anantksundaram

rogifan_new said:

rainmaker said:

SpamSandwich said:

The overreliance on China for manufacturing and growth put company earnings at risk. What bugs me is Tim Cook was on an advisory council to the White House, so he should’ve seen the tariffs and trade issues coming from far away and spent more time trying to insulate Apple from the inevitable.

What makes you believe Tim Cook didn’t see this coming? The fact that he didn’t move manufacturing from china overnight? 

Clearly something happened within the last month or so that Apple execs didn’t see coming.

This to me is the MOST concerning thing. It suggests to me that it’s not trade (old news, if anything tariffs have been delayed), it’s not the government or Huawei (Chinese competitors have been gaining share for a year now), it’s not the dollar (which is no worse than what it has been in the past six months), it’s not the slowing of the Chinese economy (this is also old news). 

IMHO, it could well be the product and the price. Especially the XR, starting at $750 (for a laughable 64GB). Frankly, when it was introduced, my reaction was “meh, some candy-colored overpriced crap”. Apple did something similar before (5s? 6s?) and those colored phones did not do well, IIRC. And, while I did buy the Xs Max, I can’t say it does anything different or better than the X that I bought last year. Interestingly, two people in my family have no interest upgrading from their iPhone 8, and one had to be bribed to switch to my X (so that I could get the Xs Max). 

I think the XR — I have not seen one in the wild yet! — could well be history in the next product iteration. And Apple had better get on the 5G game asap, or the next product cycle could be tough too. 

ElCapitan said:

There is also another issue that nobody really wants to talk about in fear of not being PC, but nobody but a small section of the potential customer base want to listen to a potty mouth SJW CEO going on about how their customers should live their lives and what values they should hold. 

If Timmy wants to be an activist - fine - keep it at the local level where it might be relevant, but the moment he steps outside the US, his message is either irrelevant because many countries gained the rights he keeps fighting for even decades ago, or it flies right in the face or their religion, culture and belief systems.  Incidentally these geographies falls under Apple's definition of emerging markets. So it is not only price and currency issues that discourage customers in these markets. 

This I agree with wholeheartedly. Tim and his co-CEOs can say/do whatever they want from 5pm - 8am, but the rest of the time, their job is to manage an organization for their customers and shareholders. 

Corporations have absolutely no business getting involved with setting social policy agendas. It’s a short step from there to fascism. 

Rayz2016 said:

avon b7 said:

Apple TV was without a doubt the worst Apple product I ever bought. 

Odd that you don’t actually like Apple kit, but keep buying it. 🤔

I usually disagree with @avonb7 on just about everything, but not on this one: AppleTV is a pos product wallowing in mediocrity. I have three at home, but barely turn them on anymore. The Roku that my son has is so much better (including its killer app, Xfinity Stream). I am thinking of replacing all of my AppleTVs with that. 

Apple was was the pioneer on this one, but has stumbled badly. Period. 

cropr said:

 A fast secured machine with a real Esc key must be appealing to other professional users.

There is no Esc key any more on the newer MBPs?!  $#&)/* There go my plans for an upgrade, which I've been thinking about.

I somehow missed that one... (I am still on my 16GB/1TB/2.5GHz/Mid-2015 MBP -- can't bring myself to give up on MagSafe quite yet; and it's a damn gorgeous machine... the best Apple's ever made.)

wanderso said:

If you read the transcript of Dell’s recent earnings call you will note that they specifically call out their market share in several different segments they participate in, telling investors more than just the revenues by various segments.  (This is just one example; don’t get hung up on Apple vs Dell)

Funny. I was just looking at Dell's 2018 10K. I was unable to see where they report their unit sales.

Could you please point me to where I might have missed it?