On Apple

Last week, Apple announced the latest stamping of its iPhone property: The iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. Phil Schiller first introduced the newly-conceived 5c. It is a "beautiful" plastic phone with pricing from $99 on-contract. The crowed cheered just a little less enthusiastically than in years past. Maybe its because everyone already knew that it was coming.

What is stunning to me is that after this product announcement, Apple's stock tumbled 5%.
And 5% of $500 is significant. 
The reason Apple's stock fell isn't because the new iPhones aren't a great product.
It's that the analysts at wallstreet weren't happy with the pricing.
See, the iPhone 5c is a $99 phone. Apple's competition has phones for that price and even cheaper.
And in the years since Android and Samsung have come on the scene, Apple has been losing market share. According to the analysts, the iPhone 5c isn't cheap enough to allow Apple to gain back the segment that it created.
It may be a fantastic device.
It may even be an engineering marvel.
But someone, somewhere, published a report stating that it won't gain market share.
And therefore, people bailed out their Apple stock, sending the price down.

There are two problems with this thinking.
The first is that the market listens to analysts.
In the past few months that i've been paying attention to markets, i've learned enough to know that "analysts" don't have any idea what they're talking about, especially when it comes to tech stocks.

The second problem is more fundamental.
The analysts assume that "market share" = "success".

I believe that if Steve Jobs was still alive, the analysts wouldn't have dared to make such a report.
Because Steve Jobs never seemed to be after "market share".
His persona was someone who worked in "beautiful" and "magical".
He talked about numbers, sure.
But he always made products for his own sake, not for the mass market.

If Apple is still following its late cofounder's lead, then the analysts are dead wrong to assume that Apple's success lies with its market share.



I believe that we all face our own challenge with "analysts". People hold opinions of each other based on a combination of outward actions and the internal assumptions of the "analyst". I can accomplish something that makes me successful in my own eyes, but to someone else I may not be gaining market share.
The best thing that I can do is to ignore people who don't measure success the same way I do, and to continue pushing myself regardless of opinions.

Duration

Time is absolutely flying by. I noticed today that it feels like paychecks are coming more and more often- i measure time by weeks now, instead of by days. This is pretty frightening to me. I have a list of books that I intend to read concerning not getting stuck in a boring unfulfilling routine. But I suppose the real trick is to just "do something". I feel very much like this past summer escaped me and I have nothing to show for it. Every saturday, I tell myself that I need a project to work on. Instead, I end up lazing around. I'm not sure how to get the cure for this. I'll keep you posted.