Apple's fail: And now a word from the Twittersphere

There’s wisdom in the crowd, but you have to know where to look.

Post-revised guidance tweets culled from Techmeme:

@saschasegan:   Apple sacrificed actual sales on the altar of raising ASP. They have successfully found out how high ASP can go.

Mark Gurman / @markgurman:   Tim Cook is hosting an all-hands meeting with all employees tomorrow about today’s news, taking questions etc.

Alex Stamos / @alexstamos:   Tech journalists talk a big game about how the public tech giants should be willing to forgo money to “do the right thing”, but whenever one misses a quarter they write it up as a scandalous failure. Maybe it’s ok for Apple to just make good products and a ton of money?

Vlad Savov / @vladsavov:   Those who said Apple could sell a $1,000+ iPhone were right. Those who said that wasn’t a sustainable long-term strategy were also right.

Tom Warren / @tomwarren:   I think Apple is hitting a difficult iPhone period. People are upgrading less, carrier subsidies aren’t enough, and $1,000 phones are making consumers pause and consider. Mix that in with fears of a recession, and 2019 could be challenging for Apple and many others

Jason Snell / @jsnell:  Yikes! Back in November Apple felt that the holiday season would be its best quarter ever. In the cold light of 2019, it turns out that it’s going to be down $4B year over year, and most of the reason is iPhone sales.

Seth Weintraub / @llsethj:  GOOG now $50B more valuable than AAPL

Nilay Patel / @reckless:  This is the harshest truth. Apple’s services narrative rests upon iPhone lock-in. None save iMessage are better than competitors, and iMessage is locked to the iPhone

Christina Warren / @film_girl:   It feels safe to say, without breakout sales data (RIP), that the XR hasn’t met expectations. I can’t speak specifically for China, but in the US this indicates a larger issue I’ve been commenting on for two years: the growing price to be in the Apple ecosystem.

Kif / @kifleswing:   This was the most surprising part of today’s news to me — Apple is partially blaming weak iPhone sales on customers taking advantage of the $30 battery replacement offer

Mark Gurman / @markgurman:   Two letters missing from Cook’s letter today: XR.

Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin:   Tim Cook’s tone on CNBC and in his letter to shareholders highlights the most interesting things happening for Apple are many things not named iPhone.

Matthew Panzarino / @panzer:   it should be mentioned that 38% margins in consumer tech is hilariously, stratospherically high.

Joe Weisenthal / @thestalwart:   All those tech companies blocked from doing business in China feeling pretty smug right now.

Paul Thurrott / @thurrott:   “Categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year. ” Too bad those categories add up to less than 1/2 of the iPhone in revenues.

Lucky Lindzon / @howardlindzon:   If $aapl is warning…imagine the emergency board calls going on now in Fortune 1000 companies

Seth Weintraub / @llsethj:   Lot to unpack here: $AAPL down almost entirely because of lagging iPhone sales in China – largely due to trade war. Other interesting bits: Carrier subsidy removal exposes higher priced iPhonesCheap battery upgrades hurt? Still $84B in revs with 38% margins not too shabby

M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler:  Don’t sleep on Apple Pay. The car is too far away. The glasses won’t be big enough any time soon (again, relative to iPhone). So Apple can either try to become an oil company, or a bank.

Jay Yarow / @jyarow:   This is a legit problem for Apple. The iPhone was the greatest business of all time. It was always going to end. Not easy to figure out a follow up act.

Matthew Panzarino / @panzer:  Trade wars are dope