We've seen this story before. 30 years ago, laptops would be replaced every year, the capability of new machines was demonstrably better than the older ones. Now not so much. Give anyone a 15-year-old MacBook and this person will be hard-pressed to tell you in what year it was manufactured. For 99% of daily applications, there is no difference between a new and an older machine.
When the iPhone came out in 2008, yes it has only been 15 years, the phone was groundbreaking, and many resisted but in the end, the combination of ease of use, the App Store and the blind stupidity of Research in Motion (aka the company that invented the blackberry) made frequent upgrades for your phone a must. Every year or so a new phone was needed.
Rolling on to 2024, and most people have changed the way they use their phones, fewer calls, more text messages, mean the phone doesn't work as hard. In addition, you have to check the BIOS to know what model you have in your hand. You have to "know" to tell the difference between a model 10 and a model 15 (the 16 is just around the corner apparently). They look the same, they work the same, and the scenes may be better but you would be hard-pressed to identify which is really better.
The iPhone is the victim of its own success, It is no longer seen as a luxury item, it's just something you need, its a staple and not an aspiration device.
Enters Apple corporation. The last remotely interesting device they introduced was the watch, personally a $300 watch that will work for only a few years seems a waste, considering that I purchased my Seikko perpetual in 1997 and it still looks as good today as it did the day I bought it (it also tells the time just fine), plus I like that my phone is not with me, and that I am not connected.
The $6,000 Apple goggles were a novelty that has already died down. The reality is that it's still not ready for prime time, and it may never make the cut, the latest iteration has interesting aspects, but you look like a moron wearing these things.
Apple is at a loss as to what to do with its mountain of cash, the solution is obvious, either buy Tesla or give it back to the shareholders, their buyback is fiscally the most efficient since the tax implication is better, dividends are income, appreciation of share price is capital gains, for American investors the tax rate is half the other.
So this morning Apple announced (implied) that they will start buying back their shares. Unfortunately, it also tells you that Apple is hard-pressed to find anything in which to invest its excess cash. The reality is that Apple is a vertically integrated computer company, its foray into the content business has been better than most, and Apple+ is seen as one of the better channels with groundbreaking and interesting content. The same cannot be said for Paramount or even Amazon, both trail Netflix and are, by the way, mostly domestic, nearly 50% of Netflix's income is from foreign sources.
Still, the signs are there, Apple is a mature company in a mature industry, it will continue to build computers, tablets and telephones, but it is no longer the "tech play"it has been for the past two decades. Someone said that the last "new product" was developed by Steve Jobs. The man has been dead for a while now. It still makes great products, but the pipeline is thin, and as such share share seems to be an excellent idea
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