One word, “Wow.”
Apple swung for the fences and I think they hit a grand slam. The device is amazing. It’s priced aggressively. It runs almost 100% of the iPhone apps. It will run upcoming iPad apps. It will have productivity software. Runs iTunes. Has iBooks and an iBook store. Plays games. And it washes your dishes and cooks your dinner. This device is drool worthy. One of the things that interests me the most, however, is actually the chip that runs it. It’s Apple’s own A4 chip. That’s most certainly a result of Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi in 2008. Hopefully, I will be able to dig up some good information on it and will be able to talk about it.
I’ll be back with more.
(Photo courtesy of Apple.com)
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Today’s the day. And if I were to trust my clock, the Apple announcement is about 53 minutes away. This is going to be longest hour of my life in recent memory.
But anyway, for those of you who are interested, Gizmodo will have a live blog of the event. I’ll definitely be posting some initial thoughts once it’s said and done. Then once I had time to let the announcement marinate, I will give a deeper response.
(photo courtesy Matt, Gizmodo)
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Tomorrow is the big day for Apple and tech fans, alike. The rumored “Jesus Tablet” is supposed to be unveiled.
The point of this post is that Gearlog had an interesting post today. An excerpt:
Solutions Research Group (SRG) surveyed 1,200 U.S. consumers aged 12 and over and discovered that 63 percent expressed interest in an Apple tablet, with 21 percent expressing “strong” interest. That’s above the level of interest for the Apple iPhone.
Based on my own anecdotal evidence, this device is going to be a hit. Literally everyone in my circle of friends sans one, has their credit cards ready to buy. And not all of them tote iPhones and use Macs. Talk about mindshare.
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Once again, Apple has proven that great products, great service and brilliant innovation can make your business profitable. Some comments about what was issued in their press release:
“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
Mind you, Apple is a company with no debt.
Apple sold 3.36 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 100 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 21 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
The 33 percent increase is very impressive given the current economic climate. Plus, the 100 percent unit growth in iPhones is phenomenal. This growth was accomplished in spite of increased competition from other handset makers such as Verizon’s BOGO sale on Blackberrys. Analysts and pundits will try to spin this as “disappointing” or “lackluster” but that’s in comparison to pie-in-the-sky fairy tale (aka “bullish”) projections. Lastly, the decline in iPod sales was to be expected. Their isn’t much more room to grown. But the silver lining to this is that the iPod touch sales increased 55 percent YOY.
“We are very pleased to have generated $5.8 billion in cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.0 billion to $11.4 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.06 to $2.18.”
I would be very happy if I generated with $5.8 billion in cash, too. The takeaway here is that I like their guidance. It doesn’t seem as overly conservative as past guidances.
Overall, as an Apple has a lot to crow about. I’m glad I own some shares. And I can’t conclude this post without saying that I can’t wait until this Wednesday.
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