Apple

[Grieve]

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. You keep expecting the "wow" moment that blows everyone away, and of course I and everyone else would love that too. But no company can do that year after year. If you can have one "wow" moment every 5 years or so, I'd say you are in good shape.

Apple did the iPod...then spent the next 7 or 8 years just putting out variations of it. It didn't matter that there wasn't anything mind-blowing, they still dominated the market (and still do). The iPhone is the same. The original iPhone blew everyone away, but since they have been tweaking it and improving it. No single feature has been earth-shattering, but the iPhone 5S is a million times better than the first iPhone. And it still has plenty of reviewers calling it the best phone in the world, and sales keep on rising.

Same thing with the iPad. There haven't been revolutionary enhancements, but just look at a couple of the slides from yesterday. The new one is 72 times faster than the original iPad! Which only came out a couple of years ago. Plus it's incredibly light and thin, and has hands down the best tablet app subsystem. Yes, it's more expensive than the competition, but it's including world-class software for free (the equivalent of Microsoft bundling the full MS Office suite). Plus it will keep margins high, which is what investors really care about.

I think it's more than enough to keep in growing sales of the iPhone and iPad, which is going to push the stock up. Come on, it has a PE of 13, compared to Google at 27. Just having the same PE as Google would bring it to well over $1000.

Then you have to figure in the impact of new products. Things like an iWatch or iTV might not bring in iPhone-level revenue, but it will create buzz and excitement and drive up the PE. Earlier this week there was a report out of Japan that Apple is planning a 55" 4k TV for $1500 (and 65" for $2500). That would be huge. Right now 4K TVs go for $5000-20,000. If they can create a mass market for them at that low a price, incorporating a revolutionary control system and interface, the stock is going to go crazy. It's not supposed to be out until NEXT Christmas, but that gives plenty of time for leaks and the buzz to build.

Finally, I know you say they aren’t doing anything innovation, but you are looking for “big” ticket innovation. You have to look at all the less visible innovation going on. For example, not only creating a 64-bit mobile processor, but completely architecting the OS, the developer tools and libraries, the built in apps for 64-bit…that’s huge. It’s an enormous amount of work, that they carried out in total secrecy over years. It gives them a big advantage over Android.

Then there’s the fingerprint scanner. Were they to first to do it? Nope. First to make it easy to use and reliable and successfully mass-market it? Yep. Could have massive implications for online (and regular) commerce…might even replace credit cards entirely. With the hundreds of millions of users in the Apple subsystem (and with Apple have the credit card info of all of then), that could be a massive income generator by itself. It’s a multi-trillion dollar market.