Last week, Apple “had to do something they almost never do. They had to revise their earnings guidance. Downward,” M.G. Siegler writes for 500ish Words. “The stock was halted. Yikes… The company is now the 4th most valuable corporation in the world. That sounds like a great thing until you remember that until recently, it was the most valuable company in the world — and for much of the past several years, this was the case by far.”
“Tim Cook’s letter to shareholders on the matter is fascinating. On one hand, he makes a very simple case: chalk it up to China,” Siegler writes. “On the other hand, all of that could have been explained in one or two paragraphs. Cook’s letter is nearly 1,500 words long.”
In one part of his missive, “Cook is basically making a case for the end of buying phones at full price each year and instead, a world in which you pay Apple in perpetuity to constantly get the new iPhone. This is — wait for it — a service! The name is even right there for the taking: iPaaS — iPhone as a Service,” Siegler writes. “And it’s a service Apple already has, in the form of the iPhone Upgrade Program! Unfortunately, it’s not a great service right now — I’m a member — as it’s largely outsourced to a third-party, Citizens Bank. Cook is suggesting that Apple is going to put a lot more emphasis here. Which makes a lot of sense, both to help continue to obfuscate the true price of the iPhone, but also to keep that all-important base of users locked in. It’s also Apple’s most interesting inroad to an ‘Apple Prime’ offering. That is, an all-encompassing suite of services you pay Apple for — just like Amazon Prime, with all that offers from an Amazon-perspective.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, as “precarious” as you can get when you’ve just brought in close to US$1 billion per day for the last 90 some odd days in a row. Oh, yeah, and with $237.1 billion in cash on hand as of November; more than that now.
Filed under “oh-so-precarious.”
Quotes with which we’re sure Cook & Co. are quite familiar:
Change before you have to. — Jack Welch
I think money is a wonderful thing because it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don’t have a short-term payback. — Steve Jobs
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Once again: We’d really like to see a way to pay for all of the Apple services we choose for one price. Give us a bunch of tick boxes and let us choose our combination of iCloud storage, Apple Music, iTunes Match, etc. and let us pay a single price for all of our choices. — MacDailyNews, October 17, 2016
For more about the idea of “Apple Prime,” please read: “Apple ‘Prime'” by Kevin Williams from Practical Tech February 26, 2016.
SEE ALSO:
Apple plans to launch TV streaming service first in the U.S., then swiftly expand globally with free original content – October 23, 2018
Apple plans to give away original content for free to device owners as part of new digital TV strategy – October 10, 2018
We might be inching closer to ‘Apple Prime’ – June 28, 2018
Apple reportedly considering subscription bundle of Apple Music, News and original video content – June 28, 2018
Apple is building a media platform like we’ve never seen before – June 27, 2018
Since the passing of Steve Jobs in 2011 and his pipeline now run dry, the reality is a no brainer. Apple needs an infusion of creative CEO blood and assessment of the rest of the senior management team. Other than the iPhone, iPad and iWatch Apple is sorely stuck on BEHIND…
If you go to Apple’s website and book out any iphone (7,8, etc), with max storage and Apple car loss/theft, you’ll spend a minimum amount of $1000; and with the new phones they cap out at $1500 and $1800 repectively. In light of the competition that exists in 2019, that is utterly LUDICROUS.
Tim Cook’s greed is exasperating. The difference between Cook and Jobs: Jobs’ engaging personality sucked the air out of the room… Cook’s stifling greed manages to do the exact same thing.
Your comment written by a no brainer. For gosh sake the iPhone is a full blown mobile computer, SLR camera and more in a hand held device with the best OS and apps anywhere to be found.
All you want is something for nothing, Apple is not a low end, race to the bottom company. I agree restructuring and c-suite changes are in ordet, but I won’t discount Apple’s long term performance.
The phone is definitely no SLR and as a computer it sucks….Apologist. IOS sucks compared to macOS or Windows. Seriously……
I exempted the iPhone, iPad and iWatch because they are the best in the world. Thought that was obvious and goes without saying, apparently not.
“All you want is something for nothing, Apple is not a low end, race to the bottom company.”
What I want is a Mac Pro that blows every PC ever made out of the water at a competitive price. Can handle a slight increase in cost (Apple Tax). But will no longer tolerate Apple for a nanosecond selling pro computers at TWICE the cost and HALF the performance. I put up with this clueless crap for decades, NO MORE.
What I want is new Apple leadership starting with the bean counter SJW CEO that does not have a creative bone in his body. Apple needs an infusion of creative blood and new ideas, great products ALL AROUND and not landing in second and third place in groundbreaking products they themselves introduced first (Airport, Siri, Apple TV).
What I want is Apple to slow down the greed train and stop charging exorbitant prices for minor improvements to cameras and chips the average customer could not care less about. All iPhones are ridiculously overpriced along with SSD memory and the dongle tax. Mom knows best.
Finally, what I want is Apple to return to former magical glory in the next best thing. We have seen enough of arrogant, tone deaf and lazy executives sitting back and riding the stock options gravy train.
Comeuppance is COMING…
GoeB is SlowB on the uptake again
Tim Cook is the worst.. he needs to GO!