I'm so confident that Apple and iOS7 are huge failures that I'll give you 2:1 (i.e. my $2 for your $1) on any amount of escrowed money that the shares will be under $499 two months time from today. This is far greater return than the stock will give (it would have to be $800 by August 12 for you to get better returns) - and you can use the newfound money to buy more shares and continue the rise, increasing your return, given that you believe this:
I'll also give you 4:1 that the stock will not be over $650 by the end of the year (in 6 months time).

You're either a fool for offering me a better price than I could get buying options or you're trying to screw me by giving me a worse price - in either case, no thanks. But I'm sure somebody else will take you up on that if it's the first.

Regarding timeframe: it won't be released to the public until "this fall" so the 6-12 month timeframe is more appropriate and 2 months is definitely too soon.

Thanks for confirming that your statement below is false and there is plenty of time to get in at 4xx:
I haven't used iOS7. From the video it seems fast and fluid and with much better features than before - basically more like an Android or Windows Phone. In fact, everyone who talks about the new OS says it's a near carbon copy of some of the features, gestures and workflow that Android has had for ages. Combined with their visual fail and inconsistencies, never before present in Apple products, I see this as a bad thing, not a good thing. Less differentiation visually and practically = less shine = people go for cheaper prices and better operating systems, even more than they have already. The cool/high end status has gone off Apple like I've never seen.

Have you used a Galaxy S4, Lumia 928, or Blackberry Z10? I think perhaps with all this talk about "innovation" and "game changing", you have no idea how good competing offerings are, and how everything new here except for AirDrop is copied or inferior.

Between now and the public release of iOS 7 is the likely window to buy shares. I guess to a guy who worships the 10-Q above all else, that might seem like an eternity. For a long-term value investor, it's not that long at all. There is a small chance the media and Wall Street will figure this out in the meantime and reduce that window. Though that seems unlikely.

Yes I've used those other phones. Yes your derping about Apple losing their status and copying Android is ridiculous. No I won't waste my time explaining why because you're not interested in having a discussion, you're only interested in trying to win arguments.

This will give you an idea how extensive the copying is from 2 year old Windows Phone in iOS7. Other features are direct and inferior copies - visually and practically - from Android. If you've used these other phones you'll get an idea why iPhone has stopped growing and the stock has dropped: they have not innovated in years and have been overtaken by competitors.

iOS7 is probably the greatest innovation fail ever. It is direct copying. And it's great for their competitors. The iPhone relies on premium pricing, large profits and substantial subsidies which the carrier are trying to move away from. How do you sustain that model when you're basically offering Windows Phone/Android Lite rather than a smooth unique highly differentiated market leading product? Answer: you can't.

This is my rebuttal to Truthsayer's negative take on Apple after this weeks news from the June trading thread:

"These points are all probably vaild, but the problem is that the average joe doesnt care about these things, and its based more on short terms expectations, which i believe to be unreasonable.

No one was expecting Apple to come out with iBrain this summer.

Sure the news isnt awe inspiring, but there are a lot of music, film, and photography professionals that have been waiting for the new towers, and sure thats not the bulk of their business but it will generate even more cash.

Mac users have never cared about the operating system of their phones beyond the basic. Windows has always been more robust and easier to do complicated things on. Most people dont do or want complicated.

Ive been saying this for a year about Apple and cell phones in general: there's only so much innovation to be had, there's not much left to improve upon. Bigger face, more battery life, ?

From todays's New York Times: "But, Apple is, by some measures, still leading the mobile industry. The iphone 5 is the best selling smartphone in the world. Samsung sells the most phones over all because it sells multiple smartphones at different sizes and prices, whereas Apple has released one new iPhone a year"

My whole point is that people have unreaslistic expectations for Apple in the short term. This is clearly not "terrible news", only through a certain bias.

Furthermore, everyone has been copying Apple for the past 4 years....so if anything, Apple is copying itself."

Lastly, I'm an Apple AND PC user. Right now I have both side by side on my desk. A brand new solid state Lenovo Yoga with windows 8, and a brand new MacBook pro.

Windows 8 is seriously joke. Talk about copying! They're trying to look and feel like a mac. They've been copying the app idea every since Mac came up with it on their phones and the ipad. (Hi Blackberry!) Talk about slapping a coat of paint on something old and tired! Their motto should be "Windows, take two or three steps to do what you used to do with one, and we're still not as easy to use as Mac, but we're cheaper!"

Apple has been resting on it's laurels while everyone has caught up, but because of their secrecy, no one knows if they've been innovating behind closed doors. Either way, the company is NOT overvalued at this point, because everyone has present ism clouding their judgement. I'm betting on a ****pile of cash and years of behind the scenes research and development. Find me another company in the same spot?

Not only that, but the company producing Windows products are the most inconsistent band of companies in the history of any industry. Nobody has put out a consistent product with good service for a long amount of time...Whoever is at the top today, will be at the bottom in a couple of years....

The new Mac Pro they are aiming at professionals is a joke. The lack of expandability is a deal breaker for any serious professional.

And I agree Apple is making a mistake making iOS look more like Windows.

How something looks and how it works and feels are different. Very different.

iOS 7 is not a graphic design game changer. It's not even really a UI game changer, though the UI is a big improvement once you get used to it. The game change is the UX. something screenshots and video don't capture. You have to actually use it to understand.

It's great you're such a genius that you called the iPad changing computing forever. However most people disagreed with you. They had to experience it to feel that way. This will be the same.

Until you actually use iOS 7 you're talking out of your ass telling me I'm wrong based on some screenshots you saw.

I've played with iOS7 briefly, and I'm failing to see the game changing UX features you keep referring to. In many instances, there plenty of decisions that seriously harm UX. Just off the top of my head:

1. Unlock screen says slide to unlock and has an "up" arrow, even though its slide left/right to unlock.
2. Thin white text on fluorescent colors might look pretty but its horrible UX especially for colorblind and older people.
3. The fact that iMessages "fade" into an even more illegible state towards the top of the screen? Why? This is, again, focusing on pretty design at the expense of UX.
4. The horizontal version of the quick settings is a complete disaster and mishmash of toggles without any clear distinction between sections.

Yes, there were some great improvements and added features in iOS7, no one is denying that, but none of those features (or the experience using those features) is better than their Android or WP counterpart (and sometimes they are still worse, like the Cellular Data tool in iOS7 vs Android). If you can think of any I'd be happy to hear what those are.

But what really, really would concern me is how they let those horrible, just ridiculously ugly, icons make it into the release. I mean I know someone is a die hard, stubborn fan boy if they can't even call out Apple on those hideous app icons.

But none of that shows up in the 10-Q, so it's irrelevant. So the haters say. And the haters are winning.

$150 billion in cash and a team with a track record of lighting industries on fire by inventing new product categories accounts for precisely $0.00 of the stock price. So you're getting a freeroll on anything they do in the future + great value on what they already have.

#freemoney #thxhaters

I keep reading about that up arrow but mine doesn't have it. Must have gotten the axe quickly.

That and most of what you said I'd describe as UI. You're criticizing how thing look. UX is more visceral and can't really be defined by specific elements. But I'll try:

-Apps auto-update now, can block phone numbers and a bunch of other incremental but awesome updates
-Swipe to unlock is way better
-Double tap multi-tasking, with those apps auto pulling in data in the background (checking sports scores or stock prices is way better now, for example)
-Uber-flatness makes everything feel really fresh, fast and fun to play with.
-You pull down to get the search box, it's not a screen to the left of home (and other similar improvements that are best appreciated in your hand)

The biggest thing though is the doors this opens for app developers. The new things it makes possible. And the fact that it's going to force them all to rethink their own UI/UX - so the whole ecosystem is about to change. Apps are either going to get really sexy, fast and do awesome new things, or they'll get smoked by apps that do.

Ugh. You really are a fanboy. Rich multi touch tablet computing was always coming. The first person to get it out in a consumer friendly form was always going to do very well, and when it was clear someone had I knew they'd be huge. The stock market totally missed it BTW, which floored me.

As for changing computing forever, no I didn't say that. The iPad changed nothing except shifting the timeline back. It was a new paradigm in the sense that it was the first to provide a "good enough" version of the inevitable technology. But it was always coming, and Apple didn't invent anything (they can't and don't invent anything). Gates was talking about the future ubiquity of tablets in 2007 while Jobs listened intensely. Microsoft finished the first modern attractive multi touch UI in 2007, three years before the iPad and before the iPhone was even released:




You think they wouldn't have put this system in a small form factor if the technology existed which supported it? Microsoft made their own iPad with a stripped down operating system in 2009 but Ballmer killed it because he's a tard and wouldn't release anything without full Windows, which wasn't ready for touch and which the hardware could never support. Apple didn't "change computing forever", they merely got the drop on the market while the hardware was still inferior and special carefully integrated design advantages (their sole advantage in computing) let you mask that inferiority. You are such a koolaid drinker it's amazing.

Anyway. They used this first mover advantage on inferior hardware for the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad. It's their sole natural advantage in this industry and its the source of their premium profits. But it doesn't last. They nearly went bankrupt on the Mac when their sole natural advantage disappeared over time. They'll go bankrupt again when far superior software makers - Microsoft then and Microsoft and Google now - can leverage a superior system that works over all hardware. Tablet and phone hardware is now finally getting to that point where this happening. Competitor software, complexity and range is also overtaking Apple, and Apple's response so far with iOS7 has been to copy everyone else and reduce their existing advantages. Ecosystem is not enough - Microsoft have a bigger one with their installed base on PCs and in businesses and they will leverage that onto phones and tablets. Google's Android is finally becoming polished and already has an Apple equivalent and in some cases superior ecosystem. You can't maintain 35% industry killing profits when you're like everyone else in the industry and have no software or hardware or aesthetic advantage left. You need to be heavily differentiated, which they no longer are with this latest update (see my Windows Phone comparison video above).

Hopefully that puts in context why iOS7 is such a bad development for them.
This is just like the Zynga thread. You claimed I had no clue how their business worked, that you understood it while I didn't. Meanwhile 10 minutes of reading their 10-Q let me know purely on their YOY per game revenue figures and compensation cuts that their business was in extreme trouble and your were talking out of your ass. A week later we get news that they're laying of tons of staff and downgrading bookings and guidance for the year. Boom, 17% lost. In twenty minutes of research without ever having played a Zynga game I knew their prospects better than you.

At the end of the day noone will take that bet against truthsayer bc no matter all the writing itt the stock most def wont be higher than 500 in 2 months. I'll esrow also but 2.1:1 for 500 in 2 months.

So talk all u want long term but who cares now?

Knowing how to read a 10-Q and understanding a business are not the same thing.

You just demonstrated brilliantly how you don't understand why the iPad was a game-changing product. Even with the advantage of hindsight you're still way off the mark.

You might make a good currency or bond trader where everything is black and white and you're just looking at a bunch of data. You're completely out of your element with tech companies.

What makes Apple a great company can't be found in an audited financial statement, no matter how hard you look. And what made Microsoft suck for so many years can't be found there either.

I'd explain it to you but you'd never get it. Because when you consulted the latest 10-Q, what I said wouldn't show up there, so you'd disregard it.

I'm not sure you realize how much $50 billion dollars is. It's a substantial fraction of the entire computing market and half of the global smartphone market profit.

Mac has not moved much even with the horror of Windows 8 and all of their ecosystem/visiblity advantages. There isn't much upside here and they are a $30 billion company based on Macs. The other $270 billion after cash is mostly iPhones with some iPads.

And this is not bad for Apple how?

Windows 8 is crap, but it appears to be still selling and providing no upside for Apple. Which again, very bad for Apple. If they can't move Macs when an abomination like Windows 8 is out, their Mac line should simply be written off.

What would you say the risk reward situation is for Apple? Is it a low risk/high risk stock? What do the probabilities look like? To me it's a fairly flat bell curve centered around $400 with a larger than normal (but not exceptional) upside tail. That's a marginal options play, not a stock investment.

I don't know what you mean by this.

Truthsayer,

What are your current stock positions, what is the value of your portfolio and how much have you earned annualized on a $ and % basis since 2010?

If I had to guess I'd say you have less than $10k in the market, no position in AAPL or ZNGA and you've made less than $1k per year each of the last 4 years and your annualized return has been less than 10%.

Unless I'm way off the mark on all of those, please go troll elsewhere.

I understand it perfectly and was one of the few who got its promise right. It was a fantastic product for its day (although Windows 8 tablets will be far ahead of it once 8.1 comes out in a few months - another downside for Apple). What I don't think is that Apple did some brilliant innovation or "changed computing forever". They were the first to pick a low hanging fruit and design it very, very well. The rest is just rather obtuse visibility bias.

Nothing I've posed here has been about data, it's all been reasoning around consumer sentiment and UI.

We're not even talking about financial statements. Are you just here to troll of something? No one has mentioned any 10-Q except to talk about how great a company Apple is.

This is going to be like the Zynga thread where you promise you can show me, don't deliver, and then get owned by developments. Do please tell us when you buy and sell Apple stock so we can track your performance and I can give your dues when it does well.

Bought at 400, doubled my position today at 438. Probably won't be adding more unless it dips below 400.

Nor will I be continuing ITT much longer. They should rename BFI 'haters gone wild'.

I guess I mostly agree with this. I'm not an experienced trader by any means, so that paragraph right there is educational.

I bought most of my shares under $400, and see it as a bargain, that's mostly it. I do have hopes they will start an online bank and make a strong move into the internet television game. With the amount of existing customers they have, that currently use their Apple Id's daily, it's feasible they could make a strong push here, but I'm obviously not fully educated on it.

In general, even though Apple products haven't blown minds lately, and it's stock has plunged, I still see it as just a flat out better company than any other.

What I mean, by last comment, is that there are too many cooks in Microsoft's kitchen, so their quality control and consistency is greatly affected. Sure Samsung has a well sought after phone, but as soon as they get surpassed, the customers just move to whatever other windows phone is around, whereas Apple customers are loyal. I've owned maybe 6 PC's, by 5 different companies. Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, and some I can't remember. And honestly, they all kind of sucked. I would never say that about a Mac. My Macs almost have sentimental value they were so reliable. So, if you're betting on Microsoft, you're actually betting on a handful of companies, that don't really have any umbrella. Apple is Apple. Their quality control alone makes them a far better player in the market.

Have you ever heard of someone who has gone from being a strictly Mac user, to a windows guy, and been happy about it? I'm also counting on customer loyalty in the near future and I believe Apple is too to some extent.

Windows products are generally cheap and don't last as long too, so the inflated price of a Mac makes them almost more cost efficient over the long haul. Well see how time treats the Windows phone and Samsung phones....

My PC laptops generally last 3-4 years tops, whereas my Macs last at least 4-5.

I mostly agree with you. It was a bargain at $390. All the smart money here (ahnuld, stinkypete) held off buying until that dip. With the buyback, downside risk has lessened a little as well.

Macs/Apple are great products for a lot of people, but the US and a few other countries are a fraction of the total market, so if you're in those you're getting a skewed view of popularity. US is 5% of the world's population. 5%.

The other thing is that even if Apple is a superb company, it's a superb company with a $400 billion dollar valuation. Why can't it be a great company with a $100 billion valuation? What differentiates a great company with a $400 billion valuation from a great company with a $300 billion valuation? $400 billion is in the clouds and needs large profits and revenue growth to keep it going. Profits aren't great in the phone industry in general, and Apple needs to do something very special to maintain them. You saw how $700 billion collapsed in no time when explosive growth started ending.

When you get into the mechanics of what gives it a $400 billion valuation, how much the high end smartphone market is worth, what the ASP is for smartphones, how much competition there is purely on price at the lower levels, you have to start asking WTF is going on. Have a look at this:



Compare 1Q12 and 1Q13. Despite Apple making the best phones out there (according to you) nearly all of the huge growth in the smartphone market got soaked up by Android. To put this in perspective: Android got 70 million of the new growth. Apple got 5 million. This is an absolute disaster - and at time when they're selling a bunch of old phones (iPhone 4, iPhone 3, etc) that are cheap and not that different to the newer models.

WTF is going on? Price alone isn't the answer here given the cheap options available. Apple have huge carrier subsidies, channel partners and worldwide retail presence, so that's not the answer. The only answer is that people are tiring of Apple products and competitors are catching up and overtaking them in features. iOS7 doesn't shift the bar to put Apple on top again, while at the same removing some of what makes them loved and give the appearance of luxury high end. And it's going to be the new paradigm for a year while Microsoft and Google and Blackberry continue to innovate and polish and grow even more compelling ecosystems.

That's why the stock is fairly valued at ~$400 - yes it has upside, but it's also hugely top heavy and undiversified and requiring continued extraordinary profits on a single product in a fickle consumer market they're no longer leading. That's dangerous territory. It's quite possible that Apple has squeezed all the juice they can out the current market, reached a maximum for volume*profit in these market conditions and have only lower profit levels to look forward to.

They can still be the best or a brilliant company when all of the above is true and their valuation and stock is falling.

"Why can't an insanely profitable company with $150 billion in the bank be a $100 billion company?"

-Truthsayer June 12th, 2013

Except I never said what you quoted? Intellectual honesty FTW. Honestly, you're just a zero content troll and fanboi at this stage and should be probably be banned like amberdosh was.

I understand you're upset that I came into the Zynga thread, spent ten minutes researching, bitchslapped you down with a better understanding of the company in those 10 minutes than you've gained in months, and then got vindicated a week later when the stock tanked 17% and you lost a bunch of money, but there's no need to make up quotes, man.

Also, they have nowhere near $150 billion "in the bank" when you consider liabilities, taxes (the money is not available to stockholders without paying these), a $60 billion buyback under way, and that some of their assets aren't cash.

What kind of professionals are you talking about? And what would they possibly need that a 12 core 2x GPU 3x 4K display 2 TB SSD storage system with a dozen ports on it doesn't provide?

To use language you will understand: because their book value is over $150 billion. Your question is absurd.

Why did the "smart money" buy at $400? Because price-to-book was irresistible when revenue and profits were taken into account.

P.S. Hating on a stock - taking no position in that stock and an unexpected news item coming out the next week, doesn't prove your position. Nor would positive news or results have proven mine.

You sound like a live poker fish preaching about the merits of calling pot sized bets on the turn with gut shots, because you just hit one.

Knowing how to think correctly and make +EV decisions is what matters. Your 10-Qtarding results-oriented monkeying - along with ignoring my question about your results and positions - makes it blatantly obvious you are exactly what you appear to be: a busto noob who read a fundamental analysis book and now thinks he knows everything.

My comments obviously exclude cash on hand for the sake of clarity. You seem to have a problem understanding context, or reasoning. I also said that Apple was a $30 billion Mac company...do you want to tard the thread up pointing out that doesn't include Apple's cash, or is it obvious from the context?