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Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

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Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#91

Post by megablast »

johnpowell wrote: post #83
jusben1369 wrote: post #11

It's fascinating to me that the iPad is flat and being effectively cannibalized by the iPhone. Can anyone think of a similar example where a newer form factor gets re-absorbed or passed by the previous form factor? (I probably need a more elegant way to say this)

I have a iPhone6 which replaced a 5. My two year contract was up so I sold the 5 and got the 6. I actually made money on upgrading my phone. My iPad3 still works fine for what I use it for and won't get upgraded until it no longer works.

I doubt that you made money. Just because you made >$200 doesn't mean you made anything. You still have those costs of paying of the entire cost of the iPhone >$900 that you seem to be ignoring, just because they are hidden in your monthly bill.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#92

Post by baddox »

steven2012 wrote: post #20
jusben1369 wrote: post #11

It's fascinating to me that the iPad is flat and being effectively cannibalized by the iPhone. Can anyone think of a similar example where a newer form factor gets re-absorbed or passed by the previous form factor? (I probably need a more elegant way to say this)

It's actually pretty smart. They are allowing cannibalization of the iPad to the iPhone Plus because the margins on the iPhone Plus are higher, and people actually upgrade it every 2 years. I don't know a single person, including myself, that has had any impetus to upgrade their iPad, so this is a way of shifting people over to a phone model where there is a more defined upgrade cycle.

> I don't know a single person, including myself, that has had any impetus to upgrade their iPad

Allow me to introduce myself :)

I've had the iPad 2, iPad 3rd gen (Retina), and iPad Air, and I will absolutely be upgrading to the Air 2 as soon as it hits the Apple Store (by the way, what's up with them not announcing an in-store release date?). It has become arguably my primary non-work computer, as my 3 year old Windows gaming PC begins to gather dust due to my not playing games any more.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#93

Post by baddox »

sytelus wrote: post #69
jusben1369 wrote: post #11

It's fascinating to me that the iPad is flat and being effectively cannibalized by the iPhone. Can anyone think of a similar example where a newer form factor gets re-absorbed or passed by the previous form factor? (I probably need a more elegant way to say this)

iPads are cannibalized by 3X-5X cheaper Android tablets[1], not iPhone. People have bought iPhone because it costs upfront $200. That's a magic price. Above that price demand swiftly drops. [1] According to Gartner, there were 68% more tablets sold in 2013 compared to 2012. Android’s share of the tablet market rise from 45.8% in 2012 to 61.9% in 2013 while Apple’s share has fallen from 52.8% all the way down to 36%.…

> People have bought iPhone because it costs upfront $200. That's a magic price. Above that price demand swiftly drops.

Is that so? I've always wondered what percentage of iPhones sold are the base storage tier. I certainly would never buy the base model, at least until they up it to 32GB.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#94

Post by baddox »

MBCook wrote: post #89
MCRed wrote: post #49

The interesting conundrum here, as I see it, is that the iPad is losing its purpose. Before, it was between phones- which were small-- and laptops-- which were big. But the Air is becoming a lot more mainstream, laptops overall are becoming knife thin, and phones are getting bigger. I think the iPad was meant to replace the PC for most use cases-- e.g. the email, web surfing etc. and I think it's been somewhat succes…

There was a nice article on an Apple blog the other day (don't remember where) that suggested the problem with the iPad is the lack of purpose built software. I own an iPad 4 and it's pretty rare that I buy iPad only software. Developers just don't seem to make that much even though the markets a pretty decent size. Mostly it's just simple iPhone apps or games that have been scaled up. The article was suggesting that…

The interesting thing is that I have very little need for purpose built software on my iPad. I get by with Mail (or GMail), Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch, and of course most of my usage is Safari, which really could substitute adequately for all of those except Twitch.

Games are really nice on the iPad, but I only play those the few times a year I fly.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#95

Post by baddox »

megablast wrote: post #91
johnpowell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a iPhone6 which replaced a 5. My two year contract was up so I sold the 5 and got the 6. I actually made money on upgrading my phone. My iPad3 still works fine for what I use it for and won't get upgraded until it no longer works.

I doubt that you made money. Just because you made >$200 doesn't mean you made anything. You still have those costs of paying of the entire cost of the iPhone >$900 that you seem to be ignoring, just because they are hidden in your monthly bill.

Depending on the carrier and plan, they might only be "hidden in the monthly bill" in the sense the monthly bill would be the same regardless of whether the device was upgraded.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#96

Post by putlake »

sytelus wrote: post #69
jusben1369 wrote: post #11

It's fascinating to me that the iPad is flat and being effectively cannibalized by the iPhone. Can anyone think of a similar example where a newer form factor gets re-absorbed or passed by the previous form factor? (I probably need a more elegant way to say this)

iPads are cannibalized by 3X-5X cheaper Android tablets[1], not iPhone. People have bought iPhone because it costs upfront $200. That's a magic price. Above that price demand swiftly drops. [1] According to Gartner, there were 68% more tablets sold in 2013 compared to 2012. Android’s share of the tablet market rise from 45.8% in 2012 to 61.9% in 2013 while Apple’s share has fallen from 52.8% all the way down to 36%.…

I don't know who is buying all these tablets Gartner is reporting. Tablet traffic to my website (Alexa top 10K) has stagnated at under 10% for over a year now. Apple is not wrong to look at usage share rather than simply at units shipped. 78% of visits to my website from tablets in the last 30 days were from iPad.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#97

Post by Bud »

archagon wrote: post #76
MCRed wrote: post #49

The interesting conundrum here, as I see it, is that the iPad is losing its purpose. Before, it was between phones- which were small-- and laptops-- which were big. But the Air is becoming a lot more mainstream, laptops overall are becoming knife thin, and phones are getting bigger. I think the iPad was meant to replace the PC for most use cases-- e.g. the email, web surfing etc. and I think it's been somewhat succes…

This is probably too geeky for Apple to do, but I wish they offered direct video input on their iPads. You'd be able to use them for extra screen space, hobby projects, dedicated views for things like audio production, temporary screens for headless terminals... so many possibilities! (I know there are apps that do that, but they're workarounds at best and have too much latency and/or quality degradation.)

Not sure if this meets your needs, but I find Air Display to be excellent for this purpose. Zero quality degradation, and the latency is less than I expected. Quite usable for most purposes. I grant you're not going to be doing video editing this way...but you could certainly use the iPad for the palettes for the app you're using to do the video editing.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#98

Post by gress »

bane wrote: post #81
gress wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Samsung not 'one big breakthrough by Apple' from having its revenues cut by 90%?

Because Samsung is an immensely diversified company that makes everything from washing machines to apartment buildings. Phones are big part, but just a small part of the overall company.

So phones are a big and a small part of Samsung simultaneously? Right.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#99

Post by demallien »

MCRed wrote: post #49

The interesting conundrum here, as I see it, is that the iPad is losing its purpose. Before, it was between phones- which were small-- and laptops-- which were big. But the Air is becoming a lot more mainstream, laptops overall are becoming knife thin, and phones are getting bigger. I think the iPad was meant to replace the PC for most use cases-- e.g. the email, web surfing etc. and I think it's been somewhat succes…

On the one hand, I wan to agree with you - just looking at my own situation I just ordered an iPhone 6 plus, and I have a MacBook Air. But I'm not ready to writ off he iPad just yet. It still has a major advantage over the mac - iOS is so much simpler to use for the average user.

If you go back 18 months or so there where a whole slew of articles describing peoples experiences trying to go iPad-only for trips. They all ran into problems caused by the lack of direct access to the file system, making the sharing of content between productivity apps quite difficult.

With the release of ios8, Apple has addressed this problem. In particular, extensions are a potential game changer, making it easy of apps to work together. For the time being I'm holding off on predicting the iPad's demise - I'm going to wait and see how the market responds to these new capabilities in ios8. For now it's an open question as to the iPad's ability to replace a normal computer for many people. Last year the answer was no, this year I'm not sure.

Re: Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

#100

Post by PKop »

MCRed wrote: post #56
stephen-mw wrote: post #38

I'm long in apple for several reasons: 1. Apple's P/E is way to low for a company that literally sells the best and highest rated products on the market. Historically you pay a P/E _premium_ for these types of stocks, not a discount. The company is downright cheap. 2. ApplePay has a ton of potential. Just in the other news thread others were complaining that moving to chip & pin cards is basically just changing the f…

I've always found the idea of diversification as a rule, or for its own sake to be troubling. Say you have 100k. You could put it all in Apple, or put 99k in Apple and then buy puts to protect against a sudden decline in Apple with the remaining 1k. (might cost more, not sure.) Or you could split it up into 6 companies. Are any of the other 5 going to be as high quality as apple? I think diversification comes from th…

Warren Buffet has similar advice with regards to diversification https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-PobeU4Ox0#t=66
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