Why Everyone is Afraid of Apple

<p><pre><code> if you wanted to buy the entire company it would cost you about $240 billion. To put that in context, for the same amount of money you could own Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE: NEM - News), the world's largest gold-mining company, And E.I. Du Pont de Nemours &#38; Co. And Kellogg Co., And Shrek studio DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc, And H&#38;R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB - News), And The New York Times Co. And Molson Coors Brewing, And the Estee Lauder Cos Inc. And Tiffany &#38; Co., the Hershey Co., Harley-Davidson Inc., Expedia Inc., Abercrombie &#38; Fitch Co., American Eagle Outfitters, Burger King Holdings Inc., CBS Corp., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Whole Foods Market Inc., Starbucks Corp., Netflix Inc., JetBlue Airways Corp., NStar, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. </code></pre> Not even the most ardent Apple fan, I would assume, could believe this is a fair valuation.<p>[Edited to add list of names that didn't make my original cut and paste.]

"Journalists are terrified of this company too.<p>Why? Just ask Jason Chen - the editor at tech blog Gizmodo who got his hands on the next iPhone. Apple's response? They sent in the police, who smashed down Chen's front door, ransacked his house -- while he was out -- and carted off computers and files. When Chen returned home from dinner with his wife, they frisked him too."<p>This is the kind of argument they are making to support the point????

This type of writing: "That new iPhone? What a total meh. So what if it has new volume controls? Or a metal strip around the side? Apple needs people to line up round the block for its next product. Will this really be enough?" shows that this author isn't so much as writing an opinion piece as he is sensationalizing and capitalizing on a trend of articles hearkening the fall of Apple for reasons I cannot truly fathom.<p>I can't help but remember the article posted yesterday IIRC which made the point: Why are we worried about Apple? Isn't it Wall Street that truly has the power to make everything get fubar'ed?<p>These articles just tire me...

Gotta post this somewhere to get it off my chest, so might as well be here -<p>...as someone who was using OS9 when Apple had a death watch on it there's a certain amount of schadenfreude, mixed with wonder, at this situation of Apple as the 800lb gorilla. I get a giant kick out of the whole thing. :-)<p>That is all.

One metric of how negative sentiment is the short ratio of the stock (percent of shares sold short). For comparison:<p>AAPL - 1.3% (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics" rel="nofollow">http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics</a>)<p>MSFT - 0.7% (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft+Key+Statistics" rel="nofollow">http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft+Key+Statistics</a>)<p>GOOG - 1.4% (<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=goog+Key+Statistics" rel="nofollow">http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=goog+Key+Statistics</a>)

I think it's very challenging for Apple. Apple is making a skyrocketing revenue because iPad and iPhone sales has boomed. But iPad won't sell for 300K piece everyday, that only happened the first day... actually it can sell! Yes, but there is an interesting point (so that it sells at such high rate): Apple "must" dominate the market.<p>For the iPhone, the competition is now fierce: Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows mobile and Nokia! Nokia is already a major player, they won't let Apple take the market easily and cheaply. They'll do marketing, new phones and crazy things to preserve their position.<p>That said, as competition is getting though, Apple has got to spend more on marketing and improving their products (taking down their profit, even if their sales are up, because they are spending more). Only if they dominate the market, then your investment will pay back.<p>My advice is: don't get in this stock. It's very risky; unless you believe that the iPhone and iPad will become standards ;)

He is giving Apple way too much credit. It's not like Apple did shady business deals/practices to get in their current position, it's because people genuinely like their products for whatever reason (interface/ease of use/design). And because a niche group of people (tech geeks) don't like apple products doesn't mean the general public won't find those products appealing.

I'd love to see Apple do a watch, or a clip-on to a watch that enabled financial transactions as a substitute for cash.<p>It'd probably need some type of rfid, and the merchant some type of biometric, otherwise if someone saw the watch, they might be tempted to steal.

A lot depends on iAds.<p>That could be a game changer, though I don't see the profit from iAds matching that of mac/iPhone/iPad/app sales.<p>Ugh, are we going to see iAds in addition to Google ads while browsing the web?

How about this statistic:<p><pre><code> Apple could pay, today and in cash, over 13% of Greece's debt. </code></pre> Astonishing, isn't it? :)

On the other hand, the P/E ratio of Google's stock is still higher than Apple's.<p>Apple - 21.72<p>Google - 23.10<p>Microsoft - 15.44

Apple is fundamentally a different kind of company than almost all other software or hardware companies. The prospect of J. Average Computer Company competing against J. Other Average Computer Company is straightforward, all that it takes to win against them is to keep doing what you're doing, only better, or more. The prospect of competing against Apple might be a bit more daunting, because potential it requires completely remaking your entire company to be more Apple-like, which is something most companies are utterly incapable of doing.<p>This is despite the fact that Apple isn't even especially dominant in any area, not to the same degree that Microsoft, Google, or Amazon are dominant.

Me thinks it is mainly because Apple delivers what others only envision. Which is scary.

I have to thank apple for higher ebook prices?