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It wasn’t that long ago that they crossed over $1T market cap.

I remember thinking how much higher can they go? Today they are at $3T !

The company has just impressed over and over and over.

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It's been a great stock for everyone investing in it over the years. The only small issue is that it takes only one tech recession to dwindle its cash and necessitate layoffs within months. If you happen to buy before it your money is lost or at least dead for a long time. Not sure if it's close but recent report was dismal. It hinges upon the smart phone market. Most other markets are saturated (cloud, TV), if the smart phone market goes into a recession there's not much left for them to make money with.

I dunno. A P/E of 32 with declining revenue??? - What's not to like???

I rolled the dice and bought some years ago; today I am just getting some free shares via the dividend every 3 months.
It's probably "expensive" but compared to what? (e.g. Tesla)
Apple Vision Pro will sell and Apple will keep chugging along making shitloads of cash for years to come.

At my age if I found a suitcase of cash I'd buy a mutual fund which is "tax managed" to keep my 1099 down (e.g. Vanguard Tax Managed Capital Appreciation).

My personal guess is AAPL shares will be up 50% in 5 years from now.

I have no idea really, and thinking about it is actually a waste of time because the customer is fickle.

clambo says

Apple Vision Pro

It is expected to cost around $3500. That is a lot more than Facebook's or Meta's set like Quest Pro at $999.

They need to lower some of their product prices to make it available for middle to lower middle class like the Mac Mini desktop and IPad.

The IPhones can be bought by mostly upper class and rich. I guess there are enough of them to sustain Apple revenue growth since 2011.

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"Apple products aren't expensive; they just cost more than some people can afford."

Apple doesn't need to lower the cost of anything.

Why are Apple's chips faster than Qualcomm's?
Third, Apple’s CPUs are big and in this game, big means expensive. The Apple A15 has 15 billion transistors and the A16 is even bigger at 16 billion transistors. The key here is that Apple sells smartphones, not chips. As a result, it can afford to make the SoCs more expensive and recoup the money in other places, including the final retail price.
Arm and Qualcomm, however, are in the chip selling business. Arm does the CPU core design for Qualcomm (and others like MediaTek) and Qualcomm designs the chips, which it, in turn, sells to handset makers like Samsung, OnePlus, Sony, etc. Arm needs to make a profit. Qualcomm needs to make a profit. All the OEMs need to make profits. The practical result is that Qualcomm can’t afford to make overly expensive processors or OEMs will start looking elsewhere.
Fourth, Apple’s CPUs have big caches. Silicon costs money and for some chip makers, their profit margin can be found in just 0.5 mm2 of silicon saved. Like the third point above, Apple is able to make bigger chips (in terms of silicon costs) and that includes large caches.
The Apple A16 has 16MB of cache for the performance cores, 4MB of L2 cache for the efficiency cores, and a huge 24MB of system cache. That is a total of 44MB of cache! These caches are huge compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is estimated to have about a quarter of that.

clambo says

"Apple products aren't expensive; they just cost more than some people can afford."

Apple doesn't need to lower the cost of anything.

I see as Apple is more of an exclusive brand. Its not selling cheap products like a $250 Chromebook.

But I think it can compromise in its appeal to reach more of the middle class.

It can work to earn a profit selling $350 brand-new iPads. Some people would be willing to spend an extra $100 for this instead of a Chromebook.

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https://seekingalpha.com/article/4624472-3-stocks-long-term-capital-appreciation-potential

The above recent article recommends going long on Apple, Google and Microsoft.

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Apple does appeal to the middle class; their computers are much cheaper than previously.

A Mac Mini is inexpensive. You can also buy refurbished iPhones, etc. I saw new Macbooks for $800 at Brandsmart last year.

clambo says

Apple does appeal to the middle class; their computers are much cheaper than previously.

A Mac Mini is inexpensive. You can also buy refurbished iPhones, etc. I saw new Macbooks for $800 at Brandsmart last year.

Yes as far as upper middle class. I am talking about the $30,000 to $50,000 a year annual household income demographic. But you are right as its refurbished products like the iMac and iPad are affordable for that demographic.

I see on Amazon some refurbished Mac Minis that cost $150 to $200 and look like they'll last for at least 4 to 5 more years.

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Hey boyz, AAPL is down a little so get some while you can.
I'm sure it's gonna be back up to $200 soon.
Or, maybe not soon.

https://youtu.be/Vtw5dXA1Tvc?si=Vl6iNdQwyNhG_gYZ

Hitler is informed about the iPhone 15

I keep getting emails from my provider that I can cop a free, brand new, top line iphone for free.

Iphone must be the buttfuck spy phone of choice, now, for the Deep State. It kind of gives me the creeps that they keep dangling the carrot. I mostly use the phone for books and music, but the reading list is a doozy of what they would want cancelled and burned. Otherwise, all the increasingly layered 'security' shit almost requires a cell phone these days.

I guess my social credit score has hit the skids and my choice of media has deemed me a national security threat, first in line for the gulags.

1) IPhone 15 to cost more in Asia and less in Europe and the same in USA

https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/13/iphone-price-rises/

2) IPhone accounts for about 50% of Apple's sales

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

3) I think by now they need to figure out how to cut costs and make the iPhone a better value and experience, as there is nothing special about the IPhone to get people very motivated to purchase one.

I realize there is a loyal customer base but that may not be enough to sustain Apple's earning growth targets and its ~$175 stock price.

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3) I think by now they need to figure out how to cut costs and make the iPhone a better value and experience, as there is nothing special about the IPhone to get people very motivated to purchase one.

I realize there is a loyal customer base but that may not be enough to sustain Apple's earning growth targets and its ~$175 stock price.

I'll be blunt. There's no difference between any phone. I'm an engineer, and I have a $150 Motorola piece of crap, I don't even know the exact model, and I'm not going to check.

If it can play music, and videos, and do basic websurfing, that's what 99.99% of society wants. With some added software I can download files to my phone through FTP, it has secure connections through qTox, and a bunch of other shit you don't give a damned about.

Why anybody would pay $300+ for a phone, is beyond me. It's jewelry for morons and when I see an engineer using an Apple machine, I truly think less of them, no offense to them. The difference between a $200 and $2000 laptop is minimal, and I'm constantly compiling software. It does take longer on a cheap ass machine, but not $1800 worth.

Apple is a status symbol, for people that have no idea about the technology they are using. My main complaint with Apple, is I can't understand what the fuck the system is doing. It's just BSD with a unique interface on it, but it's crippled. I don't trust Microsoft much, but I understand Linux quite well. I have more control over a Microsoft system than Apple, and Microsoft, I don't have enough control over that, so I end up defaulting to the system I do understand. The hardware of Apple versus generic PC shit (or Android), they are the same basically.

ad says

3) I think by now they need to figure out how to cut costs and make the iPhone a better value and experience, as there is nothing special about the IPhone to get people very motivated to purchase one.

I realize there is a loyal customer base but that may not be enough to sustain Apple's earning growth targets and its ~$175 stock price.

It's the eco system in my opinion. I just golfed two days ago. I have an app on my watch and phone. They easily work together. I keep my score have my distance and it keeps my handicap on record. 15 years ago you needed a couple devices to do that. I literally walk up to my ball, look at my watch and know the distance. And yes other phones can do the same thing.

Reality is it's just simple to use and works. Price matters, but I don't really care as long as my stuff works. Maybe younger kids don't want them anymore, but the people with the money are locked in at this point. They need to come up with something new is the problem I see them having stock price wise. The usual flock will go get the new iPhone to be hip. Whatever not my life. I go 3-5 years between models. Not going to recreate the wheel for something that exists. Probably works just fine on Android. There was a fork in the road and I picked one.

richwicks says

If it can play music, and videos, and do basic websurfing, that's what 99.99% of society wants.

There are other uses though as I mention above. All the hardware is there in all phones. Problem is developers only develop for the two major platforms. Apple and Android (for the most part) and you get locked in once you've gone down that rabbit hole I've used apps to tour national parks instead of looking at maps, hiring someone or wasting time. I just go and get a tour and get out where I think it's cool. If I switch to an Android phone I have to repurchase all this shit in most cases.

Apple came up with something cutting edge. And yes I know they didn't create touch screen tech. But they figured a way to lock people in forever and market/design it. Love or hate it, it's working. Most people don't have the time or skill to mess around with tech. If I can save 100 hours getting tasks done on my phone with apps other people made over 2-3 years that's worth waaaaay more than what I paid for the phone.

As often as phones break or get lost, I think that phone manufacturers will be fine.

WookieMan says

There are other uses though as I mention above. All the hardware is there in all phones. Problem is developers only develop for the two major platforms. Apple and Android (for the most part) and you get locked in once you've gone down that rabbit hole I've used apps to tour national parks instead of looking at maps, hiring someone or wasting time. I just go and get a tour and get out where I think it's cool. If I switch to an Android phone I have to repurchase all this shit in most cases.

I have never purchased an app. It seems ridiculous to me anybody would.

Let me explain to you how I see Apple as an engineer. It's a system that is incompatible with the most basic products, it removes basic functionality I expect on a computer (Microsoft does this as well but not as much), it's a terribly basic system, that although you call an ecosystem (through advertsiment), is really a prison.

I can download audio podcasts on my phone, I use yt-dlp to convert videos to audio, once it's downloaded, I move it through ftp to my phone, and it's just an audio file after that. This is BASIC to me. I have no idea how the hell to do this in an iPhone, and I doubt its even possible on one. I would rip my hair out dealing with such a basic restrictive system.

But what you don't know, you don't miss. My phone is nothing more than an extension (a poor one) of my computer. Apple, it's just a nightmare of complications to me. You can't even move an audio file to it. I don't know how people can tolerate the damned thing. Android certainly has it's problems, but at least I can play an audio file on it. The mystery with Apple, even moving a picture or a video from it, what a nightmare. I hate the damned thing. I've been asked to help to move files from machines, it's just a total nightmare. I don't know why people think these asshole twat cunt machines are better - they are absolutely not, but the propaganda box...

If you like them, fine, but that are nothing but frustrating, primitive, and unusable to me. The purposeless restrictions drive me crazy, and they aren't really restrictions, you just have to go through a firewall of stupidity to move files around. It's just needless headache. It's a worthless idea, it's been done before, but if you want to prevent viruses, do signed executables. This has been done for over 20 years, patent expired. No fucking need for sandboxes.

I appreciate the comments.

Apple does have ease with usability and is reliable, but I am not sure it is producing anything great or spectacular to maintain its stock price appreciation rate.

I hope it cuts costs like hiring freeze, etc. over next few years until a new great product line is released.

I agree as it does have somewhat of a tech luxury cult following like BMW and Mercedes does for certain car owners (upper middle class and rich).

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It seems like all the increased functionality and convenience of smartphone/watch tech is focused on recording increasingly granular location and biometric data. Yes, these apps are more convenient, but you've let them monitor your location to the nearest inch, as well as provide 24/7 information about your health, etc.

This is the next level up as far as surveillance capitalism is concerned.

Winston Smith could only be observed by the telescreen when he was in his flat. Now everyone either carries or wears Big Brother gladly.

stereotomy says

Yes, these apps are more convenient, but you've let them monitor your location to the nearest inch,

I think about the smartwatch how it tracks steps, heart rate, etc. and then provides a report ...that is convenient and helpful as far as monitoring health progress...

But yeah its a corporate surveillance state ... they sell that data or leverage it ...like something out of the movie Minority Report ...

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I was recently in the nearby Apple Store to buy some Airtags.
These are little things which can be located using "find my phone" app. They're useful for luggage, car keys, etc.

The store was full of people.
The sales guy said that they'd be slammed with people when the iPhone 15 finally was available in the store.

I've already made my money with shares of AAPL, but more is also OK with me. I'll wait a few more years to start selling shares.

richwicks says

I'll be blunt. There's no difference between any phone. I'm an engineer, and I have a $150 Motorola piece of crap, I don't even know the exact model, and I'm not going to check.

My GF has a $1000?? iPhone (I think iPhone 13). We have the same exact phone plan with the same carrier. Her iPhone is way better than my Motorola G7 Play, with the biggest difference I've noticed being voice quality, and the availability of accessories (like cases). When I went to find a pouch for my Motorola, I measured it, figured out which iPhone pouch would work for it, and shopped for an iPhone pouch to find one that would work.

clambo says

I've already made my money with shares of AAPL, but more is also OK with me. I'll wait a few more years to start selling shares.

As long as I'm working and in a high tax bracket, I'm most likely not selling my shares. If I were retired and living in a state with no state income taxes, yeah, selling my Apple shares and putting the money into something paying a better dividend or TBills is an option.