Despite Q2 sales dip, Apple's Macs, iPad and iPhone continue to outperform the industry

Posted:
in iPhone
Over the past quarter, reports from all over have been belaboring the idea that Apple is on the edge of crisis because its iPhone sales--which represent the majority of its business--declined year-over-year and because China--its brightest growth territory--similarly turned in disappointing sales numbers across the board.




However, it's important to keep in mind that one quarter of iPhone sales data does not create a trend. Nowhere is that more obvious than in recent historical sales of Macs.

Macs have been eating up PCs



Apple's quarterly Mac sales have fallen year-over-year on a number of occasions since 2009, but the overall trajectory of Mac shipments has been upward, bucking the clear downward trend among generic Windows PC shipments.

Quarterly Mac revenues tripled over the last decade from $1.7 billion in Q2 2006 to $5.1 billion in the most recent Q2 2016. In contrast, PCs are back down below where they were in 2008; unit sales are just 20 percent higher than they were a decade ago, according to data from Gartner.

This is quite incredible given that Macs--with an average selling price of more than $1,200--are showing themselves both able to compete and able to increase their overall market share in a sea of commodity PCs that sell at ASPs closer to $350.

The generic PC business is performing so poorly that Apple's Mac shipments can go down for a quarter (as they did in Q2) and the company's overall market share still goes up. That's even ignoring the fact that Apple's Mac share is much more valuable, because it represents the high end (and therefore most profitable) segment of PCs.

Additionally, Apple's out-performance of the PC industry with its premium Macs isn't just a one quarter fluke; it has been maintained through varying economic and seasonal cycles very consistently over the last decade. It should not be assumed that a shrinking smartphone market will prevent Apple from increasing its sales and profits from iPhones

Not only has Apple has sustained a decade of growth in Mac shipments and profits within a collapsing PC industry, it has also simultaneously introduced a new Post-PC competitor as its PC competitors fail in both conventional PCs and tablets. This indicates that it should not be assumed that a shrinking smartphone market will prevent Apple from increasing its sales and profits from iPhones.

This is particularly true given the associated--and even more profitable--$20 billion annual Services business that Apple has introduced in parallel, one that the company's phone competitors have failed to create on their own.

Services is once of Apple's fastest growing and largest business segments. Apple's Services business alone is more profitable than Facebook. In Q2, Apple reported over $6 billion in Services revenue compared to the $5.38 billion in advertising revenue Facebook brought in. Apple's Services business was also more profitable, earning more than twice as much as Facebook.

New lyrics, same tune



Remember when PCs first experienced a year-over-year drop in overall sales? Marketing groups fell all over themselves to explain away the problem by assuring us that it was all a temporary blip that would be corrected by the release of Windows 7, then Windows 8 and then Windows 10. That went on for years, not just a single quarter.

Did anyone send out PR analysis predicting that the next release of macOS would incite demand for Macs? IDC and Gartner sure didn't.

Now that it is impossible to suggest that a new OS from Microsoft will somehow reverse the decline of conventional PC shipments, groups like IDC and Gartner have taken to claiming that new Surface hardware from Microsoft will rescue the PC in the form of "detachable" hybrid devices, even though Apple's own iPad Pro has similarly--and immediately, right out of the gate--outsold Surface Pro across its first two quarters of sales.

That's before Apple's new mainstream, lower priced 9.7 inch iPad Pro even went on sale. Apple's high end, 12.9 inch iPad Pro was the only model that's been available over the last six months, which indicates that most customers evaluating "detachables" actually did see more value in Apple's premium tablet than in the Surface, despite Microsoft's ad blitz and punditry claiming that iOS "isn't a real OS" and can't do real things.

iPad Pro


This even more noteworthy in the context of Mac growth outpacing other PCs, because most PC market analysts have stridently refused to even consider iPads to be "PCs," while they generally do count Surface and similar Windows tablets to be PCs.

Apple's computing revenues grew by 6x over the last decade



Not only has Apple increased its Mac sales dramatically over the past decade, but it has also cultivated a new Post-PC replacement for PCs that has grown to be equally as large over the past six years (iPad and Mac both generated over $11 billion over the last six months).

While iPads differ in some respects from conventional PCs, they are direct competitors for an increasing number of important markets ranging from education to the enterprise. It's obvious that iPads are indeed eating up former PC sales, and the latest iPad Pro models are only going to accelerate that trend.

Not only have Mac revenues grown by a factor of three over the last decade, but iPad sales have grown up in parallel, meaning that the non-phone computing devices that Apple sells (iPads and Macs) have grown over the past decade by a factor of nearly six: $1.7 billion worth in Q2 2006 to $9.5 billion in the most recent Q2.

... while PC revenues have collapsed



And that's Apple's computer-based revenues, not unit shipments. PC shipments are up just 1.2 times over the past decade, but PC ASPs have a collapsed in half over the last ten years, meaning those 1.2x shipments have actually generated revenues that are only 60 percent as much as they contributed a decade ago.

That means Apple's "computing device" revenues have grown by an order of magnitude greater than the rate of all other PC makers combined: 6x vs 0.6x. It also highlights the fallacy of focusing on unit sales rather than profits, because unit sales that don't generate profits are just busywork. Ask Nokia, HP or Samsung.Apple's "computing device" revenues have grown by an order of magnitude greater than the rate of all other PC makers combined

It's telling that nobody in the industry has had any interest in advertising this reality, and instead have generally focused upon the ideas that Apple's Macs are barely in the top five PC in terms of shipments, that iPad shipments are down from peak levels before the release of the larger iPhone 6, and that iPad market share is down because of an estimated explosion of tablet production occurring in Asia, even though those Android tablets are not generating any revenues for anyone and they curiously aren't showing up in anyone's weblogs.

In other words, pay no attention to the hardware maker that is consistently growing and incredibly profitable, and instead focus upon generic platforms that are maintaining "market share" of shipment busywork, even though Windows revenues are collapsing among plateauing PCs and Android earns nothing for its global network of tablet makers.

These same sources then claim that while Apple teeters on irrelevancy with sales of 4 million Macs and 10 million iPads in a quarter, the PC industry will be saved by Microsoft selling 1 or 2 million Surface hybrid devices every three months.

That's exactly what IDC and Gartner are saying, and tech blogs are eating it up without criticism, even though these groups are regularly dead wrong in their analysis.

iPhones are eating up Android



Like Macs, iPhone has experienced a similar run over the past several years, maintaining exceptional growth while even incrementally raising ASPs. That's not entirely just from developing all-new markets for iPhone, but also comes in part from eating into generic Android smartphones by convincing users to switch at a pace that is hard to explain away.

Once again, the majority of "market researchers" have incessantly worked to portray Apple's iPhone as slipping in market share, without ever acknowledging that no other smartphone maker sells any comparable number of premium smartphones at anywhere close to Apple's profitability.

Take Samsung, which has been portrayed for years as being roughly equal to Apple in terms of product while selling much higher volumes of devices: 81.9 million smartphones in the most recent quarter compared to Apple's 52.1 million, according to IDC estimates.

That sounds impressive until you look at the profitability of Samsung's entire mobile IM operations (which like Apple also includes PC, tablet and other consumer device sales). Apple earned over four times as as much as Samsung IM in the quarter. Clearly those 81.9 million Samsung phones are not high end Galaxy S7 models selling at iPhone 6s like prices.

Revenues are far more important than shipments



The rarely spoken truth is that Samsung only shipped about 9 million premium Galaxy S7 phones out of 81.9 million total smartphones in the quarter, or roughly a fifth of Apple's iPhone sales.

Most of Apple's smartphone sales are its latest model, but even the company's entry level iPhone 6 and 5s were sold at prices much higher than Samsung's overall average price of about $250 (and that's including its premium, iPhone-priced Galaxy smartphones). Even Apple's new low priced iPhone SE, which began selling after the quarter ended, will sell for almost double that of Samsung's ASP.


iPhone SE


Recall that at its peak, Samsung's premium Galaxy and Note models only represented about 1/3 of its smartphone shipments. But when iPhone 6 appeared, erasing the value of Samsung's bigger handsets, its premium sales collapsed in half and its mobile profits tumbled by 73.9 percent.

Samsung's resulting, much smaller proportion of premium handset sales has remained in place because the company has scrambled to dump cheaper handsets into the market to maintain market share and unit shipments. That's why its profits haven't recovered even though its unit sales have remained high.

The fallacy of focusing on smartphone shipments rather than profitability resulted in wildly misplaced enthusiasm for Nokia, then Motorola, then Samsung and then Xiaomi, even as Apple has been denigrated for "only" selling some minority percentage of all the world's smartphones.

Yet over the past decade, Apple has clearly profited the most from smartphones. And moving forward, Apple is best positioned to grow within both the PC and smartphone industries than its competitors, which are now weaker than ever.

Apple's competition is so anemic that only unflattering comparison one can make is to contrast Apple's 2016 performance against Apple 2015, rather than the performance of any of its real competitors.

Popularity vs desirability



If Apple were actually facing pricing pressure from Android makers like Samsung, it wouldn't be able to sell five times as many premium smartphones every quarter, as well as more premium smartphones than the total number of basic smartphones flogged by each of the currently leading Chinese vendors, Huawei, OPPO and vivo, not to mention former favorites like Lenovo and Xiaomi that currently sell fewer than 14 million phones in a quarter.

The only way to suggest that Android is actually rivaling Apple's iOS--rather than just serving as an onramp that merges Android switchers into Apple traffic--is to speak of Android as a composite platform of aligned competitors, even though collectively, Android licensees are failing to make any money as Apple continues to inhale the vast majority of the industry's profit.


Android is a feeding tube for iOS. Source: Ericsson


Android is "more popular" than iOS only in the sense that Communism is "more popular" than free market capitalism just because the population of Russia and China lead that of the West.

However, there's a reason why expecting affluent Chinese mothers routinely travel to San Francisco to give birth, while Americans rarely attempt to switch their citizenship to China. Like Android, Communism is popular in terms of representative units but not popular at all among individuals with the mobility and freedom to choose what they actually want.

This all happened before



The idea that Apple's iPhone faces certain doom because of competing shipments and flattening sales is not new. A decade ago, certain pundits were claiming that because Apple was now the "iPod company" it should just dump the Mac. Since then, Mac revenues have grown 600 percent.

Another take on doom related to iPods was the 2005-era prediction that MP3-playing smartphones would eat up all demand for a standalone music player, destroying Apple's core profit center.

In hindsight, it's spectacularly bizarre that these people didn't consider that Apple might create its own smartphone. And of course, once Apple did--and it was a much smaller Apple back then--the phone industry began a rapid implosion and turned into a funnel that ultimately channeled 94 percent of its profits to Apple's new iPhone ("the best iPod ever," as Steve Jobs remarked).

A couple years later in 2008, a brief flurry of low end netbook sales caused punditry to demand that Apple sacrifice its premium Mac business and begin building cheap, chicklet keyboard Mac netbooks for $300. Instead, Apple introduced iPad in 2010 and began developing two computing platforms in parallel, each of which became the top seller of premium laptops and tablets. Netbook sales imploded.

A couple years later, pundits insisted that cheap 7 inch tweener tablets from Blackberry and Android licensees would kill the iPad. Apple introduced its own iPad mini, and immediately took over all profits in that category. Today, nobody--not even Samsung with its mile wide array of different tablet offerings--sells as many tablets as Apple.

A couple years later we were assured that big screen fablets would suck attention away from iPhones. Yet in 2014, Apple's 4 inch iPhone 5s continued to outsell big screen phones from Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others. And once Apple introduced its own larger iPhone 6 models the next year, Samsung and other big-screen pioneers saw their unit sales plummet into the basement, never to recover to their former shipment volumes.

At the same time, pundit chatter regarding Apple's "lack of innovation" suggested that the company was missing out on the wearables market, where Google, Samsung and others had spent years trying to introduce Android Wear and Tizen watches to a skeptical audience.

Apple Watch appeared and instantly obliterated its competition while generating billions of dollars. Other smartwatches haven't gained any real traction at all.


Apple Watch has no ad banners


Apple's consistent ability to "fail its way to the top" should create some skepticism of the current outlook of pundits who are today scribbling up three stories per day gravely reminding us that iPhone sales in Q2 were below those from the previous year, and interpreting this to mean that Apple is falling down a rabbit hole of doom and deserves a valuation less than Google, the company who actually did commercially fail at MP3 players, failed at Nexus, failed at netbooks, failed at tweener tablets, failed at fablets, failed at big tablets, failed at detachables, failed at wearables and doesn't have Apple's $20 billion Services business. Last year, Google's mobile search and display ads brought in less than $10 billion.

But unlike Macs, iPod, iPhone and iPad, Google's ads won't ever go away, right?
brakkenlatifbp
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    No offence Dan, but all these posts do is make me think you're a shareholder. There's no need to defend how Apple is doing—as a business they are doing impossibly well. No amount of posts are going to quell Wall St. greed. The only thing will do that are new regulations and prison time for those who step out of line and do very dodgy things like what happened before the housing market collapsed.
    lord amhranjdunysthedbaSnRa
  • Reply 2 of 35
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    I agree. Apple is still as mighty and as strong as ever, despite what a few pessimistic asshats and clueless analysts might claim. We've heard it all before, coming mostly from the same people. Apple is doomed, blah, blah, blah. 10 years from now, we'll still be listening to the same tune being played by these losers.

    Remember all of the doom & gloom a few years ago, when AAPL took that huge dive (for no apparent reasons), that seemed to last for quite a while?  :#

    That was a perfect time to pick up a few shares, and those people were very nicely rewarded.

    Apple and Apple devices are more entrenched in people's lives than ever before.

    Meanwhile, the lifespan of many Android devices is probably similar to the expiration date of a carton of milk sitting in your fridge, if not less.

    baconstangericthehalfbeecalilostkiwiration aljdunystmayradarthekatviclauyycjony0
  • Reply 3 of 35
    ireland said:
    No offence Dan, but all these posts do is make me think you're a shareholder. There's no need to defend how Apple is doing—as a business they are doing impossibly well. No amount of posts are going to quell Wall St. greed. The only thing will do that are new regulations and prison time for those who step out of line and do very dodgy things like what happened before the housing market collapsed.
    You think he's defending Apple, which needs no defense. I think he's exposing the pundits, who do need exposing.
    Dan_Dilgerbobschlobcalilostkiwiration aleideardcanukstormmagman1979brakkenjdunys
  • Reply 4 of 35
    ireland said:
    No offence Dan, but all these posts do is make me think you're a shareholder. There's no need to defend how Apple is doing—as a business they are doing impossibly well. No amount of posts are going to quell Wall St. greed. The only thing will do that are new regulations and prison time for those who step out of line and do very dodgy things like what happened before the housing market collapsed.

    Why do you assume the point of the article is to affect Wall Street or defend Apple?

    I see it as something much more lighthearted - facts thrown in the faces of the haters. Just thinking of them reading this and seeing the veins in their heads pop out at the sheer rage they'll experience brings a smirk to my face.

    Too bad those idiots at MR don't have the guts to publish something like this.
    Dan_Dilgerbobschlobcalilostkiwiration almagman1979brakkenjdunysbrucemcbaconstang
  • Reply 5 of 35
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    The AAPL stock chart reflects very well what you said about Apple history.  Even after the introduction of iPhone in Jan 2007, AAPL has undergone several tops and troughs with magnitudes comparable or even greater than the present one.  The following are several AAPL prices at or near the extremes in the last ten years.

    Feb 1, 2007  12.09
    Dec 1, 2007  28.30
    Feb 1, 2008  17.86
    May 1, 2008  26.96
    Dec 1, 2008  12.19
    Sep 1, 2012  95.30
    May 1, 2013  64.25
    May 1, 2015  130.28
    May 12, 2016  90.52

    What happened to Apple from Sep 1, 2012 to May 1, 2013?  

    patchythepirate
  • Reply 6 of 35
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    domino67 said:
    Sounds like this author is trying to convince himself and the rest of the flock that Apple is still growing. When iPhone has lost market share in EVERY market share by about 7% from a year ago (except Japan)

    Apple "lost share" in comparison with the iPhone 6 launch, the largest product launch which has ever occured.

    ...and worldwide smartphone sales are only up 500,000 while iphone sales are down 10 million.

    You are comparing shipment of $250 "smartphones" (many domestic brands in China unaffected by the Communist's surprise currency devaluation) and sales of ~$650 iPhones (which were affected by strong US dollars globally). Do you even know that? 

    Where are all those Android to iOS switchers? Quite obvious the iOS to Android switchers are happening at a faster rate.

    No they were not. Android switchers to iOS are accelerating. When a million impoverished Chinese students join the work force, they are not "switching from iOS" when they buy an Android phone. When they switch to iOS, they are now "switchers," and Apple is benefitting from that trend. Android phones are training wheels for iOS. Not just an opinion, but that's the simple facts.

    He states that iphone sales only dipped for ONE Quarter....actually its been at least the past 6 months

    No, the December quarter iPhone sales were higher than the previous year. There may be another low quarter (compared to the iPhone 6 launch in China pre-currency devaluation) before iPhone 7 launches. That's not a trend though, just like it wasn't a trend when iPhone sales went down sequentially in 2008 & 2009. 

    (and obviously by the parts suppliers down sales will continue for at least another 4 months). When you have 13 million on opening weekend (mostly due to China for first time opening weekend) and end the quarter basically flat, it makes sense that the 3 million opening weekend bump was short lived. He compares Apple to Samsung sales, but neglects that Samsung profit was up 42% from the same time as year ago.

    Samsung saw its profits drop by more than 70%, so being up 42% (of a much smaller number!) is not exactly impressive. Try it out with simple numbers:

    100 - 70% = 30
    30 + 42% = 42.6

    See how percentages work? 42.6 is considerably less than where we started at 100. 

     Keep waving the pom poms Daniel Dilger.

    calilostkiwijuanm105ration aleideardmagman1979brakkenericthehalfbeejdunysbaconstang
  • Reply 7 of 35
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    domino67 said:
    Sounds like this author is trying to convince himself and the rest of the flock that Apple is still growing. When iPhone has lost market share in EVERY market share by about 7% from a year ago (except Japan)

    Apple "lost share" in comparison with the iPhone 6 launch, the largest product launch which has ever occured.

    ...and worldwide smartphone sales are only up 500,000 while iphone sales are down 10 million.

    You are comparing shipment of $250 "smartphones" (many domestic brands in China unaffected by the Communist's surprise currency devaluation) and sales of ~$650 iPhones (which were affected by strong US dollars globally). Do you even know that? 

    Where are all those Android to iOS switchers? Quite obvious the iOS to Android switchers are happening at a faster rate.

    No they were not. Android switchers to iOS are accelerating. When a million impoverished Chinese students join the work force, they are not "switching from iOS" when they buy an Android phone. When they switch to iOS, they are now "switchers," and Apple is benefitting from that trend. Android phones are training wheels for iOS. Not just an opinion, but that's the simple facts.

    He states that iphone sales only dipped for ONE Quarter....actually its been at least the past 6 months

    No, the December quarter iPhone sales were higher than the previous year. There may be another low quarter (compared to the iPhone 6 launch in China pre-currency devaluation) before iPhone 7 launches. That's not a trend though, just like it wasn't a trend when iPhone sales went down sequentially in 2008 & 2009. 

    (and obviously by the parts suppliers down sales will continue for at least another 4 months). When you have 13 million on opening weekend (mostly due to China for first time opening weekend) and end the quarter basically flat, it makes sense that the 3 million opening weekend bump was short lived. He compares Apple to Samsung sales, but neglects that Samsung profit was up 42% from the same time as year ago.

    Samsung saw its profits drop by more than 70%, so being up 42% (of a much smaller number!) is not exactly impressive. Try it out with simple numbers:

    100 - 70% = 30
    30 + 42% = 42.6

    See how percentages work? 42.6 is considerably less than where we started at 100. 

     Keep waving the pom poms Daniel Dilger.

    So Samsung profit dropped 100 - 42.6 = 57.4% from its all time high two years ago.  
    radarthekat
  • Reply 8 of 35
    lord amhranlord amhran Posts: 902member

    But unlike Macs, iPod, iPhone and iPad, Google's ads won't ever go away, right?
    Gotta love the completely irrelevant Google slam here. Nicely done
    lostkiwicnocbuiSnRastaticx57
  • Reply 9 of 35
    ericthehalfbeeericthehalfbee Posts: 4,485member

    But unlike Macs, iPod, iPhone and iPad, Google's ads won't ever go away, right?
    Gotta love the completely irrelevant Google slam here. Nicely done

    Hardly irrelevent. Analysts are always talking about how the iPhone, a single product, accounts for around 2/3 of Apple revenues. And that if the iPhone stalls it's doom for Apple.

    All while ignoring that Google gets around 9/10 of their revenue from a single product (ads).

    Even worse, they ignore the fact an iPhone is a highly desirable product for most consumers while ads are something consumers generally dislike (it's the companies selling goods that like ads).

    Nobody is going to come along overnight and threaten the iPhone. It's used by too many people who are also tied into the Apple ecosystem. It would take something pretty incredible from another company to upset the iPhone, and it's not going to happen now (like it did when the iPhone upset the industry).

    As for Google and ads, it's a "product" that could be ruined overnight. A data leak by Google showing people just how much they know about you (certainly more than any government agency) that scares people away. Or a new browser from some startup that actually blocks ads. If ever there was a company on shaky ground for relying on a single products, it's Google. 
    calilostkiwiration albrakkenfotoformatjdunystmaybaconstangviclauyycpatchythepirate
  • Reply 10 of 35
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    domino67 said:
    Sounds like this author is trying to convince himself and the rest of the flock that Apple is still growing. When iPhone has lost market share in EVERY market share by about 7% from a year ago (except Japan)

    Apple "lost share" in comparison with the iPhone 6 launch, the largest product launch which has ever occured.

    ...and worldwide smartphone sales are only up 500,000 while iphone sales are down 10 million.

    You are comparing shipment of $250 "smartphones" (many domestic brands in China unaffected by the Communist's surprise currency devaluation) and sales of ~$650 iPhones (which were affected by strong US dollars globally). Do you even know that? 

    Where are all those Android to iOS switchers? Quite obvious the iOS to Android switchers are happening at a faster rate.

    No they were not. Android switchers to iOS are accelerating. When a million impoverished Chinese students join the work force, they are not "switching from iOS" when they buy an Android phone. When they switch to iOS, they are now "switchers," and Apple is benefitting from that trend. Android phones are training wheels for iOS. Not just an opinion, but that's the simple facts.

    He states that iphone sales only dipped for ONE Quarter....actually its been at least the past 6 months

    No, the December quarter iPhone sales were higher than the previous year. There may be another low quarter (compared to the iPhone 6 launch in China pre-currency devaluation) before iPhone 7 launches. That's not a trend though, just like it wasn't a trend when iPhone sales went down sequentially in 2008 & 2009. 

    (and obviously by the parts suppliers down sales will continue for at least another 4 months). When you have 13 million on opening weekend (mostly due to China for first time opening weekend) and end the quarter basically flat, it makes sense that the 3 million opening weekend bump was short lived. He compares Apple to Samsung sales, but neglects that Samsung profit was up 42% from the same time as year ago.

    Samsung saw its profits drop by more than 70%, so being up 42% (of a much smaller number!) is not exactly impressive. Try it out with simple numbers:

    100 - 70% = 30
    30 + 42% = 42.6

    See how percentages work? 42.6 is considerably less than where we started at 100. 

     Keep waving the pom poms Daniel Dilger.

    Thanks you saved me a lot of time. That guy was off on every point. Must be an android user, android users statistically have less intelligence than iPhone users.

    Gotta love the completely irrelevant Google slam here. Nicely done

    Hardly irrelevent. Analysts are always talking about how the iPhone, a single product, accounts for around 2/3 of Apple revenues. And that if the iPhone stalls it's doom for Apple.

    All while ignoring that Google gets around 9/10 of their revenue from a single product (ads).

    Even worse, they ignore the fact an iPhone is a highly desirable product for most consumers while ads are something consumers generally dislike (it's the companies selling goods that like ads).

    Nobody is going to come along overnight and threaten the iPhone. It's used by too many people who are also tied into the Apple ecosystem. It would take something pretty incredible from another company to upset the iPhone, and it's not going to happen now (like it did when the iPhone upset the industry).

    As for Google and ads, it's a "product" that could be ruined overnight. A data leak by Google showing people just how much they know about you (certainly more than any government agency) that scares people away. Or a new browser from some startup that actually blocks ads. If ever there was a company on shaky ground for relying on a single products, it's Google. 
    Very relevant indeed. Gaggle started the war against Apple by stealing their IP and creating knockoffs iPhones in an attempt to data line user info. Scumbag company for sure.

    I really wanna see Siri take down Goog, imagine if Apple updated Siri with Watson or something where we would no longer need to rely on outdated search websites?

    Since Goog makes most of their money from iOS, it would be quite the show to watch them tumble down.
    lostkiwimagman1979ericthehalfbeejdunyslatifbpbaconstangviclauyycpatchythepiratejony0badmonk
  • Reply 11 of 35
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    The iPhone has been the foundation device for Apple for almost a decade,  and the iPhone 7 needs to give consumers a reason to buy it. Being fractionally thinner, losing the headphone jack and redesigned antenna bands won't cut it. However, significantly improved battery life, an OLED screen, being waterproof and a shatterproof screen would certainly make it a worthy upgrade.
    edited May 2016 baconstangcnocbuiapple v. samsung6Sgoldfish
  • Reply 12 of 35
    infodaveinfodave Posts: 31member
     I've been tracking IDC data for years. Here's a picture of Mac sales vs. the industry:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JAJ4VkDNY4pyELaV6rx6e4OuP3XNINLWLxPPYEJyoKk/pubchart?oid=16&format=interactive
  • Reply 13 of 35
    isteelersisteelers Posts: 738member
    bluefire1 said:
    The iPhone has been the foundation device for Apple for almost a decade,  and the iPhone 7 needs to give consumers a reason to buy it. Being fractionally thinner, losing the headphone jack and redesigned antenna bands won't cut it. However, significantly improved battery life, an OLED screen, being waterproof and a shatterproof screen would certainly make it a worthy upgrade.
    The iPhone will be a worthy upgrade. Most people don't care about OLED screens or being waterproof or Galaxy phones would sell in iPhone numbers. The iPhone is the best overall package and will continue to be. If people can afford them they will buy them. 
    ration albaconstangjdunystmayai46
  • Reply 14 of 35
    eideardeideard Posts: 428member
    Admittedly, I'm an Apple fan.  When the Mini was introduced I bought one to try out OSX.  My wife - in banking IT had already switched.  Doing everything with an Apple laptop.  I had 22 years of MSoft/IBM experience and was reluctant.  That disappeared in a few months.  Everything in our household compound soon changed over to Apple.  I had already retired before the Mini was introduced.  Well before the iPhone.  I didn't think I needed more than a flip phone - being retired.

    We'd gotten my wife an iPhone.  She was working till a year ago and the usefulness of a smartphone - a good one - was self-evident.  I carried on needing nothing more than a flip phone till the last one died a year ago and figured I'd try the cheap imitation spread instead of an iPhone.  "I didn't need much."

    I didn't get much either.  Got a MSoft smartphone.  Returned it in a week.  

    Got an Android LG - until my pocket camera began to die the same time the SE came out.  My wife convinced me to spend the extra$ for the SE and just carry one device on my walks.  It would use the Cloud to talk back to my iPad and iMac.  It had a good camera.  I'd love it.

    She was right.  Of course.  Hardware and software that function seamlessly together through all my devices now provide me with services, apps I hadn't thought of adding into my life.  Like the other Apple goodies I use, it is an addition to my skills.  Take photos on my daily walks, again.  Come in the house, sit down to check the news and markets - check out the snaps on my iPad and throw out the duds.  Later on, more walks, more photos, I spend a little time with the iMac editing.  Cut everything down to a few shots l like - or none.  It all works the way it should.  Easy as pie.
    baconstangjdunystmayradarthekatviclauyyc
  • Reply 15 of 35
    brakkenbrakken Posts: 687member
    Great work, Dan. 
    So few people bother making an effort to put pundits in their place. I really wish pundits in general would be forced to retract the stupid things they write, better if they were prevented from writing. 
    Apple really is experiencing the Tall Poppy syndrome, and the saddest thing is if Apple goes, we all of us return to non-progressing technology again. 
    Somehow, Apple needs to bring cash into China if they're to do well there. I expect Apple has plans. 
    I love your work!
    jdunysradarthekat
  • Reply 16 of 35
    croprcropr Posts: 1,122member
    DED is a little bit ignoring the facts. 

    Just read a report that in the top 5 countries in Europe the Q1 2016 figures were not good at all for Apple. Android grew 7.1 % in market share, 2.6% of this growth came from people switching from iOS. Despite the arguments given by DED, there a lot of more users are leaving the iPhone ecosystem than entering it. This could be a temporary dip that could be reversed when the iPhone 7 will be launched, but anyhow the current loss of users cannot be denied. 
     
    The market share of the Macs were severely hit in Q1 2016, because there is no Skylake based MacBookPro on the market.  Vendors who have similar models with Skylake processors (e.g. Dell XPS13) saw their market share increase.  With no announcements made about a Skylake based MBP, the Q2 figures can only deteriorate. 

    The Mac figures are much more worrying than the iPhone ones.  Apple has a technological lead in smartphones, for laptops this is not so clear.  Apple has an obsession for very light and very thin devices.  But for laptops this does not lead to increased sales.  Because of this obsession Apple has neglected its high end machines, and is now paying cash


    edited May 2016 singularityirelandspudwoodSnRa
  • Reply 17 of 35
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    cropr said:
    DED is a little bit ignoring the facts. 

    ...Apple has a technological lead in smartphones, for laptops this is not so clear.  ...


    What technological lead? 
  • Reply 18 of 35

    "iPhones are eating up Android"


    What?    The latest numbers have Android taking share from the iPhone pretty much in every country in the world.   

    http://www.appleworld.today/blog/2016/5/11/android-steals-market-share-from-ios-in-many-regions
  • Reply 19 of 35
    ericthehalfbeeericthehalfbee Posts: 4,485member
    cnocbui said:
    cropr said:
    DED is a little bit ignoring the facts. 

    ...Apple has a technological lead in smartphones, for laptops this is not so clear.  ...


    What technological lead? 

    - Most advanced ARM processor in the world. Custom designed by Apple.
    - Real-time hardware encryption when Android is still stuck using software.
    - Only smartphone that can do 1080P at 120FPS.
    - Only smartphone with a pressure sensitive screen (and the OS support to take advantage of it).
    - Only smartphone with PC style NVMe storage controller (which also gives it the worlds fastest overall storage). Also custom designed by Apple.

    You want to go on, troll?
    ration altmayai46baconstangpatchythepirate
  • Reply 20 of 35
    spudwoodspudwood Posts: 2member
    1080p at 120fps because most screens on android run at a better quality for VR at 2k or 4k. 

    Huawei had an android phone with pressure sensitive screen before iPhone. 
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