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There Go Apple's Margins: iPhone 5 To Sell At Wal-Mart For A Third Off Original Price
Remember when less than brisk sales of the iPhone 5 after it was first unveiled (to the usual fawning media Borg collective ooh-ing and aah-ing) were blamed on "supply issues" even as "reputable" Wall Street analysts conducted channel checks which foretold of epic holiday sales and massive pent up demand. As it turns out the only commodity in short supply was, well, demand, particularly that coming from consumers, very much as we predicted during the last earnings report (which was merely the latest consecutive earnings miss in a row). And, as Reuters reports with its Friday night bombshell report, Apple has finally thrown in the towel on pretending there is a supply shortage and admitted there is simply not enough demand at the given price point, by proceeding to sell the margin flagship iPhone 5 at a third off the original price, at the bargain basement commodity expert Wal-Mart of all places. And not only the iPhone, but the Ipad too (we have no idea which generation is the latest one: the iPad 3, the New iPad, the iPad 4s, the iPad Mini, the MAXiPad, etc...) And just like that, the "niche premium" magic of the once uber-cool gizmo is gone, not to mention AAPL's profit margins, very much as the stock price has been sensing over the past two months, during which time it lobbed off some $150 billion in market cap. And with the reflexivity of fad-ness, as long as the price of the stock is soaring for whatever reason, interest and demand in the product remains at virtually any cost. Sadly for AAPL bulls, the opposite is also true, as is being witnessed right about now.
Alas - as with every fad, the time has once again come to find the new latest and greatest distraction, one with just as ridiculously unsustainable a growth curve.
From Reuters:
Wal-Mart said it is selling the 16 GB Apple iPhone 5 for $127, versus an original price of $189.97. The price is valid with a two-year contract from wireless carriers Verizon, Sprint and AT&T, the retailer added.
Wal-Mart said it is also selling the 16 GB iPhone 4S and the 16 GB iPad with Retina display and WiFi at discounts.
The offers will be available for 30 days in about 3,000 of Wal-Mart's stores, which were not identified. They are not available online, according to the retailer.
Apple has focused on high-priced, premium gadgets for many years and has strictly enforced its prices with retailers and other distributors. However, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said on Friday that the discounts were arranged with Apple.
"We worked together with them on this," the spokeswoman, Sarah Spencer, said. "They are a great partner."
Wal-Mart is pricing the iPad starting at $399, down from $499. Beginning December 17 the retailer said it will throw in a $30 iTunes card.
Wal-Mart is selling the 16 GB iPhone 4S for $47, versus an original price of $89.97, it said.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
We wouldn't either.
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$47 is a reasonable amount to pay for an iPhone as long as you don't need something to talk on. I think they're leaving out some important details.
Marc Faber said Apple peaked long time ago...
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2012/10/05/marc-faber-apple-has-peaked-out/
There goes the Bread Winner of the US economy
QE3: Same day as iPhone launch
QE4: Same week as iPhone sell off
"However, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said on Friday that the discounts were arranged with Apple"....yeah, Wal = Geithner and Mart = Bernanke.
I held Dec 14 $515 AAPL puts that I bought yesterday. I cashed out this morning at 09:32 for a whopping 1,000% gain.
Beautiful. Well done, sir.
how much apple's rev comes from deferred revenue sharing from carrier's required data plan.
phone: $127 for life
data plan: $30/month = for 2 years it is $720
basically it is a $1000 device bought as a monthly payment plan because consumers are poor to buy it outright.
So renting to buy may not be the best plan?
You nailed it. It's all just hire purchase at the end of the day feeding the credit bubble..
I'm happy to be stuck in a rolling contract costing $15/month with a rinky-dink phone that allows me to use it for it's sole purpose of basic voice communication much to the carriers annoyance - who would rather like to see me to get out of deal knowing I'd have to pay nearer $20-25/month to get the same offering..
That's a good deal, but even better for voice/text only is Tracfone, which, if you charge the phone for a year at a time works out to about $8 per month. That's still too much for me, so I'm looking into one of those new Obamaphones, which I hear are free.
Thanks for the mention. I am going to check them out.
If you see the SOB staggering around who stole from my car seat last night my Tracfone with $120 prepaid on it, along with a good bottle of whiskey, kick his ass for me.
What is going to happen is that as the "squeeze" continues, people will be forced to abandon things like expensive cable and phone plans. What would be interesting is to see a carrier suddenly offer the use of a smartphone without requiring a data plan. As much as a signal of deflationary pressure as Walmart selling iPhones.
Of course, this is all feeds the deflationary feedback loop. Moar QE!
I have a $10. a month prepaid plan with Verizon, which incudes minutes that accumulate every month. The Samsung phone for the plan cost me $20. I rarely use the phone and have accumulated 100s of minutes. Works for me.
And STILL AMZN trades at nosebleed levels...
I'm intrigued by the (non)reaction to iPhone 5 in China - wondering if it's a function of the fad being over or if (just as likely) it's a sign that the Chinese consumer - supposedly the savior of their economy since exports there have tanked - is also having nose bleeds, and other hemorrhages
I think that when the China Launch was announced it was on an Option experation day. So many including UBS had so much invested in their Put Options the only thing to do to get them in the Money was to lower their price target to $700. and the stock sold off making them winners on their options.
The right trade with AMZN is to buy stuff from them, not the stock.
All other carriers and devices do the same scheme. Even so, no mobile phone is going to last you a lifetime, not by a long shot. Most people only stay with the same phone about 2-3 years. And no people aren't too poor to buy a phone outright, and they don't cost $1000, more like $600 or $700 for the latest and greatest. People spend that kind of money on tech all the time.
All other carriers and devices do the same scheme. Even so, no mobile phone is going to last you a lifetime, not by a long shot. Most people only stay with the same phone about 2-3 years. And no people aren't too poor to buy a phone outright, and they don't cost $1000, more like $600 or $700 for the latest and greatest. People spend that kind of money on tech all the time.
The principle is:
- Hey I don't have enough money to buy that device...
- No worries my good sir, we'll take your money either way!
That's what I call a smart phone! Well done sir.
wtf you talkin about Willis?
Morphing into mediocrity. The Beatles win!
RIMM anyone?
"The iPad is much more filling than the iPhone," -W. Dudley
Fuck you apple...chinese child slave labor fucks.
virtual food brought to you by company named after real food.
ironic isn't it?
Symbols, myths, softly spoken magic spells.
There is no child slave labor by Apple you idiot. And Samsung etc are working in the same factories but you like them I bet hypocrite. Without Apple those workers would already be dead. Suicide is higher outside Apple factory than in. 25 ignorant Apple haters should educate themselves before voting.
Kiss 15$/share earnings goodbye, I'd say that it will be something like 5$/share moving forward. Oh my, that's 50-100$ stock, not 500. God, this thing is gonna crash.
You may well be right.
A producer/manufacturer who does business with Walmart - the "Walmart Way" - soon finds itself going down the tubes.
Just google Vlasic pickles and Walmart.
>>>>Apple has focused on high-priced, premium gadgets for many years and has strictly enforced its prices with retailers and other distributors. However, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said on Friday that the discounts were arranged with Apple.
"We worked together with them on this," the spokeswoman, Sarah Spencer, said." They are a great partner.<<<
Yes. That's just what Walmart wants their "Partners" to think.
Agree with the general sentiment of this, but you need to factor in the cash per share that AAPL has and figure it could easily trade at 4x or 5x cash. That would put the stock between $120 and $150. I would not suspect even in market chaos that it would get much lower than this, and if it did, I would be a careful but certain buyer.
Apple iPhone I iGnore.
I paid about $40 on my tRakfone about 5 months ago and still have 10 minutes left.
I spent the first 45+ years of my life without such pocket clutter other than change for a payphone (or making the payphone collect call*).
I find watching people finger fuck those gadgets to be the most irritating insult. There are real, live human beings right in front of you, directly ingaging you, interacting with you as best they can and you're finger fucking a piece of plastic?!
I can only imagine the wave of depression as the ennui of dis-stimulation occurs from an EMP or other catastrophic event. Thirty years later there will still be addicts softly stroking their little piece of black plastic and glass for their 'fix'.
*Real story from the early 80's. I had gone from a itsy-bisty town in Flawduh, Port St Joe to be exact, back to California for a funeral. On the return, my plane dropped thousands of feet and a large crack appared before my eyes on the wing. I watched as the skin of the wing continue to split going towards the bow of the wing. The Captain of the plane came back to the empty aisle seat in front of me, and leaned over the guy in front to peer out of the window. At that point I was half crouching to watch him and the wing. He turned back to he guy and, sorta, to me and said 'Looks pretty bad, doesn't it?' The guy in front said, 'Yeah' in a what the fuck sort of way. The pilot went back to the cabin and came on to announce that we were going to make an unscheduled landing, and I don't even remember where, to check on the stress of the plane due to the sudden drop we experienced.
We landed without incident and were offloaded and taken to the terminal of a small regional airport. (Back then, planes actually flew with empty seats, and small airports served as hubs to major airports. Oh, and security checks usually involved as rather LARGE black lady sitting on a stool who would run your shit through an x-ray that she ignored as she talked with another LARGE black lady...both improbably named La-QuishTa via nametags. (They are now TSA Executives)
Anyway, we filter through ticketing and I wind up with a flight to Chicago and a connector to Fort Walton. I was supposed to go to Panana City and arrive about six hours earlier. The timing requires that I fast trot from the ticket counter to the gate.
I arrive in Chicago O'Hare and I have two hours to board the next leg. I go looking for a payphone. At the time I was the dorkiest white guy you've ever seen...including pocket protectors. So I go down the into the terminal and try to figure out where the hell stuff is and I see a young black lady with a little boy about three. I start walking towards the exit thinking that would be about where payphones are when the little black kid yells "Daddy!" and runs up to hug my knees. I have never been in this town so I fairly certain that I have little chance to be this little boys 'Daddy', and his mom's embarrassment is confirmation enough to bend down and hug the kid and say 'I'm not your Daddy, but thanks for greeting me' in this town. He got flustered and ran back to momma and I gave her a thumbs up as I continued.
Found the payphone bank near the entrance and dialed the local operator. She came on and I told her I'd like to make a collect call to Port St Joe, gave her the number and she dialed it. The operator there came on and said, 'Port St Joe Operator'. I said 'Hey Terri! She said Hey 'OldPhart' (she used my real name). I asked that she tell my wife and mother in law that I ws routed to Chicago and would be going to Fort Walton about six hours later than planned. Terri said 'hang on'...than came back on and said, 'no one answered, I'm going on break in about ten minutes and I'll walk over to Flora's house and let her and your wife know.'
The Chicago operator broke in...'You two know each other?!' Terri said, 'Know each other! Shit, we delivered a baby together a week ago. You take good care of 'oldphart', he's a keeper! He needs to make a call make the call.'
Terri hung up and the Chicago operator said 'I have the number to Reagan, want to call him?' I said no thanks. Later I heard onthe news that the plane I came into Chicago on got hi-jacked to Cuba.
My flight to Fort Walton was uneventfull until we were about to land at about one in the morning. There was a lightning storm and rain. The plane was just about to touch down when the pilot stepped on the throttle and the plance did this sort of rolling loop. Drink glasses and shit floated in the air for long seconds, then dropped all over laps, seats and carpets. It was a mess. The pilot came on and apologized saying there was a herd of deer in the middle of the runway and that he had to abort the landing. Everyone in the plane started giggling nervously. The second approach was no problem, we landed and a stair way was rolled up to the side of the plane. Me and one other guy got off and stood beside the plane on the runway as they opened the side and looked for our bags. He handed them to us from inside the plane. Jumped down and then said that the terminal was closed but pointed at a street light and said that a phone was over there along with a bench.
I called Terri and she told me that apparently my wife and mother in law had already left, but that she had called the Panama City operator to tell the airport to tell them that I was waiting in Fort Walton. The other guy was picked up within ten minutes, leaving me by myself. About an hour later my wife and mother in law showed up.
That's how we rolled before cell phones.
which 80's ?
Planes didn't fly in the 1880's , dumdass...
@OldPhart
Great read, made my day - thank you Sir!
stupid stories great reading....please post more old ft. I could of read chapters..
i found the finger fucking jaw dropping when i visited the US last time.
I go to Miami every two years..
Here i was in the lounge of the Hilton. Some twenty people devouring the device. It was literally a culture shock, like being in India for the first time.
A WTF moment.
Cool story bro! Tell us another.
Update. Gulf County (Port St. Joe) is about to get a pot of money from the BP spill and will be building a deep water port. Won't be such a quaint little paper mill/fishing village again.
*sigh* Sometimes I think it should have stopped at pay phones and beepers.
Old Phart
I too grew up before cell phones.Though I was one of the first to buy
that Motorola 'brick' when it came out.I needed it for business .and it was only $4500-00
and $2 per minute back then. s\
What I really hate nowadays is that since the advent of cell phones for the common man,
that all initiative has been abandoned.Endless phone calls asking dumb questions is the norm.
No need for them to think before dialing.
Don't you know that nobody uses a cell phone for talking anymore? It's for texting, looking at maps to see where something is, and social media (twitter, facebook etc.).
Uh, porn? Let's be real here.... Ijerkit
Did you used to write for "National Lampoon?"
The new disposable femipad will save them.
480 -650 -480
2022 . 480
I'm quite sure the mini will temporarily save them this Christmas, it is the top line item for kids , i can see that literally from the middle of the woods thousands and thousands of miles away.
They will soon have one more run up , one final stand , retest the glory . A two quarter thingy , and another crash .Just another wash and repeat. Then the chart will look like Microsofts' the last decade.
I just cant see someone, with an ipad, getting the mini... what is the point. I know some people just get it to say they have it, but I could see parents buying their kids the mini because it is cheaper than the ipad. I just did a price check and the mini's are not much cheaper than the ipad... Kindle fire hd is $200 the mini is ~$450 google nexus is ~$250. I see parents wondering why their kids cannot do their homework on their tablet. To be fair, I do not think they get homework anymore.
Fuck iPhone. Dont be a pretentious douche and buy a Droid instead.
Fuck iPhone, fuck Droid; be a patriot and don't buy anything. Crash the system.
Passive resistance.
Why are you a pretentious douche for owning an IPhone? I owned two Android phones and liked them both. I switched to an iPhone 4S and like it even more. I don't root my phone. I just want apps that work. Apple may not be worth it's stock price, but they do make great products. All of the vitriol directed at Apple on this site is bizarre. Smartphones make life a bit easier and much more enjoyable. If you are financially able to afford a premium smartphone and don't, you are really missing out. I'm well aware it will not work after the "end of days" but I am going to enjoy life in the present. Happy Holidays!
Most companies try ever so hard to create a product that the people will want. Apple creates a product then tries ever so hard to make people want that product. Granted, it is a good product. There was one ipad now there are two, how can they convince people which one is better, they are now making their customer choose. There is no longer a default choice.
No, people aren't choosing - they are getting both. Granted, at some point, the market will be saturated but for now, the products are selling.
Because "douche" droid owners can only conscieve of someone buying an iphone out of pretentiousness. It couldn't possibly be that they like the phone and it actually does what they want, easily with no fuss. People really need to get over Apple being rightfully successful and deal with it.
Dont be a pretentious douche and buy a Droid instead.
Yeah be an unpatriotic pretentious douche and buy cheap South Korea plastic and a copycat OS instead, much better!
Ironic, considering those are Samsung chips in that iCrap.
But....but.....but I JUST paid full price.
<I really hate being the greater fool.>
"Just do iPhone6"
BenSBernanke
iCquiescence
aapl looking fight on price front ... sounds like a bad news for android phones, death-knell for microsoft, and obituary for blackberry.
looking to save their ass is more like it
Well, I guess that's one way to look at it. . .
Actually true. Tim Cook wants marketshare, Steve Jobs didn't care. Of course, the same people here saying Apple is doomed when they wouldn't get marketshare are now saying they are doomed for a strategy to get marketshare.
Basically, all are just emotional beings who like to hate Apple. A truly innovative US company.
Macintosh, Newton, Unix for Masses, iPhone, iPad, .... ?
Everyone else, besides Nintendo, just copy.
The problem with your view is this. In fact, your statement that Tim Cook wants marketshare actually explains why Apple is in trouble.
Back in the 80s. Apple ignored market share. Kept control of everything - very proprietary. PCs clobbered Apple. No one wanted to be locked into the restrictions of Apple.
Apple has done it again, except that their product was so hot it did well for several years. But then the FREE MARKET caught up with apple with phones supporting Droid. I have neither an Apple or Droid phone, so I have no skin in it.
The fact that one can copy others (without patent issues) crushes those companies that don't adapt to markets that favor less restrictions (not talking regulatory restrictions). That is what decimated Apple before and they are repeated it. The only difference this time is Apple is lowering its margins to MAINTAIN share, not get more.
Apple is ALWAYS in trouble. Until its next breakthrough item.
And, while droid sells a lot, the software market is horrible, development is horrible, and most people just use their phones as phones and don't even do much more then texting or facebooking.
So, as everyone crowds the down trade on Apple, just like the up trade, beware.
One final thing.... I have found Apple to be a leading indicator... so watch those longs in general
Maybe they could bring back pet rocks. Rebrand them as iRocks.
Could be big.
Or maybe they could do women's hand bags. Put big letter "i"s all over purses.
Personally, I clipped the wires off my ear buds and just leave them in my ears, peeps be mad jealous.
The big difference is the "walled garden" that Apple shoves down everyone's throat. I've written apps for both iPhone and Android, and I know what I'm talking about.
"development is horrible" doesn't apply to Android. If you actually wrote software for the platform, you'd know. Here's something you can research - how many steps does it take to get an iPhone app on their market versus Android?
Also, look into how distribution is handled for applications. Apple has a very limited 'ad-hoc' system that allows for beta testing and small groups, whereas Android allows me to email an .apk file to anyone I choose - without going through a central authority. I've personally dealt with being rejected on vague grounds by the people doing app review through iTunes connect. Its extremely frustrating.
The plain fact of the matter is that Apple is now resorting to the WalMart distribution, which I'm pretty sure Jobs would never permit, as he understood maintaining the image of a product is almost as important as what goes inside of it.
So, as a technical user of both, I have to logically conclude that the negatives outweigh the positives for Apple's future.
Apple is a fashion statement ala Louis Vuitton or Prada.
Selling at WalMart is Russian roulette - butt-crack WalMart shoppers waving iShit gimcracks around will eat away at the mystique like battery acid.
I'll stick with my TracFone no contract plan of $45 a month and Samsung Galaxy which is just as good, or if not better than the piece of iSHIT.
TracFone aka ObamaPhone. Look it up.
I'll stick with my pre-paid tiny little PHONE with no data at all for $3 a month. Why do you even need that horse shit? To text non stop on your facebook page to people who don't give a crap about your life?
I call my TrakFone my Taliban Telephone. I use it for IED's...one phone call and 'I Evidently Disturbed Someone'. It's best feature is that I no longer have to wear a watch and my alarm clock at home is the same anywhere I go.
Mine cost about ten bucks, so I could give a shit if I lost it, broke it, threw it away or blew it up. And I use the damned thing to make or receive phone calls.
(Over the last year, though, I learned that you can do text but I'm not sure why that's necessary...just call the bitch and talk...no finger fuckin' with an ittybitty screen required!) Apparently there's some doohickey that will allow for email, guess I have to wait for grandkids to teach me how to do that. In the meantime, I'm not missing it.
Oh, and with TrakFone...if you worry about the fuckin'Feds tracking your ass. You can either pull the battery or throw the fickin' thing out the window.
I never go out without separating my cellphone from its battery.
I remember when going from rotary to touch-tone was a pretty big deal. Curiously enough, the phone switching networks STILL support rotary phones.
By fluke. They offically dropped support years ago, but some old fuckers who pay a land line phone bill still spin the dial, so they kept support to keep them from buying a Tracphone.
The cost is still too high and there's still not enough memory(I want 256 GB). Plus, consumers should be able to easily replace the battery when it finally stops charging. The next iPad should be made of gold and able to shoot lead. It would sell very well.
While Apple is surely taking some sort of hit on their margins, I doubt that it is that much. I suspect that many of these stores, Best Buy as another example, are basically selling it at cost or even at a loss, purely to drive traffic in the hopes that people will also buy other products. Thus is life in the retail industry when Amazon is around. Sure, Apple's margins of 2007-2010 are gone, but they are still pretty good in the industry.
Except for the pending Walmart 2 for the price of 1 deal.
iLaughed.
iGnored
I guess those hilarious Samsung commercials are working.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM
Or maybe the depression is getting worse.
The depression is getting worse. This is bigger than Apple.
Mine certainly is.
??? The apple or yer depression?
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note.
It's a thing of beauty.
Apple can go screw itself.
I'm a Samsung boy till the day I die.
Peace.
http://www.angrysinner.blogspot.kr/2012/12/saturday.html
So you're a self confessed sheep. Bravo!
Yes, but now sheep can bah right across the planet at each other.
Dats progress!
So true.
I guess then Samsung will be hot, hot, hot... for how long? What have they invented or innovated? That is correct .. nothing.
So they will flood and throw more speghetti on the walls to see what sticks while Apple will create some other great device for Samsung to copy.
Yes they did much more than you think on technical side, screens, processors, hundreds of chips. Is it enough? You're talking about software side, but this is the easy part and they will catch up.
After you've drawn a clownhead on your photo of a loved one then what?
I held it in hand, everything from Samsung feels like cheap girly plastic. Apple on the other hand feels like quality. Haters gonna hate.
Tyler, didn't you get the memo, iTV is the new cool shit now. It gonna eclipse everything else:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/wants-apple-tv-everyone-says...
I already have too many things that have guts that connect to the Internet, including my TV. So do the majority of American families.
Hmm, Apple's gonna have a tough time with a rounded-corner patent(s) then...
Just say no.
Where is the iAnalyst with the $1,111 price target?
He's only off by a factor of 2, give him a break.
This is true.
Good news for the homeless guy.
There will be lots of sales there, hobo's abound !
Finally something Apple has done right since Steve Jobs left. They had the product at the right place at the right time and could charge a premium for it. Now that Android has caught up they only have one option. More volume lower price.
"We worked together with them on this," [the Wal-Mart] spokeswoman, Sarah Spencer, said. "They [Apple] are a great partner."
Does that not say it all? If you won't buy, we will lower the price and further automate our Chinese factories. Sign up for a new student loan and get an extra 25% off the gadget you don't need. Resistance is futile.
How about people start practicing personal responsibility and not buying it instead of blaming Apple for selling it?
personal responsibility???
In the age of Obama... What a hoot!!!
My 20yr old sony walkman has better sound and volume than the ipod. Not even close. Granted, the walkman is a bit clunkier looking, but, paid for, better sound and can change the batteries. i vote no for icrap...
The best thing about good old audio is that Apple can't revoke the right to listen to their lossy compressed songs. I am picking up CDs for pennies on the Dollar those iTunes idiots dropping off at thrift stores.
Yeah the sound quality on iPods is crap/compressed.
Vinyl is the way to go...nobody loves old technology now and they go for as little as ten cents a record in second-hand stores...and Oscar-winning VHS movies for fifty cents apiece... :)
We live in a world where the idiot consoomer HAS TO HAVE only THE LATEST and will pay, pay, pay thru the nose to have it....
I want a phone with only two buttons: Hello and Goodbye
I don't know why you goodbye, I say hello.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBZ8ulc5NTg
A lot of people are going back to vinyl. Not huge numbers but a lot of people do not like digital. I don't think VHS tapes hold up as well as vinyl records. Doesn't VHS degrade over time?
Back in the late 80's we discovered that VHS get 'boogers' on the tape. That's what my family called it, at least. Shit in the air, tobacco smoke, papermill smoke, cooking smoke (don't ask), and just handling as one often had to manally rewind the cartridge because it got jammed somehow and the tape spooled around the magnet.
Vinyl had a needle that carved its path through the grime and the recording was an up and down pattern that cared little about the crud on the sides unless it was a deep scratch.
What I miss is the sound that resulted from vacuum tubes. One Blauplunkt from the 30's/40's with vacuum tubes has way better sound than that 'Wave Radio'. Plus the Blauplunkt we had got short wave from around the world, including NASA/Soviet missions.
Early 70's..."BOOM BOOM BOOM. THIS IS THE BBC. IT IS ONE AM GREENWICH MEAN TIME" Turn the dial a cunthair and there'd be the depressing Soviet Symphony March of Whatever. Another cunthair and it would be East Berlin and the same Soviet Symphony March of Whatever. Another 'hair and it would be the fastest damned morse code you ever heard. Punch a button...Then KFI Los Angeles, some Chicago Station, New York, Singapore, and other places.
The electronic stuff sounds 'tinned'. It doesn't have the clash and clang that vaccum tubes would put out.
....The electronic stuff sounds 'tinned'...
Talk about Tinny sounds - Monty Python's best sketch ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T70-HTlKRXo
Listening to digital with a dedicated DAC and a tube headphone amplifier. Even YouTube vids generally sound darn musical with this rig.
fred my middle son cleans vinyl(collects old records) the sound is better ,why I do not know..perhaps because all the sub liminal messages cannot be put on vinyl unless you spin them backwards..
is too much tech a factor in mental illness?? well if walking while looking down at a few inches of plastic while a silent electric hybrid is careening off the road right in front of you is an indication...
Oh man. I just got one at a white elephant Christmans exchange. I was giddy.
The guy who gave it away was thinking he made a mistake after everyone ooohed and aaawed over it. It was hysterical.
Retro cool.
Crapple will be shipping these babies to the government to be passed out to the welfare crowd. Hope they can keep up with the demand.
iBama Foamz
Ah, it's finally happening. The inevitable demise of AAPL.
Let's see how quickly the sellers and the Wall Street boys take their profits and abandon ship.
Nice going Steve "Jobs". You took our jobs and shipped them to China!
Disclosure: I never bought nor shorted AAPL because I refuse to try to time this dysfunctional market.
Retail sales of everything is way down as the citizens priced in the fiscal cliff.
You mean they maxed out their cards
What fiscal cliff?
Guess credit-less and money-short customers are making (downward) hedonic adjustments...maybe to home phones...
RM is rock hard about now.
actually this Newtown thing is casting a pall over Christmas, or at least that will be a question raised by one if not both of the dipshit finance networks come Monday.
Will it be Tom Keene or his counterpart Joe Kernan who set asside social sensitivites to ask the quesitons that no others dare to ask: Will consumers stop buying because of the wall to wall covearge of this tragedy a week of funerals, more Obama appearances** etc OR will consumers in grief pull out all the stops and shower their little precious with every manner of gift from gender neutral Barbie to the latest video game release Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Will it be economic stimulus or a dark shadow over the consumer?
Jump you motherfuckers in the MSM jump
**And dear President will you be heading off to your zillion dollar Hawaiian XmAS - but of course as a parent directing drone strikes from paradise is just as easy as from the golf course. What the fuck if a housefull of Pakistani kids get fried, that's just part of the job
obama is superb at evil; calling him a monster insults charlie manson.
however, like newton, he stands on the shoulders of giants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3p9y_OEAdc
Time for Tim Cook to announce either a massive 5 for 1 stock split, or a Costco-style "Special Dividend", or both.
where the fuck have you been? welcome
my favorite ZH character bar none
RT and trav on the same day? Its a day of days no doubt.
On the day Zero Hedge got its chat feature both Robotrader and Trav7777 had their accounts closed. Now they are both back. Coincidence? I think not.
No doubt views and posting were suffering. Everything is a business model
Trav7777 and Robotrader included.
That's why you take a random black guy standing in front of a bank call him a hobo with an iphone, sit back and wait for the views tally to skyrocket.
Posters and lurkers are being played to using their prejudices and they don't even realize it.
Ad revenues skyrocket for the Tylers.
On the day Zero Hedge got its chat feature both Robotrader and Trav7777 had their accounts closed. Now they are both back. Coincidence? I think not.
"Special" dividend, as in, "Special" olympics?
Does Apple even have cash for a 'special' dividend? Is Apple's "cash" even real or is it encumbered in off-balance sheet guarantees to suppliers and customers?
Do you know where trav7777 is at???
Roomies maybe?
In the early days everybody loved RobotTrader. But he has some mental Problem when they started attacking him he responded with annoying posts. Trav is a bit different, and I don't think you can connect them in anyway, different personalities.
Reggie nailed it.
They couldn't give these things away for me to be remotely interested in getting one, or, any brand of cellphone for that matter.
I wouldn't even want an Obama Phone!
Hipsters in tears
Did the iPhone hit the rock or did the rock hit the gorilla glass?
184 hedgies/Muppets hit the ground ....
Best Buy has Samsung Galaxy s3 selling off the shelf at a ratio of 3:1 v. iPhone 5x! what's more, is that Amazon is literally crushing the iPad in on-line sales-- competition isn't close with Kindle Fire 8.9 HD [all models] setting a backdraft for iAAPL's cremation!
as apple [apple gdp woops!] falls, so does the economy...
never ever, put all your apples in one basket...
What's the real price of the iPhone? Without the bullshit of a 2-year contract (financing), locking, etc?
How many of Wal-Mart's customer are even creditworthy enough for financing an iPhone?
The US government guarantees those iPhone loans through the Student Loan program.
iNdentured iServitude?
.. who cares - iChannelStuffing good, and the jerks are leaving the ammo on the shelf, even better ....
The initial purchase price isn't the problem. I ain't buying nothing on contract. Unlocked, no contract or no deal.
Yes, it is the Contract my dear fellow. Just $25. more per month on a 2 year Contract is $600. So, who is really getting a deal?
Very interesing marketing though. Perfect for the Walmart Customer. Low down payment for the phone and then a high monthly service charge. It is almost like a Rent to Own plan.
Unfortunatly that is how they take advantage of the poor. They think they are saving $100. on the phone but end up paying $600. more on the monthly service. So a $400. phone ends up costing them $1,000.
I just paid $.01 on an iPhone 4 for my daughter. I'm sure AT&T ate it on the subsidy, but it sure has changed from a couple years ago. There is know way you could have gotten an older model without paying a premium. As for me I'm looking at swapping out to the new Galaxy. My smaller screen 4s feels like a brick compared to it.
Apple should stop abusing the letter i
Time to move on guys... lets all have jPhones
And by the way Apple, you see that? I just owned the letter j so hands off or I will do you for a billion.