Research archive for AAPL

Sometimes it is what other people do that impacts on your business, a copy of some sorts. Apple is a great finisher of products, not in the raw style of Lance Klusener, rather more like the pure clean hitting of David Miller. That six over the Golf Course end stand on Sunday was the biggest that I have ever seen, it is a pity that we lost that match. Anyhow cricket aside, another chance pending today, Apple Inc. yesterday according to iPhonehacks earned a patent for a GoPro-like camera. GoPro stock sank 12 percent. The stock is down over 40 percent in the northern hemisphere winter, since the beginning of October. With a market cap of just 7.24 billion Dollars, relative to the Apple cash pile 20 times that size, Apple obviously want their users to have the ability to use a similar product. Time will tell, sometimes you have to watch what others do, and not what you do.

Apple, one of the most followed and written about companies that I know. If not the company that is written about the most, I get more Google alerts about Apple than any other company. I saw that someone had noticed that the App store revenue of Apple in 2014 was now worth more than their entire revenue from 2005. From this release App Store Rings in 2015 with New Records. There is a little more below, read that part about job creation and how it all has formed another set of jobs. I think that as investors you must pay attention on two fronts, one, discounting the ability of an innovative company like Apple or Facebook to change the way that we do business (personal business too) and secondly how mainstream jobs now become the jobs of yesterday whilst new jobs are created as a result of innovation.

I read the FT article: Apple plans to push Beats to every iPhone and came away a little puzzled. Notwithstanding the fact that the company spent a huge amount on acquiring the service, it is now going to be paid for by their customers by everyone with an iOS operating system (new) which will be pre installed. This is actually a good example of extending the ecosystem to existing customers to counteract falling iTunes sales, offer your customers something they want, a music streaming service. Taylor Swift has been sceptical, she is one of the best selling artists globally, at least this year. She reckons she is worth more, you could argue without streaming platforms like Spotify (Swift has pulled her work from that platform), she would not have as wide an audience. We will see how Apple customers respond to the streaming music services, it is a very grey area. For us as investors, this represents a shift to more annuity based income, for Apple that is.

Apple. Juicy fruit, not my personal favourite, bananas and berries as well as citrus trump apples for me. As a business, Apple Inc. stands head and shoulders above all the other berry products, at least as far as the consumer is concerned. In South Africa, and this is a recent statistic, Paul showed us stats that suggested that only 2 percent of smartphone users in Mzansi own Apple iPhones. I guess cost has a lot to do with it, the iPhone is certainly NOT a cheap product at all.

You can file this away for the weekend, for further reading, Carl Icahn and his two business partners have written a long and extended open letter in his capacity as a shareholder to Tim Cook and the Apple board: Sale: Apple Shares at Half Price. His price target for Apple is 203.23 Dollars. Oh. That means, in his mind, that the stock is dirt cheap and the board must definitely push for a stronger buyback program.

Man. You have to wonder nowadays. We (we being humans and consumers) jump to conclusions all of the time. Byron spoke of the Apple "Bendgate" saga on Friday, the whole idea that the bigger iPhone was bending, the perception was that this was happening to thousands of users. Apple responded Friday to say that with normal use, the new model should not bend. I often laugh when people have tweets that their phone screen smashed when they dropped it from waist high. Newsflash, drop any device, electronic or even kitchenware and it will break. Don't drop it, ok? A crowd called Consumer Reports put together a piece on a few phones on the market (comparable) and tested them, a link that I found via one of my favourite aggregators, the BusinessInsider.

When you are on top, everyone wants to bring you down as the saying goes. Well in the case of Apple when you have set the standards so high, people are very critical of your product. If you are prominent on social media you would have seen 2 big criticisms of Apple. So much so that the stock was down nearly 4% yesterday.

The numbers hit the screens, Apple sold over ten million iPhones over the weekend. That excluded China, which represents just shy of one sixth of all sales, the reason being that Apple are awaiting a second licence to give them the go ahead. It has to do with networks and access, China is more open to the outside world than ever before, of course not all freedoms are permitted. Paul just visited both Hong Kong and Beijing, his feelings having spoken to some english speakers is that life is definitely improving. Obviously the poor air quality is a serious issue. When the company, Apple, can sell phones in China, I am sure that the sales numbers will be a lot higher.

Sir Jony Ive is a genius. He really is. Well, his team is too, you cannot give credit to one person, although Ives, a close friend of Steve Jobs always seemed to have got the credit for the beautiful phones that Apple designed. Ive is apparently a fellow that keeps a low profile and enjoys family time. The new products unveiled last evening were all pretty much as anticipated, the two new phone models, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus were both with bigger screens when compared to the previous generation iPhone, the last being the 5S. Thinner, quicker, better display than before, you would naturally expect all those things. Check out the landing page for the new product from the website: Bigger than bigger. The bigger model naturally has a better battery life.

Apple results for their third quarter hit the screens last evening, post the market close. The Investor relations page has been spruced up since I last visited it, certainly looks better. In the traditional clean and crisp Apple way. How do they do it? The beautiful look, they are so very good at it.

IBM and Apple are joining forces to get more Apple products into the business world, by developing simple business apps for iOS. IBM will offer purpose built apps and support technicians, which will reach IBMs vast customer base.

When it comes to investing patience is an absolute virtue. So is sticking to your guns if you believe in something. Of course if something fundamental changes then you need to reevaluate your position. Sometimes nothing fundamental changes but the share price doesn't go your way. That is when your patience really gets tested and you start questioning whether your convictions are correct. On other occasions there are short term changes or lets rather call them challenges which do have an impact on a shares performance but not enough to switch out of the stock.

Do not freak out when you see the Apple share price down 85 percent today, until of course everyone figures out that the company today does their 7 for 1 split. Why seven for one, I am not exactly sure. In the original announcement, in April this year, no reason was given: Board of Directors also Approves Seven-for-One Stock Split. The only people who really care whether or not your share price is "high" or "low" relative to one another are the folks who manufacture the index. If you read the DJ indices website Overview section, I notice something strange about the inclusion mechanism. The 30 stocks now in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are all major factors in their industries, and their stocks are widely held by individuals and institutional investors.

Yosemite. Some of you may associate the name with a national park in California, it is of course natural beauty, but Apple inc. and Tim Cook unveiled the newest Apple operating system, also known as iOS to the Apple fans and in the know alike. Last evening local time the Apple CEO was introducing the newest operating system, here is the official release: Apple Announces OS X Yosemite. I think the coolest feature that stands out for me is the ability to make calls directly from your Mac. In an office environment it would require headphones, but the noise levels would be no different from taking a traditional call, or dinosaur call. Sending emails and texts has become a perfectly acceptable way of communicating, my mother in law still thinks that calling is the best way, as do my parents, we will switch them in the end!

Ok, it finally happened, Dr Dre's Beats were bought by Apple for 3 billion Dollars, 2.6 billion now and the other 400 million dollars that will vest to the shareholders over time. And in the deal, the two founding members, Dr Dre himself, and Jimmy Iovine will work for Apple. So how much is 3 billion Dollars? Well, if you are Lesotho, it is more than your total annual economic output. Genuine. But if you are Apple, it is three weeks worth of cash flows. And to also put 3 billion Dollars into perspective, Apple in their last quarter managed to increase cash and cash equivalents by 4.690 billion Dollars. So even if this is the largest acquisition that the company has ever done (yes, ever), they have more than enough cash to add to peripheral businesses that will add further value down the line.