aeassa

sog35 said:

jkichline said:

He already has explained to not rely on supply chain checks and has already provided guidance for the quarter. A skill of intelligent people is to learn how to ignore the noise of idiots and focus on your objective. There's no need for him to argue with crazy people who make shit up.

On top of this, if the stock price sinks Apple can buyback more shares from all the analysts wetting themselves over the ipocolypse. It's a win-win situation.

Typical Tim Cook KoolAir drinking response.

If stock goes up - YEAH Tim Cook!
If stock goes down - YEAH Tim Cook can buy shares for cheap.

Wall Street analyst have highjacked Apple stock since Tim Cook became CEO. Its an absolute joke that Tim does nothing to dispute these lies. So he explained not to rely on supply chain checks?  When was that? One year ago?  6 months ago? In today's market that's like 100 years ago.

If some rumor came out that McDonalds was serving horse meat and CNN, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, ect all reported it. Do you think the McDonalds CEO would say nothing? Its so sickening that you guys give Tim Cook the benefit of the doubt every time.  Tim Cook does not equal Apple. You can criticize Cook without criticizing Apple.

So Cook has no time to dispute LIES about the supply chain that has been going around for MONTHS yet he has time to do a long ass interview on 60 minutes to talk about tax evasion?  

You are far, far too hard on Tim Cook. The guy is doing the best job he can and frankly I don't know what you expect him to do. 

Again, you are assuming these supply chain reports are wrong. Why do you completely discount the idea that they might be correct? 

I don't think you should use the Tim Cook quote about supply chain checks as a way to immediately discount these reports. One particular data point from one supplier might not tell you the whole story, but there have been many data points from many different suppliers, and they all point to the same thing. 

Anyway, Tim Cook's job is to run the business for the long-term, and I think he's done a good job so far of doing just that. 

As an investor, you need to decide whether you believe in the company & its management to deliver you value over the long-term. 

sog35 said:

aeassa said:

Long time lurker, finally decided to join! 

Look, I really like Apple and its products (I bought both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, use an iPad Air 2, own an Apple Watch), but I do think the iPhone 6s/6s Plus cycle is going to be a tough one for Apple. iPhone 6/6 Plus cycle was just a monster and while iPhone 6s/6s Plus brought a lot of very sweet technical innovations, they don't appear to be enough to drive growth.

I think we'll see a lot of goodies with iPhone 7 and we could very well see people who "pulled in" their upgrades to get the 6/6 Plus (effectively moving off of the "s" cycle and onto the "new number" cycle) upgrade to the 7, potentially helping iPhone return to growth during that cycle.  

Apple's longer-term future is still probably very bright -- they have the best and the brightest working for them and management is very good -- but in the near term things might not be so rosy. 

Lets see if you check off all the concerned troll points.

1. An Apple fan
2. Bought a lot of Apple product
3. Say that the current produce is not as good as previous product
4. Say that Apple has lost its innovation/ misses Steve

Well you got all four checked off.
Congrats, concerned troll.

Yikes!

The current iPhone 6s/6s Plus are better than the prior gen product, but it's very hard to top the "we made them bigger" that drove so much market share gain/growth for Apple in fiscal 2015. 

I did NOT say that Apple has lost its innovation and said absolutely nothing about Steve; I would argue Apple is more innovative than ever, something that's evident in the technical excellence of their products (hardware & software). In fact, you might recall that I just made a post defending Tim Cook after your very critical posts of the guy.

sog35 said:

aeassa said:

Why do you have such little faith in Tim Cook? What business moves has he made that you think are bad/stupid? 

1. Bringing the larger iPhone too late. Allowed Samsung to steal massive share.
2. No iPadAir update this year, no iPad Mini update last year.
3. Continues to offer weak guidance every quarter. So even if Apple reports great numbers the stock does not move because of weak guidance.
4. Entry level iMac is crap and now less Fusion SD memory
5. Macbook with only one port. WTF
6. New magic mouse needs to be put on its back to charge.
7. Out of stock for Apple Pencil for MONTHS
8. Still selling 16GB flagship phones
9. Still only giving 5GB of iCloud
10. Not reporting Watch units. The one category that can grow.
11. Not reporting AppleTV units.
12. Not closing the deal on live TV package.
13. Horrible bugs on AppleMusic that deletes your collection
14. Horrible bugs in iOS and OSX this year and last
15. Wasting time on gay rights and other issues that he has no business wasting his time on
16. Apple Watch launch was an absolute disaster with hardly any models available
17. Apple Watch UI is confusing and a mess.
18. AppleMusic UI is confusing and a mess.
19. iPhones still have too little battery life.
20. Getting smoked in the education sector by Google Chromebooks
21. ApplePay has been an absolute fail. 90% of the places don't accept it.
22. Crappy updates for Macbook Air and Macbook pro this year.
23. No 3d touch on iPad Pro.
24. Refuses to segregate hardware and software revenue on iPhone sales.
25. Allows rumors and lies to fester 

Tim Cook has been a massive fail this year and last.

1. Maybe, but even so Apple was able to grow with the iPhone 5/5s. 

2. iPad Air 2 is still best in class in the world of 9.7-inch tablets, and small tablets are getting cannibalized by larger phones, so not really material to Apple's business. 

3. They give guidance that they know they can achieve. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver, hurting management credibility. 

4. This is meant to drive upsell to higher-priced, higher margin iMacs. Good for stockholders. 

5. Engineering is all about trade-offs, and given that the new MacBook is selling very well, it seems Apple made the right trade-offs  

6. Meh. 

7. Agreed, but this stuff is just really hard to manufacture.

8. Again, meant to drive upsell to higher-end iPhone models to improve revenue/margin for Apple stockholders. Not a valid criticism. 

9. This is designed to get users to buy more iCloud space. If Apple just "gave" users all of the iCloud storage they needed, then they wouldn't be able to sell higher tiers of storage. Again, great for the business/stockholders. 

10. Meh, it's irritating but not something that's really going to impact Apple's business performance. 

11. Sales here are probably so low compared to Apple's other "big ticket" products that it's really not that material to investors. Also, this has nothing to do with Apple's business and is more just a gripe with how much Apple discloses to investors. 

12. Sometimes things just don't work out. A reality for all businesses. 

13. Software is hard, and while that is unfortunate, I'm sure they'll get it fixed. 

14. iOS works fine for me, but it's important to understand that as these OSes become more complex and pack in more features, they are going to be more prone to error. As long as Apple is working diligently to fix them, I don't see any real reason to hate on Cook. That's just reality in the trenches. 

15. I think it's important for the world's richest and most powerful people to take stands on human rights issues, and I am glad to see Tim Cook try to make the world a better place for his fellow human beings.

16. These things are hard to build. And, hey, at least they're selling a lot of them unlike all of Apple's competitors in smartwatches ;-)

17. That's just an opinion. I think it's quite nice and slick. 

18. Again just opinion. I love Apple Music; it's become an indispensable part of my daily life. 

19. Agree that iPhone 6s could use more battery life, by my 6s Plus is solid. 

20. What would you do if you were Tim Cook? 

21. Takes time to build up the ecosystem. That said, I use Apple Pay daily and it works great for me...

22. Agree with you there; hope they bring substantial updates this year. That said, Apple is STILL gaining share in PCs, so it's not as though customers seem to care much...

23. Technical challenge that I'm sure Apple is working on. 

24. That's not really a business problem, that's just a disagreement with Apple's reporting  

25. We'll see if the supply chain reports are "lies" or not in 21 days. 

sog35 said:

aeassa said:

You are far, far too hard on Tim Cook. The guy is doing the best job he can and frankly I don't know what you expect him to do. 

Again, you are assuming these supply chain reports are wrong. Why do you completely discount the idea that they might be correct? 

I don't think you should use the Tim Cook quote about supply chain checks as a way to immediately discount these reports. One particular data point from one supplier might not tell you the whole story, but there have been many data points from many different suppliers, and they all point to the same thing. 

Anyway, Tim Cook's job is to run the business for the long-term, and I think he's done a good job so far of doing just that. 

As an investor, you need to decide whether you believe in the company & its management to deliver you value over the long-term. 

Too hard?

The stock is up a pathetic 2% since Sept2012.  This is despite increasing revenue and profits by 30% last year.

I believe in Apple the company.
I have ZERO faith in Tim Cook.

I won't sell my shares until Cook is fired and I can sell my shares for fair value.

Why do you have such little faith in Tim Cook? What business moves has he made that you think are bad/stupid? 

delreyjones said:

aeassa said:

I don't think Apple will miss their FQ1 numbers, but the odds are looking good that FQ2 guide will be pretty downbeat. They wouldn't warn about a quarter they haven't guided to yet, hence no warning. 

Thanks for that contribution to the discussion.  

I can see you're a long-time contributor to AI /s 

and you're here to tell us that Apple's future doesn't look good.  We've never hear that before ;=)

Long time lurker, finally decided to join! 

Look, I really like Apple and its products (I bought both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, use an iPad Air 2, own an Apple Watch), but I do think the iPhone 6s/6s Plus cycle is going to be a tough one for Apple. iPhone 6/6 Plus cycle was just a monster and while iPhone 6s/6s Plus brought a lot of very sweet technical innovations, they don't appear to be enough to drive growth.

I think we'll see a lot of goodies with iPhone 7 and we could very well see people who "pulled in" their upgrades to get the 6/6 Plus (effectively moving off of the "s" cycle and onto the "new number" cycle) upgrade to the 7, potentially helping iPhone return to growth during that cycle.  

Apple's longer-term future is still probably very bright -- they have the best and the brightest working for them and management is very good -- but in the near term things might not be so rosy. 

RonnnieO said:

Maybe Tim Cook isn't disputing these reports because they are true and iphone numbers will be light for the quarter. Also, he doesn't have to issue a warning just because of light iphone sales, only if the total revenue of the company is below guidance. IMO this would be a good scenario as it tells me that sales of macs, ipads, watches etc. etc. are doing better than expected which will quiet those who think Apple is a one trick pony with the iphone.

I don't think Apple will miss their FQ1 numbers, but the odds are looking good that FQ2 guide will be pretty downbeat. They wouldn't warn about a quarter they haven't guided to yet, hence no warning.