I’m long like 20-25 years long. I’m pretty sure that AAPL will be hurting in the next couple of years, but that 25 billion in cash could lead to some of Apple’s famous R&D during this slowdown. I’m thinking waaayyy big picture here, but I believe that Apple will be the company that leads us to interconnected everything. We’re talking iCar, iFridge, iTShirt, and iCentralAir. Take a look at their recent patent:
My guess is that soon Apple will take over the living room. They’ve been incubating their AppleTV for a couple years, and once bandwidth makes instant HD-on-Demand viable and Blu-Ray irrelevant, Apple will be best positioned to move into the living room. There is a reason why Apple dropped the “Computer” from their name, because they are no longer just a computer company. In terms of revenues, Apple is now the third largest mobile phone supplier in the world. No one (yet) can touch the iPhone. Congress is testing the iPhone to repalce Crackberries on the Hill. Even iPod is still going strong, last quarter selling the most iPods it has ever managed in a non-holiday quarter. On the computer front, Apple sold 2.611 million Macs, which is more than the company has ever sold in a single quarter of its history. All of this happened despite the slowdown in the economy last quarter. This next quarter will be the true test.
As for Jobs:
No, that is not a Photoshop. He actually presented that slide at the last media event. Obviously the meme is out there, but the rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated. But I also think Steve has been priming his successor(s). At the last media event, Steve did less of the talking and let others handle the discussion. Would Apple be the same without Jobs? Who knows. But if he’s a decent CEO he’s lining up his successor to carry on his vision.
I also think the “luxury” argument may be a little off. Yes, Apple products are more expensive, but the way computers and gadgets have cemented themselves to our daily lives lead people to demand quality products. “Quality” vs “Luxury” could lead to a semantic flamewar, but I think there is a distinction there when it comes to the things that we use on a daily basis and that our lives are becoming more and more dependent on. The Steve can say it better:
“We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them.”
