“If there was ever a time for Apple CEO Tim Cook to throw investors a bone it’s now. Ahead of Apple’s quarterly earnings tomorrow, shares of the word’s most fawned over company have slid from an all-time high of $705 last September to about $391 as of Friday’s close,” Michael V. Copeland writes for Wired. “Apple stock is the lowest it’s been since the death of Steve Jobs in 2011.”
“You can argue whether Apple’s peak was ever rational, but what investors are looking for now is a sign that will help them decide if the Apple blood-letting has gone far enough, or if the stock has further to fall,” Copeland writes. “Here are five things investors will be keeping an eye on.”
1. Admitting there is a problem
2. Gross margin, rising or falling?
3. How about a dividend increase?
4. You’re sitting on $150 billion in cash, spend some of it
5. Give us the damn Apple TV, or something new
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We already have the Apple TV. It’s on it’s third generation and widely available. If someone’s so qualified to be Apple CEO, why are they wasting their time as Wall Street analysts or Wired hacks?
Yes, we have the AppleTV. BUT! We do not have it opened up to 3rd party app developers yet. Why! It is a hobby because Apple forces it to be a hobby!
Could we at least have a browser? Just a damn browser?
I was watching MotoGP this weekend via Apple TV, but had to use my iPhone as an intermediary. I have a video pass for the MotoGP site, and I can log-in and push the video to the ATV – it works great! But I shouldn’t have to use my phone to log in and stream it. Open it to developers, yes. But in the mean time, a browser would be nice.
Hello C1, welcome back!
Agreed. A browser that supports flash would be great. I’m no fan of flash but there are still a lot of live video and music streaming sites that use flash unfortunately. I have to use a Mac mini in my home theatre which is a bit of a pain to navigate with mouse and keyboard.
I was at MotoGP this weekend, absolutely fantastic weekend. Marquez was amazing.
It will never support Flash because Flash is dead. Sites will slowly phase it out as time marches on. But there’s still a lot more video to be had.
I’m a bit jealous you got to be there at the beautiful track to watch Marquez make history. I want to ride there badly.
No flash! Verboten!
Considering what a beautiful product the Roku 3 is and the size and resources of Roku’s company when compared to Apple, one should really wonder what the hell is Apple doing with AppleTV. Using PLEX on Roku, I’ve been able to tie in all of my devices through the Roku box. And although Roku’s ecosystem doesn’t come close to Apple’s, at least they’ve got a few games on the Roku. Sadly, no one has been able to figure out how to jailbreak ATV3, so no FireCore enhancement is likely in the near future.
I say Apple is just throwing a very capable revenue stream away. Apple could probably turn AppleTV into an Xbox rival if they just put some effort into it. However, if Apple does with AppleTV like it is doing with the Mac Pro, then just forget about it. Don’t expect progress at anything less than a glacial pace. Let Apple just keep sitting on that cash hoard while it slowly loses market share for all its products and don’t blame Tim Cook for anything.
Everything on Roku 2 was so slow, unintuitive, messy, and barely worked. Just getting a video on my computer or external hard drive to play on the Roku took an insanely long amount of time whenever it decided to work. Their apps were pitiful, their menus take too long to navigate. It was much faster use online videos on my game console – or even plug my mac to the TV each time – then to watch any video on the Roku. I only had a Roku 2 because someone I know didn’t want theirs – and after trying to make it useful for several months, I gave it away to someone else for same reason.
The issues with the Roku 2 were so broad and systematic I would be stunned if the Roku 3 was somehow not a piece of shit.
Apple have become the most successful company in the world by ignoring the current thinking. Why change now? Just because a bunch of greedy bastards are salivating at the chance of getting their dirty mitts on Apples cash? I don’t think so.
I agree completely. But since Cook has given the Mac software community a cold shoulder, completely ignored the enterprise market, and completely screwed up the supply chain and several attempted product introductions, I would like to see a more competent CEO. Tim has not earned his obscene pay.
Take Apple private!
Giving in to the greedy should not happen. In fact the stock market has really shown itself as having nothing to do with business anymore. The anal- ists seem to want to run the company when it’s not there job or none of there business to do so. Apple needs to keep on track. The stock market as a whole is a big joke. Apple makes most of the money and yet the companies stock is minus some $400 a share. But Google which has a lot of market share but makes squat in profits compared to Apple its stock is at $700 a share. Tim Cook is doing a great job, only the anal-ists are complaining because alls they can think about is the bank account that Apple has and they all want to have it instead. So the fake reports of Apple’s demise from them keeps coming with no facts to show for it. And they beat on the stock because they haven’t got there way with Apple’s bank account.
Agreed. Apple shouldn’t promote market-manipulative slander with a dividend increase. That’s a mouse wheel to walk out of entirely. Steve did good by not doing dividends. You give Wall Street an inch, and look how it rewards you.
Admitting what problem? That the anal-ists are stupid?
Gross margin, what about it.
How about a dividend increase? How about go fuck yourselves!
You just got dividends.
Your sitting on 150 Billion in cash. So what’s wrong with that.
New products are Apple’s business and they bring them out when there ready. This is not Microsoft!
If I were Tim Cook, I would forget giving Wall Street a bone. I would take a big rock, throw it at the side of their head and knock some sense into them.
This is the most asinine thing I have read in awhile. Admit there’s a problem???? Yeah, the problem is Apple is too successful by doing things they don’t teach at business school, it really grinds all those Harvard business school nerds to think someone outside the fraternity did it better. Dividend increase??? It’s Apple’s money, not yours (although it must really get to you that they have so MUCH of it, and they don’t even worship it like Wall Street). Apple made the money, they get to decide how they want to use it. Ok, Apple TV, I will give them this one, I hope Apple does release a serious upgrade to the Apple TV platform, which is already pretty freaking cool.
Apple should just go private and not induce a single investor to get into the company if no returns are forthcoming. There’s really no point in being a profitable company while staying a publicly-traded entity if investors get no returns.
The hockey puck ATV is a step down from the original. The real Apple TV would be a Mac mini with a revived Front Row- dropped by Apple to drive people to the hockey puck.
A good start would be releasing the Mac Pro and it had better not suck.
+1
Apple users can’t wait forever for product updates. Sad thing is, Apple has been coasting ever since Cook took the reins. Product updates have been nonexistent or worse, the new product removed useful features. Cook is not managing the company to be the underdog overachiever it used to be — he has turned Apple into a slow, plodding corporation that hoards cash instead of wowing its user base.
I know I write this after the call and Tim
Kinds admitted.
But admitting there is a problem? With what? The stock price but there is nothing else wrong with Apple. They just renewed their ENTIRE product lineup!!! What more can one ask? Analyats and investors…. Don’t fuken sell the stock and it WON’T GO DOWN!