kit but has all the profit?
Because ‘everyone else” is splitting their market share between hundreds, perhaps thousands, of players, most of which can be easily differentiated by anything other than price.
If Apple stops reporting unit sales (like everyone else) then Wall Street can still estimate unit sales all they want, but they’ll carry a lot less weight because they won’t have any real figures to compare them against. (And the real figures carry hardly any press anyway).
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
Maybe you're right. As an Apple shareholder, I honestly thought that the thing that really matters was revenue and profits no matter what product or service Apple got them from. I just happen to know that since Apple now derives most of those revenues and profits from the iPhone, then Apple may be trying to hide iPhone unit sales going forward. I know iPhone sales are hitting a wall as the entire smartphone market is saturated and it's unpleasant to know this. I just thought Wall Street is a little too focused on iPhone sales every quarter. To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about. Money is money. I know I'm not a financial genius so maybe I don't see things that big investors do. I get that you believe Apple is trying to hide reality in weak iPhone sales, but I'm not selling my Apple stock just because of a shortfall of iPhone sales in a quarter. A 7% dump seems a bit much to me. I'll bet Warren Buffett wasn't one of the dumpers. As far as weak guidance is concerned, I like that Apple is not trying to raise iPhone sales expectations for the next quarter. Maybe Apple is just sandbagging, but I don't care. The global economy going forward is quite uncertain for all companies. I'm not going to petition for continued iPhone sales transparency just yet. I'm going to see wait and see what happens next quarter's ER with the new method. Then I'll decide.
“To me, as an Apple shareholder, if Apple finds another revenue stream to offset iPhone revenue and profit losses then what's there to cry about.”
Are you serious? You actually don’t know that iPhone revenue and profit have been steadily increasing? This is exactly why Apple will no longer report unit numbers; because people think only in terms of unit sales, as you just showed in your comments.
I don’t think anyone really believes Apple can just keep increasing prices on iPhone. Maybe if there’s a radical form factor change like a foldable phone. But other than that there’s not much more that can be done with the smartphone. I guess Apple could raise prices if/when they get rid of the notch. There was a time when Apple added innovation without raising prices like a retina screen, Touch ID, 3D Touch. But once sales growth started to slow the only way to achieve growth was to raise prices.
I really don't understand all the IDC/Gartner bashing. Anyone that uses the figures professionally, knows the data has limitations. Is it perfect? No way, but it's one input when making a business plan or measuring sales people if caution is used. The alternative is making your own guess. Most people understand that any market is made up of segments and the high-level, global figures are nice in press releases but useless for anything else anyway. You take that finer data and cut it to best reflect your own use.
I really don't understand all the IDC/Gartner bashing. Anyone that uses the figures professionally, knows the data has limitations. Is it perfect? No way, but it's one input when making a business plan or measuring sales people if caution is used. The alternative is making your own guess. Most people understand that any market is made up of segments and the high-level, global figures are nice in press releases but useless for anything else anyway. You take that finer data and cut it to best reflect your own use.
You hit the nail on the head.
The first paragraph of this article (and where I stopped reading):
"Two research groups that estimate global PC shipments not only served up incorrect data asfact, but also used the bogus figures to reach entirely false conclusions about Apple's Macs in the global PC market"
As far as I know, those two research groups made it clear that the figures were estimates and provided information on how the results were reached.
I haven't checked, but I wonder how many 'spin' articles have been based on estimates by these same two firms when the numbers have been favouable to the Apple 'narrative'.
Few serious investors would base ANY decisions on two estimates by analysts.
I really don't understand all the IDC/Gartner bashing. Anyone that uses the figures professionally, knows the data has limitations. Is it perfect? No way, but it's one input when making a business plan or measuring sales people if caution is used. The alternative is making your own guess. Most people understand that any market is made up of segments and the high-level, global figures are nice in press releases but useless for anything else anyway. You take that finer data and cut it to best reflect your own use.
You hit the nail on the head.
The first paragraph of this article (and where I stopped reading):
"Two research groups that estimate global PC shipments not only served up incorrect data asfact, but also used the bogus figures to reach entirely false conclusions about Apple's Macs in the global PC market"
As far as I know, those two research groups made it clear that the figures were estimates and provided information on how the results were reached.
I haven't checked, but I wonder how many 'spin' articles have been based on estimates by these same two firms when the numbers have been favouable to the Apple 'narrative'.
Few serious investors would base ANY decisions on two estimates by analysts.
The issue is not whether the numbers are "favourable" to Apple or not, but whether they are presented accurately and honestly.
Virtually every word of what both companies reported about Apple was both false and misleading. Both companies also provide private data to companies for sale. This is their public PR spin on very select numbers, and it's clear both the intent and reason for what they are doing.
It's not just IDC and Gartner, but also "journalists" who present their conclusions as unchallengeable facts. And the simple fact that you find it outrageous that some reality is being injected here also makes it pretty clear that you don't care about facts but are simply carrying on your campaign of attacking the author for being right in pointing to a problem that is generating mass delusion among people who want to believe a narrative about iPad and Mac (and Windows Phone and Tablets/Surface) that has been absolutely wrong for more than a decade now.
You can't stridently defend fonts of false information and attack the truth without making it clear where you stand.
Apple has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to provide transparency. Like it or not, unit sales is a key metric of a company that sells hardware. Apple’s services business can be seen as a shift away from this but they can and should share this unit sales information going forward. If I owned Apple’s stock or was the manager of a fund that owns it, I would press for unit sales to continue to be openly shared.
I can see Apple’s strategy here as they choose to be less transparent as unit sales decline and price increases make up for the difference. After all, winning on market share can still be a very unprofitable venture that is not sustainable.
By still showing unit sales figures and adding this visibility such things as Apple Watch sales, Apple shows an honest reality to shareholders. It helps them understand how Apple is going up market and the success of various business lines. It also allows them to hold the board and management team accountable. By choosing to not be opaque, Apple has an opportunity to lead here - doing so by example. I hope they they reconsider their stance. Shareholders can and should bring this as a requirement. As consumers of their product, we should also expect nothing less.
You don’t really invest, do you? No other major hardware company is reporting per product unit sales, so your claim is bunk.
Your second claim is also ludicrous, as customers of the units have no bearing in this conversation between corporation and investor. I suspect you are only a consumer and this comment is the tip-off.
Probably many people here are just consumers and indeed the health of the platform matters to us. As for investors in general they are not happy with the non disclosure of unit sales.
I didn’t say it isn’t of interest to enthusiasts. I said enthusiast opinion on this is not a factor in the relationship between corp and it’s investors.
Can you cite your claim that most of Apple’s investors are unhappy? How do they reconcile it with every other public tech firm?
Wouldn’t this be an argument for Apple to keep reporting quarterly unit sales? I’m glad they’re not but analysts will turn just go off bogus estimates from firms like IDC.
No, it wouldn't.
See above.
Wall Street is obsessed with iPhone unit sales figures. They’re not going to stop just because Apple decided not to disclose that information. Eventually they will but in the meantime they’ll go off of bogus data from IDC and stupid supply chain rumors printed in the WSJ.
Makes me wonder if Apple is worried about bad news coming up this year. The only thing Apple has to worry about is people switching out of iOS to Android. As long as the numbers of people switching between the two stay close Apple will be able to rely upon yearly sales as people upgrade every 2 to 4 years. How many people are still using iPhones 6 and 6S? That's why Apple is giving them a choice with the XS, XSMax, and XR.
Makes me wonder what Apple will come out with next year. 5G seems nice but not as compelling as the move to 4G LTE was. I will get excited when they come out with lighter Solid State batteries in the phones. Give me a phone that goes 48 hours and I'll switch from my 7Plus and 8Plus.
I am curious what card they have to play next year. This year was the bigger X and the XR. One would assume the XR keeps the same design next year. Outside of the XS losing the notch I’m not sure what they could announce that wouldn’t be incremental and expected. Everyone knows it will have a better chip and camera. What else?
What do you mean by "what card"? Most years there is no screen-size increase but they still have a plethora of new features, and now that they design their own chips the number of improvements are growing in ways that we may not be able to imagine.
PS: Everything they've ever done with the iPhone has been incremental. You can see this by looking at all previous iPhones (except for perhaps the original, but even that ws only possible because of the iPad and Mac) and seeing the incremental changes or "relating to or denoting an increase or addition" they've made.
PPS: Am I wrong, or was there a time when you weren't just coming here to troll Apple?
The move from the 6 / 7 / 8 series form-factor design to iPhone X series form-factor design was anything but incremental. It was a big form factor change and UI change in terms of how one interacts with the device.
Nope, the change from 6 to 7 was incremental, from 7 to 8 was incremental, and to X. Some changes in the UI for no home button, but not dramatic.
Comments
The "purpose" of the slide was not to distract or misdirect at all. It was to put iPad sales in context. Many people might think that iPads are a niche. If that's the case the all the notebooks sold my Lenovo is a niche. That's an interesting point and the slide makes it.
What's "misdirecting" is whining about a single slide out of context. It was part of an hour long presentation with dozens of slides and lots of propositions and announcements.
Still better than answering questions like Musk, though!!
Are you serious? You actually don’t know that iPhone revenue and profit have been steadily increasing? This is exactly why Apple will no longer report unit numbers; because people think only in terms of unit sales, as you just showed in your comments.
Rather than saying:
Samsung has this much share
Huawei has this much share
Apple has this much share
We get:
Apple has this much share
Everyone else has this much share
Which leads to this head scratching in the blogosphere: How come Apple sells a fraction of the kit but has all the profit?
Because ‘everyone else” is splitting their market share between hundreds, perhaps thousands, of players, most of which can be easily differentiated by anything other than price.
If Apple stops reporting unit sales (like everyone else) then Wall Street can still estimate unit sales all they want, but they’ll carry a lot less weight because they won’t have any real figures to compare them against. (And the real figures carry hardly any press anyway).
The first paragraph of this article (and where I stopped reading):
"Two research groups that estimate global PC shipments not only served up incorrect data as fact, but also used the bogus figures to reach entirely false conclusions about Apple's Macs in the global PC market"
As far as I know, those two research groups made it clear that the figures were estimates and provided information on how the results were reached.
I haven't checked, but I wonder how many 'spin' articles have been based on estimates by these same two firms when the numbers have been favouable to the Apple 'narrative'.
Few serious investors would base ANY decisions on two estimates by analysts.
Virtually every word of what both companies reported about Apple was both false and misleading. Both companies also provide private data to companies for sale. This is their public PR spin on very select numbers, and it's clear both the intent and reason for what they are doing.
It's not just IDC and Gartner, but also "journalists" who present their conclusions as unchallengeable facts. And the simple fact that you find it outrageous that some reality is being injected here also makes it pretty clear that you don't care about facts but are simply carrying on your campaign of attacking the author for being right in pointing to a problem that is generating mass delusion among people who want to believe a narrative about iPad and Mac (and Windows Phone and Tablets/Surface) that has been absolutely wrong for more than a decade now.
You can't stridently defend fonts of false information and attack the truth without making it clear where you stand.
Can you cite your claim that most of Apple’s investors are unhappy? How do they reconcile it with every other public tech firm?
Nope, the change from 6 to 7 was incremental, from 7 to 8 was incremental, and to X. Some changes in the UI for no home button, but not dramatic.