Analysts Predict AAPL Stock to Hit $1000; Market Cap to hit 1 Trillion in 1-2 Years

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Budweiser's the highest selling beer in America but it's still stale and undrinkable to some people.

Sure, but people still buy it. And at the end of the day that is what matters. Poor example though, as Budweiser is a cheap and crappy beer. And Apple is far from cheap.

[Russic]

If Apple can get a strong hold on the education market they could continue to grow at an incredible rate. Not sure that will happen, but there's still room to climb.

[YYC in LAX]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

And I still won't buy anything they make.

You're that guy.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by silentsim

And Apple is far from cheap.

That's not really true anymore. iPads are priced very competitively compared to other tablets (not counting ones that saw massive price reductions to move inventory like the PlayBook and HP TouchPad), and iPhones are about the same price as high-end Android phones of similar specs. Even Apple's laptops are in the same ballpark as the competition. At $99, the Apple TV is about the same price as a Roku unit and significantly cheaper than a Boxee Box.

The only Apple product that I see as being really poorly priced is the Mac Pro, but there have been many rumours speculating that Apple intends to end that product line.

[chemgear]

They also are pushing into the medical and airline industry with the iPad. The high resolution screen on the new iPad should really help them in the medical field. I believe they also won contracts for the US air force recently and are apparently setting up a military app store.

Not sure what the heck you'd find in that store though . . .

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by silentsim

Sure, but people still buy it. And at the end of the day that is what matters. Poor example though, as Budweiser is a cheap and crappy beer. And Apple is far from cheap.

That's what matters for the stock value but it doesn't mean it's the best product (that is a matter of taste of course). Apple's homogeneous UI and industrial design is frustratingly bland to me like how Budweiser is watery bland to others.

They are similar in that they are both the mainstream brand that most of the population is familiar and comfortable with but Apple is definitely simultaneously that and also the up-market luxury brand that people still want to buy as well which gives it enormous power and leverage in the industry.

Personally, I am a little uncomfortable with educational and government/military purchases of Apple products as I'm not sure they are going through the proper vetting process to spend public tax dollars a little more wisely as Apple is definitely the highest priced and least openly customizable vendor in the market unless Apple is giving them deep educational/institutional discounts like they used to do back in the 80s and 90s (every computer I used from the 80s-90s in school was an Apple product from Apple IIs -> eMates).

I wouldn't want to work for a company that forced me to use an iPhone just like I wouldn't want to be in a University that forced me to buy an iPad in order to get the textbooks I need for a course.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

They also are pushing into the medical and airline industry with the iPad. The high resolution screen on the new iPad should really help them in the medical field. I believe they also won contracts for the US air force recently and are apparently setting up a military app store.

Not sure what the heck you'd find in that store though . . .

There are plenty of range-finding, navigational, ballistics, etc. apps already for military/hunting/sport shooting/adventure, etc. uses out there. High end gun manufacturers already make accessories for standard gun rails to mount iPhones.

[chemgear]

^ Wow, that's rather neat.

EDIT: And then of course I have the horrible thought of how the case could be adjusted to allow video/photo recording whilst the gun was in action.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by chemgear

^ Wow, that's rather neat.

EDIT: And then of course I have the horrible thought of how the case could be adjusted to allow video/photo recording whilst the gun was in action.

Helmet cams already do that. Gun mounted cameras are useless due to recoil.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

That's what matters for the stock value but it doesn't mean it's the best product (that is a matter of taste of course). Apple's homogeneous UI and industrial design is frustratingly bland to me like how Budweiser is watery bland to others.

They are similar in that they are both the mainstream brand that most of the population is familiar and comfortable with but Apple is definitely simultaneously that and also the up-market luxury brand that people still want to buy as well which gives it enormous power and leverage in the industry.

Personally, I am a little uncomfortable with educational and government/military purchases of Apple products as I'm not sure they are going through the proper vetting process to spend public tax dollars a little more wisely as Apple is definitely the highest priced and least openly customizable vendor in the market unless Apple is giving them deep educational/institutional discounts like they used to do back in the 80s and 90s (every computer I used from the 80s-90s in school was an Apple product from Apple IIs -> eMates).

I wouldn't want to work for a company that forced me to use an iPhone just like I wouldn't want to be in a University that forced me to buy an iPad in order to get the textbooks I need for a course.

Or they did just that and found that the Apple gear is the best solution? Closed platform can be a good and bad feature. Not sure why a nurse or a soldier would need an open platform. What are the alternatives? Android is fragmented and not secure. BB is limited for now and who knows if it has a future with the way RIM is going. What else is out there can compete with apple?

[nfotiu]

That's an awfully big company considering they are basically living off of 2 products.

Given that MP3 players and PCs are nearing the end of their lifecycles. All of Apples growth is based on really the iphone and iPad and the ecosystem they support.

Short term outlook is good for growth, but they are a pretty high risk company that could collapse shockingly quickly if someone else comes up with a killer product that those 2 products don't compete favourably with.

The other big risk, is that smart phones/tablets and their OSes are becoming commoditized. The consumer has to choose between buying into the google, amazon or apple ecosystem. Amazon and Google have been getting very aggressive in pricing in their various stores, and there are other advantages in the other "more open" ecosystems as well. Apple will hold an advantage of people who've already invested a lot of money in apple content not wanting to switch.

The big winner might be the one who gets their content seamlessly shared across all the tvs in your house. Outside of Canada, Apple is not there and Google is not there. Interesting that neither apple, nor google(although they've started doing this a bit) has allowed their apps on the various tvs, game consoles, digital players, etc. that Netflix has done. No one is going to buy a google tv player, or apple tv for every tv in their house. Amazon has done a good job as of late getting on a lot of platforms, but has curiously kept their video player off native Android tablets.

Apple is a good bet to continue their growth, but they are also an incredibly risky company given their size, IMO.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Red

Or they did just that and found that the Apple gear is the best solution? Closed platform can be a good and bad feature. Not sure why a nurse or a soldier would need an open platform. What are the alternatives? Android is fragmented and not secure. BB is limited for now and who knows if it has a future with the way RIM is going. What else is out there can compete with apple?

Apple's security is in the same tier as Android and both are closed platforms from the OEMs but Apple exerts a tighter rein and you cannot separately license the operating system for use with your own custom hardware. Neither have the security of RIM (not that RIM is a viable solution for anything at this time).

Apple doesn't bring anything but a mass consumer product with (IMHO) limited feature sets in terms of interaction that might be more desirable in medical/military/educational fields. This is simply my personal preference for more physical controls than exist in the Apple hardware paradigm. iPads are also more feature rich in terms of integrated technology than neccessary in many of these fields and other OEM designs could be much cheaper. Bill of materials cost analysis of the off the shelf components used to build each iPad show that Apple charges double the manufacturing cost for each unit. For government/educational institutions, I think they could certainly find a lower cost OEM who would build a more appropriate solution for them (only the internal hardware needed, different physical configurations, screens, replaceable batteries, etc.) and then throw on Android and use Android developers which has cheaper licensing costs. The battery issue is probably the biggest problem for any military application. Imagine if the military issued rifles that carried 200 bullets but if you ever needed to reload in the field, you'd need to plug it into another device and it would take 2 hours to do so? With Apple you are stuck with one hardware and one software design, which was made from a consumer standpoint. You can't change it and you have to work around it and at Apple's price-point. That's the problem.

More likely what is happening is that Apple already has the monopolistic clout over the publishing industry (that's another debate and a subject of many current court battles) and therefore, it was the easiest route to get educational publishers and publishers of other professional software to agree to move to tablet formats.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

The big winner might be the one who gets their content seamlessly shared across all the tvs in your house. Outside of Canada, Apple is not there and Google is not there. Interesting that neither apple, nor google(although they've started doing this a bit) has allowed their apps on the various tvs, game consoles, digital players, etc. that Netflix has done. No one is going to buy a google tv player, or apple tv for every tv in their house. Amazon has done a good job as of late getting on a lot of platforms, but has curiously kept their video player off native Android tablets.

Apple is a good bet to continue their growth, but they are also an incredibly risky company given their size, IMO.

That's not going to happen for years as you can see from Netflix's example that trying to get the licenses to media content for television is a huge clusterfata and every media conglomerate is playing hardball these days (I think Netflix lost about 1000 titles recently because their golden agreement with Sony expired and Sony is trying to build their own version for their Sony Entertainment Network).

Quite frankly, the technology necessary to built an Apple TV or Google TV or Netflix box is only about $10-$20 at mass manufacture and it comes down to whomever can secure the right contracts and convince set builders to build them into TVs. You can look at the Raspberry PI ARM/Linux system that fits in your hand and costs only $25 for a small-run, small market product as an example of how cheap something like that is. Knowing Apple, they'd charge $500 for an Apple TV box that costs them $5 to mass manufacture though but hopefully that extra $495 subsidizes their media licenses somehow and you wouldn't have to pay a heavy monthly subscription fee.

As far as Amazon goes, if they really push the Kindle they have something there as well but they already have their own separate Android app store and everything that you can access on normal Android devices so they are in a good position with good exposure on most devices.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

That's not really true anymore. iPads are priced very competitively compared to other tablets (not counting ones that saw massive price reductions to move inventory like the PlayBook and HP TouchPad), and iPhones are about the same price as high-end Android phones of similar specs. Even Apple's laptops are in the same ballpark as the competition. At $99, the Apple TV is about the same price as a Roku unit and significantly cheaper than a Boxee Box.

The only Apple product that I see as being really poorly priced is the Mac Pro, but there have been many rumours speculating that Apple intends to end that product line.

Cheap and inexpensive are two different things. And a Macbook Pro is far from "close" to the competition. I compared my current laptop to one of a Macbook Pro and mine is about $600 less and mine is still overpriced compared to an Asus.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Red

Or they did just that and found that the Apple gear is the best solution? Closed platform can be a good and bad feature. Not sure why a nurse or a soldier would need an open platform. What are the alternatives? Android is fragmented and not secure. BB is limited for now and who knows if it has a future with the way RIM is going. What else is out there can compete with apple?

BB is by far still the #1 choice for governments all over the world.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by YYC in LAX

You're that guy.

I'm actually an ironic hipster. I hated Apple before it was cool to hate Apple.