Apple: What to Make of the iPhone Battery Hype? 31 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
According to folks who have been emailing and commenting to my posts, the battery life has never been mentioned once - not once in the hundreds of comments and emails. It was not mentioned as an issue by those who would not buy it, and among those who said they would buy it, any potential battery issue was inconsequential.
Those who will not buy it are going to do so because of price, according to polls and those who are going to buy it would do so even if Steve Jobs stood at the door to the Apple store and assaulted them as they walked in. The battery was irrelevant.
So, how can we add $2.6 billion to the market cap of Apple today just because there is an improvement to the device that just makes it comparable to other makers' devices? An improvement, it needs to be noted, that has not been mentioned by detractors in discussions about the phone?
I guess the question is, why is this important and did anyone really think battery life would not be improved?
It is almost like the stock running up because they are going to put it out in red . . . who cares?
Things like this that do not make sense are signs . . . why doesn't it make sense? If it was any other battery in any other cell phone from RIMM (RIMM), Nokia (NOK) or Motorola (MOT), would anyone care?
AAPL 1-yr chart:
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
TraderMark
-
3
Don Dion
-
4
Cliff Wachtel
-
5
Mike Havrilla
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
The answer is they don't. Apple with iPhone is unique. Not bad for a first attempt. And oh ho ho for all those folk that said this was a mature market and it would fail. Hey Todd?
Check out the solar battery charger cnbc showed today and battery issues are irrelevent
why is anything but "apple is good, apple is great" considered "bashing"?
personally and i will remind everyone, i have no position in apple, never have and have no desire to and do not care what the stock does as it matters not to me..
hysterical
Todd, given your statement above it is amazing that you would be able to find the motivation to write about a stock you have no interest in....not once but five times over the course of the last month! How do you muster the energy to keep doing it....and why?
Long AAPL, short DELL and MSFT. BBY and CC no position
i am not "a fan" of best buy at all. i think the sell off is overblown but i would not be a buyer of best buy. you confuse commentary with endorsement. i am a fan of what i buy... i comment on many things
I am a fan of apple (the company), i just do not think the phone is that big of a deal....
like rattigan on CNBC says, "did you know it cures cancer also?"
You can continue to comment (fanatically anti-apple) but have no opinion on Rimm? Why comment on Apple so much if you do not care. If you think apple is hyped, isn't one trick pony Rimm even worse. Read any message board on Rimm and your opinion of fanatical will change.
The media loves to be anti-apple which apple seems to enjoy as their marketing always pokes fun at the other guys. I guess the fanatical or mac faithful as people refer to people who use macs are just normal people who appreciate well thought out easy to use products. The rest of the world uses generic stuff and don't understand that premium prices are given to good products. You can drive a chevy if you want but a bmw or mercedes is a far better car. I would say people that use high end products get it and the people who buy generic crap don't. Unfortunately, most people like crap which is why Walmart is so big.
RIMM is overpriced also. i do not understand how not liking a phone is trashing a whole company? i believe in my initial post a while ago i called the ipod "brilliant". do i love them now? I also called them a great company? am i an apple-holic now?
I just do not think the phone is the greatest thing like sliced bread like it is being made out to be.
I think RIMM will benefit from the iphone, i have stated this before. i not would invest in either now. does not mean i "hate" them..
i think your chevy / mercedees comment reeks of elitism. many people buy what they can afford. your inability to recognize that is sad.
best,
todd
hey don't get me wrong, i sometimes think that AAPL is rising too much too fast and i need to read some bearish views to keep me grounded, but i would like to see real issues addressed debated. "benign article saying that a new battery is irrelevant to eventual sales causes you to froth at the mouth"? it doesn't seem like you actually understand what the customer wants (and NO, i'm not saying that the battery is ALL that matters, but it DOES matter), and it seems like the CEO of the company you're bashing actually DOES.
when it is launched in europe and asia, the #'s will be updated. there are only estimates of dates for them.
please go back a find any comment (of the hundreds here or on my blog) that reference the battery, one (hint: there isn't one) hence.... it was not a big deal..
1) on bloomberg, the "news" about the battery life was out before market opened, so NO, the stock did not jump 'the minute the news came out'. it opened high, definitely had something to do with the press release, a trigger/confidant i'll call it, but no, definitely not the sole contributor to the high price of the share (ie. oversold previously), it HAS crossed the $125 level a few times before even without this 'news', afterall.
2) if they're 'estimates', then you should've said so instead of banging on about "will AAPL get 10 million?? noooo i don't think so! think that 1 in 5 AT&T will buy?? noooo i don't think so!". erm, no, i wouldn't think and wouldn't expect 1 in 5 AT&T users buying an iphone, but can it sell 10 million by end of 2008? certainly. why? because of the other markets. you said about 'piecing information together', while your 'estimates' contradict your approach. jobsie's the kind of person that delivers (no, i'm not saying all the time. yes i AM aware that there are delays in other products like leopard, but the chances of them delaying the iphone launch in other markets for more than 3 months is quite unlikely. even if it does, i don't think it will impact the "10 million mark" by too much), and you should use THAT information for your 'estimate'. the #'s should actually be updated not when it is launched in europe/asia, but should be updated when they've made announcements of any delays/cancellations.
3) read the thousands upon thousands of comments from tech blogs and forums (howard forums, engadget, gizmodo etc) and you'll actually see that the battery IS in fact a big deal... and NO, i'm not saying that it's the ONLY big deal (others include lack of 3G, lack of keypad, lack of 3rd party apps etc), but it IS a big deal. why? because a lot of them are also worried about the fact that you can't change the battery yourself. if the battery life was actually as short as previously stated ("around 5 hours of use" without going into specific), then it IS a big deal. tonnes of people carry 2 batteries with them, why? because of their short battery life. so now what, when apple has a PRESS RELEASE and is a lot more specific with the battery life, what does it do? it gives a lot more people the green light to buy one.
2- semantics
3-i am sure "somebody" had a problem with the battery. someone will always have a problem with something. I did not reference them and too be honest do not care about them, there are only so many hours in the day. i focused on those hundred that responded to me..
the fact it printed the second time you typed it i think proves this?
ps... it is "confident" not "arrogant"
you are getting way to emotionally involved in this... are we breaking up?
What is up with Todd Su and now Todd as screen names. I hope you are not using various aliases.
Point is that price is not that important. RImm sells the Curve for $449.00 before carrier subsidy. So if you quit you have to pay the addtional $250.00. If you loook at that way, the phones are similarly priced, but Rimm gets a bigger subsidy. Apple refused to take a subsdidy so they control price. Rimm and others have no control over price.
Who cares about elitism. My point was that different brands command premium prices based on quality and image. Chevy could make an $80,000 sedan but it would have a hard time competing with a BMW or a Mercedes because of perception. Anyone here who is not an Apple fanatic that wants to argue if an Apple computer is better than a dell or an HP.
Ever hear of you get what you pay for. I guess that is as elitist as it gets.
1) fine i will give you that. i don't have access to the history of pre-market bid/ask movements, so i will trust you on this. but this is beside my point: that the priced jumped because it gave investors more confidence especially after the over selling => the press release was a trigger, a catalyst, but not the sole reason of the price jump. re: it hitting $125 a few times before
2) ... er... ok... convincing.......... ya
3) if you do only focus on those hundreds that respond to you, then i must say you're not getting a big enough picture, that's all i can say. and for someone who's supposed to give 'investment advice', i would seriously suggest you taking more time doing research rather than writing half assed 'stories'/'recommendat... be ethical and responsible with what you say/do, cuz you and i know that there ARE people who follow your advice. it's quality, remember, not quantity.
4) you can ask anyone here, but i think i am as emotionally attached to my long position in aapl as you are to your own comments. i do have the funny feeling that most people here would agree with me. do take your own medicine... mmm... bitter isn't it
hayward: not trying to add oil to the fire or anything, but to be honest it doesn't matter if todd has 'various aliases' as long as we all know it's him who's responding. just saying.
anyways. though i do partially agree that 'those who can afford would buy one' argument (cuz let's face it, it WILL be a huge hit), the price point does put off a lot of other people, not cuz they can't 'afford', but just that they're feeling they're being 'ripped off' and they don't like that. yes, you can say that they don't truly understand the "awesome powah!" that is of the iphone, but that's the point: cuz they don't see the "true colors", they don't see the price being justified.