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Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

142 points by ugh 16y ago

aaronbrethorst 16y ago
Down 5.8% (-18.70) in AH trading: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ig&q=AAPL http://www.google.com/finance?client=ig&q=AAPL edit: whew, and seeming to stabilize around a 4.5% drop still leaving it above $300. I was amazed it broke $300 so easily last week and was afraid it'd fall back below with this drop.
- deleted 16y ago
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  - zitterbewegung 16y ago
    Actually that is todays trading it is still down in after hours trading currently.
  - rbancroft 16y ago
    that was the closing price. AH means after hours. check the google chart more closely...
- jamesaguilar 16y ago
  Why so down? I assume market expectations were higher than what they reported, but in what categories did Apple fall short / what else was as good as expected?
  - Grouper 16y ago
    It could also be because their predicted net revenue and profit for next quarter is not as high as the market expected it to be.
  - seb 16y ago
    The Ipad and Ipod sales are much lower then expected.
    - protomyth 16y ago
      iPod sales were expected (more iPhone victims), iPad expectations are just unrealistic.
      - gamble 16y ago
        No kidding. They sold 80% of the consensus prediction of 5 million units. That still puts Apple on track to sell at least 16 million iPads in its first year on the market. Minimum retail price for an iPad is $500. 16m units X $500 = at least $8 billion gross revenue. How many companies can take a new product line from $0 to $8+ billion in one year? It may 'disappoint' the analysts in a technical sense, but Apple's shareholders should be doing cartwheels at this news.
  - larsberg 16y ago
    "Buy the rumor, sell the news" :-)
  - slyn 16y ago
    The AAPL stock M/O for as long as I have kept track of it is buy on rumors, sell on news, regardless of how accurate the rumors were or how good the news is.
  - mikeryan 16y ago
    If you look at the past few weeks it looks like most analysts already expected pretty good news from Apple. This might not have been quite as good as expected - considering they were at 280 on Oct 1 and now are still 30 points higher I'm guessing there's a lot of investors trying to take some money off the table now.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    drop in gross margin from 41.8% to 36.9% also, someone mentioned (CNBC?) that Wall Street thinks Apple should have sold more than 4.19 million iPads this quarter. Errr...
  - deleted 16y ago
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- gamble 16y ago
  Apple announcements are a magnet for traders. There's no point trying to interpret the stock's gyrations as a judgement of their performance.
  - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
    Who's offering any interpretation? I'm sure not.
    - jbail 16y ago
      Buy the rumor and sell the news.
      - ewald 16y ago
        This only works if you know the future. After you've heard the rumors, and the news have been reported, you're already too late. Buy solid companies over time and keep them, that's what works.
        jbail 16y ago
        You don't need to know the future. You just need to hear the rumor before everyone else does. Why do you think Apple had a big run up before they announced earnings and then dropped the past two days? Just a coincidence? Maybe, but more likely Wall Street knew the news before it was news and the folksy wisdom of "buy the rumor - sell the news" seems pretty spot on. I do agree with your sage advice that for the individual investor, buying and holding good companies is a sound strategy (Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet would agree too). But no matter what your investing strategy, the individual investor is typically at an information disadvantage vs. investment professionals. They spend all day doing it. How can you possibly be more in "the know" than they are? Over the long term, perhaps it evens out as you suggest, but the comment above me was wondering what explains why Apple stock would lose value on the day they posted their largest quarterly results ever. Wall Street buying the rumor and selling the news makes some sense to me. I've seen this happen over and over again (not just with Apple yesterday).
- msbarnett 16y ago
  Profit taking from the "Buy on rumour, sell on news" crowd. Happens every time.
- numbchuckskills 16y ago
  Down because the market is tired of apple sandbagging their quarterly results (seriously). All companies put out conservative numbers, but come on.
- andrewljohnson 16y ago
  That was profit-taking. The sell-off wasn't because the news was bad.
  - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
    ah, you edited your post since i was about to reply (and HN crapped out on me). here was my original response: Finance-related articles: I read several. Margins are depressed[1]. iPad sales were lower than expected[2]. Revenue was above expectations, but profits were below [3]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/technology/19apple.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/technology/19apple.html [2] http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101018-713881.html http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101018-713881.html [3] http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/10/18/apple-fy-q4-beats-revs-2034b-eps-431-389m-macs-141m-iphones-905m-ipods-419m-ipads/ http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/10/18/apple-fy...
    - andrewljohnson 16y ago
      Yeah... I thought the bit about "read some articles" sounded snide :) I guess I also agree it's up to debate, but I don't see how the results Apple posted are a cause for deflation, margins or no. 20 billion in revenue, nearly a quarter million devices a day, and Verizon yet to come. Everything looks rosy for Apple, with only the Android dark horse to worry about (which has been worried about for some time).
    - andrewljohnson 16y ago
      Also, iPad sales are lower than "some" expected. Not everyone.
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    If it was predictable it would not have happened. Markets are anti-inductive... oh, never mind.
- cosmicray 16y ago
  I'll throw my spin on that drop-off... Say you're an Apple key employee. One who is prohibited from trading within so many days prior to the earnings report (because you have insider information). You sit there, note the stock price runup, and say "man, I'd like to sell a few of my shares at $300". So you talk to your broker, personal financial advisor, etc, and tell them "I want to move 1,000 shares at $300 once the quiet period is over. Bam, stock price drops temporarily, and then starts to trickle back up. I have no idea how many people are in this category, but I'm sure there are more than a few at Apple.
kgutteridge 16y ago
27 million iOS devices in the last 3 months, thats a very nice demographic to target that does not seem to be slowing down even with Androids rapid growth also gaining real momentum, I like being in mobile its certainly interesting!
- protomyth 16y ago
  Yeah, I'm doing my last work on 3 desktop apps and then moving into iOS for the forceable future.
- megablast 16y ago
  Android is doing well, but we know that Apple users buy apps, not so much with android users.
  - kgutteridge 16y ago
    Android was slower to rolling out frictionless payment onto their store, only recently did it roll out in a lot more countries http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-countries-more-sellers-more-buyers.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-countrie... So I would not necessarily use the past history of paid apps on Androids market as direct comparison to Apples app store. However the self selecting fact that more Apple users are likely to have a disposable income is very appealing when choosing to just target an iOS device if you do not need reach, I think for non hit applications, that are more of a business though reach is very important as cracking the top 100 in Apples app store is rather difficult and you have very few other options if you do not succeed in this endeavor
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    I think part of the reason is not just the whole Android culture of free, but the poor Market experience. Once Google cleans up the Market, I think sales will increase. Perhaps not to iOS levels, but I would be surprised if there isn't a significant improvement.
ugh 16y ago
Steve Jobs is just now highlighting Android’s “fragmentation” and discussing Android’s openness. He is also talking about upcoming tablets and their 7" screens. (Trash talking them, that is. No 7" screen from Apple anytime soon.) Ars Technica is blogging: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/liveblog-q4-2010-earnings-call.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/liveblog-q4-2010-e...
- solutionyogi 16y ago
  Select Q&A: Q: What do you think about the 7" tablets? A: one naturally thinks a 7" screen offers 70% of the benefits of a 10" screen, but this is far from the truth a 7% screen is only 45% as large as a 10% screen because the measurements are diagonal. This size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps, in our opinion. One could increase the resolution to make up for the difference, it's meaningless unless the thing also includes sandpaper so users can sand down their fingers. Another comment by Steve: "It's being grabbed out of our hands. I talk to people every day in every kind of business who are using iPads boards of directors, nurses, doctors, etc. The more time that passes, the more i am convinced that we have a tiger by the tail here." Q: Could this be your second biggest business behind iPhone? A: I try not to predict, I just report. Q: Any updates on you stance on Flash? A: Ah, Flash memory? We love Flash memory! [I wonder if the reporter who asked the question understood the joke. ;)] Q: So if the market starts to move toward lower-functionality smartphones and dramatically lower price points, and you feel you can't make an appropriate product on those price points, you'll throw in the towel? A: You're looking at it wrong. you're looking at it as a hardware person who doesn't know much about software. who doesn't think about an integrated product and thinks the software will just take care of itself. You assume the software will just somehow come alive on this product you're dreaming up, but it won't. Because these app developers are taking advantage of products that came before it, with larger screens and more capabilities. it throws you back to the beginning of the chicken and egg problem again most developers won't follow you. Pure gold from Steve. Competitors better listen to this call and learn from the man himself. ------------------------------------------------- You really gotta hand it to Steve. Absolute no corporate speak (aka bullshit) when he talks. Compare this with recent email from Steve Ballmer, "I sent a message to the world that we’re ‘all in’ when it comes to the cloud. In that speech I noted that Ray’s Internet Services Disruption memo nearly five years ago, and his work since, stimulated thinking across the company and helped catalyze our drive to the cloud." (from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-18steveb-mail.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-18ste... ) Cloud? Why do executive use the word 'cloud' when the word 'Internet' is so much better. 'Stimulated thinking'... 'catalyze our drive', looks like someone has been reading too much of Dilbert. The difference between Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer is staggering.
danilocampos 16y ago
The iPad sales are just staggering. Moving that many units of a product that didn't even exist a year ago, in a category that was long thought dead, is incredible. Identify an optimal user experience, polish the hell out of it, then perform an airtight integration of every single component, from end-to-end. The software and hardware, the content ecosystem, the physical distribution, all of it fits together perfectly. When you look at it closely, Apple, as a portfolio of talent, technologies and interacting businesses, resembles the sort of microorganism that Intelligent Design proponents advance as evidence of a god. Everything cooperates in such a concerted, integrated way it's almost impossible to imagine developing any of it in simpler phases. In a world filled with corporations whose in-fighting and conflicting agendas make them look like mosh pits, Apple has the tightest marching band in history. edit: Also, anyone notice how often Apple reports their "best quarter ever?"
- jw84 16y ago
  Apple wasn't always like that. Took a long time for that maturity and took a lot of centralizing power before everything came into being.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    It took Steve Jobs returning and demanding extraordinary focus. It started with Apple's now famous matrix of consumer and pro for mobile and desktop. New products were added only after judicious consideration of both the user experience and business cases. As new parts of the business emerged, they were tightly integrated with existing products (iTunes + iPod, OS X + iPhone, etc) edit: It's also worth mentioning that he cleared out all the dead wood, in terms of leadership, fired the board and re-organized Apple around people whose talent and passion positioned the company well for the future. Most famously, Jonathan Ive was on his way out. Steve discovered him languishing in Apple's Industrial Design labs, creatively wilting, dying to be set loose on something daring. Jobs let him have his way, he built the first iMac and now he's a VP. The most interesting thing about Apple, from my perspective and theirs, is how often they say no to new opportunities. Focus is the sword they used to cut through bullshit before the turnaround and the sword they use now to plow through a field of opportunities, executing on only the best of the best. Apple of the early-to-mid-90's was just like any other company. Management fiefdoms, conflicting product strategies, and a sea of impossible to understand variations on the same products. Nothing got done. It survived on the fumes that came from the power of the original Mac, and the DNA that was baked into the company: computers should be made to empower everyone.
barredo 16y ago
Most interesting of the press release "We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year."
- mattparcher 16y ago
  (This sentence is immediately preceded by a highlight of iPhone sales and a dismissal of iPhone competition from RIM.)
  - mattparcher 16y ago
    Just to clarify, it was my impression that the coming “surprises” specifically relate to the iPhone, based on the context of the statement. (Though, as glhaynes notes, we are now less than two days away from the “Back to the Mac” event, which will almost certainly have a number of non-iPhone surprises.)
- glhaynes 16y ago
  They always say something like that, and there's a big Mac event scheduled for Wednesday.
deleted 16y ago
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protomyth 16y ago
one of the Q&A yielded the AppleTV number at being over a 250,000
melling 16y ago
Will iPad sales dissuade developers from using Flash or promote the development of iPad apps to augment rich Flash sites?
- glhaynes 16y ago
  I think the onus is now on Flash developers now to make the case for why Flash is necessary in new development. And I think that's an important threshold.
  - benologist 16y ago
    It's not really. Right now Flash can be used to deploy for iOS finally thanks to Jobs' recent change of heart so essentially "Flash vs. iOS" is a solved problem (although it needs and will get more work from Adobe). Flash cops a bad rap but it is a massive platform for gaming with hundreds of millions of people choosing Flash games over every other form of entertainment and distraction all day, every day. Yesterday I tracked almost 6 million people that collectively spent 171 years playing Flash games. There are a handful of technologies that promise we'll be able to make once, deploy everywhere - whoever does it best is going to win the developers. It's not Flash vs. iOS, it's "how do I get my game on n platforms". Adobe fancies themselves in the running, people are working on positioning Mono to solve that problem, Unity are a very likely contender, and of course there's HTML5.
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      Absolutely Flash still has a place - for some web games, HTML5 is a contender; but for most, Flash is still where it's at. But if, say, a company were making a new website for the car they're selling (or their restaurant!), Flash was the obvious way a year ago: a case didn't generally need to be made for it. But now, an in-touch manager should demand that a strong case be made for it before going down that path.
      - benologist 16y ago
        Pretty sure at this point video is the most likely reason a site people actually visit have Flash... I'm out of the loop these days but I don't even remember the last time I saw a pure-Flash site. In terms of video the web at large will never migrate just as they didn't care about the various versions of HTML, the rise of "standards matter" etc, but I thought the largest sites that really matter made themselves compatible ages ago?
dasht 16y ago
Hehe. You know the old saying "always darkest just before the storm"? How's about: "always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"? Huge numbers of consumer leaders or consumer suckers have, in the past few years, bought lots of this line of products. Either a large number of them and non-buyers agree "Well, that was worth it" or, the opposite. Place your bet. (I'm not saying "droid wins" or "MSFT wins". I'm saying "the category of products is suspect for sustained growth ... Apple is just accelerating the rate at which we find out.")
- ugh 16y ago
  What would be the consequences of the “bubble bursting”? I’m asking because there is really no way you can respond to a statement like that. What is your specific prediction? Will Apple be bankrupt in the short or long term? Will their iPhone sales decrease? Will they plateau? Will they grow slower than the Smartphone market? Are you only talking about the iPhone or maybe all iOS devices? Maybe the Mac, too?
  - blantonl 16y ago
    in all fairness the OP might be referring to Microsoft as an example.
- mattparcher 16y ago
  To be honest, each time Apple has a record quarter (which has been quite often lately) folks doubt that they will sustain that growth, but they’re almost always proven wrong. Where is Apple slowing? In Macs, which see only modest increases year over year, and iPods, which are in decline. But both of those categories are not losing to competitors — they are being cannibalized by Apple itself, who is busy selling incredible numbers of iPhones and iPads. If you’re wondering whether Apple’s customers are happy, Apple just earned the highest-ever score in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, in large part due to the iPad: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-apple%E2%80%99s-customer-satisfaction-rating/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-appl...
  - 16y ago
mattmaroon 16y ago
I wish I was Apple's CFO. That strikes me as right up there with San Diego Weatherman as the easiest job in the world. Yesterday was sunny and 80 degrees, today is sunny and 80, and tomorrow is going to be sunny and 80.
- CamperBob 16y ago
  Then when it does rain, they come after you with tar and pitchforks.
linuxhansl 16y ago
Not a single cent of my money. I stopped using Apple products when they started to lock down the iPods (by using encryption) and tied devices to a specific installation of iTunes. And do not even get me started on the closed platforms that are the iPhone or the iPad (i.e. the Apple Store). The amount good will this company has with consumers is staggering.
- forensic 16y ago
  Your religion is not serving you.
  - linuxhansl 16y ago
    Yes, I could have stated it more friendly: I disagree with Apple's policies so I do not buy their products. On some level I also do not understand why not more people are bothered by Apple.
    - Skroob 16y ago
      Because the things you think are important just aren't to most people.
jscore 16y ago
I guarantee in a generation or so we will look back and do case studies of Apple and Steve Jobs. What made them so successful, etc. Things like to how to develop amazing products, create compelling user experiences, create new markets, market to customers, etc, etc. Companies like this aren't created everyday.
lwhi 16y ago
Steve Jobs is an amazing showman. He's got the ability to work the _full_ crowd, but he'll always have his eye on the audience members who have reserved the box seats .. the VIPs (i.e. shareholders). By ensuring that shareholders are delighted, he makes sure that the show is lubricated with enough cash; so that they're able to ensure even more daring stunts and fireworks are available for the next season's performances. I think it's wrong to assume that Apple are perfect. In my opinion, there are many things that could be improved about their products, but Jobs realises that perception is _everything_ and he's worked hard to ensure that Apple's image is carefully crafted and actually fulfils emotional needs that Apple's customers have grown to appreciate - and would gravely miss if Apple wasn't around. The amount of vitriol that's produced by Apple's advocates (when the parent company is attacked) consistently amazes me. Watching the show from the cheap seats, I'm reminded how every business action can serve multiple aims. Every (slightly or even, overtly) nefarious action can be teamed with a more egalitarian or idealistic aim; each of which can be used by advocates to fight Apple's corner. It's supremely clever work. I'm not sure if a corporation which operates such a cunning, clever operation should necessarily be congratulated every time they release results. When smoke and mirrors are involved, I think it's worth trying to preserve some critical judgement.

142 points by ugh 16y ago

Down 5.8% (-18.70) in AH trading: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ig&q=AAPL http://www.google.com/finance?client=ig&q=AAPL edit: whew, and seeming to stabilize around a 4.5% drop still leaving it above $300. I was amazed it broke $300 so easily last week and was afraid it'd fall back below with this drop.

deleted 16y ago
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- zitterbewegung 16y ago
  Actually that is todays trading it is still down in after hours trading currently.
- rbancroft 16y ago
  that was the closing price. AH means after hours. check the google chart more closely...
jamesaguilar 16y ago
Why so down? I assume market expectations were higher than what they reported, but in what categories did Apple fall short / what else was as good as expected?
- Grouper 16y ago
  It could also be because their predicted net revenue and profit for next quarter is not as high as the market expected it to be.
- seb 16y ago
  The Ipad and Ipod sales are much lower then expected.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    iPod sales were expected (more iPhone victims), iPad expectations are just unrealistic.
    - gamble 16y ago
      No kidding. They sold 80% of the consensus prediction of 5 million units. That still puts Apple on track to sell at least 16 million iPads in its first year on the market. Minimum retail price for an iPad is $500. 16m units X $500 = at least $8 billion gross revenue. How many companies can take a new product line from $0 to $8+ billion in one year? It may 'disappoint' the analysts in a technical sense, but Apple's shareholders should be doing cartwheels at this news.
- larsberg 16y ago
  "Buy the rumor, sell the news" :-)
- slyn 16y ago
  The AAPL stock M/O for as long as I have kept track of it is buy on rumors, sell on news, regardless of how accurate the rumors were or how good the news is.
- mikeryan 16y ago
  If you look at the past few weeks it looks like most analysts already expected pretty good news from Apple. This might not have been quite as good as expected - considering they were at 280 on Oct 1 and now are still 30 points higher I'm guessing there's a lot of investors trying to take some money off the table now.
- protomyth 16y ago
  drop in gross margin from 41.8% to 36.9% also, someone mentioned (CNBC?) that Wall Street thinks Apple should have sold more than 4.19 million iPads this quarter. Errr...
- deleted 16y ago
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gamble 16y ago
Apple announcements are a magnet for traders. There's no point trying to interpret the stock's gyrations as a judgement of their performance.
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  Who's offering any interpretation? I'm sure not.
  - jbail 16y ago
    Buy the rumor and sell the news.
    - ewald 16y ago
      This only works if you know the future. After you've heard the rumors, and the news have been reported, you're already too late. Buy solid companies over time and keep them, that's what works.
      - jbail 16y ago
        You don't need to know the future. You just need to hear the rumor before everyone else does. Why do you think Apple had a big run up before they announced earnings and then dropped the past two days? Just a coincidence? Maybe, but more likely Wall Street knew the news before it was news and the folksy wisdom of "buy the rumor - sell the news" seems pretty spot on. I do agree with your sage advice that for the individual investor, buying and holding good companies is a sound strategy (Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet would agree too). But no matter what your investing strategy, the individual investor is typically at an information disadvantage vs. investment professionals. They spend all day doing it. How can you possibly be more in "the know" than they are? Over the long term, perhaps it evens out as you suggest, but the comment above me was wondering what explains why Apple stock would lose value on the day they posted their largest quarterly results ever. Wall Street buying the rumor and selling the news makes some sense to me. I've seen this happen over and over again (not just with Apple yesterday).
msbarnett 16y ago
Profit taking from the "Buy on rumour, sell on news" crowd. Happens every time.
numbchuckskills 16y ago
Down because the market is tired of apple sandbagging their quarterly results (seriously). All companies put out conservative numbers, but come on.
andrewljohnson 16y ago
That was profit-taking. The sell-off wasn't because the news was bad.
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  ah, you edited your post since i was about to reply (and HN crapped out on me). here was my original response: Finance-related articles: I read several. Margins are depressed[1]. iPad sales were lower than expected[2]. Revenue was above expectations, but profits were below [3]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/technology/19apple.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/technology/19apple.html [2] http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101018-713881.html http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101018-713881.html [3] http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/10/18/apple-fy-q4-beats-revs-2034b-eps-431-389m-macs-141m-iphones-905m-ipods-419m-ipads/ http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/10/18/apple-fy...
  - andrewljohnson 16y ago
    Yeah... I thought the bit about "read some articles" sounded snide :) I guess I also agree it's up to debate, but I don't see how the results Apple posted are a cause for deflation, margins or no. 20 billion in revenue, nearly a quarter million devices a day, and Verizon yet to come. Everything looks rosy for Apple, with only the Android dark horse to worry about (which has been worried about for some time).
  - andrewljohnson 16y ago
    Also, iPad sales are lower than "some" expected. Not everyone.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  If it was predictable it would not have happened. Markets are anti-inductive... oh, never mind.
cosmicray 16y ago
I'll throw my spin on that drop-off... Say you're an Apple key employee. One who is prohibited from trading within so many days prior to the earnings report (because you have insider information). You sit there, note the stock price runup, and say "man, I'd like to sell a few of my shares at $300". So you talk to your broker, personal financial advisor, etc, and tell them "I want to move 1,000 shares at $300 once the quiet period is over. Bam, stock price drops temporarily, and then starts to trickle back up. I have no idea how many people are in this category, but I'm sure there are more than a few at Apple.

kgutteridge 16y ago

27 million iOS devices in the last 3 months, thats a very nice demographic to target that does not seem to be slowing down even with Androids rapid growth also gaining real momentum, I like being in mobile its certainly interesting!

protomyth 16y ago
Yeah, I'm doing my last work on 3 desktop apps and then moving into iOS for the forceable future.
megablast 16y ago
Android is doing well, but we know that Apple users buy apps, not so much with android users.
- kgutteridge 16y ago
  Android was slower to rolling out frictionless payment onto their store, only recently did it roll out in a lot more countries http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-countries-more-sellers-more-buyers.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-countrie... So I would not necessarily use the past history of paid apps on Androids market as direct comparison to Apples app store. However the self selecting fact that more Apple users are likely to have a disposable income is very appealing when choosing to just target an iOS device if you do not need reach, I think for non hit applications, that are more of a business though reach is very important as cracking the top 100 in Apples app store is rather difficult and you have very few other options if you do not succeed in this endeavor
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  I think part of the reason is not just the whole Android culture of free, but the poor Market experience. Once Google cleans up the Market, I think sales will increase. Perhaps not to iOS levels, but I would be surprised if there isn't a significant improvement.

ugh 16y ago

Steve Jobs is just now highlighting Android’s “fragmentation” and discussing Android’s openness. He is also talking about upcoming tablets and their 7" screens. (Trash talking them, that is. No 7" screen from Apple anytime soon.) Ars Technica is blogging: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/liveblog-q4-2010-earnings-call.ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/liveblog-q4-2010-e...

solutionyogi 16y ago
Select Q&A: Q: What do you think about the 7" tablets? A: one naturally thinks a 7" screen offers 70% of the benefits of a 10" screen, but this is far from the truth a 7% screen is only 45% as large as a 10% screen because the measurements are diagonal. This size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps, in our opinion. One could increase the resolution to make up for the difference, it's meaningless unless the thing also includes sandpaper so users can sand down their fingers. Another comment by Steve: "It's being grabbed out of our hands. I talk to people every day in every kind of business who are using iPads boards of directors, nurses, doctors, etc. The more time that passes, the more i am convinced that we have a tiger by the tail here." Q: Could this be your second biggest business behind iPhone? A: I try not to predict, I just report. Q: Any updates on you stance on Flash? A: Ah, Flash memory? We love Flash memory! [I wonder if the reporter who asked the question understood the joke. ;)] Q: So if the market starts to move toward lower-functionality smartphones and dramatically lower price points, and you feel you can't make an appropriate product on those price points, you'll throw in the towel? A: You're looking at it wrong. you're looking at it as a hardware person who doesn't know much about software. who doesn't think about an integrated product and thinks the software will just take care of itself. You assume the software will just somehow come alive on this product you're dreaming up, but it won't. Because these app developers are taking advantage of products that came before it, with larger screens and more capabilities. it throws you back to the beginning of the chicken and egg problem again most developers won't follow you. Pure gold from Steve. Competitors better listen to this call and learn from the man himself. ------------------------------------------------- You really gotta hand it to Steve. Absolute no corporate speak (aka bullshit) when he talks. Compare this with recent email from Steve Ballmer, "I sent a message to the world that we’re ‘all in’ when it comes to the cloud. In that speech I noted that Ray’s Internet Services Disruption memo nearly five years ago, and his work since, stimulated thinking across the company and helped catalyze our drive to the cloud." (from http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-18steveb-mail.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-18ste... ) Cloud? Why do executive use the word 'cloud' when the word 'Internet' is so much better. 'Stimulated thinking'... 'catalyze our drive', looks like someone has been reading too much of Dilbert. The difference between Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer is staggering.

danilocampos 16y ago

The iPad sales are just staggering. Moving that many units of a product that didn't even exist a year ago, in a category that was long thought dead, is incredible. Identify an optimal user experience, polish the hell out of it, then perform an airtight integration of every single component, from end-to-end. The software and hardware, the content ecosystem, the physical distribution, all of it fits together perfectly. When you look at it closely, Apple, as a portfolio of talent, technologies and interacting businesses, resembles the sort of microorganism that Intelligent Design proponents advance as evidence of a god. Everything cooperates in such a concerted, integrated way it's almost impossible to imagine developing any of it in simpler phases. In a world filled with corporations whose in-fighting and conflicting agendas make them look like mosh pits, Apple has the tightest marching band in history. edit: Also, anyone notice how often Apple reports their "best quarter ever?"

jw84 16y ago
Apple wasn't always like that. Took a long time for that maturity and took a lot of centralizing power before everything came into being.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  It took Steve Jobs returning and demanding extraordinary focus. It started with Apple's now famous matrix of consumer and pro for mobile and desktop. New products were added only after judicious consideration of both the user experience and business cases. As new parts of the business emerged, they were tightly integrated with existing products (iTunes + iPod, OS X + iPhone, etc) edit: It's also worth mentioning that he cleared out all the dead wood, in terms of leadership, fired the board and re-organized Apple around people whose talent and passion positioned the company well for the future. Most famously, Jonathan Ive was on his way out. Steve discovered him languishing in Apple's Industrial Design labs, creatively wilting, dying to be set loose on something daring. Jobs let him have his way, he built the first iMac and now he's a VP. The most interesting thing about Apple, from my perspective and theirs, is how often they say no to new opportunities. Focus is the sword they used to cut through bullshit before the turnaround and the sword they use now to plow through a field of opportunities, executing on only the best of the best. Apple of the early-to-mid-90's was just like any other company. Management fiefdoms, conflicting product strategies, and a sea of impossible to understand variations on the same products. Nothing got done. It survived on the fumes that came from the power of the original Mac, and the DNA that was baked into the company: computers should be made to empower everyone.

barredo 16y ago

Most interesting of the press release "We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year."

mattparcher 16y ago
(This sentence is immediately preceded by a highlight of iPhone sales and a dismissal of iPhone competition from RIM.)
- mattparcher 16y ago
  Just to clarify, it was my impression that the coming “surprises” specifically relate to the iPhone, based on the context of the statement. (Though, as glhaynes notes, we are now less than two days away from the “Back to the Mac” event, which will almost certainly have a number of non-iPhone surprises.)
glhaynes 16y ago
They always say something like that, and there's a big Mac event scheduled for Wednesday.

deleted 16y ago

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protomyth 16y ago

one of the Q&A yielded the AppleTV number at being over a 250,000

melling 16y ago

Will iPad sales dissuade developers from using Flash or promote the development of iPad apps to augment rich Flash sites?

glhaynes 16y ago
I think the onus is now on Flash developers now to make the case for why Flash is necessary in new development. And I think that's an important threshold.
- benologist 16y ago
  It's not really. Right now Flash can be used to deploy for iOS finally thanks to Jobs' recent change of heart so essentially "Flash vs. iOS" is a solved problem (although it needs and will get more work from Adobe). Flash cops a bad rap but it is a massive platform for gaming with hundreds of millions of people choosing Flash games over every other form of entertainment and distraction all day, every day. Yesterday I tracked almost 6 million people that collectively spent 171 years playing Flash games. There are a handful of technologies that promise we'll be able to make once, deploy everywhere - whoever does it best is going to win the developers. It's not Flash vs. iOS, it's "how do I get my game on n platforms". Adobe fancies themselves in the running, people are working on positioning Mono to solve that problem, Unity are a very likely contender, and of course there's HTML5.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Absolutely Flash still has a place - for some web games, HTML5 is a contender; but for most, Flash is still where it's at. But if, say, a company were making a new website for the car they're selling (or their restaurant!), Flash was the obvious way a year ago: a case didn't generally need to be made for it. But now, an in-touch manager should demand that a strong case be made for it before going down that path.
    - benologist 16y ago
      Pretty sure at this point video is the most likely reason a site people actually visit have Flash... I'm out of the loop these days but I don't even remember the last time I saw a pure-Flash site. In terms of video the web at large will never migrate just as they didn't care about the various versions of HTML, the rise of "standards matter" etc, but I thought the largest sites that really matter made themselves compatible ages ago?

dasht 16y ago

Hehe. You know the old saying "always darkest just before the storm"? How's about: "always highest revenue just before the bubble bursts"? Huge numbers of consumer leaders or consumer suckers have, in the past few years, bought lots of this line of products. Either a large number of them and non-buyers agree "Well, that was worth it" or, the opposite. Place your bet. (I'm not saying "droid wins" or "MSFT wins". I'm saying "the category of products is suspect for sustained growth ... Apple is just accelerating the rate at which we find out.")

ugh 16y ago
What would be the consequences of the “bubble bursting”? I’m asking because there is really no way you can respond to a statement like that. What is your specific prediction? Will Apple be bankrupt in the short or long term? Will their iPhone sales decrease? Will they plateau? Will they grow slower than the Smartphone market? Are you only talking about the iPhone or maybe all iOS devices? Maybe the Mac, too?
- blantonl 16y ago
  in all fairness the OP might be referring to Microsoft as an example.
mattparcher 16y ago
To be honest, each time Apple has a record quarter (which has been quite often lately) folks doubt that they will sustain that growth, but they’re almost always proven wrong. Where is Apple slowing? In Macs, which see only modest increases year over year, and iPods, which are in decline. But both of those categories are not losing to competitors — they are being cannibalized by Apple itself, who is busy selling incredible numbers of iPhones and iPads. If you’re wondering whether Apple’s customers are happy, Apple just earned the highest-ever score in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, in large part due to the iPad: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-apple%E2%80%99s-customer-satisfaction-rating/ http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-appl...
- 16y ago

mattmaroon 16y ago

I wish I was Apple's CFO. That strikes me as right up there with San Diego Weatherman as the easiest job in the world. Yesterday was sunny and 80 degrees, today is sunny and 80, and tomorrow is going to be sunny and 80.

CamperBob 16y ago
Then when it does rain, they come after you with tar and pitchforks.

linuxhansl 16y ago

Not a single cent of my money. I stopped using Apple products when they started to lock down the iPods (by using encryption) and tied devices to a specific installation of iTunes. And do not even get me started on the closed platforms that are the iPhone or the iPad (i.e. the Apple Store). The amount good will this company has with consumers is staggering.

forensic 16y ago
Your religion is not serving you.
- linuxhansl 16y ago
  Yes, I could have stated it more friendly: I disagree with Apple's policies so I do not buy their products. On some level I also do not understand why not more people are bothered by Apple.
  - Skroob 16y ago
    Because the things you think are important just aren't to most people.

jscore 16y ago

I guarantee in a generation or so we will look back and do case studies of Apple and Steve Jobs. What made them so successful, etc. Things like to how to develop amazing products, create compelling user experiences, create new markets, market to customers, etc, etc. Companies like this aren't created everyday.

lwhi 16y ago

Steve Jobs is an amazing showman. He's got the ability to work the _full_ crowd, but he'll always have his eye on the audience members who have reserved the box seats .. the VIPs (i.e. shareholders). By ensuring that shareholders are delighted, he makes sure that the show is lubricated with enough cash; so that they're able to ensure even more daring stunts and fireworks are available for the next season's performances. I think it's wrong to assume that Apple are perfect. In my opinion, there are many things that could be improved about their products, but Jobs realises that perception is _everything_ and he's worked hard to ensure that Apple's image is carefully crafted and actually fulfils emotional needs that Apple's customers have grown to appreciate - and would gravely miss if Apple wasn't around. The amount of vitriol that's produced by Apple's advocates (when the parent company is attacked) consistently amazes me. Watching the show from the cheap seats, I'm reminded how every business action can serve multiple aims. Every (slightly or even, overtly) nefarious action can be teamed with a more egalitarian or idealistic aim; each of which can be used by advocates to fight Apple's corner. It's supremely clever work. I'm not sure if a corporation which operates such a cunning, clever operation should necessarily be congratulated every time they release results. When smoke and mirrors are involved, I think it's worth trying to preserve some critical judgement.