Αυτό εδώ είναι ένα σχόλιο ενός επενδυτή στο Macrumors. Όποιος έχει όρεξη και χρόνο ας το διαβάσει. Εμένα με βρίσκει απόλυτα σύμφωνο. Έχει ξεφύγει η κατάσταση με τις τιμές και από ένα σημείο και μετά αισθάνεσαι σαν να σε κλέβουν.
I had a conversation this afternoon with my wife about where AAPL is heading. I said we needed to get out of AAPL. I've been an AAPL investor for 11 years now, and have accumulated a multi-million dollar AAPL portfolio.
Here's my main concern: Apple devices have become too expensive even for us (at the physiological level) even though we can afford anything and everything that Apple makes. However, having had very humble beginnings, both of us understand the value of money, and we now consider Apple to be purely a luxury brand. We are not into luxury brands; we buy quality and refuse to buy junk, but we do not buy luxury for the sake of the brandname alone.
Apple has always made overpriced gadgets, but those gadgets offered value even at the inflated prices. I'm typing up this post on a quad-core 2.6 GHz i7 2012 Mac Mini with Fusion Drive, which is still a phenomenal device. Yes, perhaps I overpaid for that computer back in 2012 (a couple hundred bucks) compared to a similarly equipped Windows computer, but six years later, I'm using this Mac Mini and enjoy every minute of it, and it's still phenomenal with only one feature lacking compared to the most advanced Macs: not being able to be unlocked by an Apple Watch.
However, I've been looking for an upgrade path for both my MacBook Pro 2015 and my Mac Mini for years now, and I just do not see any product out there anymore that offers the value because I think the threshold of reason has been crossed by Tim Cook's Apple. There's no regard at Apple to the fact that that people have options now, the fact that Windows is not as horrible as it used to be, the fact that there are some reasonably good Android phones out there, etc. I appreciate the fact that Tim Cook has no understanding of what money means to regular people. He has been filthily rich for so long now that he has lost all sense of reality when it comes to regular people's lives and budgets. I also realize that all other Apple executives who are the decision makers at Apple have no sense of reality either, being so incredibly rich. However, my wife and I still have the sense of reality despite our newly found wealth, and we feel that paying so much money for a MacBook Pro or a new iPad, or a new Mac Mini is just throwing your money away. We are not migrating away from the Apple's ecosystem (yet), as we are now heavily rooted in it, including all the IoT devices that are anchored to the Apple's HomeKit. Migrating away from Apple would be a very disruptive process for us at this time. What is our solution? Our solution is to continue to use our older Apple devices (like the 2012 Mac Mini, the iPhone 7, the iPad Mini 2, the 2014 27" Retina iMac, etc.) without buying anything new. Not because we cannot afford it, but because we feel that it's obscene to spend so much money on these devices. I'm afraid a lot of people with similar backgrounds - whether or not they have the money to spend - are having similar feelings and are putting off their purchases of Apple devices.
So, this is my dilemma. I liked owning AAPL, but I see no plan in the Apple's leadership for the future. Tim Cook's plan for the future seems to continue to raise the prices. Unfortunately, Tim does not understand that he has passed the threshold of decency at this point for most middle class people in the US, Canada, and Europe. Since about 2016, I've been feeling that the direction that Apple has taken with raising the prices is destructive to AAPL. I know, I know, the stock price has been rising, but there's a certain degree of inertia in the behavior of the stock compared to the direction that the leadership of a corporation sets.
Maybe Apple will start using their ARM chips in the Macs come next year. Maybe that's how Apple can lower the pricing while still maintaining the profit margins, and because of the lower prices they will be able to jump-start the sales of Macs. Maybe, Apple has some new amazing gadget up their sleeve that will blow everyone away. However, for now, I see nothing at all other than their desire to keep raising the prices and hoping to show Wall Street a solid growth of gross and net revenues. I don't' think you can fool Wall Street with this strategy. Wall Street folks are not idiots.
I'm saying all of this with a very heavy heart. I love this company, and it makes me sick watching what Mr. Cook is doing with it.
Τελευταία επεξεργασία από: Thodoris19s, 02/11/2018 - 14:06.
