patrick.net

Still long and strong Apple.

Apple 5S should lead 15%- YOY profits for FY14. Then they absolutely need a 4.8 inch Iphone 6 for next year. Heading into the next 6 months, Apple has little competition now that the S4, HTC one, Nokia are nothing spectacular.

The real excitement will be the Ipad. a 64 bit Ipad that is thinner, lighter with a longer battery life will absolutely be a huge seller. The A7 chip combined with Iworks will make this an enterprise favorite and ruin Microsoft again. The retina mini is too obvious and will be coveted by the parents for their kids. It's going to be a huge seller this christmas as the consumers are desparate for an upgrade and should make up for Macs and Ipods in FY14.

egads101 says

thinking of selling it and getting the ipad mini if it is cool.

I have a mini and love the weight, great to travel with! When I picked up a standard iPad after using a mini for a while it felt HEAVY.

But...and there's always a but.... my eyesight is not what it once was and the smaller screen makes me reach for reading glasses where the standard did not. I am thinking about picking up a full size 16G WiFI at next refresh so I have something as a hangar queen for "around the house" usage that is easier on my eyes. Keep the mini for travelling and family use.

Long AAPL as well, had added to my position a little during dip.

Vicente said: When I picked up a standard iPad after using a mini for a while it felt HEAVY.
I guess they're listening. Less is more.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

You never, I repeat never, build your business model around competing against the likes of Samsung.

They used to say things like that about IBM.

We shall see.

An American cursing an American business? God helps America!

Yeah, Samsung.
I have a nice wireless laser printer for $57 made by them.
They must have made $10 profit.

clambo says

Yeah, Samsung.

I have a nice wireless laser printer for $57 made by them.

They must have made $10 profit.

Yeah, but they commoditize every market eventually, and their products are usually decent. Samsung is a beast.

clambo says

Yeah, Samsung.
I have a nice wireless laser printer for $57 made by them.
They must have made $10 profit.

Have you checked out the price of the toners? I dunnno $69 - 99$ or so. That is $40-$60 profits and recurring. lol

Having said that, Samsung lost some mojo this year on the galaxy line. S4 was a dud. Apple will enjoy record profits in FY14.

SFace says

Having said that, Samsung lost some mojo this year on the galaxy line. S4 was a dud. Apple will enjoy record profits in FY14.

Margin compression. Look iPad mini is now is below $300 in order to fight competition. It would be interesting to see on Monday the breakdown of 5c vs. 5s sales. If 5c sales are even in 30% range, I believe we already had peak Apple profits.

treatmentreport says

SFace says

Having said that, Samsung lost some mojo this year on the galaxy line. S4 was a dud. Apple will enjoy record profits in FY14.

Margin compression. Look iPad mini is now is below $300 in order to fight competition. It would be interesting to see on Monday the breakdown of 5c vs. 5s sales. If 5c sales are even in 30% range, I believe we already had peak Apple profits.

The stock action in the last 3 weeks (quiet period) tells you they had a fantastic quarter and will have a fantastic christmas. It has broken out of $510 with conviction. The trend is up and institutions are loading.

everyone I know is buying the 5S, it is only limited by what is available. I just sold my Ipad and Ipad mini to upgade to the Ipad Air and Ipad mini retina next month. Will have to make do with the nexus 7 for now. They fixed the two major complaints I had with Apple

Ipad is too heavy, bulky
Ipad mini resulution sucks.

bingo and bingo and that is why people will upgrade.

SFace says

It has broken out of $510 with conviction. The trend is up and institutions are loading.

It probably has to do something with iCahn blabbing about borrowing 150B to buy back shares which I think is stupid. Apple should keep its cash just in case. Their cash will allow them to survive for 50 years even if they hit hard times again.

I think they will sell a lot of iPhones in Q3, but I want to see the breakdown. I know that in bay area almost everyone will buy 5s, but what happens outside matters more. Also, I think that in Q4 they will miss iPad sales, as completion is getting crazy in tablet market.

Long term, profits will be down. I don't think they can make it up on volume.

Believe goal of IC blabbering is to attract attention to the undervaluation of Apple. IC would wait till Apple becomes overvalued due to momentum traders buying before selling out.

tr6 - Apple usual practice is to keep new model at the same price and lower last year model price. Last year's iPad mini is priced at $329, and is lowered to $299, dropping $30. Pricing is not intended to compete with competitors but rather to support pricing of the new model. Kind of give a sense of value to the new model.

hanera says

Apple usual practice is to keep new model at the same price and lower last year model price. Last year's iPad mini is priced at $329, and is lowered to $299, dropping $30. Pricing is not intended to compete with competitors but rather to support pricing of the new model. Kind of give a sense of value to the new model.

Except they are raising the price of the new model to 399 to get some margin back. My guess is the 299 model will sell better than the 399 model.

Since so many of you are apple experts. What's a better bang for the buck, iPad or iPad mini? Want to get one for wifey this Christmas.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

How's her near sight? Mini better value but challenges my 40+yo eyes.

AAPL. Walled garden fashion statement. Its not technology, and its no longer best of breed, and 80% share is Android now. As long as the 1%-ers are doing great, theyll be paying $650-$850 for these idiotic locked phones and foolish contracts with data limits.

Mick Russom says

foolish contract with data limits.

This seems a separate issue. For whatever reason most put up with that, there's T-Mobile which has no cap, but they do slow you down after X limit is passed. But their network is not as large or as good.

FortWayne says

Since so many of you are apple experts. What's a better bang for the buck, iPad or iPad mini? Want to get one for wifey this Christmas.

If you are set on iPad, wait for black Friday and get 10% off whichever one you decide on.

Vicente says

How's her near sight? Mini better value but challenges my 40+yo eyes.

Good point, certainly makes the case for the bigger one.

FortWayne says

Vicente says

How's her near sight? Mini better value but challenges my 40+yo eyes.

Good point, certainly makes the case for the bigger one.

I'm buying iPad Air for sure. Eyesight bad.

$565

China issued 4G LTE TDD licensing today

If this means 5S and 6 come to China Mobile, then targets will have to be revised upwards.

My portfolio is heavy on AAPL lately, a source of both joy & worry.

Still long AAPL, wondering if it is headed past 700 before it split.

Apple makes about $2000/second profit.

Here we go again. The latest run up has all to do with financial engineering and not fundamentals. Steve Jobs would have never taken on debt to buy back shares of the company.

iPads are getting killed by competition (the only times I buy iPads anymore is when they are on huge sales). As US carriers move off subsidy based models, the average price of an iPhone will drop below $500 over the next three years to four years. It will be much harder to make serious profits.

tr6 says

Steve Jobs would have never taken on debt to buy back shares of the company.

I always thought that was questionable move. Having said that I believe Apple is doing that because they want to keep their cash untaxed in foreign accounts.

Crossed 600 again today, first time since late 2012.

Accessorize!

tr6 says

Here we go again. The latest run up has all to do with financial engineering and not fundamentals. Steve Jobs would have never taken on debt to buy back shares of the company.

iPads are getting killed by competition (the only times I buy iPads anymore is when they are on huge sales). As US carriers move off subsidy based models, the average price of an iPhone will drop below $500 over the next three years to four years. It will be much harder to make serious profits.

Nonsense... Schools only buy IPADS... The subsidy model is not going away. It's just not! Companies love the long contracts.. and the only way to sucker people into long contracts is with subsidies to hardware. They can hide all kinds of fees in your monthly bill that way!

Apple is gonna come out with an iWatch soon or some other wearable tech that will drive an IPHONE-like adoption. IPHONES will continue to advance and eventually everyone will get rid of their wallets.. and use IPHONES to check out at the grocery store and buy things.

I don't know about you.. But i wouldn't trust an open-source program like Android with my credit card information. The nice thing about Apple's walled garden.. is it makes breaches of that wall much more difficult and easier to fix.

Apple is also going to have a music streaming service and probably some sort of deal with Comcast that puts an Apple TV Box in every subscribers home.

The bad news for the consumer is you aren't ever gonna get ALA Carte Television. Most likely the internet is going to become more and more like your Cable subscription in cost and access to what you want. Apple will definitely get it's piece though.

In less than 5 years everyone will have an Apple designed DVR of some sort... with SIRI voice activation, guestures and works seamless with your IPAD or IPHONE if you like. Your cable bill will still be $100 a month... but it will work much better and do more for you atleast.

People keep talking like Android is the minority product, when it has the greatest Smartphone/Tablet market share and gained it very early in the Smartphone wars.

Android is now about 81% worldwide, with Apple at 16% and Windows at 3% of the smartphone market:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows-phone/23904/windows-phone-stuck-3-world-market-share-time-call-android

Apple TV has been launched several times, every time it fails to gather steam, Apple claims it was just testing the waters.

Proprietary Software is less robust than open-source software simply because of the numbers of people that can find and close vulnerabilities. There is always the temptation of Prop Software owners to conceal or delay fixing a problem, especially if they have a "Perfection" Culture where they think their poop don't stink.

thunderlips11 says

Proprietary Software is less robust than open-source software simply because of the numbers of people that can find and close vulnerabilities.

I used to believe this too, waving around my copy of Cathedral and the Bazaar.

However, this gross oversimplification doesn't always hold up. Take the example of OpenSSL, a deep underpinning of all Internet commerce. For YEARS it had a major flaw which nobody looked at, and the few authors who were looking at it were just scraping by with no money for audits. This idea that all this wealth of people and money would NATURALLY kick in flatly didn't work. I see this more and more, as IT is chronically bid down to least possible expense. More open source software will be USED but not properly maintained.

Vicente says

However, this gross oversimplification doesn't always hold up. Take the example of OpenSSL, a deep underpinning of all Internet commerce. For YEARS it had a major flaw which nobody looked at, and the few authors who were looking at it were just scraping by with no money for audits. This idea that all this wealth of people and money would NATURALLY kick in flatly didn't work. I see this more and more, as IT is chronically bid down to least possible expense. More open source software will be USED but not maintained.

Interesting, thanks for this point, Vincente. It's nuances like this I love to find out about.

Having OpenSSL dependent on contracts for revenue is a strange model. One would think they would insist on some kind of commercial fee. Given the prevalence of the software, even a very modest fee would be enough to supply far more resources to the organization!

(And I see the mystery disliker has arrived at your post).

After gapped higher in late April and has been consolidating the gains in the last several weeks, looks like AAPL is making its move.

AAPL should get back some market share from Samsung with its iPhone 6. My guess is AAPL will hit $700 by this Christmas season.

thunderlips11 says

Having OpenSSL dependent on contracts for revenue is a strange model. One would think they would insist on some kind of commercial fee. Given the prevalence of the software, even a very modest fee would be enough to supply far more resources to the organization!

Ah but it's Open Source!

I've been to seminars with Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation. After reading Eric Allman "Cathedral and the Bazaar" many years ago I was a True Believer(tm) in Open Source and FSF ideals. It's the kind of thing that worked great in the 90's, and even into the millenium. That was when money flowed like water for IT projects and plenty of IT people had free time to do interesting stuff.

Used to be lots of companies might have a few hotshots where some time was carved off to contribute to cool OSS. Now however we all get cut to ribbons on budgets, you want to contribute to SNMP? Fine, do that on your own time! You want to take a junket to a big conference and rub elbows? Forget it!

I really do love the ideals, and would like to see all code be freely available. However the promise of OSS just isn't playing out.

Relevant article:

http://veridicalsystems.com/blog/of-money-responsibility-and-pride/

It's a sort of Tragedy of the Commons, and it will only get worse. How do I put this.... everyone that's a US citizen and still employed, wants to work on the Next Big Shiny Thing. Anything that smacks of infrastructure if maintained at all, is farmed out to H1B or Chindia and those people generally don't give a crap about doing anything beyond what is required to collect the paycheck before moving on to the next contract.

thunderlips11 says

People keep talking like Android is the minority product, when it has the greatest Smartphone/Tablet market share and gained it very early in the Smartphone wars.

I'd be interested to see a chart that breaks out post-purchase revenue (app store / itunes / whatever) by device type. I strongly suspect that even with a fraction of the install base that apple whips the shit out of android. Just a hunch, though.

Obligatory:

Meanwhile I am still long AAPL in a large way. I expect it to top $100 soon.

In keeping with the animated gif can of worms you opened:

E-man says

SFace says

yes, the Iphone 5C is too expensive. Can't crack the asian market with that price tag.

Well, the good news is everyone should download the new Ios7 update on Sep 18th. It would be a good chance to see what improvements are made to the software side of it.

I see it differently. This is an opportunity to buy AAPL stocks before it resumes its uptrend. I was hoping for a pullback to $485, but here it is sitting near its 200 DMA. Back up the truck & load it up.

:0) AAPL is 40%+ higher now. Sweet. :0)

AAPL passed $100 today. Runup before iPhone 6?