Apple Watch Is Already a $10 Billion Business

It took fourteen months but it finally happened last week. I began seeing Apple Watches on a daily basis. Just a few months earlier, it would have been rare for me to see someone wearing an Apple Watch. Something has changed. Despite the short amount of time on the market, the Apple Watch has been called everything from Apple's largest flop in decades to the next big thing after the iPhone. In reality, we actually know much more about how the Apple Watch has performed to date, and there is evidence Apple is still just getting started. 

Something Changed at WWDC

Heading into this year's WWDC, Apple Watch expectations were at a low. The most recent comments from Apple management about Watch sales being focused around the holidays implied Watch sales had slowed somewhat materially in recent months. Developer interest and buzz around watchOS was lackluster, and recent price drops introduced questions about customer demand. 

Things changed following Apple's WWDC keynote. It was clear Apple had no plans of slowing down with Apple Watch. More importantly, Apple was willing to make changes to Apple Watch software. As seen with the rethought user interface included in watchOS 3, Apple spent the past year studying how people were using Apple Watch. Friction points such as a clunky interface and little-used features, including Glances, were removed. Instead, Apple went back to the basics with a simpler interface and additional focus on Watch faces as the device's most valued real estate. (Additional thoughts from WWDC concerning watchOS 3 are available here).  

Some people interpreted the changes found in watchOS 3 as evidence that Apple admitted it was wrong with Apple Watch. I disagree. That type of interpretation not only ignores everything that Apple got right about Apple Watch, such as Watch bands, but also ignores reality. Apple Watch financials portray a different story. Apple Watch's first year was not the disaster that many are now implying. 

Apple Watch Financials

In terms of Apple Watch unit sales and revenue, we haven't been left as much in the dark as initially feared. While Apple has kept its official stance of not disclosing Apple Watch sales, management has not been shy about providing clues for reaching reliable Watch financial estimates.

Every three months during Apple's earnings calls, we have been given at least one major clue as to how Watch sales had fared. Here are the key clues that Apple management broadcasted on the past four Apple conference calls:

  • July 2015: "The revenue from Other Products grew sharply [3Q15], up 49% over last year. The contribution from Apple Watch accounted for well over 100% of the growth of the category, and more than offset the decline of iPod and accessory sales...And to give you a little additional insight, through the end of the quarter, in fact the Apple Watch sell-through was higher than the comparable launch periods of the original iPhone or the original iPad."
  • October 2015: "Sales of Apple Watch were also up sequentially [in 4Q15] and were ahead of our expectations."
  • January 2016: "We set a new quarterly record for Apple Watch sales [in 1Q16], with especially strong sales in the month of December [2015]."
  • April 2016: "For some color on how we think about Apple Watch sales, we expect its seasonality to be similar to the historical seasonality of iPod, which typically generated 40% or more of its annual unit sell-through in the December quarter...unit sales of Apple Watch during its first year exceeded sales of iPhone in its first year."

In taking all of these clues into consideration, I have a high degree of confidence that Apple has sold 12 million Apple Watches to date. Exhibit 1 includes my Apple Watch revenue and unit sales estimates broken out by quarter. 

Exhibit 1: Apple Watch Financials (Above Avalon estimates)

While these numbers are indeed lower than initial consensus estimates that came out when the Apple Watch was launched in April 2015, it would be incorrect to brush off a business that generated $6B of sales in its first 11 months.

Valuing Apple Watch Inc.

In an effort to better quantify how the Apple Watch is performing, we can value the Apple Watch business as if it were it a standalone company. One benefit of this exercise is removing the Apple Watch from the iPhone's shadow. Most financial metrics seem inconsequential when compared to the iPhone juggernaut. 

Two items are needed to value a hypothetical "Apple Watch Inc.": 

  1. Financial metrics
  2. Valuation framework

Given Apple's functional organizational structure, the company does not manage the Apple Watch as a separate division with its own profit/loss profile. While we can derive an estimate for Apple Watch gross margins, when it comes to estimating operating expenses, the calculations would prove less useful. Expenses such as salaries, retail costs, and even R&D are shared by Apple's broader product portfolio. 

An alternative is to focus on Apple Watch revenue. This financial metric not only makes sense for measuring a product's success within a functional organizational structure, but also is something that we can estimate for Apple Watch with a fairly high degree of confidence.

When it comes to valuation, we can value Apple Watch Inc. by using a revenue multiplier. We take annual revenue and then multiple it by a certain ratio to obtain how much the market would be willing to pay for the right to own that revenue and future cash flows. This particular ratio can be obtained by using comparable company analysis. We look at how the market is valuing other consumer gadget hardware businesses.

Along those lines, I used three consumer tech hardware peers:

  • Apple: Given the iPhone's share of Apple revenue and operating income, we can use Apple's current market valuation as a proxy for how the market is valuing the iPhone business. Apple currently sells at a 2.6x price/revenue ratio.   
  • Fitbit: Fitbit derives pretty much all of its revenue from wrist wearable hardware sales. This places the company as the most direct peer of Apple Watch Inc. Fitbit currently sells at a 1.1x price/revenue ratio.
  • GoPro: GoPro serves as a good proxy for how the market is valuing a hardware company with slowing sales, increasing competition, and an unknown future. Things aren't looking good for GoPro although the company does appear to be making one last ditch effort to reinvent itself by hiring Danny Coster from Apple. GoPro currently sells at a 1.1x price/revenue ratio. 

The interesting element found with these three peers is that each company is facing significant questions about hardware sales growth. While much has been said about GoPro's and Fitbit's issues, even Apple is expected to report a 15% decline in revenue in 2016. Accordingly, even if we assume Apple Watch revenue will decline over the next year (something that may be possible) this doesn't necessarily imply that the Watch should be rewarded a valuation multiple much lower than Apple, let alone Fitbit or GoPro. 

As seen in Exhibit 2, I estimate that if Apple Watch was a standalone entity, it would be worth $10 billion. This estimate reflects a 1.7x price/revenue multiple, which is higher than Fitbit and GoPro's current price/revenue multiple. A higher multiple is justified due to Apple Watch's strength when it comes to appealing Watch bands, stronger customer loyalty, and deeper software and hardware integration. I am valuing Apple Watch in-line with Apple's enterprise value/revenue multiple. Even though the wearables category is much less established than the iPhone business, growth prospects remain quite attractive for the Apple Watch market in comparison to the mature smartphone industry. 

Exhibit 2: Apple Watch Inc. Valuation Peer Analysis

Even if we valued the Apple Watch business as if it had the same future prospects as GoPro, we would still come out with a $7 billion valuation, which highlights the conservatism found in a 1.7x price/revenue multiple and $10 billion valuation.

Apple Watch Paradox

The preceding valuation exercise showcases the paradox that has engulfed the Apple Watch. While recent Apple Watch changes seem to imply that Apple management is pressing the reset button on the product, in reality, Apple already has a $10 billion Apple Watch business on its hands. This is even before all of the significant changes in watchOS 3 were unveiled on stage at WWDC. Rather than pressing a reset button, Apple is systematically going through the Apple Watch business to fix friction points that developed over the first year. All of this is being done to position the Watch for improved adoption and a valuation much greater than $10 billion. 

There is evidence that Apple is still only getting started with Apple Watch. A closer look at Apple Watch bands reveal much potential and intrigue in terms of both technology and fashion. WatchOS 3 clearly positions Watch faces as a new kind of app for the wrist, which may represent the first genuine answer to the question of how to best interact with apps on the wrist. This could represent the beginning stages of an Apple Watch face App Store and a new stream of recurring revenue. I also think that Apple has major changes planned when it comes to Apple Watch collections, Watch case materials, and marketing. Apple's September keynote is shaping up to be an Apple Watch focused event. Add it all up, and Apple isn't walking or jogging but sprinting ahead with Apple Watch. We will likely look back at the weeks leading up to WWDC 2016 as the bottoming of Apple Watch expectations.

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WWDC Clues Hint at Apple's Post-iPhone Era

This year's WWDC felt different. While Apple's annual developer conference still showcased the company's software strategy for the coming year, last week's keynote also contained an unusual number of clues related to Apple's hardware ambitions. Apple's strategy for eventually moving beyond the iPhone is coming into focus.

Previous Apple Product Eras

One way to see where Apple is headed is to look at Apple through the rearview mirror. The Mac as Digital Hub era was Apple's first genuine product philosophy following Steve Jobs' return to Apple. The idea was simple. Instead of worrying about a growing number of dedicated peripheral electronic devices, Apple would focus its resources on positioning the Mac at the center of the universe. Users would then connect their growing collections of accessory devices to their Macs. 

 
 

As mobile devices became more powerful and occupied larger roles in our lives, Apple dedicated resources to designing Mac peripherals that had the most potential to be consumer blockbusters. First came the iPod, and this was followed by the iPhone. Selling more than just a few Mac models, Apple began thinking of its product strategy in terms of a stool on which each leg represented a different product category, as shown in the diagram below. At the same time, Apple continued to build out its services and cloud offerings to serve as the glue keeping the stool together.

 
 

At this year's WWDC, Tim Cook's message to developers was that Apple's current product strategy revolved around four "category defining and world changing" platforms: watchOS, tvOS, macOS, and iOS. While it may sound like these four platforms have replaced the old product categories found with the Apple Stool strategy, in reality, Apple's current product strategy looks very different. 

As shown in the diagram below, not all software platforms are viewed equally. iOS remains at the center of the universe given the iPhone's sheer dominance and is supplemented by continued iPad popularity. Meanwhile, watchOS is for a product that is still dependent on the iPhone while macOS and tvOS are much smaller platforms with cloudier long-term outlooks. 

 
 

When taking a look at nearly every financial metric, it's clear that we are still firmly in the iPhone as Hub era at Apple. There are nearly twice as many iPhones in the wild as every other Apple product combined. Despite slowing iPhone sales, Apple will still sell nearly five times as many iPhones as iPads in 2016. On a revenue basis, the iPhone is responsible for 65% of Apple's annual revenue and 75% of Apple's annual operating income.

WWDC Clues

Given such lopsided financial metrics, it has been very difficult to envision how Apple will eventually move beyond the iPhone. Some think Apple's only choice is to monetize the iPhone business using services. Others don't think Apple will actually be able to successfully come up with a post-iPhone strategy.

Fortunately, Apple's WWDC keynote last week contained clues as to where Apple's product strategy is headed. One theme found throughout management's slides was a focus on the user experience. Whether it was rethinking the iPhone lock screen or opening up additional iOS services to third-party developers, many of Apple's software changes were done with the user experience in mind. (I reviewed additional themes and observations from the keynote here and here). However, much more intriguing were the two fundamental shifts underpinning this focus on the user experience. Each shift portends an era in which the iPhone is no longer at the center of Apple's product strategy.

App Evolution. We are starting to use apps differently. Apple sees an era in which instead of downloading dozens of apps and arranging them in a grid pattern on our iOS devices, we rely on a number of services to handle our daily tasks. Apple's motivation for funneling developers into Siri, Maps, and Messages will end up making it that much easier for users to consume content and data across a number of hardware form factors. As a prime example of how this shift from an app-centric model to a service-centric framework changes Apple's product strategy, consider the Apple Watch. Apple has said that the Apple Watch is positioned within Apple's product line to handle tasks formerly given to the iPhone. In a world where content formerly found on third-party apps is eventually found within Apple services, while it may have made sense to use an app on our iPhone, it will now make just as much sense to use Siri or Messages on our wrist.

Services. Given the movement of third-party app functionality into services, Google is half-right when saying that it is time to move beyond the device. Services are becoming smarter as we give our devices additional tasks and data. This immense level of data ends up placing more value and capabilities with the glue that has traditionally held Apple's collection of gadgets together. However, Google and other services-oriented companies don't have it completely right. When services become more valuable, one consequence is the altering of how we use different form factors. Hardware does not lose relevancy. Rather, a world in which services are much more useful and valuable ends up elevating new hardware form factors that have access to these services. For example, tasks that may have traditionally been given to the Mac, iPad, or iPhone we will eventually be able to do on wearable devices because of more valuable and capable services. It is difficult to think of a form factor that is unable to utilize Siri in one way or another. 

The Apple Experience Era

Apple will look to move beyond the iPhone by offering users the ability to create custom Apple experiences. These experiences will involve a range of hardware form factors, the software platforms running on those form factors, and the Apple services connecting each form factor. The following diagram depicts this new Apple Experience era. Depending on the user, each form factor will hold varying levels of importance as depicted by the blue circle's size. The dotted lines represent the Apple services connecting all of the form factors. The solid lines represent situations in which there may be a greater level of dependency between form factors. 

Users will then choose which form factors make the most sense for their daily schedules and lifestyles. For some, an Apple Watch equipped with Siri, Messages, and Maps combined with a pair of not-yet announced wireless Apple EarPods will handle most of the tasks formerly given to an iPhone. For others, it may continue to make the most sense for an iPhone to be at center of their digital lives. It is not a stretch to think of more unusual combinations such as an Apple Watch and iPad as someone's two primary computing devices. Meanwhile, an eventual Apple Car will represent another point of contact for customers interacting with the Apple experience and range of Apple services. 

The key aspect of this new Apple Experience era will be Apple's ability to sell an experience tailored to the user. Instead of having a static web of devices in which the iPhone is at the center and everyone uses the other form factors in a similar fashion, this web of Apple products will change depending on the user. In the diagram below, notice how User A places much more value on an Apple Watch and wireless EarPods (depicted by larger circles). However, for User B, the iPhone and iPad hold a greater amount of importance.

Key Tenets of the Apple Experience Era

There are three major tenets of this new Apple product era. 

Hardware plays a crucial role. While nearly every Apple peer wants customers to begin thinking beyond the device and instead focus on the data-rich services connecting various types of hardware, Apple's future will contain plenty of hardware. We need hardware to record and then consume data. In addition, there will always be a human desire to interact with products. Apple will likely position hardware as the variable that makes its services that much more attractive than competing services. Look no further than Apple's decision to locally do all facial recognition as well as object and scene recognition processing in Photos on the device. Being able to use a service on a range of well-designed devices is something that Apple can excel at while other companies would need to rely on partners or others to make this happen. 

Services represent the glue. Apple will position products such as Siri, Messages, Maps, Apple Music and an eventual Apple Video service as the glue that holds various form factors together. 

Experience matters. From Apple's perspective, the key to moving beyond the iPhone is to offer users the option to personalize their technology needs with hardware and services. Apple will use certain criteria such as mass-market appeal to pick and choose which product categories and services end up getting precious Apple resources.

Apple's Challenges

At first glance, it would appear that Apple has all the ingredients in place to move beyond the iPhone. Apple's industrial design capabilities continue to be industry-leading, and WWDC began to peel away some of the mystery surrounding Apple's path for incorporating deep learning into its services. However, there are two big risk factors that need to be monitored very closely. 

Apple remains a resource-strained company. The most valuable resource is time and energy. Given the company's functional organizational structure, management has tangible limitations as to the number of projects that can be undertaken at any one time. As seen in the Apple Experience era diagrams, it would not be a stretch to see the number of blue circles, representing Apple hardware form factors, to increase. However, at a certain point, Apple will begin to find that it is unable to expand in new areas while still supporting legacy industries or products. Management is quite vocal that Apple says "no" much more than "yes" when it comes to new products. In addition, the company is not afraid to cannibalize its own products. These statements will likely be tested in the coming years.

The second risk factor involves Apple being able to learn how to add chaos to new industries. Apple has no experience in the transportation industry. Yet, the company will need to not only place a bet as to where the industry is headed, but also be prepared to pivot in order to potentially use different business models, including different ownership models

Moving Beyond the iPhone

Apple's plan to move beyond the iPhone won't be to come out with another pocket-sized computer that is capable of bringing in $200 of profit per device. Instead, Apple will look to build an Apple ecosystem containing various form factors and services that are well positioned to take advantage of the evolving app ecosystem. As the company enters new industries and sectors with new hardware form factors and services, the company will need to embrace new business models and ways of doing business. However, despite this tall order, the focus on the product and user experience will be the guiding light for Apple's goal of establishing a new product era after that of the iPhone.

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No One Wants to Be Apple

Something has changed in 2016. As the smartphone growth era winds down and we begin to look for the next big thing in tech, there has been a surge in pessimism pointed towards Apple's business model. With many of Silicon Valley's software and services giants doubling down on their core competencies and becoming more vocal as to where technology may be headed, one thing is clear: No one wants to be Apple. 

Declining Apple Envy

The iPhone has been a one-of-a-kind product for Apple. With 35% net operating margins and an average selling price of more than $600, the 948 million iPhones sold to date have resulted in more than $200 billion of profit for Apple. The fact that tens of millions of users upgrade to new iPhones every other year has been the financial icing on the cake. Apple's profit from iPhone has contributed to the company's annual net income increasing nearly 15x since 2007. 

While Apple was making more than $200 of profit per iPhone sold, Apple's peers were making much less from the software and services running on those iPhones. Even when taking into account the much larger Android user base, we see that other forms of smartphone monetization just haven't been able to match the profit Apple has received from hardware margins. Of course, Apple's bundled software and services contributed to those high hardware margins.

As iPhone profits grew, Apple envy increased. Meanwhile, Apple's hardware and software integration resonated with premium smartphone users, the most attractive segment for advertisers. As a result, Apple peers began to dabble with hardware along with other Apple strategies. The thinking was that maybe Apple's hardware and software integration strategy was finally seeing validation after nearly three decades of losing. 

The environment has changed in 2016. Apple's quarterly revenue declined for the first time in 13 years as iPhone sales fell year-over-year for the first time. In addition, there are various warning signs beginning to show in the iPhone business.

Accompanying this iPhone sales growth slowdown has been a marked change in attitudes toward Apple's business model. Many have turned pessimistic about Apple's strategy of relying on periodic hardware margins for a majority of its earnings. Peers are now focusing on the downside and risks of being Apple. The prospects of coming up with new products that rival the iPhone seem daunting. Apple competitors have made the decision to end their quest to be like Apple and are now doubling down on their own core strength: recurring revenue associated with advertising and services.

Fading Hardware Envy

The clearest sign of changing attitude towards Apple is Silicon Valley's declining fascination with hardware. While Google made it crystal clear last month at its developer conference that it was ready to begin moving beyond devices, the company had spent the past few years displaying a serious flirtation with those same devices and the idea of recreating Apple's hardware and software integration business model.

Google's $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest in 2014 was positioned as a game-changing transaction that could give Google a formidable head start in the smart home arena. Nest CEO Tony Fadell was even positioned as a potential Google CEO successor to Larry Page. Having a hardware whiz in charge of a data-driven ad company seemed to be quite the intriguing proposition. Just three years earlier, Google had purchased Motorola for $12.5 billion, a transaction that was positioned as a patent defense play but ultimately was born from the fact that Google did not do its own hardware.

In reality, Google's foray into hardware has been nothing short of a complete failure. Google ended up selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo. Meanwhile, Tony Fadell just announced he is leaving Nest, an ominous sign that Nest's future within the Alphabet web of subsidiaries is now up in the air. 

Google wasn't the only company to flirt with Apple's hardware and software integration model. Microsoft showed a clear interest in copying Apple and controlling both hardware and software. While the strategy was largely a legacy play from the Steve Ballmer era, Microsoft seemed to believe in it enough to have a big hardware-focused NYC event just last October. Eight months later, it is clear that consumer reception to Microsoft hardware hasn't exactly caught the world by surprise. The quest to rethink the laptop with Surface Book went nowhere. 

We can also rope in Facebook's and Amazon's infatuation with producing its own smartphone as additional data points about Silicon Valley's previous interest in hardware over the years. Much, if not all, of this interest had been based on Apple's sheer success with the iPhone and iPad. While it was possible to beat Apple in terms of smartphone unit sales or market share, the fact that Apple was making nearly 45 percent gross margins on its hardware gave the company a monopoly on industry hardware profits, a statistic still true today. 

Things are very different now. Slowing smartphone sales and the ongoing tablet market implosion have resulted in mobile hardware having a much less rosy outlook. Apple peers are now becoming much more vocal that it is time we move beyond hardware and focus on the services and networks running on hardware. No one wants anything to do with Apple's hardware business.  

Fading Retail Envy

Another example of a change in attitude towards Apple strategy relates to brick and mortar retail. While Sundar Pichai was on stage at Google I/O 2016 explaining why it was time to move beyond mobile devices and embrace an "AI-driven" world, Apple was putting the finishing touches on its new Union Square Apple Retail store a few miles away in San Francisco. The juxtaposition of these two events symbolized just how different Apple is thinking from the rest of Silicon Valley when it comes to technology in 2016. 

Apple's Union Square wasn't just any new Apple Retail store. Instead, the location showcased Apple's new Retail store design strategy. Along with a fresh, new look thanks to input from Jony Ive, one of the store's main features is a reimagined customer service area. The infamous Genius Bar had been replaced with a Genius Grove since "Bar" may bring up unpleasant connotations. Apple wanted to improve the experience customers received when getting help with Apple products. A customer can now chat with an Apple Retail store employee while literally sitting under a tree in Genius Grove. 

In many ways, rebranding Genius Bars into Genius Groves is very Apple. While some may just see a subtle name change, the very different atmosphere created by the new setup can go a long way in making Apple stores feel less crowded, more approachable, and relaxing. All three of those attributes denote improvements to what had been increasingly positioned as friction points in Apple Retail stores in recent years. 

Apple's continued investment in brick and mortar retail isn't surprising. However, many of Apple's peers who envied the company's success in retail are now having second thoughts. Microsoft's aggressive retail expansion has led to nothing more than lots of empty retail stores. Samsung's store strategy has no rhyme or reason as the company struggles to produce a cohesive product strategy following the Galaxy line of smartphones. There were ongoing rumors that even Google was close to jumping into brick and mortar retail. We can't forget those mysterious Google barges that popped up in 2013 with the best guesses being that Google was interested in unveiling Google Glass showrooms.

The only tech company other than Apple still showing a genuine interest in brick and mortar retail is Amazon and even then, Jeff Bezos isn't so much looking to be like Apple but instead eventually establish a web of locations to pick up and drop off Amazon packages.  

The New Envy

Instead of wanting to be like Apple by doing hardware and getting into brick and mortar retail, Silicon Valley is now infatuated with data and the services meant to capture such valuable data. Google's vision of a world moving beyond hardware seems to represent a significant threat to a company like Apple. It's not just Google. The Amazon Echo has turned into a poster child for this "post-device" world in which some users could theoretically do less on their iPhones and iPads and instead use their voice to interact with a bunch of speakers and a microphone in a stationary tube. In addition to Amazon and Google, Microsoft and Facebook have extensive resources and attention focused on similar types of data collection and aggressive plans with artificial intelligence. 

It should come as no surprise that companies with no formidable hardware strategy are now more vocal about tech's future not revolving around hardware.

A growing number of industry observers think if the device doesn't matter as much going forward, Apple's core competency when it comes to hardware becomes less valuable. The argument then extends to Apple's business model not being suited to produce best-of-breed services geared towards data capture. This seems to give Apple an even more dire outlook. 

In reality, Apple envy has flipped. Companies once jealous of not doing their own hardware are now doubling down on their core competency: data collection. Facebook has spent more than a decade building a curated version of the web in order to have users stay on a Facebook property and in the process, share more data. A similar dedication to data collection can be found at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. 

Finding the Puck

With all of this change swirling in the air, there is increased uncertainly as to how Apple will proceed. As peers move away from envying Apple's position in tech, will Apple management feel the need to change or adapt and become more like everyone else to compete? 

There is no question that Apple has holes or deficiencies in its product strategy. While some of these holes have been, and continue to be, filled by M&A and outside hires, Apple has historically seen much success by changing the game and narrative. Along those lines, we have still not seen Apple's response to Facebook's and Google's developer conferences. This is why Apple's developer conference next week takes on a different tone than that of previous years when Apple envy was much higher. With that said, Apple management will likely take its time to respond to the growing number of criticisms lobbed towards Apple's business model.

At the end of the day, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are figuring out how to connect some of the last remaining dots found with the smartphone growth era. While some will want to say that the future has already been determined and either machine learning or even voice will quickly replace much of the current smartphone and tablet paradigm, in reality, the future has not yet been determined. AR and VR still have a long way to go before reaching mass-market appeal. Voice interfaces are in their infancy and contain a number of troubling aspects and problems. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are still mostly buzz words with plenty of time and room left to see where technology trends. Wearables are quickly moving to the point of being the de facto evolutionary next step for the smartphone. And of course, the smartphone is ushering in a revolution in the transportation industry. 

As Apple envy winds down in Silicon Valley and Apple peers no longer see the allure of being like Apple, Tim Cook and the executive team are familiar with finding ways to prove skeptics wrong. The next big thing after the smartphone has not yet been figured out, and Apple has a few ideas on where it thinks the puck is headed. While everyone is headed in one direction, Apple thinks the intersection of technology and liberal arts will be found in a different place. 

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