Seriously though, the TV system as is sucks. Comcast/xFinity is my best option here and it's still bad. The interface is so behind the times and slow. If there's an Apple revolution coming to TV can we please get to it already?

I agree it's not a certainty but there is literally $0.00 of the share price on the possibility right now. So you're getting a freeroll. I'll take a freeroll on the rest of Jony Ive's career and risk some short and medium term turbulence.

And even if all they do is expand imac/macbook/iphone/ipad businesses, it's still a really cheap stock. It was semi-cheap in the 700's depending on future share buybacks and dividends, at 4xx you're getting a great deal. it's ~2/3rds cheaper than Google right now based on PE. that's a joke. people are scared and panic selling.

This. Nothing is worse than 500 channels it would take you literally half an hour to scroll through. My 'Smart TV' is by far the dumbest computing device I own. Including my three year old Blackberry.

The convolution in TV delivery has a lot more to do with incestuous contracts between the content owners, cable/satellite companies, and Hulu (owned by NBC, Fox, Disney).

Apple is very good at badgering its Chinese suppliers and (not too long ago) book publishers. I wouldn't count on them to do the same to the likes of Murdoch and Dolan. They've been trying, but without much success.

Margin compression is gonna happen. It's just a matter of when. The prices are artificially inflated by carrier subsidies that hide the costs. T-Mobile already fell off the subsidy gravy train. It's a matter of time before AT&T (more likely) and Verizon follow T-Mobile off.

very true. My 1 year old DVR really feels like 2004 technology. I think that the notion recording live tv was pretty novel 10 years ago, but the level of advancement is embarrassing. My DVR now is only slightly better than my TIVO of 10+ years ago

i just had an intro discussion into the complexity of content rights, and while it is true that contracts are the main thing preventing content delivery, different content simply works differently on different platforms. there are use cases for all types of programming - live, day-after, low ad-load, high ad-load, no ads, rental, cloud ownership, dvd ownership, etc. in that respect youtube is different from google tv which is different from hulu which is different from netflix which is different from amazon instant video which is different from apple tv ... etc. the contracts HAVE to respect all of that, that's why past seasons of one show may be on netflix, while last 3 weeks of the current season are on hulu/vod, and the entire current season is only on apple tv.

the good news is that there is a market for each one of those, even in the presence of cable and network tv. there isn't a single company that offers all the options seamlessly to the user, and they likely won't be able to for the next 20 years. however, it is becoming a norm for customers to have 2-3 accounts on services that they currently use, and turning over these accounts as they see fit.

There is a huge opportunity for Apple in the TV and Wallet sectors.

The hardware market for TVs is full of confusion. One year Samsung has the best tv, the next year, they shoot for volume and make a crappy tv. This has been a rinse and repeat for the last few years.

If Apple comes out with a truly high end, Ferrari of a tv, that has built it content capabilities that expands beyond what the Appletv does now, and it works like your home computer hub, people will have a hard time saying no. Especially if it looks cool as **** out of a Stanley Kubrick movie. Families will be able to network everything out of this one hub, get rid of cable, stop buying laptops, etc.

Then, if they turn everyone's apple id into basically an online bank account or ewallet, the game will be officially changed.

A lot of big ifs, but they have the customer base, and the cash to do it.

Apple doesn't want to make TVs. Profit margins on TV units of major electronic firms are in the low single digits with many posting losses. One of the most profitable, Samsung, makes roughly ~25% gross on its TVs.

Apple's current gross profit margin is something like 39% (already well off its highs. iPad minis, while popular, generate only about half of the profit of a full iPad.) Net profit margin is 23.99%, which again, crushes the return on TV units.

Apple wants to make the set up boxes where they could potentially generate extremely high margins. The problem with that is the content providers are quite intent on keeping their shares of the pie.

Does anyone know why AAPL ripped up today in the middle of the day?

i hear it's news of a special dividend

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100543299

Cue the correction.

Still holding above $420.

Nice day today.

How 'bout them AAPLs!?

Its not a freeroll. New products can produce a lot less than $0 in value.

No particular comment on Apple but many new products are disastrous to company value and a company that's under pressure to come up with something new, and has wads of cash to spend can make very big mistakes.

Apple software is very simplistic and closed, combined with excellent attention to visual design and UI interaction. It can't handle complex use cases, or broad open interaction, it's not designed that way, and it would take years for Apple to write this software no matter how much money or how many people they threw at it. It also would no longer be Apple - it would be Windows.

Apple software is a perfect fit for new hardware which isn't quite fast enough for mainstream, whose flaws can be covered by self designing the hardware and combining it with simplistic closed software. The original iPad for example was a piece of crap, incredibly slow and not even up to web browsing, but they covered it with animations to hide the slowness, a super simplistic operating system (iOS), and turning off features that it couldn't handle, like flash, and produced a product that was great to use. They also did that with the Mac in the 80s and had great success, before nearly going bankrupt as computers circa 1995 got faster, and more sophisticated operating systems destroyed their ****ty software and closed philosophy.

The trouble for Apple now is that we're approaching 1995. Phones are reaching a state where Apple's initial design advantages are declining, and competing software is becoming compelling. See Android - from 0 to 70% in three years - and Windows Phone 8, which will integrate perfectly with Windows 8/9, its apps and ecosystem as it slowly gets installed onto a billion PCs.

On the tablet side, hardware is for the first time getting fast enough that it can run full Windows with a good experience. If you've used a Surface Pro you'll realize how vastly superior the experience is to an iPad. Battery life, ecosystem, inertia and lack of sales channels and supply of parts (there's a severe lack of touch screen components) are the only reason Windows tablets aren't destroying the iPad yet, but they will. It'll be Mac vs PC all over again and Apple will get killed.

In five years, phones will be computers. You'll put them down and they'll display full operating system interaction on nearby screens. And what have people put on computers for the past 20 years? Windows. Why? Because no other operating system has the ecosystem or the complexity or the polish. And just as importantly because no other company has the incredibly complex business backends that took the work of tens of thousands of people over a decade to develop. Mac has a small following but is generally not wanted by the market, and never will be - it's ****ty software that can't do complex things. Businesses alone guarantee that Mac will never be mainstream.
Apple have a single innovation - the iPod touch. Everything else is a stretched version of that. While the iPod touch is a great idea - a smart device with beautiful aesthetics and a clever ecosystem - it's all they've ever created, and it's important to understand that when talking about Apple's innovation. I also think you're underestimating how amazing and unique and loved Blackberry was for several years.

If Apple were truly innovative, they would be busy creating things like Google Glass rather than changing dock connectors on their products.

you must really be smoking crack if you think windows is polished and mac can't do complex things. hiding complex internals >>> exposing them.

Yeah, ive heard that PC's are better and have more computing argument for years. It may be true, but people who do creative work overwhelmingly pick macs. And content and creativity rule the world.

How much computing power does the average business person or person need anyway?

If macs were as affordable as pcs, does anyone really think they could compete with mac products?

You're overly bearish, but the one good point you have is that businesses will choose windows (and windows integration) when given thet option.

I really don't know where to begin with that post. It would take another wall of text to fully respond so I'll summarize a few points.

First, comparing iPads to Surface Pros is pointless. The iPad starts at $500, where the Surface Pro begins at $900, and then you add $100+ for the keyboard. The former is a true tablet, the latter is basically a touch ultrabook with a detachable keyboard. And it shows in battery life and all those other things you mention and want to gloss over - ecosystem? Inertia? Yes, they count too. Windows may be left behind further than you think here. The Surface does a lot but what does it really do well, in a practical way?

You extend that rationale differently when applied to Windows in enterprise, which has an ecosystem and inertia. The barrier might well be too high for Mac to make waves in that space.

And I don't know whether you're looking at Mac software as if iOS is the only thing they make, but OSX works just fine. It's a different animal than Windows and has different strengths, but without hesitation I'd give the nod even to their current OS build as the superior choice the majority of typical users, outside of gamers and some other things with limited development on Mac.

OSX is just fine at using higher-end hardware too, which Apple has radically improved recently in the Mini/iMac/MBA/MBP space. A few years back it was easy to laugh at them putting Core2Duos in things long after they were obsolete, but that's not the case today.

Even this isn't fair anymore. Macs are essentially PCs now, just with OSX loaded on them instead of Windows. Very capable machines.

I've been arguing this for a while, but given the reputation and brand equity of Apple right now, I don't think so. There are lots of disaffected Windows users, and grumpy Dell, HP (etc) customers. I think Apple's missing a line of sub-$1,000 notebooks.

Kind of a meaningless point tho. If BMWs were as affordable as Toyotas does anyone really think Toyota could compete?

Computers aren't cars though. I don't think there's much need for BMW in say the $25,000 car range which is very competitive. And there's no reason to think they could offer something very different at that price point than what the existing folks already do.

With Apple, they'd be bringing an OSX-based alternative to a price range where customers' options have been limited to Windows. So you've got differentiation there, plus desirability already with just the brand equity they have and the occasional weak Windows OS release. For whatever reason though they've just decided that the iPad will be their sub-$1k computing device by itself.

How are computers different than cars here? What would be the advantage to apple of slashing margins to try to compete in that uber competitive environment? Heck, like 100% of the reason to buy an apple product is everyone else knows it costs extra. Pretty much like a BMW.

This just isn't true. Content and creativity are a tiny fraction of the economy. Look up the combined worldwide value of the entire movie, music, newspaper and graphic design industries, and you'll begin to appreciate why Windows has over 90% market share.

The world is run by boring people using macros in Word & Excel, running their accounting program or in house software, running point of sale programs, plugging in assorted peripherals, and so on. Macs stink at those tasks. They don't talk to most peripherals; they don't have drivers for most items, they aren't customizable, and the OS is nowhere near as developer friendly as Windows. All of these things are the reason Microsoft owns this space.

Macs are designed for a closed, Apple controlled ecosystem. This works great with simplistic limited devices and uses, but fails otherwise.

I don't think people appreciate just how complex, interconnected and yet user friendly Windows is compared to the OS X, and just how much of an unassailable advantage they have on any hardware that can viably run Windows (which is going to be all hardware in the next few years).
Yes, Macs would still be destroyed. Apple has enjoyed its greatest success ever over the last year - their company put on $300 billion in market cap in nine months; their sales of iPhone & iPad went through the roof, and Apple became a shining company that everyone recommends and many people can't get enough of. In the meantime, Microsoft came out with Windows 8, which many people found confusing, aesthetically unappealing, and a major break with the past. If there was ever a time Mac was going to grow rapidly and be desired, it was now. Here's the reality:



Mac has actually been declining slightly since Windows 8 came out.

i'm pretty sure you are wrong and the stock will be at $500+ by the end of the year. Have you ever been to an apple store? There is always 20+ people in there.... Why is that?

I don't even like macs. In fact I don't own one apple product. My dad does though. So does my sister. So does all her friends. So do all my friends. They hate windows and PC's for some reason. I don't know why - but I can tell you - they love Apple products. Apple has a cult like fallowing. I don't understand it - and nether will you, but it's there. My dad refuses to buy any product with windows and my sister and most of her friends are the same way.

While this is a small handful of people - it's like that with a lot of people. Some people just like Apple products and it will be like this for a long time.


edit - sorry for the bad grammar - i'm very tired

oh i forgot to mention - most people that like windows more than macs are the people that understand windows. You fail to realize most people are not computer savvy. Apple products are generally easy to use - rarely get viruses - and is just basic software that is user friendly.

Most people like that. The people that don't like macs are the computer savvy people - which is like 5% of the computer population. Most people are really bad with computers. This is what Apple capitalizes on. Plus most AAPL products look pretty cool