Finding Tomorrow's Apple

When I was a kid, there were only a few icons that mattered.

There was Michael Jackson, there was Coca Cola, there was Ronald Reagan, and yes, even back then, there was Apple.

Fresh, young, new, and exciting, Apple computers were the machines that the cool parents bought — way better than those bulky, monochrome PCs that all the “serious” families had.

When the company released the first Macintosh in 1984, it felt like we were living in times that were predestined — scripted, even — to be transformative.

A computer that could talk? A computer where command prompts were replaced by mouse clicks?

It was science fiction, only it was now in the living room. It was in schools. It was everywhere.

Technology had become a friendly, happy, inviting factor in our lives, and the people of the rainbow apple had made it happen. 

By the time I was in high school, that was no longer the case.

When New Becomes Ordinary

Steve Jobs had left in 1985, taking his bratty genius with him, and Apple had settled into the post-craze creativity rut that replaced newness with staleness.

I remember it clearly, as this was the point in my life where computers were starting to replace pens and pencils at school — a cultural milestone flagged in history by the sudden and near total degradation of handwriting skills.

By the early 1990s, the Macintosh was still Apple’s primary product, with things like bubble jet printers and external hard drives accounting for relatively small and inexorably dependent alternative revenue streams.

And the selection of Macs was huge — the Classic was still available to the entry-level buyer, while more advanced models like the Quadra represented the high end.

I had an LC, with a color monitor and a small wired microphone I could use to make custom sounds and do all sorts of fun but ultimately unproductive things… like pre-record prank phone calls and irritate telemarketers.

Apple had taken a disruptive, popular, iconic product and repackaged it 20 or so times to fill every niche its numbers-oriented board had identified.

It was an effective company with decent products, but instead of revolutionary, they were common and boring, varying mostly just in size and power. And to top it off, they were overpriced compared to the competing PCs, which were now using Windows.

Apple was, by this time, a giant company… but a giant company with no soul. Its soul was gone, hard at work on NeXT and Pixar.

And it wasn’t just a giant company; it was a giant failing company. By the mid-1990s, Apple was losing money faster than it was making it.

The one-time disruptor had become the status quo. And that’s not what the company was born to be… so it began to die.

A Reincarnation

When Jobs returned in 1997, the company was 90 days from bankruptcy, but what happened next, nobody — not even the boy genius who had first dreamed up the Macintosh — could have anticipated.

Within a few short years and under the command of its founder, the company was back to doing what it was known for: disrupting the paradigm.

It gave us iTunes, forever changing the way music was shared and sold. It gave us the iPod, forever changing the way it was stored and experienced.

Then it gave us the iPhone, which redefined the concept of the cell phone.

And then the iPad added a whole new category of personal computing devices to our cultural lexicon.

Just as it once had done with the PC, Apple Computers, now rebranded simply as Apple Inc., changed everything we knew and understood about consumer technology.

From style to function, its products became more than just a line — they became an “ecosystem,” a word the company uses to this day to describe its universe of gadgets.

And this influence has reflected on its market share, putting the company into a category that didn’t even exist prior to its resurrection.

No Third Life for the Big Apple

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs was destined to leave the company for a second time, this time permanently — he passed away on October 5, 2011.

And just as it did the first time, Apple went right back to its old ways.

Now the biggest company in the world, it started to do with all of its platforms what it did with the Mac in the 1990s…

The company started repackaging.

Multiple versions of the same phone. Multiple versions of the same tablet. Multiple versions of the same MP3 player.

And its watch — the one we’ve been waiting on for years — was introduced into a field of worthy, cheaper, functional competitors.

Too little too late, unless you count custom watchbands as technological innovation.

The same stuff we’d one gawked at and then grew accustomed to was now competing with countless alternatives, most of them cheaper and just as functional.

Apple’s only really unique asset, after all was said and done, was the same asset thing it had coming out of its first growth spurt: brand loyalty.

No longer the ultimate disruptor, Apple was once again a target for disruption by a growing field of younger, smaller, less-rigid companies.

And even as big-name investors like Carl Icahn continue to tout future growth potential, there simply isn’t enough growth left to be had this time around.

There just aren’t enough people in existence to keep the ultimate tech giant’s stock on the same trajectory — not unless a billion Indians and Chinese start spending 200% of their income on personal gadgets or a very populous and brand-oriented alien civilization starts pre-ordering the next iPhone by the tens of millions.

Too Big to Fail; Too Big to Grow

So what’s the point? Is Apple dying?

No, certainly not. But investors looking for another 1997-2015-like rise in share value will not be finding it here.

Not now, and not ever again.

To get those kinds of returns, you need to find tomorrow’s Apple, not yesterday’s.

You need to find the next disruptive company that has the power to sweep aside entire industries with new game-changing technologies.

And I can tell you right now, with technological applications becoming as specialized as they are today, it won’t be as easy as finding a 21st century Macintosh equivalent.

The next disruptor will disrupt with technologies most people cannot even comprehend and alter the way we live our lives without the bulk majority of its users being aware that they’re even using something novel.

If it sounds daunting to find something like this among the plethora of new, amazing, and potentially impractical inventions coming out on a daily basis, that’s because it is.

Picking the next big tech trend isn’t so much a job for financial analysts as it is a job for technology junkies and modern-day futurists who use cutting-edge innovations on a daily basis.

Despite the inherent difficulty in sifting through fake trends and empty promises to find the real deal, we’ve reached a consensus that the next disruptor has already been identified.

For Big Gains, Start Small

This company stands on the brink of redefining the most significant tech trend to hit modern civilization since the advent of the Internet itself.

And it isn’t a billion-dollar giant with multiple revenue tentacles. Its market cap is barely $200 million — less than 0.03% the size of Apple Inc.

It’s a company with one basic idea and a solution that has giants like Google and Microsoft scratching their heads with curiosity, as well as a bit of envy.

My colleague Jason Stutman made this discovery in the last few weeks, and since then, the stock has already been showing signs of an impending run-up.

Not long after his initial report was published, Roth Capital added coverage — calling for an 80% gain within the next 12 months.

Jason thinks it can do even better.

To see his full report absolutely free of charge, click right here.

Just know this: You’re getting this information before the mainstream financial press has even caught on.

Fortune favors the bold,

Alex Koyfman

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His flagship service, Microcap Insider, provides market-beating insights into some of the fastest moving, highest profit-potential companies available for public trading on the U.S. and Canadian exchanges. With more than 5 years of track record to back it up, Microcap Insider is the choice for the growth-minded investor. Alex contributes his thoughts and insights regularly to Wealth Daily. To learn more about Alex, click here.