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Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

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Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#61

Post by blantonl »

ugh wrote: post #55
dasht wrote: post #53

Hehe. You know the old saying "always darkest just before the storm"? How's about: "always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"? Huge numbers of consumer leaders or consumer suckers have, in the past few years, bought lots of this line of products. Either a large number of them and non-buyers agree "Well, that was worth it" or, the opposite. Place your bet. (I'm not saying "droid wins" or "MSFT wins". I'm s…

What would be the consequences of the “bubble bursting”? I’m asking because there is really no way you can respond to a statement like that. What is your specific prediction? Will Apple be bankrupt in the short or long term? Will their iPhone sales decrease? Will they plateau? Will they grow slower than the Smartphone market? Are you only talking about the iPhone or maybe all iOS devices? Maybe the Mac, too?

in all fairness the OP might be referring to Microsoft as an example.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#62

Post by lotharbot »

glhaynes wrote: post #59
kenjackson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. I get what you're saying, but I think it is BS myself. And to be perfectly honest I think Steve thinks its BS too. And they'll be working on it until the day he says, "A lot of people have said 'Steve, a 7" tablet would be great'. Well today we have something a lot better than great". Anyone who thinks you can't do a differentiated multitouch 7" UI is either lying or incompetent. Steve is clearly not the latter.…

It's just hard for me to see what value a 7" iPad would bring. Just as Steve said, I can't pocket it, so I still have to have a smartphone. And if I'm going to use something other than my smartphone (which Steve went out of his way today to say that most iPad buyers already have), why would I want to use something only slightly bigger? If anything, the 10" iPad is too small. The concern isn't that Apple couldn't make…

The latest kindle has a 6" screen (which could be expanded to 7" without changing the form factor) and I can fit it in my coat pocket or my wife's purse easily, and my pants pocket with just a little fiddling to get the angle right. It also fits well in the side pouch of my kid's diaper bag.

I find the size far more convenient than larger devices. I'd much rather have a generic prepaid phone and a kindle-sized pad than an iPhone and a 10" iPad.

There's plenty of room for a roughly 7" tablet of some sort to enter the market.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#63

Post by msbarnett »

benologist wrote: post #52
lukasb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that different OSes have different UI idioms and capabilities, it's not clear that "write once, deploy everywhere" is the right strategy.

That's pretty much what I said - it's a problem that Adobe, Mono, Unity etc. are hoping they can solve for us. I don't think it'll ever be as simple as write once, deploy anywhere ... but write once, in one language, and deploy everywhere with minimal fuss is an admirable goal.

> That's pretty much what I said - it's a problem that Adobe, Mono, Unity etc. are hoping they can solve for us.

It's a problem that companies have been trying to solve, in one form or another, since the advent of the microcomputer.

I'm highly sceptical that a solution is ever going to appear. There is no silver bullet that will allow you to paper over the significant differences in platforms in a transparent, non-clunky manner.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#64

Post by mattparcher »

mattparcher wrote: post #32
barredo wrote: post #26

Most interesting of the press release "We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year."

(This sentence is immediately preceded by a highlight of iPhone sales and a dismissal of iPhone competition from RIM.)

Just to clarify, it was my impression that the coming “surprises” specifically relate to the iPhone, based on the context of the statement.

(Though, as glhaynes notes, we are now less than two days away from the “Back to the Mac” event, which will almost certainly have a number of non-iPhone surprises.)

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#65

Post by macrael »

mattparcher wrote: post #56
dasht wrote: post #53

Hehe. You know the old saying "always darkest just before the storm"? How's about: "always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"? Huge numbers of consumer leaders or consumer suckers have, in the past few years, bought lots of this line of products. Either a large number of them and non-buyers agree "Well, that was worth it" or, the opposite. Place your bet. (I'm not saying "droid wins" or "MSFT wins". I'm s…

To be honest, each time Apple has a record quarter (which has been quite often lately) folks doubt that they will sustain that growth, but they’re almost always proven wrong. Where is Apple slowing? In Macs, which see only modest increases year over year, and iPods, which are in decline. But both of those categories are not losing to competitors — they are being cannibalized by Apple itself, who is busy selling incre…

I'm not sure I would characterize the Mac growth as "modest" for the past several years they gave been growing several times faster than the industry average.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#66

Post by thought_alarm »

kenjackson wrote: post #57
jsz0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was the size of the human finger creates some hard limitations for multi-touch UI design. So at any resolution a 7" tablet isn't going to offer the physical space required to significantly increase the number of tap targets on screen. As a result you're probably going to end up with applications that look, feel and operate more like a SmartPhone app though with less scrolling & resizing. I believe t…

OK. I get what you're saying, but I think it is BS myself. And to be perfectly honest I think Steve thinks its BS too. And they'll be working on it until the day he says, "A lot of people have said 'Steve, a 7" tablet would be great'. Well today we have something a lot better than great". Anyone who thinks you can't do a differentiated multitouch 7" UI is either lying or incompetent. Steve is clearly not the latter.…

What software will this 7" iOS device run? iPad software shrunk down 50% in size, or iPhone software expanded 50% is size?

Neither works. Neither is compelling. UI design is fundamentally different between a 4" screen and a 10" screen, regardless of the actual screen resolution.

The only reason people are talking about 7" tablets because Android 2.2 is absolutely ridiculous on a 10" screen (see previous paragraph). It's also a way for these manufacturers to compete on price with the iPad.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#67

Post by brown9-2 »

dasht wrote: post #53

Hehe. You know the old saying "always darkest just before the storm"? How's about: "always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"? Huge numbers of consumer leaders or consumer suckers have, in the past few years, bought lots of this line of products. Either a large number of them and non-buyers agree "Well, that was worth it" or, the opposite. Place your bet. (I'm not saying "droid wins" or "MSFT wins". I'm s…

"always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"?

Isn't this a bit like asking why a lost item is always in the last place you look for it?

Of course revenues are highest before a decline starts. The decline has to start from somewhere; some event has to happen to turn your fortunes from positive to negative. Your revenue has to be climbing upwards for anyone to label it a "bubble". Mediocre companies that implode don't warrant the "bubble" label.

This is just misinterpreting a turn of language.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#68

Post by glhaynes »

kenjackson wrote: post #60
glhaynes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just hard for me to see what value a 7" iPad would bring. Just as Steve said, I can't pocket it, so I still have to have a smartphone. And if I'm going to use something other than my smartphone (which Steve went out of his way today to say that most iPad buyers already have), why would I want to use something only slightly bigger? If anything, the 10" iPad is too small. The concern isn't that Apple couldn't make…

I disagree almost across the board with you. The 10" iPad is just too big for me to feel comfortable carrying around (and yes, it is too heavy. That is the main reason I returned mine). The problem today is that I have a phone that is really too small to be super useful. I've made considerable concessions, but really browsing and apps on the iPhone kind of suck. It's just they suck a LOT less than phone apps used to.…

Please stop downvoting this post. My sentiments are not the same as kenjackson's, but his are valid and well-expressed. Reply if you disagree with him, but there's no reason to downvote.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#70

Post by apike »

danilocampos wrote: post #19

The iPad sales are just staggering. Moving that many units of a product that didn't even exist a year ago, in a category that was long thought dead, is incredible. Identify an optimal user experience, polish the hell out of it, then perform an airtight integration of every single component, from end-to-end. The software and hardware, the content ecosystem, the physical distribution, all of it fits together perfectly.…

When you look at it closely, Apple, as a portfolio of talent, technologies and interacting businesses, resembles the sort of microorganism that Intelligent Design proponents advance as evidence of a god.

Having been an Apple employee, it's funny to me when people describe Apple this way. If you think of their operations as perfect, godlike, or seamless, you have no chance of really understanding them or replicating the good parts yourself.

At Apple there are indeed conflicting agendas, moments of doubt, in-fights, technical debts, and lame-duck products. There might be less of these things than other big companies, but it's still just a group of thousands of individuals trying to make great stuff.

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