Apple Slashes iPhone 5 Part Orders Due to Weak Demand

[Rogifan]

Stop stressing about it, it'll come up during the earning's call next week and then we'll know. Apple will provide their forecasts for the upcoming quarter, they will provide unit count for the previous quarter that ended in December and all will be well in the world.

I'm not stressing about it, I just find it amusing that we have over 940 posts yet very few of them are questioning the validity of the original story. If Apple comes out with crap iPhone numbers next week and an even crappier forecast then I could understand the discussion that's taking up most of this thread. But right now the discussion is why there's less demand for the iPhone when we don't know if that's actually true or not.

 

[KnightWRX]

I'm not stressing about it, I just find it amusing that we have over 940 posts yet very few of them are questioning the validity of the original story.

You must be new here, I've never seen a rumor not discussed as if the original story wasn't an official Press Release from Apple.

People read a story on Macrumors and the conversation that follows always seems to be in the context of the rumor being 100% true.

If Apple comes out with crap iPhone numbers next week and an even crappier forecast then I could understand the discussion that's taking up most of this thread. But right now the discussion is why there's less demand for the iPhone when we don't know if that's actually true or not.

Well, it goes back to my post about it. People want to focus on same stupid argument like "iOS is stale! Samsung is taking ovear with moar copying!" but that's because many posters let the forum devolve into such paranoid rabid rants.

I gave you a perfectly logical explanation why this could be true, relating it to Apple's earning miss last year based on overstuffing the channels. Not having a repeat of this is something good management would do, which lends some credibility to the story.

People don't want to draw such paralleles and hold conversation about such logical points though. You know why ? That requires some research and time using Google to dig up numbers from publicly available data, get articles and quotes from archives that are relevant to your point, etc.. It requires linking, posting graphics, etc..

Much simpler to say :

"Samsung stole Apple IP and now they're stealing Apple's customers! Moar litigation!"

"iOS is stale, Maps sucks, antennas crap out, Steve would never have shipped an iPad Mini (he was against the iPod Nano I swear to god he called me at home to say so!)".

But I'm happy you feel this way. For once, I feel like you actually can empathisize with my usual position on the forum when I'm trying to link to factual information, dissect graphics, court documents, financials and am met with a brick wall and people that post "facts" without citations (facts that are purely subjective opinion of theirs). Maybe in the future, you'll be more careful too now ?

 

[lazyrighteye]

... And I don't know, this new iPhone 5 just seems uncomfortable in the hand -- maybe it's the aspect ratio?

I've not handled the new design enough to speak on that aspect. Perhaps the thinness and/or weight (or lack there of) has something to do with your claim.

 

[ncaissie]

Google maps takes up about as much space as 1 song....6.7 MB

But by all means, continue to cry for the sake of crying....

That is your reply? What about the other more important facts?

 

[samcraig]

I could argue the "strength" of Apple's software. Not OS - but software. But even elements of iOS are still very weak. IE - the email client.

Amazon owns the complete stack. And they'll have a phone soon enough.

Google (now with Motorola's hardware) has great strength as well.

Apple may (at the moment) be stronger than both in ALL three. But that won't necc last forever.

But none of this is relevant to the story posted by MR and the reasons behind it.

I'm not so sure on that.

Apple owns the entire stack. Hardware (including PC form factor, mobile and media devices), software, cloud services - including media store.

None of their competitors are as strong in all three areas.

This means that apple can integrate all of the above in ways their competitors can only dream of.


Sure, it's not a given, but to be in such a strong position right now, the other guys are going to have to work hard to beat them - or apple are going to have to fumble in such a colossal way.

Also, remains to be seen what their recent massive datacenter builds are to be used for. You can't tell me it is all iTunes and iCloud backups


I would seriously suggest they have un-named products in the pipeline that are nothing to do with iPhone or iPad.

 

[Phx08]

Funny how this white noise affected the stock...it hit a 6 month low yesterday, probably shook out the weak low risk tolerance investors. Should be interesting today.

 

[osofast240sx]

LMAO because this article is completely misleading and untrue. After all these posts SMH.

 

[tjl3]

/yawn, another analyst's view:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-5...have-been-cut-but-its-not-due-to-demand-woes/

 

[Tastydirt]

Citation needed for both figures.

Nexus 4 sales estimates are around 370k, supply constrained: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/3/3830884/xda-developers-estimates-nexus-4-sales-at-370k

Depending on who you read, I would say 40+ million iPhones is not unreasonable, also supply constrained: http://www.asymco.com/2013/01/07/estimates-for-apples-first-fiscal-2013-quarter/

 

[duffman9000]

I've not handled the new design enough to speak on that aspect. Perhaps the thinness and/or weight (or lack there of) has something to do with your claim.

For me it's the thinness. I'm convinced that if Apple could make a paper thin phone with 6 hours of battery life Apple would do it. Never mind if doubling the thickness would double the battery life.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

Apple stock sunk even lower today and went below $490.

 

[Tinmania]

Yeah, I get it. You zeroed in on a single word in my post, while failing to grasp its context as well as the context of the post I was responding to. Well done.

You wrote the word phone in caps not me. You used the tired and outdated phrase "it's a PHONE" which is meaningless in this day and age. Why would I continue reading after that nonsense? There was no other way to take it other than to assert there is little need for additional features or functionality when it is, after-all, "just a phone."

If you did not mean that then you need to write what you actually mean in the future.




Michael

 

[damitssam]

NOK stock up 80% while APPL stock keeps taking after the Iphone 5 Launch. Bye Bye

 

[aliensporebomb]

Did a some searches. Widely reported to have these specs, Samsung showed off its new Exynos 5 in CES so it might be used for the SIV.

Widely reported to come with:
-5'' full 1080p HD display (441 ppi)
-Exynos 5 octa-core processor
-13MP front facing camera
-2GB RAM
-4G LTE
-Android 4.2 Jellybean

The front facing camera is 13 megapixels? What's the back facing camera? 50 megapixels?

 

[EbookReader]

Nexus 4 sales estimates are around 370k, supply constrained: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/3/3830884/xda-developers-estimates-nexus-4-sales-at-370k

Depending on who you read, I would say 40+ million iPhones is not unreasonable, also supply constrained: http://www.asymco.com/2013/01/07/estimates-for-apples-first-fiscal-2013-quarter/

it's over 600,000 mark now.

and production for Nexus 4 is at 20,000 a day or 600,000 a month

source:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2055351

424110 10-th AUSGBK
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430110 5-th ATMOBK
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451110 8-th ANEUBK "EUROPE OPEN" - something new
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463110 8-th ADEGBK
465110 8-th ADEGBK
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471110 9-th ATMOBK
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482110 9-th ATMOBK
485110 10-th AUKGBK "UNITED KINGDOM_OPEN"
487110 10-th AUKGBK
489110 10-th AUKGBK
491110 10-th AAVCBK VIDEOTRON - seems to be a Canadian telco?
493110 10-th ADEUBK
495110 10-th ADEUBK
497110 10-th AISRBK
499500 10-th AUKGBK
502035 11-th AUSGBK
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512035 11-th AUS8BK
513035 11-th AUS8BK

Production rate seems to be accelerating to 20k devices per day.




577,000 2 days ago

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<msn>301KPAE577000</msn>
<esndate>20130113</esndate>
<buyer>UKG</buyer>
<esnoutgodate>null</esnoutgodate>
<ULocationcode>N</ULocationcode>
<buyername>UNITED KINGDOM_OPEN</buyername>
<csn>LG0000502521437</csn>

 

[AppleScruff1]

The stock price is $489 right now because of this news. I wonder if it will close below $500?

 

[DMH3006]

They added:
Smart stay to keep the screen on when in use via eye tracking in the front facing cam.
S beam which uses NFC and WiFi to move large files between phones .
Best photo which takes 8 pictures in succession choosing the best shot taken in the burst.
AllShare Play which uses DLNA and Wifi-direct to wirelessly share media and files.
Photo share which will instantly push pictures to your friends galaxy s3 devices within range.
Social tag which integrates with the likes of Facebook to assist with tagging pictures of your friends.
Pop up play which overlays any videos you are watching over the phones GUI effacing you to watch the video and user your phone at the same time.
Multi window which enables the user to run two apps at the same time.
Improved TouchWiz interface - they actually made it stuck a lot less!

What they should have done is innovated some better internals and an extra row of icons...

The dock got an extra icon. Does that count?

-So basically the screen stays on if you're looking at it?oh god what such innovation
-Yeah because sometimes I want to move my movies from phone to phone
-HDR,takes 3 pictures,chooses the best one of the 3 and lets you keep the original(only if it took 8 pics right?)
-AllShare is actually useful
-PhotoStream but that only works if your friends have the same device as you?wow thats really good,Apple should do that(and then get killed by it)
-So people complained Apple facebook integration was a no feature but something that helps you tag your facebook friends on a picture on your phone is a killer feature on S3?yeah sounds like an objective view of things
-Practical advantages besides bragging rights?checking twitter and facebook at the same time?this is something very few people actually use besides bragging about it.

And like I said in my post:hardware-wise the improvements from the S2->S3 are pretty much the same from the 4S->5.
All you stated are software things(most of those things are gimmicks anyway but all companies do it),the only really useful thing of those things is the AllShare Play which is indeed useful and really improved TouchWiz?so if sucked before they get points for improving it?thats like their job to make it suck less.
Sure GameCenter is gimmicky as well but it was something required to get the gaming part of iOS,Newstand should be available on something like if you wish to use the magazines that use the newsstaand api's to work you need to download it,passbook isn't that great but at least it doesn't require NFC installed everywhere to be useful(still the usefulness of both is very reduced at best).

Now granted Android is evolving at a faster pace than iOS(which is nothing new since Android uses the windows approach of letting everything go into it even if it isn't really useful and iOS they decide what they think they can do well and do that and think of other stuff later,neither of which is a really good approach although Apple's one keeps everything running how they thought it should the reason why most people think iOS runs so perfectly) and Apple needs to start catching up in the evolution and revolutionize lots of things on iOS(NC and multitasking bar) but not by adding things most people won't use if at all.

In essence:hardware-wise a very similar upgrade,software-wise S3 brings much more new features than the 5 although most of them are like Apple's 200 new features in OSX in that very little changes or it isn't all that useful.

 

[samcraig]

The stock price is $489 right now because of this news. I wonder if it will close below $500?

I think it's a certainty. It's even lower at the moment.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Ah

I see the biggest problem here:

American cell phone carriers strongarm their clients into two year cellular contracts. If you get a new phone, they almost always want you to "re-up".

It's great to have Apple or Samsung or Microsoft or HRC producing multiple phones per year but the average user is only going to be able to buy a new one every two years unless they are so unhappy with the phone/carrier that they do something drastic.

--

Right now I'll use an example: my wife loves her iPhone 4S - she was forced to replace her old phone when her 4 got destroyed and she got it maybe 3 weeks before the iPhone5 was introduced.

She hasn't experienced LTE on the iPhone5 - and indeed hasn't really played with mine yet so she doesn't know really what she's missing and the 4s phone to her is "new enough" and "fast enough" so she doesn't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Because her carrier would say "two more years please".

When the 4G sign lights up on her phone (even though it's technically 3g and a half) she gets a faster than 3G connection and that's good enough for her.

--

But if I gave her my phone and drove her over to Eden Prairie (one suburb over where LTE for my carrier is on right now) she'd get spoiled in 10 seconds and want a 5.

 

[NIKKG]

Correction? We're down $200 from its highs. We're heading to $450 most likely. I should've sold back at $600, but I kept thinking a lot of this was white noise. I am not sure I have the balls to hold through earnings.

The problem is you let emotion guide you instead of reality. You can see now that the Android phones have gotten real good as of late, plus there is M$ & Nokia out with WP8, than the BB10. Competition is much stronger now and its only heating up further. Apple will only drop more going forward, best to save your money and bail.

 

[KnightWRX]

I think it's a certainty. It's even lower at the moment.

Sad really that the actual confirmed information is only a week away, yet a single paper in a well respected publication is nailing the stock. The investment market really is based on trust rather than actual health of the given companies.

One of the reasons I pay little attention to the stock price and find the "Apple has biggest market cap!" arguments to be daft.

However... this slide might be a good time to buy into the stock... hum...

 

[topmounter]

Going to LTE was a huge difference for me, especially when streaming music. The fact that it's lighter/thinner helped, too! At this point, however, you may as well wait for the 5S.

Assuming I can get 3G coverage, I can't say I've had any issues with the speeds I get on 3G w/ AT&T. It is certainly plenty fast enough to stream music from Spotify, but I don't live in or frequent areas with a high population density.

I did have a 4G MiFi on Sprint's network and it was almost always handily outperformed by AT&T's 3G network in the areas that I tried it before I canceled the service and went back to tethering.

 

[Sedrick]

Wow, 40 pages of apologetics.

To the many people here that have said (and you know who you are): "if you don't like the iPhone, stop complaining and GO ANDROID!":

How's that mentality working out for Apple now?

Same skinny 2" wide screen and stale OS are to blame here. Nothing more than that. You can redesign the same basic shell all you want, but if you don't have the option of a larger modern screen and stick with the same OS you've had since Moses walked, people are going to move on. Apple has been operating in a vacuum far too long.

 

[samcraig]

Sad really that the actual confirmed information is only a week away, yet a single paper in a well respected publication is nailing the stock. The investment market really is based on trust rather than actual health of the given companies.

One of the reasons I pay little attention to the stock price and find the "Apple has biggest market cap!" arguments to be daft.

However... this slide might be a good time to buy into the stock... hum...

As is always the case - there's a difference between perception and reality. Perception (almost) always wins out.

 

[foxnews1]

why is this a surprise to people? this is expected long ago:

1) any high-tech gadget companies who charge premium for their products need to stay on top of the ladder of innovation in order to maintain their lead. now and near future, there is little or no innovation from Apple. Sony is one example.
2) any darling stocks usually go through their unsustainable peak due to short-term investors' speculation. Apple stock peaked over $700, and the natural law of gravity is in progress.
3) History repeats itself, only this time there is no Steve Job to rescue. SJ is visionary leader while Tim Cook is supply expert and executes well but he is not visionary. He can manages and operates apple well with their existing products but can he create a new market that no one else can do?