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peter02l
124 Comments
Apple's iPhone Mistakes
You gave it away when you wrote this: "iPhone had excess inventory upon launch. The price had to be dropped."
I can only conclude that you were not around when the iPhone was launched. There was not enough inventory for weeks. There were even web pages (including later on the Apple site) that showed availability at Apple Stores for people to check.
You must have missed the intro at Macworld when Jobs introduced the AT&T CEO to say a few words. Clearly, the exclusive deal came about because AT&T did not act as others (orifices). AT&T accepted the offer and worked with Apple to support the iPhone before it was even developed - sight unseen!
This sentence,
"The share's drop in price from $200+ to current levels and their last earnings call all point to execution glitches."
is beyond description. It really shows the extent of your knowledge about Apple and the Market. And yes, I am saying this with utmost sarcasm. You are indeed a lucky man, or woman, if you have bought a lot of shares between $119 and $130.
Apple's iPhone Mistakes
How does this 5 year AT&T contract affect these overseas customers?
"Apple played a wonderful balancing act and it was not uncommon for an individual to own the iPod Shuffle, the iPod Nano and the iPod Video at the same time, but things got a bit mixed up as of late."
In cases where this might be true, I am willing to bet they were not all purchased together, but rather span many generation of these devices over several years. Therefore, rest assured, you will continue to notice such trends.
"Second, the iPhone is cannibalizing sales of the iPod touch."
First came the iPhone, then the iPod Touch. So if there is any cannibalization going on it should be in the other direction. But there really isn't. You can't make cell phone calls with the iPod Touch!
"The $200 price drop on the iPhone, although necessary, was probably a bit hasty and was not without consequence."
If it was, as you claim, necessary then the mistake would have been not doing it.
"Just when customers had gotten used to 60GB of space and lots of video storage, Apple introduced the iPod touch, built for an even better video viewing experience but a mere 16GB of storage (recently upgraded to 32GB)-- the same as the Nano."
Refer to your previous sentence. It contradicts this one!
" The fog should clear up in another 2-3 quarters as Apple clears its pipeline and maximizes utility from older models."
I am afraid, the fog will never clear up over this last sentence of yours. I have no idea what you mean by maximizing the utility from older models. As for Apple, in the next 2-3 quarters and beyond, it will introduce new products which will keep your mind in a perpetual fog.
An Extra $100 For An All-You-Can-Listen-To iPod?
And to top it off if you lose an iPod, break one, or wish to get a newer one, you'd have to pay the $100 over again. I have been buying music for a long time in many different physical formats, and am getting tired of paying for the same music over and over again.
A Trip to 'Fantasyland' - Should Google Buy Apple?
I don't care to run google apps on my iPhone. Once the keyboard is on screen, I can't see very little else.
One reason I like Apple is because they don't throw ads at me every chance they get. I would definitely not use a smartphone that bombards be with ads, including one from Apple.
the combination will only draw the masochists among enterprise customers.
The last two points don't mean a thing.
As for reasons not to buy, they are just fundamentally disjoint companies.
AppleTV Has a Lot of Catching Up to Do
In fact, just imagine for a moment if Apple should make a deal with Nintendo to produce a less expensive version of WII to connect to AppleTV!
AppleTV Has a Lot of Catching Up to Do
Apple and RIM Battle for the Corporate Mobile Market
Which history are you referring to?
The way I see it, up to this point you may have had a point about RIM expanding into the consumer market with Pearl, since they were pretty safe with their 2/3 of the business they do with corporations. But yesterday's announcement means RIM's corporate market in now under threat by a fantastic, highly desired phone that both management and sales were trying to bring in in spite of IT opposition.
This was a brilliant move on Apple's part.
iPhone in Your Business: Pondering the ROI Case
As for the entrenched vendors, how was it then that RIM managed to get in when Windows CE was already entrenched?
Apple's iPhone SDK: This is Brand New Big Sh*t, But
Don't you think AT&T users might be interested? Is this your 5th grade class where you had to have enough for everyone before you were allowed to enjoy your lollipop? We don't want to upset little Morgan Stanley, do we?
And what the hell is a social graph? If you want to talk to somebody, use the phone!
iPhone SDK and Restrictions: Some of the Details Aren’t Great
"Did you serious?" It should read "Are you serious?"
and
"parol", should be " parole"
and whatever else I mistyped.
iPhone SDK and Restrictions: Some of the Details Aren’t Great
What is it with the "hope was that an installed application could continue to run in the background and, most usefully, gather and send information from and to the web."
Here's another gem, "VOIP services, for example, are basically out of luck. They can access the Internet only via wifi, not the cell networks."
Isn't that good enough? You expect AT&T to let you make unlimited phone calls with your data plan? Can you even afford an iPhone, or are you interested in selling hacks to swindle AT&T out of its revenue?
Here's another one: "SIM unlocking is forbidden." Did you serious? You expect Apple to sell hacks and give 70% to guys who will cut out the revenue it may receive from its carrier partners? How is that going to affect the negotiations in China, India, Canada, Russia, and 100 other countries where Apple is hoping to sign deals?
"Developers can only use the published APIs and only in the way Apple says they can use them." This is not an open platform. How do you suppose all these API will be updated and incorporated into every iPhone? Who will be responsible to support the device in case of problems or conflicts? You want to write your own API, go make your own phone platform. or develop for Linux or Android.
As for applications running in the background, no, thank you very much. I can imagine people lining up at the genius bar with "my iPhone seems to be frozen, or my battery lasts only 30 minutes" because there are 15 applications running in the background.
And finally ... "this will be a serious problem for some developers. For example, say a developer wanted to take location information from the iPhone (created via the iPhones cellular triangulation feature) and dump it into FireEagle to keep track of where you’ve been."
I don't know anyone who would want such a feature, or a developer stupid enough to contemplate it for the mass market. I can think of a parol officer of a rich youngster who might require the fellow to buy this app, but he would have to make sure the phone is always on and always charged.
Michael Arrington - one must remember that name. With ideas like that you must be sure to toss any resumé on which it appears.
8 Reasons To Buy Apple Stock Now
Apple's stock price is not indicative of the prospects for the company. If it was, it wouldn't have been selling less than $10 five years ago. The stock has dropped due to the alarmist nonsense published about the company after the latest earnings release. These are analysts who are trying to estimate revenue and earnings based on projections (although false) of Apple's current products into next year and beyond. They don't account for any new features and new products that will change or expand the market. And they can't. They don't know what is going on in Apple's R&D.
The same Exchange integration announced for the iPhone can be just as easily extended into the Macintosh platform. iPhone is a foot in the door of the door in the enterprise market, just as the iPod was for the consumer market. XCode can just as easily be tapped to develop custom business applications after corporations have a chance to try it out on the iPhone.
Consider also that no PC manufacturer has been able to create a viable tablet PC. None have been able to mass market it. Apple has most of the ingredients to make such a tablet. They have a phenomenal touch screen interface technology, they have experience in miniaturization and power management, they have an optimized OS that can work with new processors coming out of intel, they have support in the form of all the drivers, networking technology, peripheral and wireless connectivity. They also have the economics of scale to procure parts at best possible prices. In other words, Apple can offer it at a price that they can make the, good profit but that others will not be able to match.
8 Reasons To Buy Apple Stock Now
Are you suggesting then that the young consumers desiring the "cool factor" will rush to purchase Windows CE or Blackberry devices instead?
crowdofcheerleaders should know that plagiarizing the iPhone technology covered by over 200 patents is not a viable option.
There are advantages that Apple has established in preparing the groundwork for the iPhone, such as the iTunes store, OS X, collaboration with carriers to support custom features, the iPod, Apple retail stores, and a robust ecosystem, that makes it difficult and expensive for competitors to match. Yesterday's announcement shows that like the iPod, iPhone will prove to be a moving target as well for others to emulate. It might make more business sense for others to give up the smartphone market now and concentrate in the low end, rather than to throw money at trying to come up with an iPhone killer. The iPod killer sure didn't pan out, did it?
Apple's "Anywhere" iPhone Has Far From Peaked
Is it safe to say that those unlocked phones are considered out of warranty? So, what Apple give up in revenue sharing, it gains in not having to provide service and support for the unlocked phones?
Apple's AT&T Deal Is Costly
I share your sentiments.
It's difficult for me to understand comments like these here by Mr. Sullivan.
AT&T had to make some concessions speed up their Edge network and implement certain features such as visual voicemail. The agreement has helped both companies.
As jbelkin says, the purchase of phones by people who unlock them and use them in countries where Apple has signed no deals or with unsanctioned carriers speaks volumes about the desirability of the iPhone.
Reports are about 25% of sales are outside the supported networks! That is a million potential customers lost to competing phone manufacturers. And Apple still makes money on every single one of them. And again as jbelkin mentions, for these "customers" Apple is not required to spend a penny on warranty and technical support! Instead Apple enjoys the visibility and awareness for the iPhone provided by these unauthorized users in as yet untapped markets. In addition it cuts into market share of its competitors there.
Consider again what people in China are giving up when they purchase an iPhone: future upgrades, missing feature, no support, etc. Hundreds of thousands of people are willing to buy the Apple iPhone over competing products. Isn't this good news for Apple and bad news for Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and others as well as Symbian and Microsoft?
Just imagine what will happen to Symbian and Microsoft with Google jumps in. And how carriers will be scrambling to provide and/or control features available on their networks.