Matt Miesnieks:

I know glasses are being worked on at Apple, and the prototypes are state of the art. I also know what it takes to build a full-stack wearable AR HMD, having built fully functional prototypes from scratch. There are a bunch of elements that need to work before a consumer product can exist. These elements don’t all exist today (even at the state of the art).

Lots and lots of detail in this post. I found it well written, very understandable. Perhaps my favorite little tidbit:

Imagine that virtual hat from a Snap Filter being something you could virtually wear all day, and everyone (or only people you filter) else wearing AR Glasses could see it on you.

I highly recommend this if you have any interested in AR and Apple Glasses.

[VIDEO] Tech Crunch:

Snapchat’s powerful but hidden Story Search feature is finally making itself useful by giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside Apple Park, Apple’s new spaceship-like campus that will open soon.

Typing “Apple Park” into Snapchat’s search bar will show you the Apple Park Story, which is a collection of videos taken on the property.

Tech Crunch collected some of these videos, embedding them into the video in the main Loop post. Can’t wait to see Apple Park firsthand.

Wall Street Journal:

Instead of typing searches and emails, a wave of newcomers—“the next billion,” the tech industry calls them—is avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images. They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy.

And:

A look at Megh Singh’s smartphone suggests how the next billion might determine a new set of winners and losers in tech.

Mr. Singh, 36, balances suitcases on his head in New Delhi, earning less than $8 a day as a porter in one of India’s biggest railway stations. He isn’t comfortable reading or using a keyboard. That doesn’t stop him from checking train schedules, messaging family and downloading movies.

“We don’t know anything about emails or even how to send one,” said Mr. Singh, who went online only in the past year. “But we are enjoying the internet to the fullest.”

The next billion are vital to Apple’s growth as a company. So much so, that it would not surprise me to see a new version of iOS tailored for this audience.

Economic Times:

Riding on the ‘better-than-expected iPad and iPhone sales’, the upcoming flagship device iPhone 8 could make the Cupertino-based giant the first company to reach and sustain a $1 trillion market cap, analysts have predicted.

And:

Daryanani said that Apple’s share price would have to rise from its current level (about $160) to about $192 to $195, depending on the rate of the company’s stock buybacks, to reach the $1 trillion value.

Astonishing rise from the ashes for Apple. I remember, long ago, considering an investment in Apple stock at $12 a share (long before the 7-for-1 split, and two 2-for-1 splits) about 43 cents a share adjusted for today’s pricing).

This was in the worst of Apple doldrums, before Steve came back. The smart folks I spoke with explained to me that, at the time, Apple had enough assets to pay more than that $12 per share if they sold everything they had, including real estate, desks, inventory, everything.

That was the thinking back then. Apple stock was bargain basement. And look at them now.

Catching up on my reading list, found these two interesting pieces on Apple Services:

Jean-Louis Gassée, in a Monday Note titled Misunderstanding Apple Services, on the wave of headlines touting Apple Services as a standalone company:

If Apple Services were a standalone company, its $27.8B in revenue would just squeak past Facebook’s $27.6 (although I’m not sure we’re comparing the same four quarters).

And:

Remove “Apple” from “Apple Services”…would this stand-alone “Services” company enjoy the same success were it to service Android phones or Windows PCs?

Apple Services is an important member of the supporting cast that pushes the volume and margins for the main act: Apple Personal Computers. These come in three sizes, small (iPhone), medium (iPad), and large (Mac). If rumors of the addition of a cellular modem true, we may even see the Watch, today an iPhone accessory, added to the cast as the newest and smallest performer.

Everything else that Apple offers has one raison d’être: Fueling the company’s main hardware act without which Apple is nothing.

It’s the ecosystem. Apple Services serves the ecosystem.

The second post is from Ben Thompson, titled Apple and the Oak Tree:

Apple’s attempt at services lock-in is steadily increasing: HomePod supports only Apple Music and Siri, CarPlay supports only Siri and Apple Maps, iOS still doesn’t let one change default applications. None of these decisions are based on delivering a superior experience, the key to Apple’s differentiation with a hardware-based business model; all are based on securing an ongoing relationship with the company that can be monetized over time.

Again, this all makes sense, particularly for the bottom line: every bit of lock-in makes Apple’s business stronger. Stronger, that is like an oak tree.

Ben goes on to relate the fable of the oak tree and the reed. The oak tree represents strength, the reed flexibility. The analogy here is that Apple Services are becoming more locked in. That lock-in brings financial strength, but moves away from flexibility. And the lack of flexibility was the oak’s downfall.

Interesting reads, both.

Vindu Goel, The New York Times:

At 41 years old, Apple is a respected elder of the tech industry. But rather than easing slowly into retirement, the company is going through another growth spurt.

On Wednesday, Apple’s stock surged 5 percent to a record high of $157.14 after it reported surprisingly strong financial results. It is now worth $822 billion, more than any other company in the stock market.

High praise from the New York Times. Interesting.

But:

For Apple, which is far more dependent on hardware sales than other tech leaders, the recent performance is all the more impressive after its dismal 2016, when quarterly revenue fell for the first time in 13 years and the company’s sales in China dropped through the floor.

There it is. That’s the paper I know and love.

And:

“Wall Street is waking up to the reality that the next great product might not be an Apple car or the TV or the Watch,” said Trip Miller of Gullane Capital Partners, which loaded up on Apple shares when they were below $100. “The services business is the next great product.”

See Jared White’s take on Services. At least the NYT recognized that positive.

Moving on:

“Any product they release this year would be successful. There is pent-up replacement demand,” said Amit Daryanani, a hardware analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

A dismal 2016, and it doesn’t matter what they release, it’s all the pent-up replacement demand, not at all a sign of innovation.

Oh, and two last parting shots:

But he said such growth is unlikely to continue in 2019, when excitement about the new iPhones has faded.

And:

The risk is that customers decide to move on from the decade-old iPhone.

Doomed.

CNBC:

If Apple were a foreign country, CEO Tim Cook might have considerable political clout in the United States.

That’s because Apple owns $52.6 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, which would rank it among the top 25 major foreign holders, according to estimates from the Treasury Department and Apple’s SEC filings released on Wednesday.

Apple would be 23rd in all countries. That’s just one measure of a company’s financial heft, but amazing nonetheless.

Jared White:

It’s very apparent there’s a product category that outshines all others in terms of growth. It’s one Apple has been understandably proud of in their earnings calls for several years now, and that is Services.

And:

The Services category encompasses all the stuff Apple does online, “in the cloud.” Things like the App Store. iCloud. Apple Pay. Apple Music. The iTunes store. In other words, Services is everything you buy from Apple after you buy your initial hardware.

And this business has been exploding.

Jared digs into the details, starting with the vast difference between Apple’s cloud business of 5 years ago and the stellar operation into which that cloud business has evolved.

Another point is the way, as a percentage of the whole, Apple’s services business is increasing as the iPhone business decreases. The point being, Apple’s services growth represents diversification, less (slightly) dependence on iPhone sales. Will there come a day when iPhone sales represent less than 50% of Apple’s total revenue? Seems likely.

Thoughtful read.

Did you enjoy Jason Snell’s page o’ charts? Want more? No worries, Philip Elmer-DeWitt has your back.

Even if you are not a finances wonk, click over to the charts and click one of the chart headers, watch them animate. Pretty.