Apple Is Ditching the Mass Market and Focusing on Rich People

Apple had a weird week. Earnings fell short by, like, a penny (or two, but not a bunch), and AAPL got hammered, destroying anyone who put all their apples in one basket. Which is dumb of course, but you’d be surprised.

While having rebounded a little bit, AAPL is still limping along as of this writing.

Question is, will investors and analysts go easier or harder on Apple as they stop reporting unit sales and instead stick to topline prices and profits? If they got whacked hard for the little earnings surprise recently, how will the stock react when analysts have even less to go on when making their projections?

[Apple] moved 46 million iPhones this last quarter, but that was basically unchanged from the same period last year, and fewer than expected. What was startling was the average selling price—nearly $800 per device rather than the $750 that many had anticipated