sacto joe

Abalos65 said:

corrections said:

Abalos65 said:

And you were wrong about Apple's supply chain being prepared for the coronavirus, not more so than other companies. Are you willing to admit that?

There was never any claim that Apple wouldn't be affected at all. 

Instead, I noted that Apple is well positioned to get through a temporary problem, and contrasted that with the situation for Huawei and other Android makers who are seeing not only sales disruptions, but are desperately dependent on year-round volume sales, trade shows, retail discounting, and Chinese sales to a far greater degree than Apple.  

It is impossible to argue that Apple is not prepared for crisis after turning around sales in China last year and surviving previous supply chain disasters such as the devastation in Japan. 

On the other hand, the wild media narratives of doom described in the article have been wrong, wrong, wrong over the last year. Point your waging finger where it belongs.

C'mon. The title was "Why Apple's supply chain is prepared for China's coronavirus". Not how Apple can weather sales disruptions/reductions. The supply chain. Purely the manufacturing and supplying of products.

In the editorial:

"But all that mysterious complexity serves a critically important function. It makes Apple resilient to crisis."  Again, about the supply chain, not sales. Also note the absolute of resilient.

"If there's any need to be concerned about who will be affected by any global event—including the most recent coronavirus in China—it's certainly not Apple that anyone needs to voice concerns about." This is below a large portion of text praising Apple's supply chain as magical (Japan, smelters, previous virus, the whole nine yards), clearly implying the supply chain will be unaffected, not sales.

How hard is it to admit you were wrong?

How hard is it for you to read without applying your personal bias to what you read? There was clearly NO such "implication". You simply cherry-picked what you wanted to hear.

Look. Apple is absolutely in better shape to withstand any slowdown due to the '19 novel coronavirus, simply because of its massive cash flow. But what is the source of that cash flow? It stems from its "magical" JIT manufacturing setup of stupendous dimensions and highest quality. Sure, it takes time to set the JIT wheels in motion when they've come to a halt. But guess what: They ALWAYS come to a halt during Chinese New Year! All that's happened is that they've stayed halted a while longer.

Indeed, if Apple wanted to, they could have spun up the machine sooner. But instead, they've chosen to keep those gathering places closed, at no small expense to the company, helping to save lives. Because, you see, that matters to the leadership of Apple more than mere profit.

When Apple feels that it's safe enough, it'll turn the key and open its factories and its stores. And all that pent up demand will eventually be satisfied, since people who buy into the Apple ecosystem are extremely loyal. Once things recover in a month or two, Apple will actually begin to see an increase in sales over and above what would have been expected.

You said: "And you were wrong about Apple's supply chain being prepared for the coronavirus, not more so than other companies." Nope. The supply chain IS prepared for the '19 novel coronavirus. Once the green light is given, Apple will turn the key and be back in business.

But, as DED said, those competitors that are living close to their vest with very little profit are going to have a much harder time overcoming the disruption. 

Next time, try getting your objective glasses on and actually reading what it is that DED wrote.

Now, it does have to be said that, in countries like China where industries are heavily supported by the state, they don't necessarily have to make a profit to "stay in business". (They also don't have to concern themselves with how many people die over their screwups.) But they have other problems, not the least of which is that subsidizing businesses is a good way to weaken them. And it isn't possible to create creativity and ingenuity by fiat. IOW, before China can truly step up to match Apple, it's going to have to give it's people substantially more freedom.

Good luck with that.

mpantone said:

Let's make one thing very, Very, VERY clear.

There's a differing level of credibility between the following groups (ranked from highest to lowest):

• Opinions from analysts whose firms actually have investing clients. These are people who are paid to increase client portfolios.
• Opinions from analysts whose outside research firms. These are people who are paid to sell reports.
• Opinions from print media. These are people who are paid to sell periodicals.
• Opinions from online media (including bloggers, vloggers, etc.). These are people who are paid for pageviews/ad impressions.

The latter are the least credible.

If you really understood the financial markets, you'd be making a hell of a lot more investing rather than writing.

If you really understood DED, you'd know there's more to his writing than making money.

"In using its cash to buy back its shares and retire them, Apple has concentrated the value of its remaining shares for its investors. The buyback program has also had the effect of taking shares away from traders willing to sell on negative news. That appears to have significantly eliminated the weak hands remaining among the company's investors, resulting in less irrational fluctuations."

This. And the cherry on top is that Apple paid an average of about $155/share, and in the process removed a third of the shares they had outstanding from about 7 years back. This buyback process was belittled for years, and deemed a "gimmick". But that just kept the stock artificially undervalued for more years. Meanwhile Apple, which knew its own value far better than these armchair quarterbacks, just kept salting away all that cheap stock.

This year, it appears that enough investors have finally awakened to the genius of Apple's buybacks to create a "run" on what is now a much-reduced pool of available stock - and one that Apple itself is still competing for! And why not? How long will it take, even if Apple buys back at the present valuations, before its average buyback price even gets to $200/share, let alone the $300/share it's presently going for?

Meanwhile, those of us who have also salted away AAPL can watch our percentage ownership of Apple increase as Apple removes more and more shares from the market with its enormous and growing cash flow, now surpassing $55 billion in net profit yearly. Heck, they are working hard just to get the cash they already have down to the point where income balances outflow, and that's going to take a couple of years, no matter what!

The irony is that this has been talked about openly for years by those of us who aren't "professionals"....

Soli said:

StrangeDays said:

seanismorris said:

Soli said:

seanismorris said:

Before buying an Apple Watch for this feature, you might want to listen to real cardiologists on YouTube.

What does this mean?

It means “You could have an arrhythmia even if your heart is healthy” webmd.

If you listen to a cardiologist they’ll tell you the Apple Watch has questionable value.  Just because a couple instances of the heart monitor gets a person in to see their doctor and there is a problem, that leaves out thousands (?) of unneeded visits and stress that results.  The cardiologist explains that the tests themselves can be harmful (it’s not just listening to the heart).  It’s a numbers game...

Now if you’re an older person or a person with a known problem, owning an Apple Watch makes a lot more sense (if you bought it for that reason).

AW a-fib detection does not use the ECG testing feature, it's passive monitoring based on heart rate. The vast majority of the population will not have false positives. While it is possible a-fib could go undetected, so would it if not wearing AW. Thus, there is absolutely no reason to opt not to use AW for a-fib detection. Except general anti-Apple FUD, of course.

What else ya got?

One might be under the impression that all causes where the Watch alerted the wearer to AFib are being reported by the Apple-focused tech media, but I know of two people who were alerted of AFib (in Series 3 Watches, not the models that included the single-lead ECG feature) repeatedly and eventually went to the doctor because they had also been feeling lethargic lately. Both cases found that AFib was not "a fib" and had emergency surgery to correct the issue. I wonder how many other cases have been detected and resolved but not reported on by the media.

Good point.

So I had a Series 2 Watch. I was at the WorldCon in San Jose last year, and found myself pooping out from just walking around. I checked my heartbeat with my Apple Watch and it registered 145 BPM. Sat down and rested for about 10 minutes. Rechecked and it was still 135 BPM. Woke up that night and checked it lying in bed. 135 BPM. When I got home, went to Urgent Care. Told the doctor, and had to insist they do a cardiogram on me. When the doctor saw the readout, she literally turned white and called the ambulance.

Not only did I catch my atrial fib and my atrial flutter, I also discovered a major issue with my left lung that had gone undetected until then.

It's called "engagement", folks. Tim Cook engages with China. He also engages with Donald Trump. He doesn't have to like either one. But engaging is a LOT better than not engaging. And second-guessing on how Apple should be engaged on this or any issue is best left to those who have all the facts.

These individual congress-critters have a right to an opinion, but they so very often don't have all the facts. Heck, look at our President, who rarely sees a fact he isn't ready to ignore! Maybe they have good intentions, maybe they have an agenda. Doesn't matter. If you don't bring facts to the discussion, then your opinion is pretty much worthless, even if you are a congress-critter.