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Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

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Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#31
post #13

I think the Apple future may not look good for a few reasons: 1. iPhones units sold stalled for 3 years in a row. This means the company need to seek every year some trick to earn more from each phone. It is not obvious if they'll be able to do for a long time. 2. Top Android devices are improving and Google Pixel 2 is really an incredible device that is making some iOS users switching. I've no data but my nerd frien…

2. No, iOS people are not switching. They are staying but not buying newer models due to lack of innovation. Personally I would never switch to the cesspool named Android. Laggy, malware infested garbage

I switched to Android due to no 4" phone options, there's less options on the Android side too though. And the incredible push of Apple Music and removal of the headphone jack were just the icing on the cake of switching.

However, the experience of the Samsung Galaxy S8 (which was just to get me familiar with the platform while I looked for a better phone) was incomprehensibly poor. People keep telling me that it's Samsungs software that's crappy but it's really unacceptable for a flagship phone to be this crappy.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#33

That is a pretty stellar earnings release. Congratulations on another quarter of excellent execution! I think what Apple needs are some barbarians at the gates. Something which challenges them to be greater than they are, rather than sitting back on their laurels. I continue to be surprised that they don't step into the cloud computing pool. There are some solid advantages to having a cloud infrastructure that you ca…

> I also wish they would spin out their computer business (Macbook, Ma Pro, Mac Mini, iMac) into its own division

To me, one of the core strengths of Apple is integration of all its devices, and it seems to me that creating separate divisions competing with each other would risk undermining this integration.

In the late 90s, I heard hair raising stories of how various divisions at Sun were operating at cross purposes due to a myoptic focus on their own balance sheets. I believe you worked there. In your opinion, were the competing divisions a strength or a weakness of Sun?

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#34
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like Project McQueen? https://venturebeat.com/2016/03/17/apple-cloud-project-mcque... They also has their own CDN.

Yes something like that, although no follow up after 2016 other than one cryptic speculation about a data center project [1]. [1] http://fortune.com/2017/02/21/apple-data-center-project-isab...

One reason we don't see much follow up is because DC are not of interest to most users. But their DC has definitely grown. Much like their CDN.

Then there is the DC project in Ireland, more in HongKong, and few other places. I think their original plan were to have most of its cloud usage move back to its infrastructure by 2019, given delays in many parts of DC may be 2020.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#35
post #13

I think the Apple future may not look good for a few reasons: 1. iPhones units sold stalled for 3 years in a row. This means the company need to seek every year some trick to earn more from each phone. It is not obvious if they'll be able to do for a long time. 2. Top Android devices are improving and Google Pixel 2 is really an incredible device that is making some iOS users switching. I've no data but my nerd frien…

> I've no data but my nerd friends are doing this a lot, and sometimes what you see in the nerd-sphere in a few years happens in the normal market "Nerds" are the group most adept at switching back and forth so your anecdote really isn't useful in the slightest. And the numbers really don't show a systemic move back to Android. Also this group may be trend-setters because it does happen sometimes. But far more often…

Just a slight point: iMessage is only relevant in Australia and US. In Europe, its WhatsApp, in China, WeChat, in Japan, LINE, etc. iMessage is not a competitive advantage in the markets where Apple can extract greatest growth going forward.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#36
post #13

I think the Apple future may not look good for a few reasons: 1. iPhones units sold stalled for 3 years in a row. This means the company need to seek every year some trick to earn more from each phone. It is not obvious if they'll be able to do for a long time. 2. Top Android devices are improving and Google Pixel 2 is really an incredible device that is making some iOS users switching. I've no data but my nerd frien…

1. Maturing smartphone market. 4.No other growth drivers in sight after the failure of apple watch to become huge.

I think it would be highly surprising if anyone invented a new product category at the scale of smartphones any time in the next few decades.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#37

My notes: Numbers: - Q Rev. $51.5B to $53.5B, Est. $51.4B - Q2 2018 revenue of $61 billion, equaling analyst's estimates. That's 16 percent growth from a year ago. It's the fastest year over year expansion since 2015 - Apple sold 52 million iPhones in the second quarter, compared to 50.1 million units in the year-ago quarter. This represents year-over-year 3 percent unit growth and 14 revenue growth - services revenu…

>Q2 2015: 61.2 million

Worth pointing out 2015 was the last super cycle, which was the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones during the first quarter of fiscal 2015 year.

So in terms of unit in two Quarter combined, 2015 still sold more unit.

Personally i am not too happy with China's growth.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#38

That is a pretty stellar earnings release. Congratulations on another quarter of excellent execution! I think what Apple needs are some barbarians at the gates. Something which challenges them to be greater than they are, rather than sitting back on their laurels. I continue to be surprised that they don't step into the cloud computing pool. There are some solid advantages to having a cloud infrastructure that you ca…

> I also wish they would spin out their computer business (Macbook, Ma Pro, Mac Mini, iMac) into its own division To me, one of the core strengths of Apple is integration of all its devices, and it seems to me that creating separate divisions competing with each other would risk undermining this integration. In the late 90s, I heard hair raising stories of how various divisions at Sun were operating at cross purposes…

It is true, Sun did it poorly :-) What Apple has that Sun didn't are vertical product stacks. A 'Macintosh' company has its own hardware, software, and (shared) sales channels. The 'iDevice' company has its own hardware, software, and (shared) sales channels. I think that separation could work.

From where I could watch, Sun's biggest issue was that they forgot they were a systems company and started trying to be a components company. They had also pretty much become completely afraid of 'open' systems at that point. Playing tricks on competing SPARC computer companies, screwing up the OS portability, etc.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#39
post #13

I think the Apple future may not look good for a few reasons: 1. iPhones units sold stalled for 3 years in a row. This means the company need to seek every year some trick to earn more from each phone. It is not obvious if they'll be able to do for a long time. 2. Top Android devices are improving and Google Pixel 2 is really an incredible device that is making some iOS users switching. I've no data but my nerd frien…

yup...

1. iphone is a mature product.

2. no onvious new groundbreaking product releases on the horizon (a watch is not it).

3. desktops are dying, and their replacements, the ipads, are stagnating.

4. intel screwed them with processor roadmaps intel had no hopes of meeting (cannonlake, anyone?)

5. no longer visionary on the future of computing (seem to be chasing all the flavors of the month lately).

6. services growth is a lagging indicator on the health of the ecosystem (or walled garden, if you prefer).

7. product and design mishaps all over (dongles, broken keyboards, homepod's a dud so far).

8. waning customer loyalty (customers are staying with apple not from excitement but from apathy in the space)

9. the low hanging fruit in ubiquitous, mobile and personal computing have been plucked (just the hard stuff remains).

i'm not suggesting all is lost, but from my vantage point outside the company, it's concerning. airpods and the pencil seem most promising in the short term to me. airpods hold the promise of voice computing (if siri could get her act together), and the pencil promises to be the first techology to truly kill off paper, but neither of those hold any certainty.

Re: Apple Reports Q2 2018 Results

#40
post #13

I think the Apple future may not look good for a few reasons: 1. iPhones units sold stalled for 3 years in a row. This means the company need to seek every year some trick to earn more from each phone. It is not obvious if they'll be able to do for a long time. 2. Top Android devices are improving and Google Pixel 2 is really an incredible device that is making some iOS users switching. I've no data but my nerd frien…

2. No, iOS people are not switching. They are staying but not buying newer models due to lack of innovation. Personally I would never switch to the cesspool named Android. Laggy, malware infested garbage

> Personally I would never switch to the cesspool named Android. Laggy, malware infested garbage

Yeah, those sound sketchy to me too. Perhaps you could switch to the non-laggy non-malwareinfested non-garbage android phones.

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