Master Baiter.

There's really no other way to describe The Street's Scott Moritz. The man is a master link baiter. Take today's fetid offering (tip o' the antlers to gadgetgav and again, cached copy is not yet available, just say no to clicking) for example.

The decision to drop half the iPhone lineup validates rumors reported July 31 by TheStreet.com that Apple was cutting production in half.

Uh, right. So, what you're saying, Scott, is that half of iPhone sales were 4 GB iPhones and that Apple expects that absolutely no one who was going to buy a $499 4 GB iPhone is going to buy a $399 8 GB iPhone? Because that's the stupidest thing the Macalope's ever heard.

Yes, it's certainly possible that Apple cut production back after the launch, it's probably even likely, but to say that it had something to do with dropping the 4 GB iPhones -- which were probably never even produced in the same number as the 8 GB model -- is absurd.

Last week's price cut decision was so abrupt that Apple's exclusive wireless partner, AT&T, learned of the changes during Job's speech, say sources.

Wow, now that's the stupidest thing the horny one's ever heard. It just beat out that other thing you said. This piece is recursively stupid, returning ever stupider results. Scott, these price cuts took effect immediately. At both Apple and AT&T stores. [Per comments, it does seem AT&T's stores were somewhat behind, but c'mon. Does anyone seriously think AT&T didn't know about a dramatic price drop in one of its hottest items?] And you want us to believe that AT&T didn't even know about it? Scott, the Macalope's been an AT&T customer for years and he can tell you, AT&T is not that nimble.

If Moritz truly believes that, he has no business being near a computer let alone trying to pass himself off as someone capable of speaking with any authority on stocks. Or bunnies.

Seriously, some computers have sharp corners and Moritz could poke an eye out or something.

So now, after two months of essentially overcharging eager gadget lovers for a 2.5G EDGE phone, Apple will not be able to reward loyal holdouts who had been waiting for a full-speed version of the iPhone this year, say observers.

Observers like... Scott Moritz! See how easy it is to be a silly pundit?

One of the problems behind the 3G delay, says Entner, is that the speedier HSDPA, or high-speed downlink packet access, network technology has much higher power demands -- requiring new bigger, stronger batteries.

There's a joke in there about Scotty saying the batteries "canna take it", but the Macalope's too disgusted at this point to slap it together. Also, it's not really a very good joke.

But this is a complete non sequitur. Does Moritz expect us to believe that Apple just realized that 3G required more battery life than EDGE? Steve Jobs noted that himself months ago in his defense of Apple's decision to use EDGE over 3G. This has nothing to do with Moritz's fantasized delay of a fantasized phone.

"They expected, internally, higher sales than they have seen" for the iPhone, says one industry strategist. "So they decided to cut the price to stimulate demand."

This analyst's name wouldn't rhyme with "Smenderle", would it? And since when do analysts have to speak off the record? If that's an analyst's opinion, why wouldn't he or she back it up? Isn't that what they do? Try to look smart in the press so that people will buy their analysis? Of course that doesn't work when the analysis is as stupid as this analysis, what with Apple having just announced that it has met its goal of selling 1 million iPhones by the end of the quarter, three weeks before the quarter's end and only a few days after the price cut.

But that means Apple so far has failed to sell out the 1 million phones it was prepared to supply in the first week of its introduction -- signaling to industry experts that there was a limited demand for the "revolutionary" new device.

The Macalope will just point out that any positive integer other than infinity is "limited". What's important is how well the iPhone is selling against its competitors and at least some results indicated it's doing quite well.

Moritz is still trying to pick up the shattered pieces of his reputation about having said Apple was hoping to sell 1 million phones in its debut weekend. Here he manages to get a little closer to reality by going from "the debut weekend" to "the first week", but he's still wildly off. Apple has publicly stated that it hopes to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of next year. If they sold a million a week that would be 78 million iPhones. The horny one doesn't know what the company's internal number might be, but it ain't that.

Here's a pointless little exercise the results of which don't amount to much, but you kids what bought that there Numbers application can try at home.

Take 1,000,000 iPhones shipped and divide it by 74 days since its release. Then multiply that number by the 20 days left in this quarter. Let's call that number A. Now take Apple's 92 cents/share actual results for the third fiscal quarter and subtract its 66 cents/share guidance for the third fiscal quarter. Then divide that number by 92 to get the percentage the company's public number underestimated the actual number, which is a lazy and pointless indicator for how much the company's public numbers underestimate reality. Then multiply that by 1,000,000 and we'll call the result number B.

Now compare A and B.

Pretty close, huh? Still, rather meaningless.

Although, probably not as meaningless as Moritz's piece.

[fakerob]

Off the record..?

Maybe the off the record quote was from Mortiz himself. He seems to be self-
referencing all the rest of the way through the "article".
I can't believe this guy expects people to see this as insightful analysis that
might help you PICK A STOCK..! That's supposed to be what thestreet.com is
about, right..? If he just wanted to bash Apple, he could go and join all the other
silly pundits like Ou and Enderle in the tech press, but this is supposed to be an
investment site. You read this and your conclusion would be to avoid Apple like
the plauge. How are you going to feel in January when they announce their best
sales quarter ever and the stock price is near $200...???

[monkyhead]

Brush up on your Scottish, Mr. alope

I think you'll find it's spelled "cannae." It ain't Scottish if it don't got an extra
vowel that only Scottish People can hear.

[luomat]

AT&T taken so

[luomat]

at&t surprise

AT&T was a bit surprised it seemed. Our local store had no idea about the
price change and others on the Apple Discussions Forums echoed similar
experiences.

The at&t website listed the old prices for quite some time too, but that might
just be ineptitude rather than surprise.

[izik5]

Retail knowledge != Corporate knowledge

"Last week's price cut decision was so abrupt that Apple's exclusive wireless partner, AT&T, learned of the changes during Job's speech, say sources."

Have you ever tried to keep something big a surprise, like say a $200 price drop on a 3 month old product? Ok now send a memo to the nation-wide retail outlets of two companies. Any leaks? Just because some stores are behind the curve on a products price drop doesn't mean the company at large didn't have a clue. It's not like Apple stores knew ahead of time either, and there is no way that Apple didn't know about the price cut.

[The Real John Muir]

The Street's More a Joke on Spock than Scotty

Roughly Drafted has an interesting take on The Street:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/F521AA31-1E02-4DF1-86C3-AA022A105D18.html

Could well be that their commentary is logical and insightful, so long as you take them for lying crooks.

[ripragged]

Nothing insightful

I just want to say, for the record, what a crock of sh!7.

The iPhone is hotter than an Idaho Senator in an airport men's room. All the analysts in the world can't do a freeping thing about it, and it's killing them.

I've completely stopped even reading any of the analysts. The ones that aren't idiots are shills. CNN believes that Apple's success is entirely due to the RDF. They aren't alone in that assessment.

Apple is "all show, no go" according to the popular press. What a load.

Here's the rub, though. By talking about Apple every day, Moritz, Enderle, Ou, and the rest are actually doing Apple a huge favor. You can't buy that kind of advertising.

Nice piece, 'Lope.