“Quarter after quarter, Apple Inc. reports record sales. More iPhones are being sold than ever before, and Mac sales are rising while most PC makers are confronting lower sales,” Gene Steinberg writes for The tech Night Owl. “The PC industry may be on its last legs, but Apple has managed to carve out a growing share of the market segment that matters. That’s the higher profit segment. They are leaving the low-end, where profits are difficult to achieve, to the bottom feeders.”
“Now it’s true there are trouble spots for Apple, such as lagging iPad sales. While Apple CEO Tim Cook puts a positive spin on the situation, it’s fair to wonder whether it’s just a spin, and what Apple hopes to accomplish,” Steinberg writes. “Obviously improving iPad multitasking in iOS 9 will make the device more useful for productivity, and that, along with the IBM deal, may indeed improve sales. And don’t forget the delayed upgrade cycle. Maybe this year will be the charm.”
MacDailyNews Take: This year, and into the next, will be the charm for iPad.
“Apple is doing so much more these days, and getting far more attention, that any possible slip up, even if it’s nothing unusual, gets extra coverage,” Steinberg writes. “But what about the first release of Windows 10, which is reportedly in fairly shaky condition? The excuse is that Microsoft promised rolling updates, so things would get fixed. But is that an excuse for a release that wasn’t ready for anyone beyond power users and early adopters? There was also the initial rollout, such as it was, for Android 5 Lollipop, which was quickly replaced with a working update to fix some serious bugs. And I haven’t even gotten to the well-known and very serious security lapses with Android that, for the most part, will never be fixed on most handsets running Google’s OS. The most recent problems have gotten some publicity, but tech coverage is still heavily dominated by the latest scuttlebutt about Apple. As usual.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Because Apple is the tech industry. Without Apple, there would be no Microsoft. There would be no Android as we know it today(it’d instead be the BlackBerry knockoff it was originally designed to be). For the most part, also-rans like Microsoft and Google get a pass in the press. It’s the frontrunner who gets spotlighted for good and bad.
Sometimes, as with recent record results, even when it’s very good, it’s made to seem bad.
The facts: Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in the third quarter, up 35 percent year-over-year. But analysts had expected around 49 million units. Analysts also expected growth of more than the mere 35% that Apple posted (in the June quarter, no less) and wanted guidance of more than $51.13 billion – $51.13 BILLION! – in the 90-some-odd-day quarter prior to holiday shopping season in which Apple’s all-time record for the September quarter, so far, stands at $42.1 billion, but Apple only gave guidance with a top end of $51 billion, not $51.13 billion for which some analysts had hoped.