> Mr Kuo seems to save his predictions for things that are very obvious, and already widely discussed.

no…that couldn’t be further from truth. you probably have only heard of him in recent years and haven’t been following the leaks much. because you wouldn’t say he only predicts “obvious” things had you really been reading his notes for many years.

he has had a long history of having accurate insider information and handing out predictions in investors notes on things that were more than a year out, sometimes people even ridiculed for certain predictions he made because they seemed preposterous—certainly not “obvious” at all.

even in just recent years, he was the first to claim that apple was working on the satellite connectivity two years ago when nobody had even thought of the possibility of that. he also said that the 13” M2 MBP would keep the old form factor and only the Air would receive a new design, and everybody laughed at it saying “how would apple keep the old design for the pro model and sell it at a higher price when the air received the new design first?”, and guess what, that happens exactly like he said. there have been countless examples.

accurate leaks have already become even way harder to come by in recent years and lots fakers popped up, and what has been happening is that people confused the fake leaks for what he said, and remembered the few times he was dead wrong with his prediction.

while he is far from most accurate, he got so well known for a reason, and if he was only stating “obvious” things, people wouldn’t have cared about his notes for so many years. More people only became familiar with his name in the past few years when “apple leakers” popped up everywhere and apple started cracking down on them with full force. It was only after the Apple Watch 7 thing when almost all accurate leakers were fooled that many people began to notice the existence of these leakers and got the impression that Kuo was not credible. He has lost quite some connection for sure due to the crack down over the years, but he’s still one of the most accurate ones and an actual analyst.