pats

Apple's iPod Nano Likely to Build Product Loyalty

On Dec 20 12:01 PM Dirk_82 wrote:

> I don't get it. Why buy three devices (iPod, iPod touch, and iPhone)
> when you can just buy 1 device from Nokia that accomplishes all the
> functions a teen or tween or adult/teen-wanna-be wants? Priced a
> little higher, yes. But Nokia provides 1 device that keeps you from
> paying for all 3 of these Apple products. The N97 is just one example.
> Oh, and you don't have to be bound by at&t service either. It
> seems the readers of this forum are very Apple brand focused because
> they have been forced to be over the years with Mac/Apple products,
> and are unaware of other good quality products that allow them to
> buy what they really want.

So what is different about the N97 vs the Iphone 3GS that makes it so great, and why would you need all three devices Iphone, Ipod and another Ipod. The 3Gs outperforms the N97 in about all the metrics except the camera. That includes worldwide sales and revenue. So what is your point. Nokia is getting their eyes opened by a company which is new to the smartphone business.

Apple's iPod Nano Likely to Build Product Loyalty

Joel
A bit premature to mark the death of the Ipod. Microsoft would kill for the sales numbers of any of the ipods for their Zune, but they haven't left the market. When you are selling over 20M in a Christmas quarter along with another 10M Iphone(ipod) devices I would hardly say the market is shrinking, it is the stupid analysis that can't combine the two numbers. I can guarantee you that the Iphone cannibalizes some Ipod sales.
If you look at the NPD data for the current quarter prices for the Ipod are up YOY 7% so you theory on the nano is probably wrong since the high priced touch drives the ASP up not the nano. As far as tween and teen market. The 8GB touch as a gaming machine is the sweet spot for price/functionality and is doing quite well against the DSi and Sony PSP GO.

Why I Would Not Bet on iPhone over Android

If you want to read a well thought out piece on the Apple vs Google battle. I suggest counternotions.com/200.../. He has some of the best, thought provoking ideas which will help you analyze what the different companies bring to the table

Why I Would Not Bet on iPhone over Android

There is so much lack of facts in this article that it makes any conclusions suspect. When you overgeneralize markets making statements like your average selling price vs Mac price you miss the fact that Apple does not compete in the lower half of the market and so will have a higher average selling price. You need to take a class in logic fallacies. Your article is filled with them and lacks in so many areas that your conclusion is not supported in your reasoning. I give you one example: You say "I'd argue however, that the smartphone experience is rapidly becoming mass market " The mass market is the group of consumers who occupy the overwhelming mass of a bell curve for common products. If we look at smart phones according to Gartner smart phones occupy about 11% of the cellphone market. Hardly the middle of the bell curve. You make a statement like it is fact "A PC with even the exact same components sells for far less than the same components with the Apple moniker". Which is false and then use the false statement to make your case.

Can Apple Stop the Android?

Funny how Andriod already won the war so to speak. Can we at least wait until the OS passes someone in market share before we claim them the winner. Last I looked Iphone OS was on over 50M devices and Andriod maybe a couple million. The problem Andriod will face is the user interface will fragment. As each new device manufacture brings out the latest new gadget you will fragment the existing user base. Apple having control over the ecosystem is able to much more successfully manage the end user experience. Droid is more the brand of the month and next month HTC will have a new phone with a different interface for about the same price. The problem for developers is if they care about their user experience their device testing requirements go up exponentially. So Andriod is not all roses. Additionally the marketplace for the Iphone is much more refined as is a key advantage for Apple in future sales. The only area of smartphones where it is an advantage to be a conformist is the enterprise. Otherwise my Iphone can text and talk with every other phone and now even MMS. As far as I can tell enterprise is Blackberry and Andriod is non-existant. Many larger organizations fear the openess of Andriod and so they will be slow to integrate Andriod into the workplace.

Apples to Apples: Will History Repeat Itself as Android Gains on the iPhone?

I think it is a bit early to crown Android the winner of the race. There are other big players in the mobile phone market which are not even mentioned. Nokia and Microsoft. If you think either one will just roll over and let Android take over the market and lets not leave off the lowly WebOS and the PRE which was destine to kill the Iphone due to all its superior capabilities. When the market is over a billion units there is plenty of room for multiple providers, OSs, devices. To think everyone wants Android is ludicrous.

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

Hao Jin
If I follow your wisdom who should I invest in? Point 1. The fact that a market is competitive doesn't mean there are not winners and losers. # 2 If you can read a financial statement. Go to Apple's investor web site and calculate the actual margin on the Iphone using the data provided by Apple. If you can't do a basic calculation like that you don't deserve to publish your article on a financial web site. The margin on the Iphone is about 55%. #3 is so what. They were new to the business and did exclusive deals for a few years with a number of carriers. Did this slow sales for the first couple years probably, but they are quite capable of adding these other carriers in the future so I don't get your point. The exclusive deals allowed them to bring a new device to market with great margins provided by the carrier subsidy.

#4 Gartner projects the smart phone market to grow 26% in 2009 which is the segment the Iphone would be included in. I think you should look at the correct statistics. How fast did the Iphone grow YOY or model over model. If you run those numbers then your picture might look different. Don't forget your deferred revenue accounting which means Apple is still recognizing revenue for every single Iphone sold and only this qtr will have two years of sale.
#5 Can you tell me how many handhelds Nitendo or Sony sold in the gaming market? Because until the App store opened Apple sold zero Itouches for gaming, but today they probably capture some of the handheld gaming market a new growth area, and what if this year they add a camera/video capability to the touch or a gps will they capture any of the dedicated point and shoot camera sales or PND sales.

#6 I love your statistics and your short term view of the world. If you expand your horizons past the current recession Apple's MAC growth has been phenomenal but it would ruin the story. By the way how has the rest of the PC world been doing this year? I guess it will never recover and Apple will never grow again.
#7
Will not argue that the Apple store was a huge investment, but have you ever compared the revenue per square foot of retail space to any other retailer in any market? You might find that Apple has the most profitable retail operation bar none in any business. Do the research and then tell me Apple made a mistake building their own stores
#8
Is a joke. Steve was on medical leave and he is doing great along with the company. As a great leader he has a strong bench and some are more then capable of filling his shoes

#9
Where did you read about Apple's future strategy. Do you have a published white paper or something because I follow Apple daily and I have never seen a published strategy but as far as execution they seem to be doing well

#10
The SEC investigation was terminated and pretty much any large company battles litigation on a continuous basis.

Good luck with your investments because with this kind of analysis you are not ready to invest in individual stocks. The QQQQ are probably a wise bet for you because you can't figure out good well run companies with great growth potential.

Upgrading to the iPhone 3G S May Not Be Worth the Cost

Why did you sign a two year contract in the first place. The first gen Iphone was not subsidized by ATT we paid full price and ATT provided a monthly carrier payment back to Apple. When the user switched to the second gen. ATT no longer needed to pay Apple monthly so Apple was the one taking the hit on the first gen to 2nd gen. When you sign up for a two year contract you are taking a loan from ATT to buy the Iphone and then repay the loan over two years. This is not unique to ATT all of the carriers in the US do the same thing. You can buy the phone for full retail or take a subsidized phone. Depending on where you are in the current contract you get the price discounted. Why don't people get it. It a business what should ATT do when Version 4 or 5 comes out.

Why Apple Isn't Likely to Change Its Strategy

Apple reports units sales every quarter and is available at www.apple.com/investor/. Each report contains a breakout under data sheet . The thing you need to remember is Apple is deferring revenue on the Iphone and recognizing over the following 8 qts. So a key figure is the current deferred revenue which is 5.467B.

Zune HD: Trying to Compete with Yesterday's iPod Touch

Just a clarification. HD radio does not stand for high definition. It is a standard for simulcast of both digital and analog signal, the quality can approach CD quality if the FM station is not multiplexing the data stream.

Apple, Internet Radio Will Not Cancel Out Satellite Radio

Gino
You missed my point. The WIFI standard is fixed point short range. The BCM4329 chip does not exist in any Iphone and your guess is based on a bunch of rumors. If you are going to discuss 802.11 standards, then you are talking fixed location not mobile. The 802.11 standard is more then capable of streaming high fidelity audio and video. Apple does not need to use FM to talk to the radio, most modern car radios have line in which allows the signal to travel via a wired connection. The FM would provide a convenience but I use my line in on my XM equipped car radio. The problem I have with your argument is you seem to have a very limited understanding of the network technologies, but you then conclude that satellite is superior and the other technologies will never close that gap. The reality is ATT network works great where they have decent 3G network coverage but they do not have the coverage of the satellite network. Most users could care less that the signal comes from Satellite or land based cell towers. The time window of opportunity for satellite is limited. The cell phone companies continue to build out their network coverage. Will they ever cover the whole world? No, but if an individual can get a decent cell signal in 95% of the places they travel, then most will skip the $12 per month charge unless the content is unique for the service. SIRI needs to build the user base and with the car market in the dumps and the economy they failed to grow the user base this quarter. I hope they succeed but to say satellite radio will succeed means they need at some point soon turn a profit. They have high fixed costs and need to add users since the marginal user adds very little cost. I wish you luck. I currently have a small position in SIRI 20K and much larger position in AAPL but I can't see myself holding the SIRI long term.

Apple, Internet Radio Will Not Cancel Out Satellite Radio

Dude
Do a little better research please before you publish. The Iphone moving in a car would not use 802.11n. That is a wifi fixed location standard. The Iphone uses the ATT 3G HSPA or 2G Edge network to move data. The cost of the data network is 30 per month unlimited data. Don't cloud your discussion with 100$ phone charge. I pay 9.99 for the phone on a family plan but what does that have to do with sat radio. On the current Iphone you can use a line-out via the dock connector. This provides minimal signal loss if your radio supports line-in. The FM you talk about would be for older model radio which are not equipped with line-in. I agree with your issues on buffering and stream quality, but I have listen to streams via Pandora and normally have no issues. The service is free not $12. The $ 30 data plan is a sunk cost if I want to get my email and surf the web so I now get streaming audio from all over the world for free. The quality is professional as I can stream about any station. Satellite may not be dead, but an Iphone can be a suitable replacement in all kinds of situations. As an example avid sports fans might subscribe to XM to get their fix of baseball. The Apple App store has a major league baseball app cost $10 and has streaming home and visit play by play. I can pay 10 for a season or about $70 for XM.

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

On May 12 11:41 AM Aryamehr wrote:

> Palm's choice of Sprint was brilliant, in that Sprint is the only,
> and will be the only, carrier for the next two years to have 4G capabilities,
> hence enhancing the Pre's speed by a factor of at least 10 over the
> iPhone and Blackberry phones. Other than having a more efficient
> User Interface and more versatility the Pre will be operating on
> a super fast highway that ATT won't have available until 2011, that
> is if they follow through with their 4G plans in a timely manner.
> Now give me some Spin about the iPhone 4G? ATT again doesn't have
> 4G, so no matter what Apple does they will be limited to 2.5G to
> 3G for at least two more years. During this time Palm will be testing
> a better versions of its WebOS on a fully functioning Sprint 4G network,
> giving its developers a clear advantage. Now beat that!

The Pre does not support 4G so how does this help Palm. ATT is upgrading their existing 3G network via software from 3.6 to 7.2 . The Sprint EVDO rev A operates at 3.1 Mbps. So If you buy a new IPhone which will come out about the same time as the Pre your network theoretically will be twice as fast on the Iphone as the Pre. Realize that peak rates and actual device speeds vary by time and location, but the bottom line is the Pre on Sprint's network will be slower then the next Iphone on ATT network.

Apple's AT&T Deal Is Costly

Todd
Where do you get the estimates? 1 B in lost revenue? You assume that ATT would sell every Iphone Apple could make, which may or may not be the case. The revenue is for 2 yrs not 4. You have no idea what the future holds and based on all the new carriers for Iphone 2. I think you are grossly exaggerating the financial impact of the ATT contract. ATT has an exclusive for the US and no where else. The contract is good for both companies. It allowed Apple to get started in a new business and ATT to capture new high end customers. Verizon had a chance to sell the iphone

Apple's Bountiful Revenues Are Bigger Than Ever

T Muller. I agree with you and good analysis. Just a couple small points. A portion of the qtrly sales revenue will be reported on the 1.703M sold in the quarter. I base this on the fact the 5M of Iphone revenue was recognized Q3 07 with only 3 days of sales. It looks like Apple does daily accounting of numbers for revenue calculation although we are analyzing using quarterly accounting. Also Apple has started adding in the ATV revenue which will further muddy the water in determining a actual GM and carrier payment