iPhone Air Flops. AAPL rises $5. Go figure. Oh, And, Put A ($229) Sock In It.

We have a saying in the UK:

when someone whines on and on about something, we say “oh, put a sock in it.”

Apple seem to have done just that.

Back in “the old days,” Steve Jobs charged $29 for an Apple Sock.

Tim Cook teams up with one of my favourite Japanese designers Issey Miyake, to offer the contemporary take on the iPod sock, for a new “designer piece of cloth,” at $229. For an iPhone Sock. Conveniently designed not to just make you look like a total a$$hole, but act like one.

How stupid do you have to be to outright offer your new $1500 iPhone to the masses of phone snatchers or thieves on the street?

Note to self: does the Apple Sock come with AppleCare+ cover?

“Good Grief,” as Charlie Brown might have said.

Back in the 90s one of my favourite Miyake t-shirts was this:

Now I am going to upset a few readers:

With the news the iPhone Air faces being cancelled or drastically pared back due to poor reception and sales (as I predicted upon its rumour, announcement and launch), a reminder of where we are - with the assistance of an iPhone Air, which should, frankly, have come with the “boob tube,” not an Issey Miyake “sock,” as standard to avoid the embarrassment of having a “plateau” at all:

Apple in….:

• 2023 - Apple Vision Pro [FLOP]

RIP Apple Vision Pro? “From Hype to Headstone:” The Much Ado About Nothing I Predicted.

Apple’s $4,500 Vision Pro was hailed as the “next iPhone.” I said it would flop. Two years later it’s shelved, with Apple pivoting belatedly to AR glasses, if rumours are believed. From hype to headstone, the lesson is simple: don’t buy into fetish, buy fundamentals. And yes: I did tell you so.

TOMMO.FYITommo_UK

• 2024 - “Apple Intelligence” [FLOP]

Apple’s 15-Year AI Odyssey: From Siri’s Promise to “Apple Intelligence.” Featuring Siri, the world’s first backwards-evolving assistant now aged -15.

Apple’s AI journey reads less like a roadmap and more like a séance. For 15 years, the faithful have insisted a grand plan exists—somewhere, someday—while Siri stumbles on, lobotomised. The real mystery? Why Apple, once the master of interface revolutions, keeps mistaking silence for strategy.

TOMMO.FYITommo_UK

• Apple Car project: CANCELLED
• 2025 Siri 2.0 CANCELLED
  • Apple iPhone Air [FLOP]

Weak sales delay next iPhone Air model, report claims

The updated phone may be worth the wait.

MashableNeal Broverman

• Apple Socks launched at $229. I predict a …. [FLOP]
• Apple Intelligence (again - replaced by Google’s Gemini) [FLOP]

Apple and Gemini? Pathetic.

After 15 years of squandered AI potential, Apple has done the unthinkable: outsourcing Siri’s brain to Google. It’s not strategy; it’s surrender. A company that once owned the stack now rents intelligence, proving once again that culture, not hardware or software is Apple’s real unfinished product.

TOMMO.FYITommo_UK

Analysts? Flip-Flopping.

“Apple is great, they have great free cash flow, they’re firing on all cylinders, the Air did its job, got the market’s attention, and the flop doesn’t matter. It was designed to flop anyway. Well done Apple for using a flop as a rationale for demonstrating success.”

Breaking News: CNBC’s Jim Cramer announces he will buy every single colour of iPhone Sock available because he’s just, well, a “cock in a sock.”

Where the hell is Lewis Carrol When You Need him?

We’ve gone through the looking glass, where flop means success, and socks are strategy.

Seriously, where’s Alice?

Where’s the Mad Hatter?

Where’ the Cheshire Cat?

Where’s the Queen of Hearts?

Last time I checked, they went “Through The Looking Glass” and haven’t looked back since.

By the way - little known fact - Lewis Carrol - the author of Alice in Wonderland - was also a mathematician and I cooly predict would have been laughing his English derrière off at the antics passing for AAPL analysis these days.

This guy got it. The current CEO doesn’t.

They Both Shipped Socks.

Steve Jobs just happened to ship a lot more than a pair of $229 socks.

Cook in the last few years? Not so much shipped as cancelled or axed every single new product launch.

He is excelling at delivering #EpicFlops though.

Someone, somewhere, sack the marketing department and start a culture change before it’s too late.

What we’re seeing isn’t just a failure of design, but a failure of ethos.

Apple once designed revolutions; now it designs around them. From Vision Pro’s vanity to Siri’s silence to a $229 sock, every launch reflects a company that’s lost its organising principle: purpose.

Until Apple rebuilds its culture to reward risk, clarity, and conviction rather than consensus and control, the products will keep missing the point. Culture needs to ship before code — and right now, Apple’s feels unassembled.

From FAANG to MANGO: Apple’s Chance to Think Different Again: Its Next Big Move to $400 Isn’t based on Hardware, But Culture.

Apple’s ATH of $263 isn’t just a milestone but an epiphany. After a decade of iteration, the company’s next act won’t be defined by chips or devices, but the culture it chooses to rebuild. FAANG was about products; MANGO? Cognition. Can Apple still “Think Different,” and fix its stifling culture?

TOMMO.FYITommo_UK

— Tommo_UK, London. Tuesday 11th November 2025.

Any comments, or thoughts, from investors, as opposed to 20-year long buy-and-holders who couldn’t care less because they’re just glad to be living off the dividends from their 11,000% share price increase? Leave them below 😎

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