By whose yardstick is it a flop? The internet has enabled everyone to have an opinion.
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So, apparently the iPhone 5c isn't a 'flop'.
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By whose yardstick is it a flop? The internet has enabled everyone to have an opinion.
By the readers of Engadget. It sounded like you were saying Engadget held that same opinion. Which may or may not be the case. There opinions have not come out yet.
Also the award was not given to the biggest flop, but the worse bit of tech in the past year. Some felt like it was kind of a pointless phone because it still cost the price of a flagship phone, but did not have flagship specs. The cost was much higher than what people thought it should be too. Again no one was saying a flop because it was far from it. Just not a phone that you would not expect to be released at the end of 2013.
I see far more 5Cs than I do 5S's here. It is not intended to compete with the 5S. It is intended to compete with the other mid range phones out there. I personally would have no problems buying one if I didn't already have an iPhone.
To me it's the same thing. Worst tech, biggest flop..one can sugar coat it but it's a different pile, same smell.
However, I believe apple knew what they were doing and they are laughing all the way to the bank.
I am not arguing the success of the 5c cause I like it. I am just saying Engadget reviews voted as the worst tech of the year. Specs wise I believe it might be. Specs are not everything, so yes Apple is laughing all the way to the bank cause people are buying it.
Yes but comparing it to the 5 is unfair, as that was the flagship model at release. No valid direct comparison can be drawn to any prior release (a comparison to the 4s at the time the 5 was released is also unfair, since the 5c was released), since Apple had never before released a new model that *wasn't* the flagship at release.
The 5c sells better than the 4s did last year and worse than the 5 did last year. Sounds about right.
The Engadget "worst tech" thing is ridiculous. It's last year's phone (which was great) in a new case with a few tiny upgrades and a price drop. One year old great tech with a price drop can't be the worst tech of the new year. Sorry, it just can't.
This is a great story, I immediately messaged it to my friend who thinks samsung is better than apple and he always tells me that samsung sells more phones....and I always prove him wrong but he is so stubborn and hates when he isn't right
Sure you can compare the two since the 5 (premium design) was supposed to take the $99 w/ contract spot that the 5c (cheap plastic and tacky colors) does now.
It's just that Apple decided to be ****ing greedy and axe the 5 because they could either a) make more profit off a cheap plastic than more premium materials or b) make people so disgusted with the color options available that they were swayed to buy the more expensive 5s.
That is why the 5c gets negative reviews and is called a 'flop' : because it should have been the premium design iPhone 5 instead and everyone knows Apple simply tried to make more profit and downgrade materials to do so. And before anyone says "but the 5 and the 5s would have been too similar!" ummmm what about the 4 to the 4s cycle? You didn't see Apple cheapen out there and use dog**** colorful materials on the 4 did you?
I can only think that easy-peasy arrived home early one day and found his/her partner in bed with an iPhone 5c.
But the only iPhone 5 sales numbers are from the period when it was the flagship device. The iPhone 5c is not the flagship device. The correct comparison is 5 sales to 5s sales. The 5c sales are not comparable to either the 5 sales from last year (because the 5c isn't the flagship) or to the 4s sales from last year (because the 4s wasn't a new design).
The point is that the 5c is something we've never before seen from apple - a new design that isn't the flagship device. So there's no accurate comparison.
As I said in post #5 of this thread, I'm not comparing sales figures, I'm strictly comparing the two products against one other as products and products alone. Comparing the 5c vs what should have been the 5 at the $99 a/ contract price point, the 5c is a flop for downgraded materials as a profit grab and terrible choice to force colors. If you want to talk sales figures to try and defend the 5c then we are at an impasse.
To me, sales figures is how one defines a "flop." A product that you don't like but sells well isn't a flop - it just isn't for you.
To me sales figures don't mean much at all when it comes to Apple products being flops or not as I'm not a stockholder and could care less about sales figures. To me a product should be criticized and downgraded by the tech sites when it's an obvious downgrade like the 5c is, hence the negative reviews. It's like if this September Apple discontinued the 5s and came out with only one new iPhone that was basically the same internals as the 5s but with a colorful plastic shell... you are damn right that the media would roast it and call it a flop (yet it would still sell very well, which is why I discount sales figures being the mark of a flop or not). So in that sense it would be a flop as a product, compared to what it should have been, same as the 5c being a flop compared to the 5 as it should have been.
Well done article about iPhone 5C.
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You clearly never used an iPhone 5C .... And I don't know of any negative review: the only downgrading review are from fanboys and biased websites around the net. Every review of the iPhone 5C is positive.
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I really think the only iPhone 5C problem is 100$ too much on the unsubsidized price.
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Again, show me a negative review from a serious website ...
He won't be able to show you a negative review because there is not one. Every website I have seen reviews on has given the 5c an 8 or better.
I'll also say this ... I am so tired of hearing people say the 5 and 5s are "premium." Aluminum is one of the cheapest metals you can buy. Only because it's on a mobile phone it makes that device premium? I don't think so. IMO the 4/4s was more premium than the 5/5s.
Personally I had the iPhone 5 for one week when it was launched in 2012 and returned it to stay on my 4s. I despise the design that much. The 5/5s design is a major failure by Apple's design team IMO... Again IMO. The 5s feels thrown together. None of them I have picked up feels all that " premium."
Had Apple not released the iPhone 5c I would have stayed on my 4s until the 6 came along.
Back to what this thread is about... The iPhone 5c is NOT a flop. It outsold every single Android device in Q4. That's every flagship, every mid tier... The only phone it did not outsell was the iPhone 5s...I'm sure Tim Cook is so unhappy about that.
The only thing that made the iPhone 5c a "flop" was bloggers and Internet forums. That's it.
Excellent points. Soda cans are made of aluminum. I never truly understood the comparison of the iP5 being a premium device to the 5C.
Owning both, one could argue the overall "feel" for each is superior to the other- simply depending on your personal tastes.
Well if that's your view, then as you said, we're at an impasse. I just think you're using the word "flop" very strangely. IMO not everything you don't personally like can fairly be called a "flop." A flop is something that fails in the marketplace.
I'll tell you why... Apple tells them that it's premium and it's the best aluminum. Well honestly how much more can aluminum cost over polycarbonate? It's just as Apple says the polycarbonate on the 5c is the best plastic. Well it's plastic just as aluminum is aluminum.
The iPhone 5c is a well built plastic phone. When you hold it compared to a galaxy S4 it feels much sturdier. It's not a pos device by no means.
I'm by no means saying the 5s isn't a good phone because it is, but to say it's much more premium because it's "metal" is completely absurd. I have many soda cans in my trash can right now and those are not "premium."
When you look at the important stuff in our everyday life ... How many has some company made out of aluminum? How much of it is made out of plastic.
Aluminum is cheap it doesn't make something premium and IMHO the 5/5s is a major major design fail.
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This is greatly put. Just because certain people say it's a flop doesn't make it a flop. I'm sorry, but when a mid tier device is outselling everyone else flagships by 2-3 million per quarter it does NOT make it a flop.
The iPhone 5c is a well built device and I will always stand by that opinion. I also know that in my area I see just as many 5c's as I do 5/5s's.
Well now... I've read on three or four sites (probably all taking info from the same source) that the 5s casing costs over $40 more to produce than the 5c casing. Which I believe accounts for more than half of the difference in component costs between the two models.
You can try to be in my mind and tell me why I bought a 5c, but I know why I bought it. I'm neither cheap nor broke. I buy EVERY iphone at launch and have since the 3G. I bought the iPhone 5 at launch and kept it a week before I realized the design was crappy. The 5s is no different. I bought a 5c to have LTE until the iPhone 6 is released. When the 6 is released I will have it just as I have had all the others.
Wow, stereotypical much.
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I do not doubt this by no means, but I also know that TouchID costs a bit as well. However I still say aluminum is not a premium metal.