Apple Stock Nears Quarterly High as Investors Prepare for Q3 Earnings Report

Has Apple ever let their entire product line stagnate so badly?

MacBook - Just updated 87 days ago.

iMac - Updated 276 days ago. Normally goes 317 days between updates, so not bad or unusual.

15" MBP: Last updated 483 days ago, while 13" was updated 423 days ago. Hasn't gone more than 294 days between updates since 2012 (the first Retina). Going back to the first Intel MBP, Apple hasn't ever gone more than 317 days between updates before. So this is the longest it's ever gone between updates so far, by a factor of over 1.5x.

MacBook Air - 494 days. It's 5 days away from being the longest the MacBook Air has ever been left without an update. It's over the average by 1.5x.

MacMini - 638 days. The average is 438 days between releases, but it's still 90 days shy of the longest ever.

Mac Pro - 939 days. Everyone complained when it went 500-600 days between updates. It's now over its average of 450 days by over 2x, and over the previous maximum by nearly 1.5x.

I have a 2007 iMac. It's 9 years old and I don't feel compelled to replace it at all. It runs El Capitan just fine. I'm surprised Sierra is dropping support for it, but I still don't feel like replacing the iMac, because Apple really just hasn't made any compelling upgrades to their Mac line or OS X in forever.

I'm not big on conspiracies, but something just isn't adding up. This revolutionary company that we love so much, I highly doubt that any of these are a coincidence: the entire Mac line up not being updated in years with terrible specs, and if so (like the MacBook) they are extremely minor, hence Mac sales have been very low. iOS & macOS being extremely anti-climatic and the 6S and upcoming 7 being extremely lacklustre updates, hence sales have been sloping down for the first time in its history. And don't even mention the watch that hasn't even been updated yet... It's as if they want to suck on purpose.

No ruthless, cut throat visionary; no good Apple.

I'm not big on conspiracies, but something just isn't adding up. This revolutionary company that we love so much, I highly doubt that any of these are a coincidence: the entire Mac line up not being updated in years with terrible specs, and if so (like the MacBook) they are extremely minor, hence Mac sales have been very low. iOS & macOS being extremely anti-climatic and the 6S and upcoming 7 being extremely lacklustre updates, hence sales have been sloping down for the first time in its history. And don't even mention the watch that hasn't even been updated yet... It's as if they want to suck on purpose.

As long as Apple continues to buy back shares, nothing should be done to juice the share price. Let it stay low so Apple can get more bang for the buck and so will shareholders. There's nothing Apple can do to make the company more of an attractive investment than Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft or a host of other tech companies, so shareholders might as well give up. Shareholders will simply have to suck it up. I'm still getting paid my dividends and the faster the share count drops, the better it is for me in the long run. Tim Cook is a loser. He's nothing when compared to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. He's even behind Reed Hastings and Satya Nadella. I'm sure everyone knows this much. He's always got his nose into some business outside of Apple. I guess that's his thing. Apple will remain undervalued compared to other stocks as it's become a really boring company lead by an extremely boring CEO. As a shareholder, I've seen the good times and now I'm seeing the not so good times. Steve Jobs is gone and that's that. There's nothing to look forward to. A wealthy company getting its ass kicked by companies far poorer is one of the things that happens to companies set on merely protecting what they have and nothing more.

With all the money they have, Apple should be able to build the most powerful Pro computer on the planet but they don't seem interested in doing so for reasons I'm not exactly certain. The current Mac Pro is merely paying lip service to Jony Ive as a designer and very little attention to end users. All those powerful graphic cards are being created and Apple doesn't give a damn because they'd rather build underpowered green computers instead of beast machines. I'd heard that even the high-end processor iMacs have to throttle back because lack of proper cooling doesn't allow them to run flat-out as intended in Turbo-boost mode. Apple has to build these super-thin computers in order to make them look good at the expense of functionality. I get it. Apple doesn't want iMacs to be used as gaming machines so they handicap them. I guess Apple is being run by committee and the bean counters are in charge. There's nothing can be done about that and I'm not sure even a new CEO would help.

I still like the company but I don't understand what their goals are. They never say. Investors don't give a damn about green policies or gender policies even if they're important. I sure wish Apple had some space program just to make things a little interesting to dream about. All Apple seems to be interested in is selling iPhones and they're not even accomplishing that to a great degree. Apple's product mix isn't that high in number so why are they having such a hard time focusing on the few things they have.

I'm not big on conspiracies, but something just isn't adding up. This revolutionary company that we love so much, I highly doubt that any of these are a coincidence: the entire Mac line up not being updated in years with terrible specs, and if so (like the MacBook) they are extremely minor, hence Mac sales have been very low. iOS & macOS being extremely anti-climatic and the 6S and upcoming 7 being extremely lacklustre updates, hence sales have been sloping down for the first time in its history. And don't even mention the watch that hasn't even been updated yet... It's as if they want to suck on purpose.

You may have a point. These people are too smart to forget what got them where they are.

They can't see the forest through the trees, (or whatever that phrase is.) Companies getting caught up in their own success isn't something new. They've become so big, so fast that they've become glacially slow at innovating and it takes far too long for systemic issues to be recognized and fixed by those in power. I should know... I'm not in the same industry as Apple, but I do work for a company that became large very fast, hasn't managed itself effectively, and because of it have gone from record profits to hemorhaging cash.

As for the stock price, who knows? Could go up, could go down. The market's driven by gamblers who buy on gut feelings and momentum rather than the company's financial health and whether its stock is over/undervalued.

Don't worry shareholders...they'll release some watch bands the day before to boost the stock price. The market just loves watch bands. Then when the numbers are not as good as they should have been Tim will go on Cramer and tell the world about the great and exciting stuff in the pipeline. Come to think of it...maybe they should call a plumber. The pipeline seems to be clogged...nothing is coming out of it and hasn't for years.

In all seriousness I wonder if there is some crazy way for them to bring the money from over seas and call it revenue. Fill in the gaps when they aren't selling things. I bet there is some crazy way to do it. It seems like they shouldn't be doing as well as they are. But then again, millennials would rather buy an Apple Watch and a Hermes band instead of a house or car...so who knows.

Gonna crash after the earnings report and guidance :(

Yup, time to sell now and then buy again the day after the earnings report.
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Thanks for compiling those numbers for us :) Your post was a fun read.

Rather sad you'd spend so much time calculating this out.

You do realize that those numbers surely came from the MacRumors Buyers guide ('https://buyersguide.macrumors.com'), right?

No ruthless, cut throat visionary; no good Apple.

It's like they forgot that if we all stop buying from them they will all lose their jobs.

Pretty much guaranteed and actually guaranteed are fairly different things. If there's a chance you can end up with less money than you put in when you might need/want then the chance is connected to a gamble that it won't happen. Perhaps the odds are different and much more favorable than with "typical" gambling, but it seems that there's chance involved nonetheless.

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

Not many things are guaranteed. One that is: if you don't invest, you will retire poor, or never retire at all. The problem here again is that we've been acculturated to believe that investing is no different than placing bets at a craps table or on a roulette wheel or buying lottery tickets, all of which feature odds strongly favoring the house. Meaning, you will lose, either slowly if you are lucky, or quickly if you are less so. Compare to a chart for the S&P 500 over the last thirty years, and you will quickly notice that those are not gambler's odds, and they won't become gambler's odds unless you think you can guess ahead of time when is the best time to get in and out.

I don't understand all this crying about Apple here. The company is about to unleash a whole range of new products with the latest intel chipsets, memory and flashdrives with everything else you can think of as soon these products are available.

It's WAY early to state that Apple has lost it's touch, if any. If Apple will not launch a whole range of new products by the end of this year (few months to go) then the critics do have a point. Until then I'm in the waiting mode.