gregg thurman

If the iPhone 7/7 Plus impressed Soderbergh, I wonder how many/much films/filming will be done in the future on stabilized iPhone Xs. 

No, the Kardashian’s do not manufacture speakers. That was supposed to read Kardon (damn auto correct). 

minisu1980 said:

I agree this will expedite their fall from grace. I bought the HomePod last week, the sound is incredible and Siri hears me every single time. The Siri functionality works for my purposes: pausing music, changing volume, finding volume level, skipping tracks, etc. I'll buy a second one once AirPlay2 allows them to work in tandem. Wish Spotify had already IPO'd, this seems like a good time to short the stock.

Your post matches my thoughts so closely you could have been writing for both of us.

i own and still use Harman Kardashian’s Soundsticks and a Bose iPhone speaker.   Both cost more than the HomePod, sound just as good (I’m not an audiophile) but neither has the expandability or voice control capability that the HomePod does (will have), nor do they integrate with the Apple ecosystem. 

I think this is Spotify’s way os saying their business model, while successful today, is doomed long term. 

DavidAlGregory said:

The problem Apple has in the phone market is that unit shipments are probably about as high as they will ever be and the days of huge growth in units are mostly over. Given that, the only way Apple can continue growing profit in phones is to increase the selling price or squeeze costs. As Apple uses many of the very same components (or similar ones) and already assembles in China, the push for higher selling price is the low hanging fruit. But you can only jack up the price so much without destroying demand.

The LTE iPad Pro I am typing this on was just a little under $1,100 and O cannot see spending that much on a phone. I would much rather the combination of LTE iPad and LTE Apple Watch and no iPhone. At some point, the general public may well realize the iPhone is soon to be redundant. Not yet, but soon.

You had me with your first sentence, but then you lost me.

Long ago Apple recognized that, like everything else, the handset market will achieve saturation.  From that point forward growth would be driven by stealing customers from competitors.  This is the way of all product evolutions.  

The problem with stealing customers from competing handset manufacturers is that Apple doesn't want that class of customer, and already has a lock on the high end.  So what to do?

Develop an accessory ecosystem of products that augment/expand the mobile experience, with each new product doing SOMETHING better than the iPhone, thus expanding sales opportunities to iPhone customers.

Apple's Other Products revenue is projected to grow 30+% YoY during FY2018.  That's a higher growth rate than Services.  The combination of the two they became the #2 (behind the iPhone) revenue stream for Apple during FY2015, and as a category have been growing since at 20+% YoY.

Today the point of selling iPhones is to sell more premium Services and premium Other Products.

We may see iPhone unit sales growth in the future, but it won't be much (2% - 3%).  ASPs on the other hand will grow organically (an additional $100 over the next 3 years without raising prices) as less expensive LED iPhones are flushed out of the iPhone product lineup.

Apple's share of handset revenue and profits is going to increase greatly over that 3 year period.