gmgravytrain

Dammit. That Note 9 absolutely destroyed the iPhone in Antutu benchmarks. Apple, hang thy head in shame. How is it that the iPhone's GPU is so weak by such a huge degree? I'd heard Apple was going to design it's own GPU chips, so I hope they can do better than with what they have now. When the news media gets wind of the iPhone getting its butt kicked in certain benchmarks, Apple won't be able to sell another iPhone. I'm almost tempted to sell all my Apple stock.
/s

Ahhhh, do consumers really buy smartphones based on benchmarks?  I doubt it.  Most of the people I know with smartphones don't even follow stuff like that.  So many of the people I know who buy smartphones usually pick up the ones that are on sale or talked into buying it due to a salesperson's urging.  Android smartphones are always going on sale, so they always have an advantage to make a quick sale.  If I were buying a Note 9 it would be for the features the iPhone X doesn't offer which would be the S-Pen and a (up to 512MB) microSD slot.  1TB is some spicy storage which Apple will never be able to top with any iPhone, as it would cost about $1500.

regurgitatedcoprolite said:

magman1979 said:

THIS, is just one of the MANY reasons I stay away from that cesspool of BS known as Alphabet Inc, formerly only known as Google... And it is also why I do not have ANY Google apps on my mobile devices, do not use ANY Google services, and make every active attempt to block any and all things Google with ad-blockers on EVERYTHING!

I prefer to call them Goophabet. After all, their renaming scheme was nothing but a shell game. 

As for the rest of your comment, I’m with you. I avoid Goophabet and use a good tracker blocker — Better by indie. 

That name change boosted that company's valuation immensely. Big investors practically went crazy over that name change. You might not want those "free" Google services but billions of poor consumers do. Google services will remain and prosper and keep the company's valuation much higher than Apple's valuation. As far as BRIC nations and Google services are concerned, ignorance is bliss. Most of the world's consumers don't care about privacy so Google wins.

nunzy said:

Low priced Apple products are a bad idea. Apple users are elites, and should not be diluted with low income people.

Although your comment is dripping with sarcasm, I have to agree. Apple users should feel as being part of the elite. As long as Apple makes an excellent product where it's not constantly thermal-throttling and the keyboard works longer than a few weeks, I'm willing to be part of that elite. Let the poor people buy Lenovo, HP, or Dell and be happy running Windows OS. It's up to the consumer how much they're willing to pay for a product so I have no problem with Apple charging more as long as the product is actually worth the extra cost. I don't want to pay more for a product that is full of easily corrected flaws.

It always has to be Apple mentioned as some target. WTF! Another good reason for WS to downgrade the stock. How do the main FANG stocks always avoid these problems?

Why do they keep lumping Apple with Google, Facebook and Amazon? Anyone with half a brain can tell Apple is not using the consumer as a product based on Apple's low P/E. Big investors are mainly flocking to companies which can turn customers into products. Those companies are basically able to turn air into gold by using the consumer as a product. Ultra-high share price gains and nearly unlimited growth are easy when using the consumer as a product. If Apple were using the consumer as a product, Apple could get the same high P/E as those other FANG companies. No intelligence agency is coming to Apple asking for users' personal data. Congress is rather stupid if they don't know a data-harvesting company when they see one. Even so, the Feds aren't even bothering to regulate those data-harvesting companies where everyone knows they're using personal data to give to other companies. The companies that use private data are outperforming all other companies and the big investors are happy about it. Facebook shareholders are already getting back what they lost, that's how much Wall Street worships Zuckerberg's company. User privacy is a joke. Most consumers love to have those digital assistant spying devices all throughout their houses. No thanks, I don't want them listening to everything that's being said.