Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
You will kick yourself twice.
Thanks for the advice.
I have plenty of apples
and no need to kick myself
if they go to $100
It looks to me like, absent adverse action re: the Steve and options backdating at Apple or Pixar, about all we have to do is hang out and make money on AAPL for the next few years - being prepared to buy on dips.
I sure would buy on a 5% dip, and again on another 5%.
How are things looking to our iHubs members in retail land?
Me paranoid too.
I do not trust the Googliagans and do not need their desktop at this point in time.
With all the excitement on the way over the next 9 months
Apple TV sales
iPhone Introduction
Leopard release
Macintosh sales reports
Quarterly results in October and January
IMO, this EMI announcement is really a bit of a yawner. Maybe I am not forward-looking enough :).
Consumer limitations: With CE gear, is Apple-like hegemony the way to go?
By Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor -- EDN, 3/29/2007
Brian DipertEDN's Editor-in-Chief Maury Wright wrapped up a recent editorial (see "Has Jobs lost his magic," Feb 1, 2007) with the provocative claim that "a more open approach to the Apple codec and digital-rights management might ultimately serve the company much better than the current stance that limits content to Apple hardware." If you were to look at my past online and print write-ups, you might conclude that I'm in full agreement with my boss. Not so fast.
At the risk of making a career-limiting move, I disagree with Maury on this one. Although I'm generally an advocate of open standards, I also see plenty of examples where a competing de facto standard, defined by one or a few companies, thrives in comparison because it doesn't have to struggle with as much pace-slowing incompatibility or in-fighting between "partners" jockeying for proprietary "enhancements" or other means of market dominance.
One of the online feedback comments to Maury's editorial, from Steve Gates (who identified himself as an engineer at Microsoft) particularly resonated with me. Gates wrote, "The current mish-mash of products and technology from various ‘partnerships’ is the key reason digital devices have not proliferated at a much faster pace." I think he has a good point. Particularly in the consumer-electronics market that's front-and-center in my editorial beat, I've encountered plenty of situations where the setup simplicity of an Apple-like single-company ecosystem would have been a preferable, albeit perhaps more costly, alternative to the frustrating, more "open" alternative I was grappling with.
Here's an example. Family and friends are a key part of my product-review team; they inevitably encounter glitches that, due both to my accumulated technical expertise and the lessons I've learned from glitches surmounted in times past, I'd sidestep without perhaps even realizing that I was doing so. Therefore, when a couple I’m close friends with expressed an interest in Yahoo Music Unlimited's Microsoft codec- and DRM-based subscription service, and in piping that music from their PC to their living room, I thought it'd be a perfect opportunity for them to do some hands-on testing of the WMB (Wireless Music Bridge) that Linksys (which had publicly partnered with Yahoo on the WMB) had recently sent me for review. Note: Neither of my friends is in the computer industry, but they're both highly educated and intelligent professionals; one's a biologist, the other a psychologist.
The PC-based software for the WMB redirects audio that would otherwise go out the speakers or headphone jack, sending it instead out the computer's network port to a LAN-connected piece of hardware that subsequently feeds a stereo system's line input jacks. The Linksys device originally sold for $150, but it’s currently available on Amazon for just north of $80. To hit that price while (presumably) still turning a profit, Linksys' engineers had to cut a few corners on the features. To wit, my friends didn't want to run CAT5 cable from their office to the living room, preferring instead to use the device's built-in WiFi transceiver. However, because the WMB offers no integrated display or front-panel controls, they had to jump through a bewildering and intimidating (to them) set of hoops:
* Disconnecting the PC from the router, and CAT5-connecting it instead to the WMB.
* Running an installation utility on the PC and hoping that it would find the WMB (the first few times my friends tried, it didn't; then, it refused to accept the default password listed in the documentation).
* Figuring out the wireless network's SSID and encryption parameters, entering them at the setup screen, and (if the computer was running Windows 2000) rebooting the PC to allow the WMB's audio driver stack to complete installation.
* Reconnecting the PC to the wireless-inclusive router, launching the Linksys audio-redirecting software, and hoping that the PC and WMB would reliably communicate.
Two WMBs, five lengthy phone calls to tier-1 overseas and (later, after I reluctantly interceded on their behalf to my PR contacts) tier-2 domestic technical support, several weeks, and many bottles of Aspirin later, my friends gave up on Linksys. They finally got the PC and WMB to “see” each other, but they could never achieve stutter-free audio playback, even though the router and WMB were less than 10 ft (and one no-metal-inclusive wall) away from each other. I point the probable-blame finger at the audio-rerouting PC software stack, but who knows for sure? Had my friends not been reviewing the product for me as a favor, they emphatically told me, they would have been back at the store for a refund after the first unproductive phone call, if not sooner.
Conversely, they were up and running within an hour of cracking open the box of the Roku SoundBridge M1000 that I subsequently passed along to them. At around $200, it's roughly twice the price of the WMB, but it includes both front-panel controls and an LCD. It prompts you to enter wireless network parameters without any required PC intercession, and, as long as you have Windows Media Connect (which Microsoft built into Windows Media Player 11) running on the PC, it'll find, organize and play back the audio files stored on that PC all by itself. Granted, my friends haven't yet tackled subscription content; the unpredictable reality behind the PlaysForSure hype, which I've also personally experienced (and written about) on innumerable occasions, is food for an editorial all by itself. But I'm cautiously optimistic.
The M1000 was straightforward, but the Apple alternatives are even more so. Check out Apple's equivalent to the WMB, the AirPort Express. Or better yet, check out the video-inclusive AppleTV, which should be shipping by the time you read this. Computers and LAN clients automatically find each other via Bonjour, a protocol that in many respects is UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) on steroids. Apple has built support for those LAN clients into both the Mac OS and iTunes. Everything just works—maybe not in all cases, as a visit to Apple's support forums will point out, but I'd wager, in a higher percentage of situations than what I've previously described. See why Microsoft's supplemented—or, if you prefer, supplanted—PlaysForSure with the Apple-reminiscent Zune strategy?
Ecosystem standards only work if...well...they work. Most customers don't understand technology, and they neither have nor should you expect them to have the motivation to become IT experts to use your gear. They see their wasted time as wasted money. Spend a few bucks more upfront on your system's bill-of-materials cost and, yes, your marketing counterparts will have to figure out how to sell a few dozen bucks' more expensive widget. But in exchange, you'll get fewer support calls and fewer product returns, both of which gobble up any profit margin you might have otherwise achieved with the upfront sale. Happier customers become long-term customers and convert their families, friends, and coworkers into customers, too. With apologies to my boss, and until open standards work as smoothly as closed ones do, I'm with Steve Gates on this one.
P.S. Don't take my “career-limiting move” comment seriously, dear readers. The EDN culture encourages diverse thinking, and I don't anticipate any managerial backlash from publicly disagreeing with Maury's stance. With that said, if you send me an e-mail, and it bounces back as undeliverable....
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6427217
Nehalem is a very nice coastal bay area, about 80 minutes from Intel's campus in the Silicon Forest.
http://www.nehalembaychamber.com/
Well, Kastel I have
some AUY, SA, GLD, AZK, GPXM and others also. But AAPL is up over 1200% in the last 4 years - bought it right before the wife and I went on our 25th anniversary trip in May, 2003. Will celebrate 29 years soon.
Not too shabby on either count, I would say. More to come of both counts too *grin* Here is the 5 year chart against soem PMs
So, have I ever written to you guys about AAPL
From $7 to over $90 in 4 years.
Sexton, did you ever buy some AAPL?
AAPL and PMs are my story for 2007.
Vista and choices
I am going to be ordering a new Dell at work soon - amazingly the desktop I currently have was shipped to me in April, 2002.
Windows XP is an option, and it is one I will likely take.
Apple TV has moved back into the top 10 sellers at the Apple online store. eom.
eyeTV and Apple TV - a perfect match??
bring your TV shows into iTunes and from there....
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv&PHPSESSID=08dfd8c6df6a09704aa5f8f1ebaadc30
Did a bit of buying
Bought some Jan 08 $95 call action this morning (WAAAS) @13.20. Combined IRAs are ~28% AAPl now. Have trailing stops on shares.
I dunno what version 2 Apple TV will have.
I mainly wants it to sell lots and lots
and then some more.
Apple TV user reports
most recent ones at bottom
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/appletv/index.html#mar24
OT Mummy museum
Didn't go there. Went here instead - half block from the Meson de los Poetas, where we stayed.
lots more photos somewhere on the world wide web thing.
OT: you can always motor over to Dolores Hidalgo and live amongst the tile factories, or, better yet (IMO), head over here
OT: San Miguel de Allende
aka Gringolandia :).
Apple TV on non-HD Tellys
We have a JVC with 3 jacks on the front labelled
"Input" one says "Video", Over the other two are these words "L/MONO - Audio-R"
The one labelled Video is yellow, the one labelled L/Mono is White, the one labelled Audio is red.
I'm guessing the L/Mono and Audio-R are speaker plug in places.
The manual you say?? Ha, in some drawer somewhere, probably. Guess its off to the web I go.
If the Apple TV would work with this telly, it would put us a grand or two closer to buying one
OT: Photo Saturday
Link for rumour - does not make sense to me
http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/03/report_vista_de.html
WTF?? Rumours Leopard delayed till Fall to insure Vista support, down a buck pre-market.
Here is my main reason.
9) You don’t have a high-definition TV, or don’t use one as your primary set.
We don't have one. We have a primary TV set, no secondary one. Someday we will get a high-def TV. Not yet. Might be an impulse purchase when the price goes down some more.
El Barato
Anybody else think AAPL was pinned under $90 by expiry today? I kinda figure on some TPE action next.
I think there is at least an even odds chance that the markets tank next week. Hard telling what AAPL would do in that environment.
No AppleTV indication that I have seen so far. I'm hoping it gets out there, gets some good reviews, gets some DVR capabilities via the USB port - all before the Christmas shopping season and hopefully a bunch before the iPhone roll-out, which could suck all available free ink into its orbit.
Munster's modeling of 2,000,000 Apple TV units in CY 2007
Seems pretty aggressive to me.
I am just pickled tink today
I don't often (like in hardly freaking ever) do any real short-term trading. The reasons are simple - it just hasn't worked out well for me in the past. However....yesterday I did sell all but a reduced core of AAPL at 89.18. Had some seller's remorse, I guess, and bought back in pre-session this morning at 88.50. So, I am therefore tickled pink :).
Look out below
Have moved to 85% cash. More downage ahead, I think. Still holding some AAPL's but did sell some this morning. My guess is that everything is going to be cheaper down the road a bit. That is where I want to buy, at a cheaper place down the road.
Ah bootz, alas
there could be a pretty good market melt-down between now and the promised land, so stay nimble out there. Hard to tell exactly how AAPL would behave in such a case, but it could sure take the blush off for a period of time.
Since this is an Apple board *grin*
A little while back I wrote of my plans to make 4-5 AAPL buys before or during the fall. I have made two of thoses over the past week or so. One was at 87.82, the other this morning at 89.21.
OT: Since you prefer a more progressive tax structure, would you be in favor of eliminating all corporate taxes?''
No, I would not be in favor of that.
Thanks for asking.
Dell and China
It was in the article that was linked to earlier in this thread.
You can download the full Hambrecht research report here
http://www.wrhambrecht.com/research/ithardware/aapl.html
re beleaguered PC maker
You guys miss the part about Dell increasing shipments to China/success in emerging markets?
re blackberry and iPhone
FWIW, my blackberry using friend and her husband can hardly wait to buy iPhones.
A friend of mine, a Mac Person, loves the maps/gps functions in her Blackberry - has used them in Scotland, England and the NW US.
OT Oregon-zero sales tax. EOM
OT KCMW
There is nothing socialist about supporting a progressive tax system. That is silly .
I am in favor of an income tax system that is more progressive than the one we currently have.
I am in favor of an income tax system that is more progressive than the one we currently have.
OT National Sales Tax
I guess that is also a reason I like the idea of a National Sales Tax (but I know it will not happen). Rich people are going to spend more than poor people - it is the fairest progressive tax I can imagine. Use that money for needed social programs.
The sales tax is regressive. This is the first time I have ever, in all my 55 years that I have heard it called progressive .
Poorer people must spend a far higher proportion of their income on taxable goods and services - depending on what gets exempted.
Ron