I swear, I’ve been getting more and more skeptical of Kuo and Gurman, especially when they say crap like this, because they say things just to influence stock prices
I swear, I’ve been getting more and more skeptical of Kuo and Gurman, especially when they say crap like this, because they say things just to influence stock prices
Man, is Kuo a stooge for the Chinese government or what? He has been way off on some of his forecasts and predictions lately, so maybe Apple weeded out some of his sources? What a pisser.
People think of Google as a tech company. They certainly started that way, but now they are an advertising company with a technology subsidiary.
Similarly, Apple is a marketing company that happens to make hardware and software. Apple has a massive amount of developed and ready to go technology. The marketing people control the technology spigot and decide how much new technology to release in a certain time period. I guarantee Apple has a foldable iPhone developed and ready to go. However the marketing people have decided they don’t want to offer that technology at this time. It’s a numbers game of units sold, revenue and profitability optimization. Apple has an incentive to milk the deployed technology in their products for as long as possible so as to create predictable demand year after year. They know the vast majority of people don’t do annual phone upgrades, so they have models that are used to predict how many customers with older iPhones would be willing to upgrade to a new phone based on price and new functionality/technology. There are other companies with more advanced technology in their products than Apple. Apple doesn’t want new technology to be deployed any sooner than necessary. So you get year over year marginal improvements in speed, performance and capacity. Hence Apple’s focus on non-performance attributes used to sell phones - such as case colors, titanium construction, thinness, weight etc. These are designed to offer people superficial reasons to upgrade vs pure technology reasons. The smartphone market is saturated. The Apple marketing people may need to open up the technology spigot a bit more in the not too distant future. If they want to maintain or expand their annual sales volume.
It seems clear now that Apple was caught on the back foot with AI.
What are you basing this on?
Apple has a lot of AI hiding in plain sight. Just because they aren’t like the rest of the market with their “me too” attitude about chatgpt doesn’t mean they don’t have AI already in place and waiting for bigger deployment.
Kuo doesn’t have a lot to go on. His best information is a good 3-4 levels away in the supply chain and not someone inside Apple because they’ve gotten good at plugging leaks.
Once you see the VP in person, you’ll get a better idea on the path Apple is going to take on AI and how it’s going to change the public’s perception of AI and VR compared to what’s available.
That’s the point. Nothing deployed.
Anything sitting in a back room means it isn't in the hands of users while others have shipping products.
2023 was the year of big launches in both generative and LLM AI.
Apple has had little show beyond ML which everyone has been using for years now.
Some posters here (perhaps with friends inside Apple) have stated that Apple is rushing (maybe scrambling would be a better term) to inject these kinds of AI into the product matrix.
On that I can't speak, just indicate what some have said.
I get what you’re saying, but Apple has never been first with a lot of their products.
Anything that has to do with Apple’s pay later, online store, credit card purchases in a retail store, retail store iphone trade ins, and the technology inside taking better photos on the iPhone all use AI. They’re not scrambling, because when you’re building LLM, you cant rush it otherwise you might get garbage in your results.
Remember the Diamond Rio? It was one of the first MP3 players and the most popular until, well you know.
Just remember, being first doesn’t mean keeping the lead. Just ask Tim Sweeney.
I have the 14 Pro and, while I typically get a new phone annually, the 15 Pro wasn’t a sufficient enough upgrade to warrant a trade in. Hopefully the tech prognosticators will be wrong and the 16 Pro will be a major upgrade.
Oh no another Apple is doomed article. For one I only know a few people that have a folderable phone and they are not big fans of it so far. This market is very niche right now. I think Kuo is jumping the gun on his iPhone negatively.
I do not know what you mean with "doomed". Every company has negative earnings, negative years, good earnings, good years etc.. Apple is not an exception. S*it happens, doesn´t it?
The global economy does not look good in this year.
Apple has lost their market position in China. I don´t know how Apple will perform in China this year, but I would not be surprised if the market share decreases at Apple. Apple has lost their momentum, because most of their (loyal) consumers already have and do not need to upgrade every year.
iPhone 16 does not seem to be interesting either. Their Generative AI story is rather "meehhh". AVP is still an early product. We may need min. 5 years for a clear direction of this purpose.
There is no big upgrade momentum in every category. iPad will an OLED screen, but it does not justify an immediate upgrade. Apple Watch? After a fight with Massimo? I don´t know.
I think the market is hyped with AI and there is no room for Apple.
NVDA, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, and META have better year ahead. Apple will underperform.
Honestly, I would not be surprised if NVDA surpasses AAPL one day on the market. (Everybody will laugh at me, but nobody knows).
People think of Google as a tech company. They certainly started that way, but now they are an advertising company with a technology subsidiary.
Similarly, Apple is a marketing company that happens to make hardware and software. Apple has a massive amount of developed and ready to go technology. The marketing people control the technology spigot and decide how much new technology to release in a certain time period. I guarantee Apple has a foldable iPhone developed and ready to go. However the marketing people have decided they don’t want to offer that technology at this time. It’s a numbers game of units sold, revenue and profitability optimization. Apple has an incentive to milk the deployed technology in their products for as long as possible so as to create predictable demand year after year. They know the vast majority of people don’t do annual phone upgrades, so they have models that are used to predict how many customers with older iPhones would be willing to upgrade to a new phone based on price and new functionality/technology. There are other companies with more advanced technology in their products than Apple. Apple doesn’t want new technology to be deployed any sooner than necessary. So you get year over year marginal improvements in speed, performance and capacity. Hence Apple’s focus on non-performance attributes used to sell phones - such as case colors, titanium construction, thinness, weight etc. These are designed to offer people superficial reasons to upgrade vs pure technology reasons. The smartphone market is saturated. The Apple marketing people may need to open up the technology spigot a bit more in the not too distant future. If they want to maintain or expand their annual sales volume.
Apple is a hardware company, and they've built an ecosystem around that hardware to support continued sales of that hardware at premium prices. They aren't "a marketing company that happens to make hardware and software." Companies set up like that regard everything they make as interchangeable widgets, and they shuffle them around with a singular goal of chasing quarterly numbers. Those companies ultimately sell overhyped crap, because they do not care what the widgets are. That is the antithesis of how Apple functions as a company.
Apple doesn't have a foldable iPhone "ready to go." Foldable phones serve no purpose other than fulfilling the wet dreams of marketing departments. They are a novelty that wears off the moment you've made the rounds of your friends to say "Look! It folds!" From an engineering and QC standpoint, a folding screen iPhone is a nightmare. Phones live in pockets, purses, and book bags, and they're brought out, handled, checked, dropped and generally abused over and over, all day, every day. Adding a physical weak point to a device in that category guarantees wear, damage and breakage at rates that would be orders of magnitude higher than the current solid slab iPhone design. While novelty sales may spike a single quarter's earnings, poor customer experiences later will do long-term damage. So no, Apple doesn't have a folding iPhone "ready to go," because they don't do novelty bells and whistles to satisfy the marketing department at the expense of long-term integrity. If they produce a folding screen device, it will a) serve a real purpose, and b) it will be a device like an iPad or MacBook that doesn't receive the level of fiddling, checking and general abuse that an iPhone does.
You are correct that Apple knows most people upgrade phones over a multi-year cycle, but it's not about "milking deployed technology." It's about providing customer satisfaction through actual value. That's why iPhone upgrades are always iterative. When a customer spends hundreds to over a thousand dollars for a phone this year, that customer should not be made angry next year because their one-year-old (or less) phone has been rendered obsolete by quantum leaps in the new phone. To the contrary, annual iOS updates actually add new features and capabilities that make last year's iPhone better, while hardware upgrades intentionally do not make owners of last year's model jealously feel like they wasted their money. Hardware upgrades are made such that cumulatively over three, four or five years, a new phone eventually becomes inviting to owners of an old phone. Owners of that old iPhone are then positively disposed to consider buying a new iPhone specifically because their experience informs them that they're buying a device that's designed to last for years, not months.
Kuo may be underestimating the desire for spatial family photos and videos for the new Vision OS platform.
Oh, just go ahead and say it out loud: Kuo may be underestimating the desire for the porn industry to get their hands on this. Everyone knows what sells. Cha. Ching.
This falls into the category of stock price manipulation. He lets his buddies know that he is about to put out an "Apple is doomed" message , they short the stock, and boom, millions made. As he is outside the US, the SEC can do nothing.
A folding phone is such a gimmick. What the hell good does it serve for an end user? How does it improve the user's experience. They fold it and immediately put it into their pocket which is now a phone that is twice a thick as it was before folding it.
This reminds of when Apple refused to release a Netbook back in the day and people were thinking Apple was doomed because everyone was apparently buying Netbooks over more expensive MacBooks. How did that work out in the end? I think Apple has a better idea of its market than some piss-ant analyst.
Most people don’t buy or not buy a cellphone based gloom & doom reports. Most buy a cellphone when they need a new cellphone. So gloom & doom reports be damned!
I agree. I also am surprised by how Apple is able to surprise me by what they have to offer me to buy when I’m ready to buy!
i think that’s what keeps us coming back to Apple year after year after year!!!
He's the tech Nostradamus. Everyone thinks old Nostro is so great but he made over 900 predictions and only around 90 have come true, all of them through highly dubious interpretations of his predictions.
Comments
Also after their tomorrow´s earning results, their stock may go up (a lot).
rush it otherwise you might get garbage in your results.
Apple is behind not.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkPw6ScHyb4
Apple doesn't have a foldable iPhone "ready to go." Foldable phones serve no purpose other than fulfilling the wet dreams of marketing departments. They are a novelty that wears off the moment you've made the rounds of your friends to say "Look! It folds!" From an engineering and QC standpoint, a folding screen iPhone is a nightmare. Phones live in pockets, purses, and book bags, and they're brought out, handled, checked, dropped and generally abused over and over, all day, every day. Adding a physical weak point to a device in that category guarantees wear, damage and breakage at rates that would be orders of magnitude higher than the current solid slab iPhone design. While novelty sales may spike a single quarter's earnings, poor customer experiences later will do long-term damage. So no, Apple doesn't have a folding iPhone "ready to go," because they don't do novelty bells and whistles to satisfy the marketing department at the expense of long-term integrity. If they produce a folding screen device, it will a) serve a real purpose, and b) it will be a device like an iPad or MacBook that doesn't receive the level of fiddling, checking and general abuse that an iPhone does.
This reminds of when Apple refused to release a Netbook back in the day and people were thinking Apple was doomed because everyone was apparently buying Netbooks over more expensive MacBooks. How did that work out in the end? I think Apple has a better idea of its market than some piss-ant analyst.
He's the tech Nostradamus. Everyone thinks old Nostro is so great but he made over 900 predictions and only around 90 have come true, all of them through highly dubious interpretations of his predictions.
Kuo is no different.