Category Archives: Apple

Beehive Startups podcast

I had the pleasure of joining the regulars on the Beehive Startups podcast last week for their latest episode. Beehive Startups is a local effort to profile and cover startups here in Utah, and it was fun to do this one in person rather than by Skype. Clint Betts and Mike Templeman talk about the broader tech industry as well as Utah-specific topics on the podcast, so it’s a good mix. A full description of the episode is on the episode page, but among other things we talked about:

  • Vurb – a search engine startup
  • Automattic – creators of WordPress
  • The Samsung/Apple court case
  • Fred Wilson’s recent comments on Apple in 2020

The episode is well worth a listen, and at 28 minutes mercifully short. And if you’re into the tech scene in Utah, you should subscribe. I’m looking forward to joining them again soon.

Thoughts on Apple’s Q2 FY 2014 earnings

Apple’s earnings were out today, and so I thought I’d do a quick run-down of some of the most interesting numbers, as I did for Google last week. Time permitting, I’ll do this for some of the other major tech companies as they report too. Some of what’s below is based on stuff Apple explicitly reports, while the rest is based on calculations and assumptions. I’ll try to be very clear about which is which.

Hardware

First, Apple’s hardware lines. Because Apple’s numbers are so cyclical in nature, I try to use both year on year growth and 4-quarter trailing numbers to make comparisons more meaningful and to better tease out long-term trends. Here, then, is year on year 4-quarter trailing revenue growth for the four major hardware product lines:

Growth rates for 4 major Apple product lines

The obvious trend is down and to the right, though it’s a bit more nuanced than that. But iPod is clearly very much in decline at this point, and it’s reasonable to speculate how much longer it will stick around. But iPhone growth has clearly slowed enormously too, as the law of large numbers kicks in, and as key markets approach saturation. However, iPhone growth actually ticked up this quarter after consistent declines for several quarters before that, suggesting that growth in China, Japan and other both emerging and developed markets helped to turn things around a bit. It’ll be very interesting to watch this number going forward. The Mac line has also recovered a bit in the last couple of quarters. Continue reading

Why Apple may not launch an iWatch anytime soon

Everyone seems to assume that Apple is working on an iWatch, an entry in the emerging smartwatch market, and it’s likely that it is. But a secondary assumption has been that this launch must be imminent, because of the other entrants in the market, notably Samsung. However, the history of Apple’s entry into new markets shows that it bides its time, rarely entering right as a market begins, and often waiting until the combination of technologies required has evolved to the point where they’re ready for a truly compelling product. The chart below shows the timelines for Apple’s entry into three previous product categories, those which fueled much of its growth from 2000 to the present:

Apple product timelines Continue reading