Apple Loses Its Shine

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What goes up, must come down.

Monday saw Apple shares dip into the $400-range for the first time since February during the pre-market session, and there’s no end in sight for the consumer electronics giant’s current slide. What brought on this most recent wave of soured views? From the look of things, two big cuts from Citi and Canaccord have sent investors headed for the hills.
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They need to some up with something that'll wow customers. The iPod, iPad and iPhone did great as did their MacBooks, but now it's more of the same. Faster hardware, better screen, but overall it's just the same as the last.

They tried with AppleTV, but that market's already saturated with video game consoles that can almost do the same thing.

I'm thinking car radio and GPS consoles (no, not with Apple's iMap, thank you very much). Drivers can benefit from easy to use touchscreens and perhaps in-dash iPhone-like devices for hands free calling. Microsoft's doing well in this area with their Sync devices in Ford cars.
 
No real surprise here Apple's stock sky rocketing was driven by speculators as is the case with most stocks. Yes they offer a range of products that are wildly popular but I think consumers are realizing more and more they aren't the only game in town and you can get products that are just as good or better. Not to mention with the economy stalling and the threat of another recession on the horizon disposable income will become tight; demand for Apple's products as well as most other mobile computing solutions will drop.
 
Globox said:
you polish a turd its still a turd
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Ooooooo! Shiny turd. Can you gift wrap that for my wife?

Apple stock was a bit high to begin with. Same with Facebook. Just over valued, IMO. Yes, they make good products that consumers like, but they have really gotten stagnant. Consumers are starting to see that there is little difference between the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 (and between iPads, etc.). There are still those that will upgrade regardless to have the latest and greatest Apple product, but it's not wide spread anymore. People can wait, they have less disposable income, and they just aren't as hot as they once were. Stocks will settle to a decent point, but Apple will still be doing well.
 
Apple did try to innovate again by integrating siri into their devices. Too bad you can't rely on siri to replace typical function and the siri name/use is already an after thought.

If siri would have been that "killer" software apple wanted it to be they would be alone forever on top of the hill. Now it looks like they are scrambling to have "that service" you can't get anywhere else but them.
 
This is exactly what I told me friend would happen. Apple's big sellers will sell fewer and fewer devices because they've saturated a market, and there's fewer customers that want to buy a new device every year when they're not seeing a tangible or a huge improvement. My predictions are that their stock price will shoot up when each announcement is made for their new devices, and each launch period, but it won't go up nearly enough to regain what they lost in stock prices. It'll continue to drop over the next 18 to 24 months and Apple will reclaim their old spot as a more obscure OS, and be a semi important player in mobile devices.
 
Man I am so happy to hear this. Alot of people thought I was crazy when I sold off all my stock over the summer to help pay for my new house. Well who is laughing now...
 
Trimlock said:
Apple did try to innovate again by integrating siri into their devices. Too bad you can't rely on siri to replace typical function and the siri name/use is already an after thought.
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Siri was fairly good. It works well, but Apple forgot about it. It works ~60-70% of the time. If Apple would spend some time refining it, and get it to more around 90%, I'd use it a lot more. Siri was/is a great little feature. A few good clones, too, for WP and Android. It just needs to be more accurate and pushed out there. If Apple doesn't want to push it, it's as good as dead.
 
They should have done a 4-way split months ago. Been sayin' it for a year now. Their stock price was too high to sustain, and a 4-way split would have brought the price down to where more people could get into the game.

I guess they wanted their shareholders to be "elite" too :)
 
Ur_Mom said:
Siri was fairly good. It works well, but Apple forgot about it. It works ~60-70% of the time. If Apple would spend some time refining it, and get it to more around 90%, I'd use it a lot more. Siri was/is a great little feature. A few good clones, too, for WP and Android. It just needs to be more accurate and pushed out there. If Apple doesn't want to push it, it's as good as dead.
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Oddly enough, that's one place where Microsoft and Google would likely do better due to the search integrations critical in employing something like Siri. Apple just doesn't have the know-how nor browser/search experience and history of a Google or MS in that respect. Unlike MS or Google, Apple will have to rely on somebody else to do the actual searches.
 
schizrade said:
Jobs magic is gone.
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This is not entirely off-base. Apple does have a "Face of the company" problem right now.

IMHO either Guy Kawasaki or the other Steve, both very well liked people, should be elevated up to the face of the company.
 
This has to do with the two most overused words in the last month. Fiscal Cliff. No Investor wants to pay more capital gains tax. IMO. Capital gains is at 15%. Who knows what it will go up to after jan 1st
 
I don't know if they lost their shine, I think the stock was simply way over priced to start with, this is just a bubble bursting.
 
I think, and this has probably been repeated ad nauseam already, its because Apple doesn't really have anything "new" coming on the horizon. Its all incremental upgrades to pre-existing product lines. Theres no indication that Apple will be moving into or creating new markets like it has been (and thats not really a fault of Apple). Its looking like Apple has finally hit its plateau and people are thinking it might be time to bail out.

Now, Apple has some very inventive engineers. So who knows if this'll stick. Certain products like the AppleTV could stand to receive a little more love, and theres also the Google Fiber/ISP experiment that looks to be a success (on the technical side anyway) and possibly something worth following. So there's still some room to expand out there.
 
I'm making a mandatory witty comment in today's mandatory "something about Apple" thread. :D
 
When everybody says it's time to get out, that's usually the best time to get in... Unless of course you think the company itself is in major trouble. Which obviously apple is not.

I'm still mulling over if I should sell some of my google stock and buy some more apple.... One is starting to get expensive and the other I believe is starting to get cheap.
 
Ur_Mom said:
When? Should I keep refreshing waiting for the witty comment? Oh, that was it? Missed it.
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You make Skribbels sad...

sad-cat.jpg
 
Azhar said:
They need to some up with something that'll wow customers. The iPod, iPad and iPhone did great as did their MacBooks, but now it's more of the same. Faster hardware, better screen, but overall it's just the same as the last.

They tried with AppleTV, but that market's already saturated with video game consoles that can almost do the same thing.

I'm thinking car radio and GPS consoles (no, not with Apple's iMap, thank you very much). Drivers can benefit from easy to use touchscreens and perhaps in-dash iPhone-like devices for hands free calling. Microsoft's doing well in this area with their Sync devices in Ford cars.
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But Apple doesn't make the screens, Samsung, LG, and a few others do. If they want to survive they have to actually "innovate" rather than borrow someone else's idea that existed two years prior.
 
It's several issues combined.

1. Stock was way over priced at $700+ per share.
2. Lack of new inovative products.
3. With the tax increases coming next year, alot of people decided to take thier profits this year.
4. The stock now dropped so much that we are now seeing panic selling as people start to bail.

I think we will see < $250 by the end of next year, especially if the Obama tax increases push us into another recession.
 
Outamyhead said:
But Apple doesn't make the screens, Samsung, LG, and a few others do. If they want to survive they have to actually "innovate" rather than borrow someone else's idea that existed two years prior.
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Eh, Microsoft don't make hardware either. They buy up third party chips and boards and everything and assemble them. That's just the way of most technology companies. Only a handful of them actually make most or all of their own component. Not even Samsung makes everything in their phones.

You don't have to make your own parts to innovate. You just need to come up with new ideas employing these parts.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Siri was fairly good. It works well, but Apple forgot about it. It works ~60-70% of the time. If Apple would spend some time refining it, and get it to more around 90%, I'd use it a lot more. Siri was/is a great little feature. A few good clones, too, for WP and Android. It just needs to be more accurate and pushed out there. If Apple doesn't want to push it, it's as good as dead.
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This I believe to be correct. They upgraded the server side hardware and user side just for it (4s) and once it looked to be too hard to get it where they wanted it to be just up and left it as is. Too bad because siri integration looked to be something spectacular.
 
And good fucking riddance. Another company that rode to fame over novelty learns that it doesn't last. Make something of actual use, value, and staying power...and you won't have to worry about your share prices as much.
 
King of Heroes said:
I think, and this has probably been repeated ad nauseam already, its because Apple doesn't really have anything "new" coming on the horizon. Its all incremental upgrades to pre-existing product lines.
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Dig back a bit further. This is all Apple has ever really been... A company that just constantly refreshes their existing lines with static price points until they have something new they can jump on and do it all over again. One big bump after they release a new heavily-integrated (read: walled off and locked down) device, riding that wave until people get tired of refreshes that offer what should have been standard features from day one.

They're simply out of device types and markets to encroach upon. I said this when it was about MP3 players... but after phones/tablets... I honestly can't think of any other type of device they could magically invent. For a long while now, we've been progressing towards device featureset umbrella uniformity. Who doesn't have a phone that can also browse the web and play mp3s? Bam. Two additional separate devices that most people now don't feel like they need to use anymore when they can have a phone that does all that... and thanks to improvements in general spec baselines... a phone that can do all that and does it pretty well.

And then we get to the point to where ... what used to be companion devices (a desktop and a separate laptop for travel or couch) can be distilled down to even less... I've known people to give up BOTH the desktop or laptop (and/or laptop in the case where the laptop was the desktop, eg, primary computer) because phones have gotten good enough. Or as typically seen as the new Desktop+Laptop setup.... The Phone+Tablet.

Yay, technology. Apple is out of ideas because there's no ideas left to rip off.
 
rocketr2 said:
just check and there at $512 not $400
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The article said dipped into the $400 range in early trading, which is technically $400-499, they'd have probably been less confusing by writing that it dipped under $500, but the $400 range is obviously more dramatic..
 
Outamyhead said:
But Apple doesn't make the screens, Samsung, LG, and a few others do. If they want to survive they have to actually "innovate" rather than borrow someone else's idea that existed two years prior.
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Do you have any idea how ridiculous that statement sounds ?
 
nutzo said:
It's several issues combined.

1. Stock was way over priced at $700+ per share.
2. Lack of new inovative products.
3. With the tax increases coming next year, alot of people decided to take thier profits this year.
4. The stock now dropped so much that we are now seeing panic selling as people start to bail.

I think we will see < $250 by the end of next year, especially if the Obama tax increases push us into another recession.
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That won't happen. He promised :rolleyes:
 
Stiletto said:
And good fucking riddance. Another company that rode to fame over novelty learns that it doesn't last. Make something of actual use, value, and staying power...and you won't have to worry about your share prices as much.
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You go man !!!

Everyone knows Apple has been dead since what, 1989 !
 
TechLarry said:
They should have done a 4-way split months ago. Been sayin' it for a year now. Their stock price was too high to sustain, and a 4-way split would have brought the price down to where more people could get into the game.

I guess they wanted their shareholders to be "elite" too :)
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All that would do is increase the number of shares and reduce the price per share. Company and stock would still be overvalued. Their price per share would still be dropping even if they did a 4-way split.
 
I predicted this to my friends and said they'd drop at least $100 by the end of the year. (But even I didn't see the $200 price drop coming.) It brings me joy to see them down. :cool:

How will Apple respond? They'll try to boost revenue with more iCrap and frivolous lawsuits. Like they always do. :rolleyes:

Go ahead and flame me, Apple phanbois.
 
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