AAPL's VISTA Moment?

In the last year or so I've made comparisons, shown charts and invited you to investigate that moment when a Tech growth giant turns in to essentially a DOW dividend giant, in specific I was talking about the meteoric growth story that was MSFT in the 1990's.

This is a growth story that out-did even AAPL's, but something changed and MSFT went from a growth story to a ranging, dividend blue chip, something I'm pretty sure AAPL is doing.

It not only started with the AAPL decline we called in 2012 of 45% which we later found out had a lot to do with Third Point's Dan Loeb removing AAPL from his top 5 holdings, causing the hedge fund herd stampede out the door.

Next came the dividends, that was a defining moment in MSFT's story, once they started paying dividends, suddenly the growth story was over and MSFT became a rangebound blue chip. VISTA didn't help either, it was the beginning of the end.

I started seeing these same qualities back in 2012 in AAPL and the I-phone 5 which at the time I referred to as the first AAPL product that was EVOLUTIONARY rather than REVOLUTIONARY.

Wen the IPhone 5 was released and their "C" version which dulled some of the hip factor of Apple, it was already behind Samsung's Galaxy in almost every way. For the first time in my life I didn't own the newest Iphone, but switched over to a Galaxy and while there are certain things I miss about the Iphone, unless Samsung makes the same mistake as they sort of started to do with the Galaxy 5 (here's hoping their next release doesn't follow the IP5 example), I will stay with Galaxy, I simply have more control over my content that I own.

Many, many years ago when we carried a cell phone, usually a watch, I always had a camera every where I went and just before the MP3 players or as they were released, but as a stand alone item, I heard the term, "Digital Convergence".

What this meant was all of your stand-alone devices would be thrown together in one item that did it all. At the time it wasn't explicitly said that it would be in a smart phone format, there were some other devices similar to today's tablets that may have been where this convergence happened. I do recall though, that it sounded exciting, but it also sounded like it was decades away, actually, it wasn't.

And as someone who hates jewelry or anything on my person other than a braided bracelet Andrea made for me, I welcomed it as did the free space in my cargo short pockets.

So why is AAPL going back to a watch and a watch that can cost upwards of $10,000 when just about everything it does can be done on a small device in your pocket or purse? I'm not the expert and there's a reason, I haven't looked in to the Apple Watch and there's a reason, I have no interest.

The people I know who do have an interest in watches love their Rolexes or Tag Heurers and I don't blame them.

I've been using Macbooks for well over a decade now and I love them, but I also have to run Windows on it, which I actually think the Mac does a better hob at so far as my last experience which was a decade ago. While I'm no fan at all of the new MSFT operating system, I can honestly say that for what I pay for a Mac compared to what's out their in PC land, I may not be willing to pay the $1000 premium as I can get flash hard drives on just about any OS now and that's a big change for someone who swore they'd never go back.

So with the news that Tag is ganging up with GOOG and INTC to put out their own smart watch that will really have a much better chance at commanding those kind of prices as people already associate the Tag name with status, did AAPL maybe venture a bit too far and hit its VISTA moment?

Only time will tell. I never really thought about it before it was announced, but with what we have seen from AAPL it makes perfect sense that AAPL joined the Dow given its trajectory. As I've said many times before and am now saying again, go back and follow the MSFT chart, see when they declared their dividend, see what products they had in the pipeline as if you were reliving it for the first time. I bet you find a scenario that looks a lot like AAPL now.