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What is APPLE planning?

:) new imac is in making at Fremont, made in USA.

Some of the 21 inch versions are apparently stamped with "made in the USA"

However, my 27 incher is on its way from their factory in Shanghai... FedEx says it should be here tomorrow morning!

Actually I don't believe that any of the 27 inch iMac versions are assembled in the US.

The speculation is that Apple may start producing the lower volume, higher cost, next generation MacPro tower in the US sometime next year... Makes sense as the higher domestic labor costs would be more easily absorbed into this big ticket item.
 
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We tried to get my wife's mom an iPad mini 16gig wifi. Those suckers are sold out everywhere.
 
We tried to get my wife's mom an iPad mini 16gig wifi. Those suckers are sold out everywhere.

Yeah, I got one for my niece's birthday a couple weeks ago, the Apple store was sold out, so were most of the Best Buy's, Fry's, and other electronic stores in a 25 mile radius. Luckily I found em at one of the Target stores when I called. Call around all your stores and ask for them instead of driving around town like a madman. If they have it in stock, pay for it over the phone and pick it up. They won't hold them for you unless you pay for it.
 
So about 3 hours ago the FedEx guy dropped off my new iMac 27". I placed my order on the initial preorder day on 11/30 and despite the initial delivery estimate of 12/24-1/4 with free basic shipping it arrived early!

My built-to-order iMac rolled out of the factory doors in Shanghai on Dec 14th and arrived on my doorstep in sunny Florida on Dec 17th. By way of the FedEx center in Anchorage I might add... Quite amazing.

But, I will tell you what is even more amazing to me is the FANTASTIC customer service that Apple has provided throughout this time.

An initial call to Apple Sales Support last week to upgrade the shipping to express 2-3 day (to try to receive it in time for xmas) was met with:

"Sure, we can do that! Tell you what... we'll just upgrade your shipping to 2-3 day for free!". No muss, no fuss. Just a quick friendly call! And this is for a package coming from China weighing around 40 lbs....

Today after I received it I had second thoughts about the "wired extended keyboard" that I had chosen on my custom options. The "bluetooth wireless keyboard" was actually the same price on the ordering page but I really liked the numeric keypad on my existing keyboard so I chose not to get the bluetooth one. At the time I didnt realize that the bluetooth one would work with my iPad and other iDevices... Of course, my existing wired extended keyboard still works just fine and I could easily use it on my new iMac so I decided to call Apple Sales Support again to see if I could swap out the unopened wired keyboard on my new iMac for a wireless one. I was expecting to either get a RMA number and ship it back to them or be told to drive to the nearest Apple Store for an exchange. The very cheery Apple customer service agent put me on hold for a couple minutes and then came back with:

"Why don't we just send you a complimentary bluetooth keyboard. That way you can try it out to see if you like it. If you don't, you can do whatever you want with it. I already put it in the system and you will be receiving it by tomorrow. Have a Happy Holidays!"

So not only are they comping a $69 bluetooth keyboard but they are also overnighting it for free! I know it probably only cost them a fraction of that to manufacture but still the level of customer care I have received on just this one order is astounding!!!

Keep in mind it's not like I have some institutional account and order hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment from them on a yearly basis. My current iMac is from 2007 and my wife's is from 2008. We have a bunch of iDevices that we have cobbled together over the years but surely nothing to deserve any "special" treatment!

These types of experiences are what will keep me coming back!

P.S. Meanwhile BestBuy.com took over 2 weeks to ship an SD memory card ordered on BlackFriday from their warehouse in California to me in Florida. Even worse for Target.com who took nearly 3 weeks to ship the $7 Target Replacement Plan card for the $99 camera I ordered at the same time on BlackFriday. This even after 2 phone calls!
 
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Some of the 21 inch versions are apparently stamped with "made in the USA"

However, my 27 incher is on its way from their factory in Shanghai... FedEx says it should be here tomorrow morning!

Actually I don't believe that any of the 27 inch iMac versions are assembled in the US.

The speculation is that Apple may start producing the lower volume, higher cost, next generation MacPro tower in the US sometime next year... Makes sense as the higher domestic labor costs would be more easily absorbed into this big ticket item.


:) Last gen 27" was built at Fremont as well, currently there is only RMA still exist for 27". The new 21.5" is building in Fremont, and another size has a few issues at EVT stage. That's it, no more info, lots of Apple guys here. I wish you could see the site, and it's very colorful.

oh..by the way. Your imac showing made in Shanghai, and that's the same company at Shanghai manufacture site as Fremont.
 
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But, I will tell you what is even more amazing to me is the FANTASTIC customer service that Apple has provided throughout this time.

Doubleplus ^this^. Apple has great customer service. Every time one of my company's Apple products has broke, Apple has been very quick to fix it. And our Apple products break a lot.
 
All I know is that I ordered a new iMac 27" on Jan 3 and MAYBE I'll get it by spring. :mad: I'm this close from canceling the order and picking up a mac mini. It's disgusting that it now takes a month or longer to get an iMac. The 21" is now showing 2-3 weeks.
 
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All I know is that I ordered a new iMac 27" on Jan 3 and MAYBE I'll get it by spring. :mad: I'm this close from canceling the order and picking up a mac mini. It's disgusting that it now takes a month or longer to get an iMac. The 21" is now showing 2-3 weeks.

I received my 27" iMac 7 days before the scheduled delivery date.

Another option would be to call your local Apple store and see if they have any in stock.

Side by side comparison with my old 2007 24" iMac the new one is blazing fast and the screen is so much brighter and whiter!
 
Apple records amazing record sales. Analyst/Wallstreet are still not impressed. Manipulating stocks much?
 
Apple records amazing record sales. Analyst/Wallstreet are still not impressed. Manipulating stocks much?

The problem isn't with current earnings but future earnings. There is no indication that they have anything new in the pipeline and tweaking iPhone and ipad models isn't going fly anymore. They created the market and are now just another player. Think Sony. They rocked the 80s with the walkman and now are just another player.
 
The problem isn't with current earnings but future earnings. There is no indication that they have anything new in the pipeline and tweaking iPhone and ipad models isn't going fly anymore. They created the market and are now just another player. Think Sony. They rocked the 80s with the walkman and now are just another player.

I have been keeping a close eye on Apple, and it really does appear to be more about missing inflated expectations vs. pipeline dearth. The problem is that Apple was giving very conservative estimates and guidance for earnings expectations from 2006-2012, and this year the CFO gave a very different estimate: a conservative one, that was very accurate. In other words, up until a year or two ago, AAPL SMASHED expectations, and are no longer doing so anymore despite having record profits and still growing despite being the first or second largest company in the world. They also had a week longer for the same quarter last year compared to this year.

If it was really about the product pipeline, AAPL would have jumped at the iphone 5 announcement, along with any of their complete product revamp. Sure, they aren't shocking us anything new, but they didn't do so with the iphone 3GS, iphone 4, or iphone 4s either.

I personally believe it to be manipulation, as a lot of volume seems to trade on just one analyst's expectations or guidance. Seems pretty irrational to me, but that is the market.

I think what we can hope for is a dividend, or split, and that may boost stock value.
 
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The problem isn't with current earnings but future earnings. There is no indication that they have anything new in the pipeline and tweaking iPhone and ipad models isn't going fly anymore. They created the market and are now just another player. Think Sony. They rocked the 80s with the walkman and now are just another player.

That's absolutely true for any company that wants to stay in the growth phase -- they have to keep innovating to stay at the forefront. However, to think that they have nothing new in the pipeline is not a good bet. Seems to me that much of this quarters woes were due to supply and manufacturing issues.
 
I think we are watching the evolution of a tech giant going from a growth stock to a value stock......depending on when you got in this could be painful.
 
So they sell more iPhones and iPads year over year and above their corporate expectations and then shareholders flee?

The only year over year decline was in the mac sales. The reason being the brand new iMac model production not meeting demand and drop off in previous iMac sales due to the anticipation of the preannounced new model. I preordered my 27 iMac on the first day of presale and only received it a week before Christmas. You will see Apple catching up with iMac demand during this quarter and I expect to see a rise in Mac sales as a result.

And since when did Apple ever preview ANYTHING in the "pipeline"? The analysts seem to base their predictions on a smattering of supplier leaks and rumors.
 
So they sell more iPhones and iPads year over year and above their corporate expectations and then shareholders flee?

The only year over year decline was in the mac sales. The reason being the brand new iMac model production not meeting demand and drop off in previous iMac sales due to the anticipation of the preannounced new model. I preordered my 27 iMac on the first day of presale and only received it a week before Christmas. You will see Apple catching up with iMac demand during this quarter and I expect to see a rise in Mac sales as a result.

And since when did Apple ever preview ANYTHING in the "pipeline"? The analysts seem to base their predictions on a smattering of supplier leaks and rumors.

Haven't we learned yet that it has nothing to do with growth in sales year over year? It has everything to do with wall street expectations. They've missed expectations for 3 quarters in a row now. Enron's stock kept going up as long as they kept beating projections.
 
We'll see what happens. Apple has pulled out some cool things out of thin air. I'm just curious how many of those ideas were Steve Jobs? 100%?
They made the first real MP3 player. They turned that MP3 player into a smartphone. They turned that smartphone into a tablet.
Question is, do they have anything left?

The FEAR that investors have, I think, is that Apple sells a lot of it's products on the 'cool factor'.
People used to buy iPhones because they thought they were cool. People bought iPods because they were the coolest MP3 player.
Now people with iPhones are getting picked on as having lesser phones(not saying it's true), but it's a huge change in dynamic...


.
 
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