The most valuable company in history...

Originally Posted by Skim Milk

... Complaints about iTunes ...

A lot of people have problems with iTunes, and I can understand if proper measures aren't taken it can really F up your music collection. Backups and a routine process are essential.

I've never bought anything from iTunes other than apps. I'm old school and still buy physical CDs. I rip them to FLAC and then use a custom program I wrote to mirror that as 256VBR MP3 and then drag and drop the new tunes into iTunes. This is all backed up on a nightly basis. I can synch all my devices to iTunes without too much drama, but over the past couple of years the program, at least for Windows, has become bloated and slow. It still works but tends to go through a lot of disconcerting periods of unresponsiveness. Frankly my first foray into Apple products was when I was going to pick up my car in Munich and wanted the iPod functionality. Since then I've been through a couple of iPhones as well as a MacBook Air.

At any rate like you I have a lifelong experience with computers, from my early days with a TRS-80, Atari 400 through various custom built gaming PC's. I've reached a point in my life where I don't want to spend a lot of my free time getting stuff to work. I still am a heavy Windows user (make a living programming the Microsoft .NET platform) but find the Apple hate expressed by many folks to be humorous because it's simply not true, or not based on valid reasons. I get the hatred of the trust fund hipsters wasting their days at coffee shops who are always depicted as the average Apple user, but the fact is a lot of truly average people use Apple products be because yes, they look good, but they also work and are easy to use. Keep in mind that a lot of Apple's success is based on the average, non-techie Windows user having a variety of bad experiences (Vista, viruses, BSOD, bloatware delivered with the average consumer level PC/laptop, etc).

As for the overwhelming success of the iPhone and iPad, Apple was first to market with the iPhone and while the iPad wasn't the first tablet, it was able to leverage a common experience on the back of the iPhone and had an existing ecosystem with iTunes that made it an immediately successful platform. No one has been able to beat them at this game yet. It remains to be seen whether they can maintain this momentum without Steve Jobs. FWIW, I bought Apple stock a few years ago and it's more than paid for any Apple hardware I've bought. :-)

Wanna help my friend out, anyone has any suggestions? I wonder what "backup" needs to be done? I thought iTunes and iCloud was supposed to take care of it?

Oh yeah, my friend who lost all the pics is "still in love" with Apple product.

Originally Posted by GeneArch

Make that + $120 Billion over Exxon as of today

Now $145B Wow...

Originally Posted by GeneArch

Now $145B Wow...

Wow

@johnnc - I can agree with everything you say. I have a few friends that prefer Apple products and have valid reason for that preference like yourself, I have respect for that. The people that drive me crazy are the ones that give reasons for liking Apple that make no sense (It's better for art... BS you're just running Adobe Photo Shop) and then they proceed to trash talk Windows, again with no validity to their arguments.

The picture I think sums up (while maybe a bit dramatically) how I feel about the MAC OS and other Apple products. Now granted I think it is this way for simplicity and ease of use for like you said "the average non-techie" but it drives me crazy. I don't know how tech savvy people like your self can like Apple so much but hey as long as you know why you like it I can respect that.

I'm not saying Windows is perfect... far from it. I have owned almost every MS OS since WIN3.0 and there has been some garbage in there... anyone remember Bob? I just feel like MS OS's give the user better overall control of their environment, albeit maybe not as user friendly but it has gotten much much better with WIN7 (even XP pretty darn good for its time).

Anyway that's my 2cents... I like to poke Apple people and see how they react

Side note... this add is so stupid it drives me crazy.

Originally Posted by Skim Milk

Anyway that's my 2cents... I like to poke Apple people and see how they react

I've never even considered myself an Apple person!

Peace - use what works for you.

Ohhh, how the mighty have fallen:

Exxon passes Apple as most valuable company

NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock price falter.
Apple Inc.'s stock has been on the decline since the company's quarterly earnings report Wednesday suggested that its fast growth phase, rare for a company of its size, may be coming to an end.

Apple's stock dropped 2.4 percent to $439.51 in midday trading Friday for a market capitalization of $412.7 billion. That followed a 12 percent drop on Thursday, the biggest one-day percentage drop for the company since 2008.

Exxon Mobil Corp. gained 22 cents Friday to $91.57 for a market capitalization of $417.5 billion.

Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011, displacing the oil company from a perch it had held since 2005. The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012 — at least until Friday.
Apple's stock price peaked in September at $705.07 on the day the iPhone 5 was released. Exxon, in the meantime, has been trading steady. Its business — oil — seems less prone to stock market ups and downs than the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech darling.

Exxon, which is based in Irving, Texas, set a record in 2008 for the highest quarterly earnings by any company. In the first nine months of 2012, Exxon earned nearly $35 billion, or 10 percent more than the same period in 2011, on revenue of $367 billion. Results for the fourth quarter are due Feb. 1.

Exxon, the biggest investor-owned energy company in the world, predicted in December that oil will continue to be the most important source of energy. That's because cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and ships will still depend heavily on oil-derived fuels such as gasoline and diesel.

This year, investors seem unforgiving with Apple, looking for perfection and punishing the stock for anything less. The company's stock price slipped below $500 for the first time last week, as investors saw signs that the iPhone 5 was falling behind competition from phones running Google's Android software, especially those from Samsung Electronics Co.

The latest quarterly report added to the concerns. Apple warned that its revenue growth, which had been running at a speed more reminiscent of promising startups than multi-national corporations, is slowing down considerably.

A big reason: It has been nearly three years since a new product has come from a company still seen as the embodiment of innovation. That last product, the iPad, came in 2010, when its CEO Steve Jobs was still alive. Some analysts question whether Apple can keep growing by just releasing new versions of its old products. The long-rumored Apple TV, is still just that, a rumor.

It's kinda funny when a company beats earnings and has their best quarter in history (adjusted for days in quarter) and the stock gets slaughtered for it. The same analysts who screamed buy at $700 are screaming sell at $450. It just goes to show you that the average analyst has a mental capacity that is lower than human excrement.

I would not say that the mighty have fallen, like all things the company has cycled. Right now the lemmings are running, soon reality will set back in and the stock will be back over $600. Probably by next year. I am lovingly buying every share I can at this price- it's Christmas in January....

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

Ohhh, how the mighty have fallen:

Exxon passes Apple as most valuable company

Not really. Apple is at a 52wk low, Exxon is close to its high.

Won't be long before the lunacy around Apple dies down and Apple restores the gains.

Apple fell in value by multiples of the total market cap of certain of its rivals. With Apple, the swings and the roundabouts are huge. Either way, for a company to deliver 40bn in profit over the year and record revenues yet still be subject to falls in value speaks only to the fact that normal rules just dont apply to this company.

It's a reasonably safe bet that whatever has manipulated Apple's stock slide will soon turn to increasing the value - once again - of stock bought in the 400s.

It won't make headlines when Apple passes Exxon again...

Originally Posted by Emilner

It's kinda funny when a company beats earnings and has their best quarter in history (adjusted for days in quarter) and the stock gets slaughtered for it. The same analysts who screamed buy at $700 are screaming sell at $450. It just goes to show you that the average analyst has a mental capacity that is lower than human excrement. ...

u mad bro??!!

I love products from Herbalife, Sony, Chipotlet . I love buying from Amazon, ebay, walmart and Costco. But it doesn't mean I need to invest in them.

Look, just because you love the product, it doesn't mean you need to burn your hard-earned money into the fire pit. Its just a product... its not a religions cult .

Originally Posted by swajames

It's a reasonably safe bet that whatever has manipulated Apple's stock slide will soon turn to increasing the value - once again - of stock bought in the 400s.

That's true. All Apple has to do is get off their a$$ and present something new. INNOVATE. That's the very real problem the market is responding to. The investor know that the dominance cannot continue with the same iDevices. iPad's and iPhones both are expected to slide against competition both from raging competitors and sleeping giants.

The market will respond if AppleTV finally comes out. It will respond if they actually DO something with all their cash- (like acquire a media company with a consistent revenue stream like subscribers). They can do *almost* anything but come out with a brighter/faster/smaller/bigger iWidget 2.0. But the market- and smart investors who listen to smart analysts- has sent the message: Do nothing and we're out.

Great article comparing the history of two tech giants. It is 'eerie' how similar the two charts are:

Buying Apple (AAPL) Stock: Catching a Falling Knife, or a Buying Opportunity?

By now it is clear Apple (AAPL) has fallen off a cliff after a parabolic rise. History says the fall will at least retrace the parabolic rise. We saw this recently with Crude Oil rising over several years into a parabolical peak at $147 (cash price), then falling in six months to $31 before bottoming. We saw this in 2000 with a bunch of tech stocks, and in particular the leader at the time, Microsoft (MSFT). Is AAPL, the leader in 2012, replicating MSFT, the leader in 2000?

The charts are eerily similar (courtesy Bespoke):


History also says a bull trap will emerge on the way down, a major bounce where many think they have caught the bottom, but when it reverses, they instead get sliced & diced as if grabbing a falling knife. Same bulltrap happened to crude on its rapid drop. The AAPL false bottom may have already occurred around $500 (see chart). After bouncing at that level, it has hit an airpocket and now seems on a bottomless journey down. A scan of the punditry finds some expectation for a bottom at $410, and I expect that level to catch some bids, but a look at the chart (red line) shows no support level until AAPL gets to the start of the parabolic spike up, at around $350.

Apple is a quality company, and its recent miss seem to be more an anomaly of comparing a 14 week quarter a year ago with the 13 week quarter that recently ended than a sudden break in Apple's trajectory. Hence, at some point, a bottom will be found, and a buying opportunity discovered; the bigger question is whether, like Microsoft's lost decade, will Apple grow quite strongly but never regain the recent stock highs? Maybe there is an app for that ….

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

Ohhh, how the mighty have fallen:

Exxon passes Apple as most valuable company

Oh... but as Apple passes Exxon by $7B, it doesn't get any press

Originally Posted by GeneArch

Oh... but as Apple passes Exxon by $7B, it doesn't get any press

I don't think it'll be 'news' until Apple holds and returns to the nearly yr long position it held and from which it fell so quickly. This is another great chart demonstrating why the year long rocket ship swing up and away from Exxon made news through 2012 and why it's made news again as it returned from orbit.



The historical significance of the $500B market cap curse is hard to ignore. Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, GE and WalMart, Google have all been down this road. The question is whether Apple will break the curse and return. History is against them.