Is Apple betting the farm on the new iPad (iPad3 or iPadHD or ?)?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

As long as they can keep their stranglehold on mobile service providers (and their insane profit margins on the iPhone), I'm thinking yeah.

I'm not sure how long they can continue Jobs' legacy, though. We all saw what happened to Apple when Jobs left. Whether current management can maintain Apple's success, we'll know soon enough. As it is, I think Apple has lost some of its marketing flair. People might call Jobs a jerk and all but there's no question, love him or hate him, he does have a certain presence that get people to pay attention and is great at spinning things to his advantage.

I tend to agree -- with Steve Jobs gone and Samsung gearing up, Apple's best days are behind them. New products are just incremental upgrades of old ones. No new designs or ideas.

Also, slowly buyers come of age and "it just works" may not be good enough for those who grew up with technology. They are not fazed by little issues they can easily work around if a product offers more flexibility. If you watch closely, Apple's list of new features usually are just things that others had as much as a year earlier.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I disagree. I don't think Amazon needs to make 'significant' money selling tablets. Maybe it's, "Can Apple survive in a world where nobody makes significant money selling tablets?"

Uh, Apple has the volume and pricing to make money off the hardware, on top of their content revenue. There is no reason to even dream of them of them *not* surviving.

Amazon has the largest volume of the alternatives but their pricing suggests their hardware revenue is minimal: their game is centered on content revenue.

The others, from Samsung on down are mostly hardware-only players and too low on volume to match Apple and make more than nominal profits. So if anybody is going to fold and go look for a different game, it's more likely to be the android players than Apple.

[wizwor]

Not sure what you are saying. According to this, most of Apple's profits come from hardware sales. If hardware sells at cost or less, where does the money come from?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Not sure what you are saying. According to most of Apple's profits come from hardware sales.

Which is exactly what I'm saying: Apple makes lots of money off the hardware because their volumes and prices are high, so their costs are low. And then they add content revenue to sweeten the pot.

Nobody else has the volume to match their hardware play.
All the reports to date are that everybody but Amazon has seen disappointing sales and has ended up running fire sales to clear inventory.

Which is why I say that Apple is in no danger of hurting at all.
Like their products or not they will do just fine, even without the reality distortion zone.

I see no reason to question their ability to survive.

[wizwor]

If the cost of a tablet drops to $200 then their profits are gone. iTunes is not profitable enough to support $1b in R&D plus $500 share price.

[SeaKing]

First -Wow. Lots of comments.
Second -Let's not call names. In today's news the term "haters" and "hating" has become more than a verb about someone hating spinach or broccoli. It has become an analogue or slang word for "bullying" for "cruel, vicious" treatment of little children and challenged people, the beating up of the homeless or the handicapped, etc.

I don't think anyone here hates Apple, or Apple users.
That said there are at least some here that are very willing to point out failures of logic and good sense, especially when they themselves have had to endure the constant yammering of the mainstream media, fellow commentators and professional pundits carrying on about Apple, how great it is. The expressed wonderment of those people that anyone would buy anything but an Apple. I just read one pundit yesterday that was carrying on about the iPad 3 (yes I will call it that to identify it) that he would quit briefly "talking about his love affair with Apple" and move on to something else. At least he was honest.

Personally I have observed that many people have liked to be totally immersed in the Apple mystique. They feel that it will give them the best, that they are safe, and Apple will take care of them. It is like that commercial. Apple will give them everything they need.

One of my boys is like that. (Not the middle boy) He got an Apple in college, and through many technical jobs and graduate schools has used only Apple equipment though he will use other software as well like at GA Tech, they had a contract and license to use any software that Microsoft made without additional cost. Still the equipment is always Apple. A few weeks ago I gave him a present that he was going to use to buy a new super duper Apple machine. It was given for that specific purpose for his birthday. I don't hate him. I don't hate that Apple machine. Do I heckle him a little about Apple, and 1 button mouses, etc. Yes. But no hate.

Let's keep hate out of the discussion. It brings something to the conversation that was never intended.

[Andy_T]

Originally Posted by wizwor

If the cost of a tablet drops to $200 then their profits are gone. iTunes is not profitable enough to support $1b in R&D plus $500 share price.

The price of tablets IS $ 200. You can choose from a lot of Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean tablets at that price point, all with their respective advantages/shortcomings. The Kindle Fire is possible the best "solid" pick here, IMO.

The price of iPads, however, has NOT dropped to $ 200, and I don't see it going there anytime soon.

Best regards,
Andy

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Which is exactly what I'm saying: Apple makes lots of money off the hardware because their volumes and prices are high, so their costs are low. And then they add content revenue to sweeten the pot.

Nobody else has the volume to match their hardware play.
All the reports to date are that everybody but Amazon has seen disappointing sales and has ended up running fire sales to clear inventory.

Which is why I say that Apple is in no danger of hurting at all.
Like their products or not they will do just fine, even without the reality distortion zone.

I see no reason to question their ability to survive.

Nobody is questioning their ability to survive, lol. We are questioning their ability to continue to dominate. They are at the point that Microsoft was about 1 year after the launch of Windows 95. And I see Apple slowly declining, to be surpassed by the next high roller in a few years. Without Jobs, Apple won't be able to keep up the pace. They have already started to slow down with product launch cycles and show a lack of new ideas.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Not sure what you are saying. According to this, most of Apple's profits come from hardware sales. If hardware sells at cost or less, where does the money come from?

Apple won't play in that market, they never have.

[stonetools]

.Personally, I think Apple was buried last year.

Heh, that's got to win the " Insane Quote of the Year" prize. I'm calling it right now , even though we've got most of the year left. We would all like to be "buried" the way Apple was last year.
Or maybe the poster meant " buried in money?"

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Personally, I think Apple was buried last year.

Apple is so large and successful that analysts are excluding it from their research because it is obscuring what is happening to the rest of the market.

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/02/t...et-about-apple

The news comes in a report from The Wall Street Journal, which notes:

Earlier this month, Jonathan Golub, the chief U.S. equity strategy at UBS AG, caused a stir among his clients by publishing two versions of his regular quarterly earnings update: one for the companies that make up the S&P 500, and another for what he calls “S&P 500 ex-Apple.”
Similar moves have also been made by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and Wells Fargo recently.

The report continues:

The results are striking: For all the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, earnings are on track to post a 6.6% year-on-year rise in the fourth quarter. Once Apple’s earnings are factored out, the expected fourth-quarter gain shrivels to just 2.8%, according to UBS.

Buried in dollar, dollar bills, y'all.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Heh, that's got to win the " Insane Quote of the Year" prize. I'm calling it right now , even though we've got most of the year left. We would all like to be "buried" the way Apple was last year.
Or maybe the poster meant " buried in money?"

"Buried under their $20bn profit", presumably .

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I tend to agree -- with Steve Jobs gone and Samsung gearing up, Apple's best days are behind them. New products are just incremental upgrades of old ones. No new designs or ideas.

We don't know there's no new designs or ideas been worked on. We won't know until Apple decide to release that information, they're notorious for their secrecy (for good or bad).

For a while Apple was just a Mac company, then they released the iPod, itterated and it took off. They did the same with the iPhone and are doing the same with the iPad. They may not have been first to market with any of those products and their first attempts were often lack-luster, but they have managed to gain incredible traction with later revisions.

There's no reason to expect that trend not to continue with other product lines (AppleTV is one they're pushing at the moment and you have the rumours about an actual Apple TV too).

Also, slowly buyers come of age and "it just works" may not be good enough for those who grew up with technology. They are not fazed by little issues they can easily work around if a product offers more flexibility. If you watch closely, Apple's list of new features usually are just things that others had as much as a year earlier.

There's always going to be a split between those who want to be in control of what their gadgets do and those who would rather it be a little more limited but just work. I don't think that split is as easy as these people are techy and these are not though.

I've grown up with computers, I love messing around with tech, and most of my hardware purchases over the years reflect that. (GP2X for example) Yet when it comes to Macs I'm a recent convert to the just-works camp (with the exception of XCode which when they say just-works, they mean "only just" works

With so many things to "play" with (raspberry pi being the latest) some times you want certain products that are very low maintenance so that you can use them as needed rather than spend time tweaking. That leaves time for playing around with more interesting things (like the Pi

Macs have a nice balance between just working and yet being tweakable, more so I find than windows. Linux is the ultimate for tweaking, yet I always found myself spending more time than I wanted keeping it running. As for the iPad, it's not a device I want to tweak in the slightest, I turn it on, use it, turn it off. As long as there are makers out there with tablet products that are tweakable though, we can all be happy

My only fear is the Apple form of control over devices is taken onboard by too many companies and we eventually lose control over the bits of hardware we do want to play with.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Apparently the iPad 3 has image stabilization built in. I always think that people taking photos with an iPad look very silly .

They would be better off making a 7" tablet. It would still be silly, but it wouldn't look like they are supposed to be hit with a pie in the face.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Tripod.

iTripod?

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The first batch from the UK Apple store has already sold out, and you now can't order for a March 16th delivery.
Of course we don't know if that is because demand is very high, or supply was low.
The US store still has all models stocked for a March 16th delivery. The French and German stores are saying 19th March.

We will soon be swimming in articles stating that it has been a great success and articles stating that it has been a failure. The picture is a Rorschach and everybody can see what they want in it.

Originally Posted by Penforhire

The haters enjoy a peculiar blindness. For example, MacBook Airs are quite cost competitive for what you get. To really step beyond that combination of size, power, and features you end up with a high-end Sony that costs significantly more.

You might be interested in this:

The MacBook Air has most in common with the Asus Zenbook, and for a 25% higher price you get a product that weighs slightly more while being slightly smaller, lacks some useful ports and has a slightly worse battery. Being worse while costing more is what the people that you call haters see as the Apple trademark.

Originally Posted by wizwor

The lesson learned last summer is that no one will pay Apple prices for Samsung, Microsoft, RIM, Asus, Motorola, or any other product. The question for this summer is whether people will pay Apple prices for Apple products when Amazon and others are selling lesser products for lesser prices.

I'm assuming that by "no one" you mean "few".

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by wizwor

If the cost of a tablet drops to $200 then their profits are gone. iTunes is not profitable enough to support $1b in R&D plus $500 share price.

Uh, who said *Apple* was going to $200?
On the contrary, Apple's strategy of (highly hyped) annual incremental improvements is designed to maintain their high price point.

Amazon is the one peddling the low-cost pads using generic hardware to make money off content. (No big R&D costs, there.)

Let's not confuse the two strategies, okay?
Apple and Amazon can co-exist fine, but between the two they severely squeeze everybody in between.