Originally published at: LittleBITS: Should We Continue Covering Apple Financials? - TidBITS
We always cover Apple’s quarterly financial reports, but they’re pretty repetitive. Adam Engst asks if you find them sufficiently relevant or interesting for us to continue.
Should TidBITS continue to cover Apple financial reports?
- Yes, I like reading an overview of Apple’s financial situation from TidBITS
- No, I’m either uninterested or read Apple financial coverage elsewhere
0
voters
Feel free to explain your vote below, and please share any suggestions you have for making the articles more interesting or relevant.
I generally hear about AAPL results from any number of sources. If you want to reduce coverage, maybe it would make sense simply to note that results were announced or to make note only when there are surprises.
That said, there probably is a good chance that one of your readers will start a thread independently if there are surprising results. Therefore, if you are trying to optimize your focus, dropping coverage of AAPL results entirely is perfectly reasonable.
10 Likes
My feelings exactly!
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I liked your post with the charts. I used to prefer more detail that you’ve provided here, but know I find you’ve get the sweet spot—for me!
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Honestly I see Apple results from so many other sources - Jason Snell on Mastodon and his sixcolors site, macstories, John Gruber, etc. - by the time TidBits posts that it’s generally unnecessary for me to have TidBits post the stories as well. But I don’t mind the posts, either. I’m ok either way.
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I’m not really into the nuts and bolts of Apple finances, and seldom look elsewhere for the details, but I find your coverage to be interesting without being excessive.
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Sort of the same thing… I never look at them on any source, so I wouldn’t miss them. Said another way: If there is significant financial news about Apple, there will be a news article to catch my attention and that’s enough for me.
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Simply reporting the numbers isn’t terribly meaningful to me, but if other interesting information accompanies those numbers (unexpectedly high or low sales for a particular product or market sector), that could be interesting.
But if the report doesn’t include anything that you’d find interesting, I’d be OK with skipping it.
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I find Apple financial news interesting (when delivered in the fashion of the main TidBITS article–readable and informative but not necessarily so detailed as to cause eye-gloss and cure insomnia). Not in the way a financial analyst might, but simply “how are things going at home, Friend?” sort of way. I am not a hater of Apple. I like my Apple products. As much as I would trust any large corporation, I trust Apple on the things that matter to me. I don’t mean to be off-topic, but I work on an 11-year-old iMac at work, whereas my Windows colleagues have gone through replacements every three years, and my office has a contract with a desktop-assistance group at a high monthly cost–one that my Windows colleagues call on regularly, and I’ve used once to help solve a network issue. The Apple products I have purchased have worked and been reliable. I would retire immediately if forced to use a different platform, because the learning curve would not be worth it to me. So I consider Apple to be like the San Francisco Giants or the San Francisco Forty-Niners. While I am not a sports fan, I like to see how they’re doing in a given year. And the quarterly financials tell me “well, they’re only 3 games out” or “if they can beat the Giants, they’ll win the Division.” Whatever those terms mean. They sound encouraging (or not, in down times). But the having the information comforts me, even if it has no impact on my actions.
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I see the numbers in various places. But I like these articles because of the analysis and the perspective they offer — that I cannot get in many other places, or at least not at this level of quality. The graphics are very nice and the length is usually just right for me. I like that they’re not as dry as typical financial analysis, perhaps because they’re authored by Mac geeks who understand tech and Apple no less than they understand financials.
I read (and usually enjoy) every one of them and usually also end up following the links you and others supply after the fact to articles by Snell, Gruber, and others on the topic. I doubt I’d come across those without the initial TidBITS article though. I cannot check 20 Mac sites a day, but TidBITS I do.
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I voted no, but I actually the summary for this quarter to be quite useful. Probably because I skipped checking Six Colors yesterday. I do think you guys did a better job of boiling down the results, but I find the Tidbits coverage less essential here than on other topics. I could easily rely on Six Colors.
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Jason Snell’s coverage is excellent and timely and, honestly, even as someone who’s been reading TidBITS since 1993 or 94, it’s not all that interesting (not like it was in the “Beleaguered ” days. 
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I voted ‘yes’. I’m not particularly interested in the numbers as they are, but context and some analysis. My problem, if you will, is that I don’t read other Apple-related sites. I get my Apple news from TidBITS and TidBITS Talk. So, a bit of analysis of Apple’s results is welcome.
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I don’t think I’d miss it (or even notice) if TidBITS stopped covering Apple financials, but I do quickly read the articles when they come out. By contrast, I pretty much skip all such articles from other sources. I do appreciate the TidBITS perspective, so I voted Yes.
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As an Australian based shareholder I don’t see a lot of local news coverage of Apple’s financials. I need to specifically go looking for it.
I like seeing it reported here on Tidbits and it often means I also visit 6 colours.
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If all TidBITS did was report results with no analysis or commentary, I wouldn’t be too interested because Apple is widely covered by both financial and non-financial media. But I like the current synthesis of results and expert user comments (as opposed to financial analyst and social media influencer pronouncements).
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Oh dear, but this is what I really want to say:
“ADAM, IGNORE THE NO VOTE!!”
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Your commentary is the most interesting part. The overview and charts setup the commentary.
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Articles about Apple’s financials are a very, very big reason I’m such a big TidBits fan.
1 Like