Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
apple.com
apple.com
Mac units up 4% year over year, revenue up 14% year over year. Last quarter it was up 1% and 7%. In contrast Surface revenue was down 26% year over year.
Other products (which include Apple Watch and AirPods) revenue was up 31% year over year. Tim Cook just said on the call that Apple Watch sales doubled year over year.
This is a rant against how you imagine things work, instead of how they actually work. I put my watch on in the morning and it is automatically unlocked the next time I unlock my phone with touch id. From this point on, the pin is never required. Apple Pay is just a double click on the long button, no pin entry as you've imagined if the watch is unlocked, which is true unless you've only just put on the watch.
waiting for the face to light up however, is a legit complaint. It really sucks that there's not even an option for "always on" that you could use while working out, as it's a pain in the ass to be running and want to check your current pace and find that wrist-flick detection failed so you're staring at an off instead of getting the data you wanted and getting back to looking where you're going quickly again.
Instead, to support Canadian debit cards directly, Apple would seem to be using the Canadian banks' web payments infrastructure (Interac EasyWeb)—which is effectively a SAML auth flow using your card number + PIN as credentials.
Before this mechanism was introduced, Apple did first support Canadian "Visa debit" cards, though, so earlier Canadian users of the system—who have their phone pointed at a Visa debit card number they have, instead of their debit client-card number directly—might be confused by the assertion that Canadian debit card use on Apple Pay requires a PIN. It doesn't, for them.
The retailer doesn't know what account, but the bank DEFINITELY does know.
I think its the latter, because the experience (IMO) of "waiting for face to light up" is not at all how you describe.
A product doesn't have to beat the best to succeed; it just has to beat whatever the optimum was in the niche it targets. Which, for "check the time on my phone" people, isn't all that high a bar.
But it seems like a lot of people really want the bright colorful screen, even if it makes the device less effective as a watch.
1. Person buys or is gifted a Fitbit because it's inexpensive 2. Person retrains themselves to wear something on their wrist 3. Person is convinced that fitness tracking is beneficial 4. Person is fed up with the low quality of their Fitbit or it has out right fallen apart 5. Person buys an Apple Watch
Fitbit = good software, good product DNA, garbage manufacturing, in need of better distribution.
Timex = great manufacturing, can't make software to save their lives, used to competing in a high-volume, low-margin retail environment
I bet all the times you witnessed that phenomenon it was a Fitbit Charge HR. The 2016 and 2017 Fitbit trackers (Blaze, Alta, Charge 2, Flex 2, Alta HR) have way fewer issues with manufacturing quality.
I definitely see it much more on women than men.
Could you rephrase that? It's interesting but I don't understand the words you introduce it with (that I just quoted). What does that mean?
'The narrative' over the last 6 months was that the new Macbook Pro is no longer a 'pro' level device and as a result 'pro' users everywhere are switching to other brands which means bad sales results for Apple. But today's numbers show increased sales instead, so 'the narrative' was flawed.
Increasing stock buyback by 75 billion as well, showing that Apple believes their stock still has room to grow.
Or means that they have nothing else productive to do with their cash.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-18/ibm-misse... [2] https://seekingalpha.com/article/3977909-ibm-bought-155-bill...
Of course I'm not saying IBM is right, or undervalued. If profits are falling a 12% yield might be a 6% yield before you know it, that's why valuations are more complex than my simplistic example. And many companies do buybacks to juice stock prices for the execs options, regardless of value, so it's not a grant signal.
This is not a choice made for retail investors who hold a handful of shares — it won't make a noticeable difference for that class of investor either way. It does, however, make a huge difference for institutional investors and for large shareholders.
Personally, I prefer dividends rather than buybacks from Apple.
That's a substantial buyback, almost 10% of the company.
Buy the rumour, sell the news
[1] https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15518898/ap...
If you look at politics now, there's a decidedly anti-elitist trend. This is why Trump got elected. I felt the movie "Hell or High Water" portrayed the ex-Bay Area/other "creative class" cities' zeitgeist really well. There are just a huge number of people struggling to get by, trying to make their mortgage payments, in tons of debt.
At the same time, I find Snap fascinating. Anecdotally, it seems to appeal to young people, people bored working low-end jobs, and others I wouldn't call "rich". And despite the CEO's dumb comments about "a social network for rich people", there's a raw, back-to-basics, "for normal people" feel they've worked hard to cultivate.
I think that if Apple isn't careful, they could be seen as an elitist, out-of-touch, "rich person" phone company. Like, "this is the phone for people who drive E-Class Mercedes. I want a phone for people who drive a truck, drink Miller, and watch football". I could totally see this happening if the Asian Android manufacturers keep nipping at their heels. At some point, phones are going to hit saturation in terms of how much new functionality people care about. And I think there will be a space for a device that's further downmarket, more affordable, and not as aspirational/elitist as an iPhone. It would be a phone that does about 80% of what an iPhone does today, GPS, video calls, camera, good battery life, etc., but without some of the really "gadgety" recent stuff on the iPhone, like 3D touch.
I also think that if computing overall moves to more of a conversational/message-oriented paradigm, it's going to cause the form factor of phones to change a lot, and become more "invisible" in favor of simpler devices, or even a pair of headphones that talk directly to a mobile network.
The other thing to keep in mind, history shows incumbent tech companies aren't "replaced", they're just outgrown by new ones. IBM is _still_ selling mainframes, just not PCs or mobile phones. So the more likely case is, some new thing comes up and has even broader appeal than Apple products. Granted, it's hard to see how that could happen with their sales volumes, but that's what history suggests.
I think the class politics thing is a big deal, though. I just read fb interns are now getting paid 8k/month. You certainly can make the argument that they're creating enough value to justify that level of comp but it's not hard to see how this must chafe people, esp. in low-COLA areas. Mix in the fact that Apple has basically made "high-end luxury" their brand, and I think it's inevitable some backlash will result in the next decade. Esp. when you consider that Uber, Airbnb, etc. are all "Silicon Valley" companies.