AAPL.O

I bought some more Apple today, adding to my holdings for the first time in years. I've been teetering on the edge about it for a while, and Baha's move pushed me over the edge. Now I'm covered both ways, since if it goes up I make money and if it goes down I will will unfairly and unjustly blame Bahamut.

Smart! I'll blame you for driving up the price needlessly and contributing to the hysteria that eventually led to the downfall.

It's a win-win!

Hm, sounds like we could be sparking an investigation into outsider trading.

ddt

Or outcaster trading as the case may be...

I prefer the term extremist myself.

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John Willoughby
I'm afraid that I actually believe this. Not this particular rumor, but the general sense that control has been moving out Steve's hands and his responsibilities are being reduced by as much as possible.

It's two years ago all over again.
Jobs on medical leave.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2011 05:39AM by El Jeffe.

Not to discount health issues, but does anyone remember when Jobs took an actual vacation other than these times?

And yeah, jokes about being fired for years, yah yah yah.

ddt

I would love to not take vacations if it meant I could hang out at Pixar all day. Apple, not so much.

Baha and I picked just the right point to buy AAPL, no? Stock tanking on the European exchanges.

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Baha and I picked just the right point to buy AAPL, no? Stock tanking on the European exchanges.

But you each had a Plan B, didn't you ;-)

Well, of course we blame each other. I thought that went without saying.

Assuming his health situation is not absolutely dire, I think Apple shareholders (and fans) should appreciate another spin around the block by Tim Cook. It's like they're training the markets to see that Apple will be fine without Jobs. I know the real test will be developing a product without Jobs, but launching a new iPad and iPhone will help imprint Tim. Next week's earnings will help, too.

But, man, maybe Jobs should take regular vacations to avoid taking these indeterminate ones.

I don't think that is workplace burnout; transplant recipients have a lot of health issues. They must constantly try to thread the needle's eye, between too low an immunosuppressant dosage which causes the body to start rejecting the transplanted organ, or too high a dosage which lays the patient completely open to infection. Commonplace diseases can be very dangerous to transplant patients, and severe illnesses can be lethal.

If Mr. Jobs has developed issues, he may require a controlled environment to cure any illness he's contracted, and a careful re-balancing of his meds.

It's a good time to buy. Frankly, I don't think Jobs is that much of an asset. I spoke with someone a while back about how the reason that iTunes is such a godawful mess is his inability to conceive of distribution outside of it (although now that we have the mac app store…). I was stunned by the WSJ article… they mentioned that the last time he was ill the stock went down 23% (June 2008 to June 2009). It would be just as accurate to say "The last time that Steve Jobs was sick the world economy had a near death experience and the markets plunged)."

Aapl is steady at 335 today. I bought 20 more shares at 336, so I lost $20 more. I assume it won't tank after the quarterlies. They better be good or it will tank.

Not too happy with the indefinite medical leave. It would have been better to have him phase himself out. Put Cook (not much charisma although Jobs is not much charisma anymore either) or Ive (I'd prefer, but I guess there's a reason not to) in charge but make them appear to answer to Jobs, sort of. This isn't what the current medical leave suggests, which is… "I'm hanging on, but I'm sick and may never recover. I don't trust anyone after me."

Frankly, I find it hard to imagine Jobs has had that much to do with the last few years at Apple. I am pretty sure the iPad was not something he wanted. It was something he had to be convinced of. I am pretty sure the Apps stores were surprise he hadn't expected. He can thank the hackers for that. The redesign of the laptops is Ives. My sense is Jobs has had a bit to do with all that stuff when it was on board, but a bit of it was the result of overcoming his initial refusal. Under his watch plenty of mediocre decisions have been made (bizarre inability to capitalize on the Mini… which is happening AGAIN as it has no ability to work as a media PC, front row cough cough cough / the mess that is iTunes and iLife, which is pretty much his doing, that I'm sure of / the AppleTV / the delay on a small laptop / no alternate size tablets, etc. etc. ). It'd be better for if he were eased out rather than carried out on a stretcher.

I disagree with you about the iPads; I think Jobs sees it as the pinnacle (to date) of his vision. I do agree that the App Store was a lucky accident, but if he didn't already have the iTMS/iPod infrastucture to build on, he couldn't have taken advantage of it in time.

Oh I think he sees it as the pinnacle of his vision NOW. I think it took a lot of convincing though. I don't think he was lying when he said Apple would never make tablets. I think he just had to be convinced.

Yes, you're right about the infrastructure of the app store, but when you think about it… could you imagine the iphone without it?? OMG.

And all of you will disagree with me, but I still think that the possibility of licensing the OS could make the company even more billions.

Ha. I'm back up above where I bought my initial purchase AND I have a bunch at discount. Bwa ha ha ha.

What's really sad is that I got my ass kicked half way to sunrise in a margin call in 2000 and this is the first time I've been back in since that happened. I hope some of you had AAPL and hung on to it for that long… 

I think that Lion will be the last Apple-hardware-only version of Mac OS X. As the iDevices take off, I think that Apple will sell a generic OS X to OEMS like Dell and HP who will sell PC hardware with it pre-installed. I do NOT think that Apple will give up control of the OS, and I think that Apple will continue to make Macs.

Oh I don't think they will give up on the control either and they will indeed continue to make Macs.

Actually I may take that back… it's getting to the point where it doesn't matter.

Apple beats street estimates, up 5 or 2% in after hours trading.