First Ring Daily 500: Apple Hangover Edition

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Brad Sams in First Ring Daily, Podcasts with 13 Comments

On this episode of First Ring Daily, with Apple’s keynote now in the rearview mirror, it’s time for the hangover episode.

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Comments (13)

13 responses to “First Ring Daily 500: Apple Hangover Edition”

  1. Dave P

    Great discussion as always. So emotional yet rational and so much swearing ;) I've never heard Brad swear ? before :D at 6:03 :) Yeah, Apple is always about thinness, sacrificing function for form, and against user choice :) Microsoft Surface FTW :) BTW it's two FEWER cores and too MANY resources :) Sorry for being that guy :) "...The Pencil hurts even more!" HAHAHAHA :)

    2 years ago
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  2. Michael_Miller

    It is simple: Apple's stock price is driven by revenue growth which investors love. So, because Apple is selling less devices year over year and quarter over quarter, they drive revenue growth by increasing price. Their products, economically, have showed that they are price elastic, at least so far. Let's also remember that Apple's market cap is a trillion dollars which suggests that their product strategies work, despite the negative impressions from Paul and Brad of apple products. It also shows the strength of marketing over technical capabilities. The Apple brand remains supreme.

    2 years ago
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  3. navarac

    Apple has always taken the piss............

    2 years ago
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  4. provision l-3

    Paul seems to be confused on what marketshare is. Revenue is dependent on unit sales not marketshare. So the argument that Apple is losing marketshare and thus raising prices to maintain revenue really doesn't make sense.


    Here are some examples of how marketshare doesn't equate to revenue:


    In year 1 Apple sells 100 widgets and gets a market share of 10%. They charge 1 dollar a pop for their widget and make 100 dollars.

    The next year Apple sells 200 widgets but the market for widget does much better and Apple only gets 5% market share. Even with the marketshare they still double their revenue and make 200 dollars.

    The third year the market for widgets bottoms out and Apple only sells 100 but they actually do better than their competitors and their marketshare jumps to 30%. Even with that jump they still only end up with 100 dollars.


    Yes all the examples are extreme but it illustrates the point that marketshare doesn't correlate to revenue it is unit sales fluctuation that impacts revenue.



    2 years ago
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    • Chris_Kez

      In reply to provision l-3:

      You're being pedantic. Paul understands the difference between marketshare and unit sales. He's speaking off the cuff. If you step back and look at the bigger picture, iPhone sales have slowed considerably and are essentially flat the last two years; iPad sales were actually down for several years before seeing a slight uptick last year as a result of the lower priced base unit. So big picture, Apple is relying on increased ASP to keep revenues growing while unit sales have stalled.

      2 years ago
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      • provision l-3

        In reply to Chris_Kez:

        Marketshare is the number that Paul consistently returns to for the mark of success of a product. This isn't isolated to Apple he does so with just about everything. Look at the Nintendo Switch article from earlier this week. Back in the days of the super site he actually said "Marketshare is the only number that matters". So, no I'm not being a pedant I truly question Paul's grasp on business fundamentals. In fairness Paul doesn't run a business blog he runs a technology blog so it isn't his wheelhouse or the focus of the site but it does lead to some rather odd comments.


        As for Apple goes, if you substitute market with unit sales in what Paul said, it is still wrong. Sales aren't going down which is what he said and, based on your comment, is something you agree with. As far as using ASP to grow revenue, that is certainly happening but even then the majority of Apple's revenue growth in the last few years has come from their services (now their second largest business segment and almost doubled in the last few years) and the Other category (up 50% over the last few years). So revenue a significant amount of revenue growth is coming from new products (Apple Music, Apple Watch and HomePod).

        2 years ago
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  5. Truffles

    The thing is that the Air feels so snappy even compared to PC notebooks with better specs. I assume it's because Apple can tailor OSX to the hardware, but that's irrelevant to most customers - they just want a smooth experience.

    2 years ago
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  6. Oreo

    I think the discussion here is very myopic as it only centers around Intel CPUs. Once Apple unveiled what beast is driving the iPad Pro with a comparable TDP but much, much higher performance at a comparable price was when my want for this machine was shut down cold. According to Anandtech's iPhone Xs review the little brother of the A12X is close to outperforming Intel's current-gen desktop (!) CPUs in single-threaded performance. I really hope Apple switches to ARM sooner than later with its Macs.

    2 years ago
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  7. Thom77

    Apple is insulting the intelligence of their consumers at this point. I bought a HP Envy 13 with Ryzen and a Vega 10 GPU (which incidently can play Madden 19 at lowest settings) in an ultralight package for the same price as the new Air.


    The Ipad still doesnt have an open file system which totally neuters it for me.


    There is nothing they announced i would even consider buying. And to be fair, Microsofts hardwear is operpriced too IMO. i considered the Surface laptop before buying the Envy, but it just wasnt competitive in specs.

    2 years ago
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  8. bhatech

    Always love when Paul talks about Apple ?


    For phones, yeah I have been there juggling with so many of them and I still always love the latest iPhone and latest Pixel. Yeah the Pixel 3 has bugs/issues at launch but the great camera, fast platform updates, monthly security updates is important over anything Samsung or others offer. Luckily I'm in a position to afford multiple phones, but if I had to keep one I would just go with the iPhone and call it a day.

    2 years ago
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  9. joeaxberg

    I very much agree that the Macbook Air is $200 to high. They should've retired the old model.


    However here and I believe on Windows Weekly yesterday, Paul made the comment that no other vendor uses Y series processors in Ultrabook types of form factors. That isn't true - Dell uses them in the XPS 13 2-n-1.


    I know that for sure since I briefly owned one back in March of this year. I hate the flippy-foldy type designs though, so I returned it a couple weeks later. The processor seemed OK to me. I ran linux virtual machines with it and taught a IT Infrastructure class for a couple of sessions. It was an i7-Y if I remember correctly. The current models have either an i5-Y or i7-Y.


    I supposed the case could be made that the XPS 2-n-1 (different from the regular XPS) isn't truly a "premium" laptop, but Best Buy certainly positions it as such. They're in the same price range - $1000 on up.


    I suppose the case could be made that the XPS 2-n-1 isn't targeted at "pro's" either, but then neither is the Air.


    2 years ago
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