Will Apple Focus on Innovating and What Would Mac Spinoff Look Like, with John Kheit – ACM 495
Bryan Chaffin and John Kheit chew on Apple’s rare guidance warning like the mangy junk yard dogs that they are. They also discuss innovation, scale, how a giant Apple should be structured, and what a Macintosh, Inc. spinoff might look like. It’s a rollicking episode, and you’re cordially invited to listen in!
Show Notes
Sources referenced in this episode:
- Apple Warns of December Quarter Revenue Shortfall, Blames China, Stock Drops After Hours – Here’s What You Need to Know
- Apple Guidance, Mojave Upgrades – TMO Daily Observations 2019-01-03
- Apple Needs to Expand Its Product Grid to Include an Edition Category
- Apple Context Machine Facebook Group - Facebook
- Bryan's Twitter
- Bryan's blog: GeekTells
GREAT show. Lots of good commentary on Apple’s current dead end. Hope it learns from it. Sadly it doesn’t seem to have anything with which to innovate its way out, or I think Cook could have referred to the last time they corrected guidance and stuck with a winning formula.
As for the needlessly apologetic letter to investors. Cook is a man of VERY few words. If he could have said what needed to be said as briefly as Jobs did, he would have. I agree it’s too apologetic and that might be kinder/gentler Tim, but I’m sure there’s legal reasons the letter waffled around a multitude of excuses. Doesn’t mean Jobs wouldn’t have said – China sucked, but everything else is good – but I suspect he would have been too economical with the truth for modern realities.
Just as the only reason Apple didn’t tell people to replace their batteries in their phones was because they couldn’t cope with the deluge, I suspect the reason there’s so much waffle in the ‘letter’ is because China was being used to hide a multitude of sins. The bit about developed markets being soft, too seems prescient. There might have been other ‘reportable’ weaknesses in the quarter, that legally needed to be mentioned. Even if the drop in revenue could be -attributed- to China, there might be more rotten in the orchard than just that, so much so, that it needed to be signalled before the quarterly earnings and buried amongst iPhone trade-in offers and other nonsense, in hopes of minimising full investigation of the issues.
More Kheit!!