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| Remember My Prediction On Amazon and Apple? in forum [Market-Ticker]
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Otiswild
Posts: 5627
Incept: 2009-03-09
Inside you, the force is!
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So, Apple's next iPad has a 2048x1536 Retina display at full-freight, and the previous gen goes down to $399 or less.
Kinda like how the iPhone 3GS is 'free' or less than $100 (if you sign up for 2-year contract) now.
Apple won't cut its margin unless it HAS to, but given the platform's vertical integration, they've got plenty of room. They're selling their product for what the market will bear, and tossing more cash onto the pile.
But hey, more competition in the space _should_ keep Apple honest, so I'm all for it.
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Flaps10
Posts: 5175
Incept: 2008-10-17
seattle
Online
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What do you suppose it costs to manufacture the iPad in a Chinese slave labor sweat shop? Where I come from the basic horse math says cost to produce should be 25% of retail. Apple is corn holing on both ends. Plenty of margin there.
I'm tired of feeling like I'm leasing a device from brother apple. After checking out the android phone i bought my kid the other day I'm typing this message on the last apple product I plan to own.
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"Better to die on your feet than live on your knees"
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Otiswild
Posts: 5627
Incept: 2009-03-09
Inside you, the force is!
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Link to tablet or smartphone that isn't produced by (or whose components aren't sourced from) sweatshop labor, please.
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Bozonian
Posts: 19892
Incept: 2007-09-01
Saratoga Springs, New York
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You can get notebooks for under $300. They have more power than any tablet.
Tablets are just the latest trend, certainly not worth the power/cost.
That said, Mrs. Boz bought me a Kindle Fire for $199 so come November 15th I'll be able to tell you how that goes. I mentioned that any portable device I own must be capable of fitting in a pocket. Though it does get crowded down there, there's enough room for 7 more inches.
My EVO (HTC superphone) is the best piece of technology I've ever owned. If I had to make a choice between that and Mrs. Boz, it would hard. It does have a power issue though, only enough staying power to last 3 hours on a charge. Something Mrs. Boz does not suffer from.
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Forget about blaming, fighting with, or crediting other people. The only real challenge in life, is with yourself. -- Me
Everything I write is my opinion and not to be considered proven fact. Nothing I write should be considered financial advice.
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Visualcsharp
Posts: 343
Incept: 2009-12-19
Round Rock, TX
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Bozonian wrote..Though it does get crowded down there, there's enough room for 7 more inches. I'm sorry, but that was just too funny. LOL! On topic, I'm glad I waited to pick up the newer version of the iPad (I have the original). Hopefully Apple will be forced to drop their prices three-digits to compete, but man, I dunno, there are a lot of iFanbois out there. |
Plaman
Posts: 56
Incept: 2010-02-23
NE Ohio
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Competition and the technology industry's natural deflationary trends will lead to lower prices. Just as with any new product or market we see the "first mover price taker advantage" slowly become the standard space.
Apple isn't even close to done, until Google or the like posses the retail threat we see from Apple I doubt consumers will feel nearly as comfortable with competing products. Being able to waltz into the store and get a product repaired under warranty in days, even if I pay for it upfront in the cost of products the convenience and peace of mind has its own value.
I'm sticking to my guns here Karl! What will it take for you to admit victory or defeat on this topic anyways? I'm not sure to what extent you expect these companies to suffer.
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Morla
Posts: 817
Incept: 2009-11-09
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Asmiov if you're around, do you have citation for modern paper being as bad as you say? At what point did that happen? I have some books from the 20s that do tear rather easily but are still entirely readable with that risk of causing minor cosmetic damage.
Never owned an Apple product, most of my grumbling has been directed at electronic "book readers" and tablets. No real hatred for smartphones, other than that the battery life is often so low I'd still want to keep a regular cell in the car for emergencies. So really they could take the phone part out of it for all I care.. At which point I'm holding what amounts to a Game Boy with a different software library. Kinda makes me wonder why Nintendo doesn't start putting out ripoffs of the popular smartphone apps, try and steal some market share. Their new handheld has glasses-free 3D, perfect weaponry for a gimmickry war IMO.
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Fear of govt IS the government.. Statism is a pack of unbacked threats; If govt gets out of control, ignore it and go about life as you see fit. Where's your crown, King Nothing?
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Niti
Posts: 522
Incept: 2008-03-20
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Boz, got the same phone. You need a new battery, then mrs. Boz will need to work harder.
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Bsfootprint
Posts: 967
Incept: 2011-02-27
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I own exactly one Apple product: An iPod touch, purchased for the sole purpose of web site compatibility testing (sure, you can get an iPhone emulator free in the SDK if you have a Mac, which I don't and won't.)
The iPad was seductive, and as with most Apple stuff, it's brilliantly executed, but I just can't bring myself to add cash to Apple's pile. And yes, $500 is too damn much for that toy.
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When I hear central bankers are blowing bubbles, I like to picture a large, happy and well-endowed male chimp named 'Bubbles'...
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Abn0rmal
Posts: 9261
Incept: 2009-01-10
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I'm waiting for the iRack to come out before I buy any Apple products.
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Djloche
Posts: 3280
Incept: 2008-07-07
In the Mountains
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Apple's target market is the wealthy, because they have the money in the bank and credit to pay the high prices that fuel profits.
Apple is a luxury good company, not a consumer electronics company, and while everyone pretended from 1999 through 2007 that everyone could have a 3000 sqft house with stone countertops and swimming pools and three cars and a boat - that everyone could be "rich" - apple's profits expanded greatly - I think their % will remain the same, but decrease in nominal figures as the "rich" realize they are no so rich afterall, and are FORCED to cut back. Apple will remain to take the money from those at the top of the pyramid, it's just a smaller number of potential customers.
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"If we wish to be free, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?"
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Otiswild
Posts: 5627
Incept: 2009-03-09
Inside you, the force is!
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Quote:Apple will remain to take the money from those at the top of the pyramid, it's just a smaller number of potential customers. Yes, but they have _all_ the money. So, not a bad line of business to be in, if you can do it. Incidentally, there has yet to be released a PC that can compete with the Macbook Air on spec, size/weight _and_ price, and Intel really wants there to be some. Also, $99 iPhone 3GSes (with 2yr contract, admittedly). http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/.... |
Plaman
Posts: 56
Incept: 2010-02-23
NE Ohio
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Looking at the Macbook "Pro" lineup, I think they can segment down to the lower end consumers while still appealing to the wealthy masses.
The 13-inch MBP is far from a "Pro" class machine by hardware but they still manage to cover the lower end consumer with good segmentation. The next step up to the 15-inch machine is a nice 600 dollar bump in price. They can and will continue to segment like no other.
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Jb3171
Posts: 553
Incept: 2008-02-17
San Diego
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"I'm sticking to my guns here Karl! What will it take for you to admit victory or defeat on this topic anyways? I'm not sure to what extent you expect these companies to suffer."
No one will have to say anything. AMZN 500, AAPL 1000, GOOG 3000
You will hear phrases like Gold to Google ratio. Probably like 6-10 ounces to buy one share of Google.
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Corn1945
Posts: 4167
Incept: 2009-04-30
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Here's my take on this:
1) 99% of investors have no idea what they are buying, especially technology.
2) 99% of "investors" have little to no understand of the tech industry, especially it's history
How many people have even heard of Digital Equipment Corporation? This was once the #2 computer company in the world behind IBM. Now, nobody has even heard of them. I'm sure people were saying the same thing about DEC that they say about Apple now.
"They'll be around forever." Yeah, it's different this time and you will most likely ride the stock to the bottom because you don't get any of what I just said.
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Rentier
Posts: 195
Incept: 2010-06-19
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I really don't see the fascination with tablets. Wife has an ipad 2 that work gave her and one short coming I see is it's viewed as a "mobile device". What I mean is I have a ASUS 1215n netbook and I can go wifi and view all the videos I want on say Youtube, you can't do that on my wife's ipad 2. For example, most original music videos on Youtube will not play on the ipad 2. Must be a "mobile device" licensing issue or something, it's the same for trying to watch the same videos on your iphone. But, I can watch all of them on netbook.
Just like Karl said too, my netbook will kick the crap out any tablet. Has 12.1" screen, will stream 1080p video out it's HDMI port to a HDTV in 1080p and I can play blu-rays (can burn them too) with the 2 USB port powered external blu-ray player I bought for it. Has 250GB HD, 2GB memory (can go to 4GB), dual core processor, 5hr+ battery life... etc. Is it heavier then the ipad 2 and slightly thicker, yep. I workout though so a few petty ounces doesn't even register with me. Best part only cost me $380(this was almost a year ago).
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Uwe
Posts: 6458
Incept: 2009-01-03
19446
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Quote:How many people have even heard of Digital Equipment Corporation? Us old farts have. One company I worked at in the early 1980's had a PDP-11 running Unix as a multi-user system for doing embedded systems development in the early 80's. It had an 8" hard drive and it was painfully slow, especially if more than one person was using it. I basically refused to use that POS; I was able to get more done on a 64K Z80 running CP/M.  -Uwe-
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“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” - John Locke
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Bsfootprint
Posts: 967
Incept: 2011-02-27
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@Rentier: Apple won't allow Adobe Flash on the iPod/iPad/iPhones (iOS devices). It's a turf war (despite any reasonable-sounding rationalizations from Apple.) http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-200076....Another reason Android's gonna eat into Apple's pie. Oh, and one of my favorite little ditties: iPad: The Disneyland of Computers: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felte.... -- Now, Disneyland is fun and all, but I can't see everyone actually living there.
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When I hear central bankers are blowing bubbles, I like to picture a large, happy and well-endowed male chimp named 'Bubbles'...
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Jotapay
Posts: 16734
Incept: 2008-08-26
Austin, Tx
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I work directly with departments who buy raw materials and also have lunch with my CEO or a VP every few months. We provide parts to these manufacturers discussed above.
I have tried to find out from them over the past year how much margin compression is affecting our bottom line. I ask them, and they say that it definitely is, but I'm not sure we are defining things in the same way. And I just can't go into their office or team meeting and get specifics on real margin compression.
I do know that the street price of our product has decreased by about 80-90% since 2006. Not much has changed since 2010 though, except a tightening in supply.
We basically have gone medieval on costs since then and have been noticed worldwide. We have been benchmarked by every other location like ours in the world and had our systems and processes copied so they can replicate our cost cutting success.
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Peterm99
Posts: 4995
Incept: 2009-03-21
SoCal
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.Bsfootprint wrote... . . won't allow Adobe Flash . . . I doubt the "turf war" explanation. Everything I've heard leads me to believe it's for good reason. There seems to be a large segment of Mac users at some Apple related sites I read that have bad experiences with Adobe products. My personal experience over the past few years is that whenever I have any Adobe product installed on my Macs (PPC or Intel-based), they have turned into clunky, hang-up prone dogs. When I remove the Adobe products, the problems go away. Obviously, these don't prove anything conclusively, but my experiences and what I've read are enough for me to be "Adobe free" now and in the foreseeable future. Disclosure: I have never owned, nor do I currently intend to own any Apple iOS devices.
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". . . the Constitution has died, the economy welters in irreversible decline, we have perpetual war, all power lies in the hands of the executive, the police are supreme, and a surveillance beyond Orwell’s imaginings falls into place." - Fred Reed
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Jotapay
Posts: 16734
Incept: 2008-08-26
Austin, Tx
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My guess is that Apple is expecting future versions of HTML (6+) to be able to do what Flash does now.
We deployed a new intranet home page last week. It is full of JQuery. Folks from IT were asking, "Does this use Flash?" It doesn't, but we were taking that as a compliment.
Sooner or later Flash will be obsolete and replaced.
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Djloche
Posts: 3280
Incept: 2008-07-07
In the Mountains
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 (These numbers are pre-ipad2, i think) The demographics are very telling. 90%+ of apple's ipad customers are in the upper 50% of individual incomes (incomes greater than the median)
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"If we wish to be free, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?"
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Jotapay
Posts: 16734
Incept: 2008-08-26
Austin, Tx
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So people who make over $100K are dumb as dirt and can't get a PC to do what they want?
My brother makes at least $200K and is in health care (anesthesia). He can't get a PC to do anything to save his life. He loves his MacBook though.
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Jb3171
Posts: 553
Incept: 2008-02-17
San Diego
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The Business Tech Titan Gods will honor Steve. Rites of passage.
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