Rick Povich on Ming-Chi Quo: The foldable iPhone will sell out on Day 1 - 'I’ll be buying an 18 Pro but I’d be delighted if both the Pro and folding iPhone sell like hotcakes'
on Horace Dediu: Where is Nvidia in a decade? - 'I continue to follow Errol Brandt at kiraa.ai. In a recent post he claims that companies will tire of 1) the expense of AI, and 2) the loss of privacy when their data is run through the cloud. If Brand’s approach gets some traction, that could be of great benefit to Apple. “Did Alex Karp Just Agree With Me?”: https://youtu.be/fVC-z4ptOlk'
on Premarket: Apple is red - '“Premarket: Apple is red” Um, Apple is not only solidly green, it’s gotten within $3.20 of its ATH. IMO, he selloffs following the WWDC are two of the dumbest selloffs ever – and apparently Mr. Market agrees with me….'
on Horace Dediu: Where is Nvidia in a decade? - '“The Wall Street Journal just ranked Nvidia the top “company of the future,”” I think this “list” says more about the Wall Street Journal than it does about Nvidia. I have nothing against Nvidia, it’s a fine company and clearly a good investment. However, maybe a more useful report would be, how exactly the current editors of the Wall Street Journal do their calculations to determine what a company will be in 10 years? In other words, who and what criteria is being used to make the list? Many years ago, when I first started investing in the market, I noticed that the mantra from all brokers was the same: ‘past performance does not guarantee future performance’. And yet their entire forecasting approach is built on looking in the rearview mirror. Maybe it’s just me, but I always found that ironical, if not obvious. I mean, obviously a company’s track record is really important. Same goes for hearing every broker giving the exact same advice, to “diversify”. Which I learned from real world experience does not save you when the entire market crashes. My personal experience when I was younger and listened to brokers, can be summed up by what Cramer has famously shouted: “they know nothing!” My personal investment philosophy is, I’d rather be an expert in one excellent company, our favorite fruit – that even Cramer has called maybe the best company in America – rather than investing based on having just a general knowledge of a whole bunch of companies – AKA: diversification. For me, proof is in the results. Apple has one of the world‘s greatest business models, which is still perfectly intact, and they have a vision and a philosophy that, despite the tsunami of economic, political, and misinformation out there – still astonishingly makes it consistently successful long-term. I’ve done exceedingly well by ignoring the broker’s knee jerk mantra, and instead by focusing on the best of breed, I’ve never lost a dime since. In my opinion, diversification is for people who are very busy and don’t have the time to educate themselves much less follow what a specific company stands for, much less separate all the rumors and gossip from the “news”. The Wall Street Journal is in the business of reporting facts and ostensibly even giving their opinions. That doesn’t mean we should believe everything they report, much less agree with their opinions. I mean, it’s owned by fucking Rupert Murdoch. Making a list of the best companies for the next decade is easy. All it takes is an opinion. I suggest making your own. I don’t think I need to tell you which one would be at the top of mine.'
on Ming-Chi Quo: The foldable iPhone will sell out on Day 1 - 'Fair enough. I don’t have the tools for predictions and certainly no precision, just perspective.'
on Still no Siri AI for EU, despite Tim Cook's efforts - 'Apple (and Google) aren’t the only companies having problems with EU regulations that mandate reengineering of products: https://www.engadget.com/2208587/nintendo-will-stop-selling-the-switch-1-in-europe-in-2027/ (Nintendo wills top selling Switch-1 due to EU replaceable battery regulations)'
on Horace Dediu: Where is Nvidia in a decade? - 'Is Horace right? He implies that Nvidia can’t be the best over, say, the next 50 years and will certainly not do as well as Apple? (I wish the WSJ had specified the length of time they meant by “future” but they didn’t; I pick 50 years arbitrarily.) It’s easy to agree with Horace that ranking Apple, one of only three companies with a CAGR of 20% + on average over 30 years (the other two being Berkshire which did it for 55 years, and Microsoft) at #12 seems silly. 11 other companies will do better than Apple? Possible, but the WSJ claims to know which 11 companies those are, which I am sure they don’t. But picking the top company is tricky. Any company can suffer a bad CEO transition (Apple’s been there, done that), failure to pivot fast enough (looking at you, Intel), or suffer any of a range of calamities that could knock it out of the running for the top spot. Similarly, can a company that got lucky (in phones or chips, for example) extend that win over half a century? And if so, which one will be the winner? I am less sanguine that anyone can know for sure, even as we can agree that Apple (and I would add Nvidia) will be in the top 5. Apple stands at the intersection of consumers and technology, as Horace points out, a great place to be. But we can’t know whether some other company might elbow its way into that spot and nudge Apple aside. Nvidia is already working on PCs, SpaceX is already working on phones, for example. In any case, I am conducting a survey. I’d be interested in other people’s answers to that question: what company will have the best return/CAGR over the next half century?'
on Wedbush's Daniel Ives has become a merchant bank - 'Sigmund Warburg would be proud. Prediction, disaster incoming.'
on Still no Siri AI for EU, despite Tim Cook's efforts - 'I want to see Apple stand firm on this, stare them down. I want some European pols to lose elections over this. What EU regulators (and some past U.S. regulators) fail to understand is that, on safety and privacy and matters, most Apple customers trust Apple primarily, more than we trust any government or competing enterprise. We want Apple to protect us FROM these other actors, not the other way around. The EU seems to believe they are promoting free choice here, when what they are doing will end up being the opposite of that.'
on Ming-Chi Quo: The foldable iPhone will sell out on Day 1 - 'I’m going to upgrade to an iPhone 18 Plus and continue using an iPad for content consumption. This combination extends battery life with a larger screen, and won’t cost near as much as a foldable. Oh, I received my new iMac on Thursday.'
on The iPhone 17's near-record run won't last much longer - 'The iPhone 17 is a very solid phone and will continue to be sold by the carriers long after 18 starts shipping. I did a check at Verizon.com this weekend and customers can get new iPhones all the way back to iPhone 13.'
on Still no Siri AI for EU, despite Tim Cook's efforts - 'Does anyone know the status of Gemini integrated into Google’s search interface in the EU? Is AI mode even available? If so, can users select a different AI than Gemini? Maybe Alphabet just decided to ignore the law and beg forgiveness if Brussels complains. Apple is trying to be proactive with a government body. That seldom works. Governments like to see what happens with technology and then tell innovators how what they did violates a law and they must therefore pay $$Billions in fines. The incentive to collect fines that fund the bureaucracy is powerful and pervasive. Of course they won’t tell innovators how to avoid the fines–it would take away a big revenue source.'
