“Apple was recently crowned the most valuable public company in history. But in order to keep that title, its next iPhone, expected to go on sale next month, will have to be a huge hit,” Rachelle Dragani reports for MacNewsWorld.
“That could very come to pass. A report from FBR Market’s Craig Berger predicted the upcoming phone could sell as many as 250 million units over its lifecycle.,” Dragani reports. “Other rumors hold that Apple will also debut a so-called iPad mini next month — a 7-inch tablet that would be similar in display and ability to the iPad but would be more the size of Amazon’s Kindle Fire or Google’s Nexus 7. Apple may announce the mini tablet along with the iPhone upgrade, but the product is not expected to hit shelves until closer to the holidays.”
Dragani reports, “Optimism over Apple’s upcoming products and its potential in China were two of the main factors contributing to the company’s recent ascent on the stock market. Apple became the largest U.S. company ever this week, bypassing Microsoft’s record market capitalization of US$616.34 billion in 1999.”
The Cupertino company had already topped Exxon Mobil to have the largest market value of any publicly traded company, but Apple’s latest milestone is a reminder of what put it on top, said Trip Chowdhry, senior analyst for Global Equities Research… That emphasis on innovation came as a result of Steve Jobs’ leadership and vision, said Chowdhry. Although that type of thinking is still a key tenet of business at Apple, the current leadership also needs to pay attention to another of his principles, he explained: the need to put users and innovation ahead of shareholders. While becoming the country’s largest company is a significant accomplishment, making market milestones a priority needs to be avoided, lest another company overtake Apple the same way it surpassed Microsoft, he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
Now is the time to see if Apple is run by an old dude out of touch with the times or a hard charging revolutionary willing to take risks to bring out new products that are not small incremental iterations of the past.
Or if Jobs was really involved in the iPhone 5 design as we were told
I agree, our new leadership has not given me massive confidence. It’s in the details.
It is! That GS3 looks very attractive.
A smaller iPad is innovative???
Well BLN thinks a larger phone is….
In reality apple has only had a few “revolutionary” innovations in hardware since jobs returned (the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad (and some would argue that the iPad was just a big iPhone )
Innovations like the iPod or iPhone don’t come around ever year, or even every couple. A couple time a decade is all we can reasonably expect (by using the jobs led apple as an example)
All these people saying that Apple better pull a rabbit out of their hat are simply ignoring the truth and history of apple’s innovation cycle.
With the industrial design group still led by Ive (and with sweeping powers granted to it by jobs) I have no doubt the the groundbreaking innovation will continue at it’s historic pace (but that ‘aint every year, or even every couple.)
Pissing away money on R&D, dividends, suing rivals and paying ridiculous bonuses to upper management and key department heads. Building high cost retail stores all over the world.
Don’t these guys know that 100 plus billion dollars don’t buy what it used to?
Apple has to innovate what the media has rumored. Sure!
+2 So totally there… I say, just give Apple a break and let it be Apple. New things in their time… Not your time.
And for the 100 billionth time…. NO Anti-gravity and NO teleportation…
🙂 Just a thought.
Another gibbering jackanape.
You know who has to put or shut up? The competition. Apple has been embarrassing the tech industry for ten years. Where are the demands that Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nokia, RIM et al live up to their promises? To deliver on their potential? Apple’s stock price doesn’t have to go up by another dollar and Apple will still be the biggest turnaround story of the century.
I have to wonder what it is exactly that Apple has to “shut up” about. What have they been saying. Could it be that they have been saying the same thing they always have?…exactly “nothing.”
Hopefully Steve Jobs left detailed notes for The Caretaker CEO.
But, what happens next year, where even Steve couldn’t see far enough ahead to help guide them in any detailed fashion?
“While becoming the country’s largest company is a significant accomplishment, making market milestones a priority needs to be avoided…”
And no provided evidence that Apple is in any way changing it’s priorities. Sheesh. It wasn’t a priority back when Steve “invested through the downturn” — it wasn’t a priority when beginning work on the iPhone or the iPad.
What a ridiculous concern.
The good news is that this jerk will get to revisit his advice in the future and assert, “See, just as I recommended, they didn’t make market metrics a priority!”
True, the pressure is on. But historically, the press and fans are underwhelmed with whatever Steve used to present. It would take about 6 months for everyone to catch on and see the mega hit.
So be prepared for all the buhhs and ahhhs and ohhhs.
I for one want t see some significant upgrade of the iOS file system so I can get some real work done on my iPad and not just browse and watch movies.
The file system is fscking dead. It has no place on mobile. It’s a relic. Time to move on.
The file system HAS been upgraded on iOS–it’s called Documents to Go using iCloud. Try it out!
The “tech press” is forecasting $199-249 for an ~8″ Mini iPad! Come on guys, you can barely get an iPod for $200 you think Apple can produce something 4 times the size with 4 times the battery & screen and maintain the same quality for about the same money as an iPod????
They (tech writers) are stupid, but no one can be that stupid and remember to breathe.
While yes, they likely -could- make a plastic piece of crap like the goooogle or samesung tablets. But, wouldn’t that extinguish the greatest thing about apple products, the quality, the build, the attention to detail?
-I don’t want a chevy camaro with BMW badges on it, I want a BMW (an M3 would be nice ;-)).
(ie the google tablet would still be a cheap piece of crap, even if it had an apple logo on it)
As SJ might say…
September cometh… time to get rid of the Sales Guy!
Always utterly hilarious when one of these fools says ” Apple has to do X or shut up!”
Shut up?! Apple NEVER SAYS A WORD ABOUT ANY OF THIS STUFF. EVER.
It’s simply the blog-o-pundit-sphere frantically pleasuring themselves and somehow attributing all the noise to Apple.
Wow.
TOTAL agreement. Rachelle Dragani, who reports for MacNewsWorld, is just making it clear she can be as BIG A BLOWHARD as the boys. She has been successful. 😛
Hits generate ad dollars. They get paid to provide hit generating articles. As “journalists” they are flotsam.
The only way to stop them is by refusing to read their crap.
Unfortunately there are several Mac centric sites, such as MDN, that make their living linking to this crap (MDN needs content too). So ultimately the solution is to stop reading MDN.
But then where would those that couldn’t manage a lemonade stand, make judgements about the decisions Apple management makes.
I come here because every now and then MDN locates an article that has some meat to it, and because I make my living trading AAPL stock options, wading through the tripe regurgitated by MDN can be profitable, even if terribly annoying.
it isn’t going to be a 7 inch tablet, it will be a lot closer to 8 inches. in fact, i think, proportionately, it will be closer to 8 inches than the present one is to 10 inches.
With all that is happening with Apple in recent news I am
Very worried if Apple.
I very much doubt Tim Cook a $$$ wrangler can make bold prediction and gauge the future.
Scott forestall too push for
More cloud is dismal.
Like Wozniak , push to cloud is a bad idea ..
English speaking people are getting so lazy with their own language:
“Put up or shut up” means to either improve a bad situation or stop complaining about it. How on earth does that apply to Apple?
Plus, how did the glaring “That could very come to pass” make it by the proofers?
Also, may I remind the hand-wringers that Jobs presided over the development and launch of the Cube – which turned out to be a massive failure. If that event happened today you’d be proclaiming the end of Apple.
Apple’s modus operandi has always been to innovate then update. What were the slightly better speakers and new colors on the 2nd gen. iMac if not slight improvements on the original’s innovation?
Apple doesn’t have to “put up or shut up.”. It never says anything about upcoming products until they’re ready for release, unlike the rest of the industry. I do agree, though, that Apple’s focus needs to remain on the product and delighting the customer, and letting the profits roll in as they may. Apple has never been about meeting the next quarterly financials, as Steve couldn’t care less in that regard. However, the current leadership, although developed in that culture, doesn’t have Steve’s cachet with the shareholders, and will probably have an ongoing struggle keeping the bean counters at bay. I was dismayed at the recent stores staffing snafu with the newly hired VP Retail chief, who appears to be focused on “a few additional percent profit” vice improving the customer experience in stores. If that mindset takes hold among the board and shareholders, Apple will truly see a return to their disastrous run in the 90s, when they turned to the routine business mindset of repackaging current technology in different configurations to squeeze out additional profits with little serious R&D effort or expense. I await Tim’s response to Browett’s fiasco last week. That may provide a clue to the future.
I’m always fascinated by the fact that the higher Apple goes in any manner, the darker the criticism, predictions and advice become about it’s future. It becomes the world’s most valuable company – and already there are predictions that it’s headed for doomsday.