jdnc123

anantksundaram said:

People can spin it any way they want, but this is just not good news. The market currently has absolutely no confidence in Apple's ability to generate value from future growth opportunities. And, we can criticize or chuckle at Google all we want (I often get in on it too), but they have a narrative that the market is buying in droves. As it currently does with Facebook and Microsoft as well.

Kudos to them.

Apple truly can and must do better on conveying some sense of who or what it wants to be 2, 5, 10 years out. This is not rocket science. Every major company does it in some form or the other. That's a huge part of what CEOs are paid to do. It involves much more than talking about "industrial era taxes", "dollar versus yuan", etc.

I realize a lot of people here do not own AAPL and therefore couldn't care less, but for those of us who have been very long-term shareholders of the company, this news hurts. There is simply no need for such underachievement. It's bewildering.

(And, please spare me the vacuous stuff about "Wall Street casino" and such; those are simply sound bites).

rogifan_old said:

jdnc123 said:

The 'Google is bigger than Apple' story is all over the headlines I see right now.  Should be good for employee morale at Apple.  Many likely had a chance to choose between the two companies and the unlucky ones chose to join the company that was $200-300 billion bigger just a short few years ago.  What a historic and epic mistake on their part from a challenge and compensation perspective.  Yippy, talented engineers get to work on making the iPhone marginally better which nobody notices or cares about anymore.

Seriously, if Tim Cook does a big hoopla event for another incremental design change to the iPhone, he should be replaced.

Do you really think Apple employees give a shit whether their company is the most valuable company on a given day? I sure heck hope not. That's what AOL employees were obsessed with in the late 90s. Every employee had a stock ticker on their desktop and were constantly checking the share price. Where is AOL now? Buried inside of Verizon.

Btw, 90% of Google's revenue still comes from advertising, 80% from Google's own sites. And their "other bets" stuff takes in hardly any revenue but is full of lossss. And yet Apple's the "one trick pony" too dependent on iPhone. Fuck that.

poksi said:

rogifan_old said:

I figured this was going to happen when Google shot up after Facebook announced earnings. Wall Street loves so-called services companies right now, especially ones with little exposure to China.   Not sure there's much Apple can do about that. I hope Apple management doesn't overreact and start doing dumb things (like buying Time Warner) just to try and change the Wall Street narrative on the company.

Doing the "dumb" things is exaclty what Apple should do, not because of Wall Street, but because of the future sustainable growth and existance. They need to find new revenue streams based on huge and loyal customersp database. So far they've been sitting on pile of cash and moving in other departments like snails...

lkrupp said:

jdnc123 said:

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but starting tomorrow, Apple will no longer be the most valuable company in the world after Google beat earnings and the stock is up $50+ after-hours, if it holds.  No lamenting the global economy, or currency or any other lame excuses, they just keep growing earnings.  Vision and execution is trumping a huge void of vision and a whole heck of a lot of stubbing their own toes at Apple.  Best Tim Cook could do was blame the macro environment.  Good companies just execute.

Edit:  Google +$70 dollar now, it'll be a tens of billions gap starting tomorrow, but wont even be close at to who is the biggest and baddest company in the world soon with Cook leading Apple.

And my response will be the exact same thing YOU said when Apple passed up Microsoft and Google to become the most valuable company. YOU and your ilk said, and I paraphrase, “It means nothing. Microsoft and Google are still better than Apple will ever be. Just because Apple is worth more now than Microsoft or Google doesn’t mean its bigger or better. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Apple sux!”

Yes, YOU and your ilk said those very things when AAPL raced by MSFT and GOOG. Are you now going to say it now does mean something that Google passed up Apple? Really? You are going to say that? And keep a straight face too?

21yr_mac_user said:

freerange said:

ROFLOL - good one!

One day advertisers are going to wake up and realize that most of them are pissing their money away with this company.

I don't think so. For example: In the last year I've had all my old apple products no longer run youtube as Google changed the code to force ads. When I use youtube on newer apple products the ads are much longer and more invasive then in the past. Google basically has a monopoly with youtube and can dial up the advertising as much as it wants - it could double or triple the ad revenue ad in a moments notice and I think that's what they did last year. No one talks about youtube but I use it every day (and and my family are I'm very casual lightweight users). Just to support this I googled and found an analyst snippet "We believe the aggregated revenue contribution from YouTube AND Google Play has risen from 4% of Gross Revenue in 2010 to 15% in 2015 and should reach 24% by 2020, given the higher trajectory of growth versus core search"

rogifan_old said:

poksi said:

Doing the "dumb" things is exaclty what Apple should do, not because of Wall Street, but because of the future sustainable growth and existance. They need to find new revenue streams based on huge and loyal customersp database. So far they've been sitting on pile of cash and moving in other departments like snails...

So you just want them to buy growth. Wall Street might love that but most people would probably just say Apple is so out of ideas and innovation that the best they can do is buy growth (and probably destroy the culture along the way). Look I remember 2013 when there were rumors that the board was looking to replace Cook (most likely BS) and everyone was freaked out because Samsung was The Next Big Thing™.

But honestly when aren't people freaked out about Apple? There's constant worry and concern. On the one hand you have investors, analysts, tech press constantly looking for the next iPhone or complaining about the lack of innovation (because Apple, unlike Google and others keeps its R&D secret), on the other hand you have people saying Apple is spread to thin and they need to focus more, none of this VR nonsense just give me my Skylake MacBook Pro already. Basically Apple is a victim of its own success.