Okay, some words of caution. I did not attend the #iLoveAppleFest September 9. I am reading and watching the same information from resources I trust. This is my attempt to give some advice to our community, but it has little to do with stock.
What it has to do with is Apple’s community of competitors, consumers and developers.
So first of all, I want to point out that Apple, shifted their announcement strategy (or perhaps augmented it) from during CES to during CTIA. CTIA should consider that as a feather in their cap, that Apple chose them to compete against. And let’s be clear, what Apple does is lead discussion away from CTIA’s show and make it so that the reporters at CTIA have to comment on Apple’s announcement.
Now, as for the announcement, I want to say that the amount of leaks that happened made the iPhone6 part of the announcement. It was pretty much a yawn. Don’t get me wrong, it will sell well and the friends I have that pay attention feel there is a wave of iPhone4s just waiting for the transition. So with the loyal base alone Apple is going to show brisk sales. However, gaining market share back does not seem in the cards to me.
However, I do see growth with the iWatch. Let me say to start, that I don’t think the iWatch is particularly compelling yet, but to quote the old AT&T ads “It will be.” Here is why I think so.
Memory Sticks, Thumb Drives, and SDK cards are the floppy disk of this generation. I believe Apple will find a way to make it so the iWatch takes the role of local personal storage to a new level.
Actually, I think it will be the developer community that will drive this and find a path that makes sense. Now, winning the hearts of pocketbooks of people paying $34 for an 8G memory stick and replacing it with $345 watch is going to take some compelling apps. However, I expect eventually they will show up.
Lastly, I want to talk about the Apple Pay. Candidly, I am having problem with the pundits not connecting the dots that celebrity nude photo breaches and mobile payment systems are vulnerable to the same man-in-the-middle attacks.
Apple plays very close to the vest on these issues and therefore I can’t tell if Apple Pay is any better than the authentication that Europe has. I can say that the U.S. needs an upgrade and Apple may have the karma to be the pied piper to new technology adoption. However, I am not thinking of this as the solution.
It’s more just another chance for Apple to take a bite out of the marketplace.
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