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rogifan_new said:

jdgaz said:

Until Tim Cook says something other than what he said on the earnings call I do not believe any of this baloney.

I normally wouldn’t either but the fact that Apple is aggressively pushing their trade-in program and even increased trade-in values by $100 makes me think there might be something to these rumors. Nothing like this was on the front page of Apple’s website last year or any year before that.

Maybe they’re all getting the supply chain completely wrong. Wouldn’t be the firs time. Or maybe consumers are balking at the higher prices. A couple years ago the flagship iPhone started at $649. Now it’s $999. That’s not nothing. 

Just because a company does marketing doesn't mean demand has fallen substantially.   These price cuts might have been planned all along, just as Sony does with their mid high-end TV's:  they always sell at full list when first released and then start dropping substantially about a month or two after release.    For example, the 2018 X900F 65" has fallen from $2300 to $1800 and the X850F has fallen from $2000 to $1300.   Prices will probably fall even further once the new models are announced at CES in January, even though they won't be available until much later in the year.      There's nothing wrong with marketing to encourage even more people to trade in their old phones and upgrade by giving them a slightly better deal.   One can argue that Apple is too greedy with their high margins. 

But I do think that Apple has overpriced the phones - not in terms of what they're worth based on the technology and design, but based upon what people are willing to pay.  As I've written many times before, I think the very high salaries paid to Apple managers has completely warped their perception of what average people, even the high end of average people, can pay.    Apple can't have it both ways:  they can be a high-end, high cost niche producer or they can be a lower cost mass market producer, but they can't be both.   They got away with it during the years that (U.S.) carriers subsidized the phones.   Now that they're not, there is most definitely price sensitivity.   The expectation that people who pay close to $1000 for a phone are going to upgrade every year or even every two years, especially as the technology has matured, is fantasyland. 

Just as Mac sales have tapered off, Apple is going to have to find another great product line to replace iPhone sales.   Maybe they thought it would be AppleTV or the smart speaker, but those obviously aren't it.    Apple is constantly hiring thousands of more employees.   What the hell do they all do?   Where are new product lines?   Do they really need to build $ billion new facilities?   We all have to pay for that via product pricing unless those new employees and facilities are going to generate revenue.

Personally, if I was replacing my phone, it wouldn't be the Xr as I don't think there's enough of a functional increase.   It would have to be the Xs with the better camera and frankly, I really don't feel like spending $1149 for the 256GB model when I spent $300 for my last iPhone.  

The reality is that most people use their phones to text, stream, get email, use Facebook and Instagram along with taking snapshots in which improved quality is certainly nice, but not a must have.   Almost any phone released by any company in the last three years or so can do that quite effectively, as long as the screen isn't cracked and the battery will still last a day.   If Apple only cares about revenue, they can keep doing what they're doing.   If they care about units and market share, then the prices need to come down.

Same for the Mac line, although I estimate from a revenue standpoint that Mac is only 10% of Apple now and Mac units declined from 19.3 million in 2017 to 18.2 million in 2018. 

SpamSandwich said:

randominternetperson said:

SpamSandwich said:

It’s a powerful iPad, no doubt. Speaking only for myself, the lack of a headphone jack to accept recording studio standard equipment killed the possibility of me buying one for now. I consider this exclusion a shortsighted decision. Surely no “pros” expected Apple to do that.

I don’t care about Fortnite in the slightest and I’m not going to spend about $2K for a new iPad that’s incompatible with most of my industry standard audio gear.

Apple sometimes leads in the wrong direction on product design, IMO. They’re not perfect and that’s OK.

Serious question here: why can't you just use the Apple lightning headphone adapter?  It is tying up the port or the sound quality or an objection to extra cords?

It was a needless change on Apple’s part (sure they’ll justify it with resons, but those reasons don’t matter to people who place a premium on production speed). It was dumb to eliminate a standard audio port for headphones. My current iPad Pro will accept studio headphones, an adapter for power and a MIDI keyboard or mic without a lot of screwing around. I’m aware my use case isn’t everyone’s. Although I did note with interest similar comments about the elimination of the headphone jack by Alex Lindsay (Pixel Corps) who is even more deeply involved in production. Non-standard equipment changes for no apparent logical reason tends to irritate professionals.

That's all fine, but an analog headphone jack is not pro level either (except for earphones).   True pro analog is balanced +4dbm on an XLR connector.   A line phone jack at -10dbm is probably also acceptable, but not pro.   A headphone jack doesn't cut it for anything but a headphone.   So you really HAVE to take digital audio out of the port and convert it on another device if you want to use the audio for any pro application.   

anantksundaram said:

It's best to sit tight and ignore all this noise.

Just wait until the next earnings report. It's only a month-and-a-half away.

The problem is that the analysts never admit that they were wrong.   Instead, they double-down with something like, "Well Apple made their numbers this quarter, but they won't make them the next."

It's amazing just how negative the analysts get on Apple considering Apple just had four record quarters and that Apple's fiscal 2018 net income is larger than their net sales from 2009.  Net Sales have more than doubled (from $108B to almost $266B) in just 8 years (since Jobs left) as has Net Income (from $25.9B in fiscal 2011 to $59.6B in fiscal 2018.)  Services alone would be a Fortune 500 company if spun off.  

It's not that there aren't problem areas.   iPad sales were flat, Mac unit sales were down 5.4% and iPhone unit sales were up only 0.4% in fiscal 2018.   But Net Income was still up 23%.  If Apple wanted more unit sales, they could/should lower prices, but maybe they care more about the $ than about the units.  

What Apple needs to do is to find "the next thing".   Maybe they thought it was going to be AppleTV or the smart speaker, but those obviously aren't it.   I still believe that 15-20 years out, Apple has to be a Robotics and AI company and get into home automation in a much bigger way with a total solution.  

They should do their own, but even if they do, they would have to do so without violating any current patents, otherwise they'll still be in litigation.   And you just know that Qualcomm will be looking at whatever they do and will claim that they have violated their patents.  

Apple needs to do their own not just to escape Qualcomm because of the legal disputes but because Qualcomm is doing quite badly.   They had a net income loss in 2018 of $4.86 billion.   In 2014, they had net income of $7.54 billion and it's been trending down since.   

Market cap is still about $71 billion which is ridiculous for a company that's losing money big time.   If they were still making decent profits, I'd argue Apple should buy them.  

knowitall said:

AppleInsider said:

"We want to understand each step," he said. "How are people responding? How are people feeling? Then, as people are comfortable with that, it means we can broaden out."

Boy are they in for a head on collision with reality.

As soon as there are a few serious accidents or deaths, politicians will get involved because they love issues like this - they're easy to understand and they prey on the public's hatred for large companies and their fears about technology (whether valid or not).   And if a car gets hacked? - it's all over.    You'll start to see local legislation banning autonomous vehicles.   And you'll probably also see huge support for such legislation from the few unions that are left in this country - in fact, this might wind up being an issue that brings the Right and Left together.    Once autonomous vehicles are banned from some locales, they'll fail because who is going to buy or lease a car that can't go everywhere and there isn't enough of a business just making cars to replace taxis and delivery vehicles.  

Furthermore (and at the risk of sounding both sexist and buying into stereotypes), I don't think macho male drivers in the U.S. will accept autonomous cars that can't exceed the speed limit and they also won't want to give up control to the car.    I have serious doubts whether autonomous cars can ever be a success for ordinary people (with the possible exception of being able to such things as put your kids in such a car, have the car drop them off somewhere, automatically return home so other family members can use the car and then the car autonomously returns to pick up the kids and drives them home).   But then the question becomes as to whether autonomous cars are going to put more cars or the road or fewer?   We already have gridlock in so many places.    On the other hand, I think all of these new accident avoidance systems are something that consumers want and will accept.