Rodney Avilla on Apple investors: Mark your calendars - 'I will be traveling thru Grants Pass, OR with my Starlink mini dish aimed out the window with my AirPods in listening'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'Marques Brownlee is to Youtube reviews what Apple is to smartphones. Leader of the pack.'
on Premarket: Apple is red - 'Into the final five minutes of trading and Apple is now off $0.02 at $316.20. SK Hynix is up about $19.98 in its trading debut at $168.98. SpaceX is down $4.62 on the day at $147.54. Walmart is up $1.67 at $113.88 though off from its all-time high $135.16 set back in May. In all it’s been a good week for the iPhone maker.'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'Software, all software, is worthless without hardware to support it. I’d go the opposite way. Hardware is useless without software. Apple’s software is its competitive advantage, and its on-platform AI infrastructure is about software that only runs on Apple hardware.'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'That was excellent! Whatever you think about Marques Brownlee’s conclusions regarding Apple, he did a wonderful job making that video. It really came off smoothly as an Apple-related conversation between two different individuals with two different opinions regarding Apple’s AI situation. And, IMO, having the third Marques Brownlee pop up at the end with an NVDIA logo was the cherry-on-top.'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'Clever, very clever. And spot on. Software, all software, is worthless without hardware to support it. LLM’s need data centers that are financially supported by expensive subscriptions (tokens) with zero moat to protect their sponsors investment. Apple has converted large, general purpose models to very small task specific PROPRIETARY models that can run on device, specifically APPLE devices, all of which is protected by a very large moat. The consumer cost of Apple Intelligence is built into the Apple device. This is why I previously stated that had there been no memory cost increases, Apple would have raised prices anyway. Let me say it again, it’s worth repeating because Tim was very clear about this. Apple does not price Apple’s products based on COGS. It prices its products based on the JOBS they can do. Increased memory costs do not increase the jobs that Apple products can do. How do you monetize AI (a new job)? You charge more for the hardware required to run it. Everybody that buys the new hardware pays for the new AI job capability, whether they use it or not. Then Apple broke down the monolithic LLM model into job specific, task oriented, models, stripping away all that general knowledge baggage the user would most likely never access. Apple Intelligence sources the knowledge you already have on your device first, then goes outside for the information your device doesn’t posses. Enter Baltra ASIC powered AI servers from Apple to host personal/enterprise specific knowledge you want to protect. It’s a whole other ecosystem completely controlled by Apple designed hardware and software. MSCEs (MicroSoft Certified Engineer) will be furthering their education in droves, and suddenly they won’t be the gatekeeper to enterprise compute hardware. They’ll be forced to select the best solution to protect enterprise IP, AND, simultaneously, keep operational costs down. It’s no wonder Apple didn’t publicize its product road map. Let the competition go down the wrong, moatless and very expensive path. I can’t wait for the WWDC that announces Baltra powered devices. My gosh these Apple guys are smart.'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'It was fun. I think Marques missed Apple’s cross platform advantage. Apple isn’t just ahead. It’s the only competitor on the field The segment that use advanced stuff like AI, own tablets and/or laptops. Hence a device from OpenAI, or an RTX Spark-based Windows can’t compete in the only market that matters. Apple has already proven (Horace documents this brilliantly) that Apple continues to take share in all the device categories that matter. Apple Intelligence keeps this going, maybe accelerates.'
on Marques Brownlee: How Apple lost/won the AI race - 'Yeah, OK, maybe. But it felt like both sides were presented in a sort of ambiguously negative way that really didn’t address what it feels like Apple is doing. Cute, but not impressed. (Unusual for Marques (s).'
on In shrinking global PC market, Mac sales grew nearly 16% in the June quarter - 'It’s an interesting question that was raised when I posted about META using older or used DDR4 RAM from previous servers (ECC RAM though) that were becoming obsolete or being replaced (every 3-5 years apparently!), they harvested the still usable RAM, pooled them into new servers in larger memory configurations, and then wrote software to prioritize HOT constantly data to fastest newest DRAM and COLD less frequently used data to the older and presumably slower DRAM. META said their servers actually became faster by a third because they could pool the ram into much higher than normal amounts (to 1TB of DRAM combined), the servers were more efficient and server count was reduced. Here’s another article detailing how META did it via a custom Vistara chip and CXL PCI-E expansion bus and data management. Note the system is still based on AMD Turin CPU chips that run at 300 watts max, and overall server power runs at 450-560 watts, including the expanded RAM and additional chip count. https://www.techspot.com/news/112977-meta-using-old-ddr4-memory-ddr5-only-ai.html Key for this is removable and replaceable DRAM DIMMs typically found in servers and desktop PC’s (not sure if non-ECC DRAM is a usable) and prior generation DDR4 ram sticks. Doesn’t work so much for Mac’s because their RAM is soldered in.'
on In shrinking global PC market, Mac sales grew nearly 16% in the June quarter - 'I’m interested in hearing at the end of the month how well the Neo sold and whether it might be a harbinger of Macs increasing their numbers in schools. Perhaps it could lead to a halo effect. Good value/performace/reliability for the dollar.'
on Apple bull flips to bear - '“Negative sentiment inflections in our Hedgeye Social Barometer (post the price hikes announced on June 25) suggest caution for iPhone Ultra (aka Fold) and Macbook Neo demand.” Well that settles it then. “Social barometers” are known to be the best approach to forecasting a company’s performance. My TedEye Effluent Detector has its needle pegged in the red!'
on In shrinking global PC market, Mac sales grew nearly 16% in the June quarter - 'Morning Bart. The bang on effect! Well spotted! “However, if ASP’s rose by just 10% to $1414 (+$129), revenues would increase to $10.26B, an increase of over 27%!” Another thought occurred to me: At what point would RAM in older computers begin to make it worth buying them just to “harvest” their RAM? At the very least, folks once looking to upgrade may be now looking to temporarily upgrade by buying a used computer, putting demand pressure on used products and raising prices there as well…. Of course, a temporary purchase assumes that the price hikes begin to subside. I know Horace Dediu thinks that’s not far off, but I’m not so sure.'
on EU Court: Yes, Virginia. Apple is a gatekeeper - 'The real problem is that what the EU wants out of all of this is for the EU to come up with a competitor for various aspects of Apple’s business. Unfortunately, that is hard to put into legislation as well as hard for a company, like Apple, to try to thread the eye of the needle to give its customers what they want and need while, at the same time, satisfying the EU requirements. It would seem that some of the things that they want Apple to do would make the phone/OS less safe. Maybe that is what they want to help bring about an EU competitor. The system may be stacked against Apple in the EU and the courts may not bring about any legal relief. Apple can satisfy the “legal” requirements that are on paper but it also depends on legal interpretation by the courts if they are doing enough. It is one of the things that we will have to wait and see how it all gets played out.'
on How Apple hedges foreign exchange fluctuations - 'I’ve always said that the CEO of Apple was essentially the Sec. of Commerce. Didn’t know he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve too.'
on Barron's technician sees Apple shares growing another 10% this summer - 'With solid Neo revenues and good commentary on the post earnings call, that target is within reach.'
