gmgravytrain

Alphabet/Google is probably making more money from having Google Search to be the default on iOS than the amount of money Apple is receiving from them. Apple should purchase DuckDuckGo and tell Alphabet/Google to take a hike. If Google Search is that great then most consumers will personally choose it as their main search engine and Google will save $9B. I don't see why Apple doesn't at least try to acquire DuckDuckGo and give that programming team all the resources they need to at least give Google Search some serious competition. Google Search has free reign over the internet. I doubt Bing Search has much market share at all. It just seems that no one is even trying to knock Google Search down a peg. Has Bing Search improved at all over the last few years?

Wall Street is only going to look at AppleMusic's subscriber base from a global perspective which will make it fall well short of Spotify which will definitely not help AppleMusic's value to help boost Apple's overall value. AppleMusic will remain tied to how many iPhones Apple can sell globally which is a relatively limited amount when compared to Android devices. Spotify runs on almost every device out there. AppleMusic not so much. Apple's only alternative is to keep holding on to older iOS users and gain at least a tiny amount of new iOS users every year. AppleMusic will never be valued by Wall Street even close to Spotify. Spotify has a share price of $180 with an EPS of -10.2x. That's just friggin crazy. I'll bet AppleMusic isn't even valued a tenth of that and there's no way AppleMusic would have a negative EPS as there are only paid subscribers. Spotify is automatically being given the benefit of the doubt by investors while AppleMusic is basically being overlooked in terms of value.

A Youtuber survey says no one will be buying any new iPhone model in significant numbers. They're too expensive for the average consumer and don't offer enough features like the Galaxy Note 9 offers. Not one iPhone has a built-in stylus which is apparently high on the must-have list. Most hated by Youtubers is the iPhone XR(ipoff) which uses display technology from 2010. It doesn't even have a true HD display which even $200 Android smartphones have. Huge XR pixels staring right at your face. Apple's meaning of budget is about $200-$300 more expensive than Android's meaning of budget. The iPhone XR is already being called the worst iPhone Apple has ever made. According to web surveys, Apple is surely doomed for this coming holiday. Supposedly, even Amazon is building better products than Apple is. It's a crazy world. Most Youtubers claim Apple will surely lose its trillion-dollar status by the end of the year due to its poor iPhone lineup. They're all pulling for Samsung's soon-to-be-announced folding smartphone. /s

JinTech said:

ceek74 said:

Yep. Me.  Long overdue.

Same. What I find funny is when I told a sales rep at one of the Apple Stores in my area that I ordered the iPhone XS Max with 512GBs he flat out asked I needed that much storage or that much power. Mind you, he doesn’t even know me or what I plan on doing with the phone. I found it absolutely absurd that an actual Apple employee would question my buying habits of their own products!

Truthfully, I'd be less suspicious of any salesperson who might try to talk me into paying less than one that would try to talk me into paying more. I wouldn't feel insulted. I wouldn't care if he looked at me and thought I couldn't afford the product. I dress raggedly anyway. I'm not there to impress anyone. I just want to buy what I want and leave and don't care what's going on in their heads. I'd simply explain my reasons for wanting more storage or whatever and that's about it. I'm always wary of the up-sell although I've usually thought out my need for the more expensive model. I'm sure there must be some people who would be happy to pay less if they were told they didn't need the most expensive model available. This is just my personal opinion.

kidrock2199 said:

I just checked the Apple Store app. It says I can pick up a gold 512 GB XS Max at my local Apple store on Sept 21 if I order it now. That’s really odd seeing how whenever I pre ordered iPhones in the past, if I didn’t order right at midnight on pre sale day, I’d be waiting about a month.

You're saying it's odd but there's always the possibility Apple got ahead on production and they have an ample supply of iPhones. In the past, there was always some story about Apple not being able to get a good start out of the gate with high production numbers. Maybe Apple concentrated on the XS and XS Max production numbers and then decided to produce the XR later. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be low demand. No one but Apple knows that for sure.