Robert Paul Leitao on Apple competes with Apple - 'Ben: Thank you for the thoughtful post! The last time there was competition was before the opening of the bricks and mortar Apple stores. Apple suffered from competition for retail space and lack of adequate product distribution channels. In my view, it was the release of iTunes for Windows in 2003 that placed an entire commercial platform on top of Windows which rendered the underlying operating system essentially irrelevant for Apple’s purpose of commercially distributing music for playback on Apple products such as the iPod.'
on Apple competes with Apple - 'Well said. “Our future competes with our past” is maybe the best way to guarantee progress and innovation. It would be nice if there was also external competition, but when was the last time that was a real consideration. IBM?'
on Arete Research likes Apple's AI strategy (video) - 'Hi, Bart. “Tough choice for Apple to make for all that R&D, parts procurement, manufacturing and marketing effort.” I think you’ve identified the main issue, and it comes down to; is there a better place to spend those resources? iMO, it depends on how much sunk effort they already have in the project. If it’s passed the production-ready stage, I think it could happen, if for no other reason than to get an ROI on those sunk costs. But I am sensing a major shift in resource allocation, and if it hasn’t gotten to the production stage, then whatever the unknown project (or projects) is that’s demanding more resources, then, like we saw last quarter with buyback cash, they may choose to either preserve dry powder. That doesn’t necessarily imply killing the project as with the Apple Car. They could just slow the actual move to production down or cut back on its scale. We’ll soon know..'
on Horace Dediu: How Apple can turn the memory crisis to its advantage - 'Richard, your scenario is the perfect definition of monopoly abuse, Avery leaves whosoever does business this vulnerable to antitrust suits.'
on Apple competes with Apple - 'One of the comments: “It’s 2026 nobody buys a IPad/tablet anymore …. That’s so 2012” My response: “Yeah, tell that to the $29 Billion dollars worth of iPads sold in the last 4 Quarters. Over half the purchases were people new to iPads, meaning never owned one or switching to one. The other less than half are upgrading or adding an iPad to an existing use or iPad account Tough problem for Apple to have, people wanting to buy their products.” PS: iPads as a standalone revenue business would be ~420th in revenue on par with Paramount Skydance, Gilead Sciences, and Addidas, ahead of Southwest Airlines, Bridgestone, COSCO Shipping. It would be a Forbes list #149.'
on Apple competes with Apple - 'I see a similar situation in medicine. Every time I go to a doctor office/hospital/etc to fill out forms, I’m handed an iPad. Some staff are also carrying iPads, particularly administrative staff.'
on Apple competes with Apple - 'And adding, that such iPad terminal applications don’t require updates. They stay in service for a long time, meaning new sales, not upgrades, dominate this business. Analysts overlook this phenomenon of Apple’s growing IB in all categories.'
on Horace Dediu: How Apple can turn the memory crisis to its advantage - 'Horace has a hypothesis that Apple could use this memory panic to go for the jugular and take over the low end of the market. I think this could well be likely, especially as the high-end smartphone market starts to level off. While everyone panics, Apple has a chance to make money and increase market share by using its institutional prowess. This is the reverse of the classic process — start at the low end which the big guys leave fallow, gain market share, and move up the revenue stream to force the big guys out of the market. Apple may be able to use the memory panic to shave a few points in margin and take over the market, with the Neo as the first volley. Get billions more into the ecosystem, and they will never leave. And then the customer moves up the tiered product system over time (not the company), buying better models to stay in the ecosystem. As Horace says: I’m just speculating now — that Apple is going to go for the jugular on the iPhone in a couple of years. The iPhone’s going to be $499. It’ll be as good as the best iPhone today. And they’re going to launch that against a landscape where everybody else is losing money at $800 a phone. And so they’ll just quit. I love it. [added edit] and this would also be a barrier to anti-consumer sentiment (I’m looking at you EU) that Apple charges way too much as a gatekeeper and having so much free cash flow. See, Apple is selling phones to help the consumer, not gouge them.'
on Excerpt from Geoffrey Cain's 'Steve Jobs in Exile' - 'I hate to suggest Zuck, but my sense is that he’d be a bit more vicious and lack the edge of humor (though I’m not sure if I should suggest that about Steve’s actions – even if I do kinda see it! 🙂 )'
on Apple competes with Apple - 'All I know is I’m now finally as good on Final Cut Pro on my M5 iPad Pro (which I got before the Neo debuted) as I am on my MacOS FCO (both current M4 Mac Mini and previous M3 MBP). However, the Neo seems to be preferred over the iPad Pro, per my queries, when using FCP as the comparative metric. And apparently the Neo is also lighter since I have my Magic Keyboard & Pencil’s weight to add to the IPad Pro.'
