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What people didn't want a phone that had last year's technology in it? Shocking.

What did you want them to make? A 5s and sell it at the 5c's price? That's not how it works. Older tech sells at lower prices. Newer tech sells at higher prices.
 
I'm glad if way less people buy the 5C than Apple initially expected.
I feel sorry for anyone buying the 5C, its essentially last years phone, but unlike in previous years, it is made even worse/in cheaper production manners since they replaced the more expensive shell parts with plastic. Nice and all if one is into more color variation and not having the device scratch as easily or a back break as easily as if it was made out of glass, but yeah, the non subsidised price for the 5C is just outrageous for what it is.
One can get pretty much any competitor's (best) smartphones from last year for 100-300 less.
(I don't take the contract subsidised price into consideration since in many countries one can get the latest smartphones subsidised at 99$ so then it makes even less sense to get last year's model in stripped down form)

Apple continues their way of course, instead of cutting the price, as long as it still sells halfway ok, they would rather just reduce the amount produced and keep the price up.
Tim Cook is a supply chain expert, he surely knows perfectly well at which point it would be wiser to drop the price some than to just cut down the amount sold.

Since of course the whole idea behind the 5C is selling the old thing at even further reduced production costs at maximised profit range, so yeah, why change that if there's not absolutely a need for it.
 
I wished :apple: had broken their 's' Model design tradition this year and would have rather released a 4.3" and a 5.3" phone model. Obviously with a redesign of the outer shell with smaller bezels to keep the smaller model as the same size as the current 4" iPhone. And those of, us, who are lusting for a bigger screen iPhone, would have been happy, too.

Add some clever software tweaks to iOS to enable single hand input for the bigger model and, of course, market them both as meticulously crafted high end models. Sales Figures: *Booooooooom* - Through the roof. :p

Man, I would've finally had a solid reason to go back to the iPhone . . . although, there's still my totally personal problem of iOS7.

Your right about the average consumer, they mostly pick up whatever the salesman at the local store pushes on them. Retailers push whatever earns them the most and that is not Apple phones,...

Maybe someone's grandmother just buys whatever phone is pushed on them, but most consumers actually go into a retail store already knowing what they want, and just need the salesman to further convince them.

I pray that that notion isn't some lame excuse as to why Android handsets are becoming more popular?
 
I think it's priced at what the iPhone5 would have been priced at if it was kept inline.

The problem is the Apple is presenting this as a new phone but it's more of a small refresh to the iP5 but the big back lash is because all the rumors were that Apple was coming out with a new cheaper phone supposedly in the $300-400 range and that didn't happen nor did Apple do anything to shut down the rumor of a cheaper iPhone. They took the free press it was getting and it may not have gone as planned for them as far as the 5C is concerned, it probably caused some people to hold out on buying another brand phone in hopes of a cheaper iPhone though.

Apple probably should have done something to quell the "cheap" phone rumors. But then again all these analysts should have known that Apple was never going to get in to a race to the bottom with Android.
 
iPhone 5 Production

is it still going on, all the iPhone 5 production ended?

we can still see stock on att and verizon and so on.
 
Knowing Apple wants to make robust margins on its phones, I still don't know what a "cheap" iphone would look like, especially if it has to run on the most recent chips.
 
Your misfeelings don't change anything. The performance gap to price gap relation between the 5c and 5s prohibits most sales of the c-model. As we say in Germany: "Better is the enemy of Good." My 2010 MBP doesn't feel stale to me either and I continue to use it. But that doesn't mean I would buy a new one today at only $100 cheaper. Computers lose their trading value long before they lose their value in use. Exactly at the date, when a much faster iPhone is released, most of the trading value of the old one is gone. That's how things always have been.

That's an interesting take on the situation. However Apple has sold its older iPhones at a 100.00 discount (for 1 yr old model) and at a 200.00 discount (for 2 yr old model) since the original iPhone. And they've done this with great success so far. That evidence pretty much invalidates your argument completely.
 
Um, no. That would ridiculously stupid. Thus, why it hasn't been done.

Right. Cutting the wholesale price significantly would be a big impact on margins and would potentially cannibalize 5s sales. Apple isn't going to sell a phone that destroys its margins.
 
Seems reasonable. Prices are discounted at some retailers already. I guess the Telcos could decrease the 5c price to $49 on contract. But I find it hard to believe Apple will decrease the price of the unlocked 5c. It would give the impression that they priced it too high at first. Not sure what will happen.

True, Apple will never decrease the price of the unlocked phone but they will decrease the volume price they offer to 3rd party retailers and telcos. This is how phones always get cheaper on contract as the year wares on but the off contract price from Apple always remains the same. Apple just pass on any cost of production savings to the bulk buyers.
 
It's not running on the most recent chips now. Isn't the 5C using the same chip from last years 5?

Yes, but even then the cost BoM isn't that less than the 5S. In order to make a "cheap" iPhone, Apple would have to use a 4S chip, restrict memory to 16G or 8G, use a worse camera or battery, or make other concessions. The point is that a cheaper iPhone than the 5c would be a nonstarter because the internals would be worse.
 
No surprise. The iPhone 5c is a good device, but simply priced too high to meet Apple's sales expectations.
 
iPhone 5S is much much much better phone for $100 more than iPhone 5C.

End of story. Apple, now take your plastic and great gross margin!.

You sound angry. $200 or $300 with contract does not make much of a difference with me. I chose a 32GB 5C over the 5S. I like the plastic phone over the metal alternative. Additionally they both have the same equipment that I care about; radios, DAC, audio amp and screen.

If Apple had offered advanced model with wireless AC, a decent DAC, a quality audio amp, advanced LTE and FM/HD radio I would have been willing to spend $500 with contract.
 
Right. Cutting the wholesale price significantly would be a big impact on margins and would potentially cannibalize 5s sales. Apple isn't going to sell a phone that destroys its margins.

Nope. Those who want a 5s are going to buy a 5s. It's a generation ahead.

A cheaper 5c would cannibalise Android sales much more than 5s sales.
 
Nope. Those who want a 5s are going to buy a 5s. It's a generation ahead.

A cheaper 5c would cannibalise Android sales much more than 5s sales.

This is potentially true. The question is how Apple could have made it cheaper without sacrificing margins or quality. They may not have had the answer this time around.
 
One important piece of data that is missing from this narrative is what Apple planned to produce initially. Yes, they told Pegatron and Foxconn to cut production levels of the 5c relative to the launch level, but that could have been the plan all along. After all, production schedules at electronics manufacturers are rarely flat throughout the life-span of the product. Typically production is high at launch time to address pent-up demand from people waiting for the next generation and to go with the initial burst of media hype. Then over time you normalize to some level which lasts for the remainder of the product cycle.

So an alternative interpretation of this story could be that the 5c is selling exactly as planned, but the 5s is still selling more than anticipated. This version is backed up by the fact that first weekend sales of those two phones exceeded launch weekends for every prior iPhone.
 
Anyone who is following this AND ALL OTHER iPhone launch news, and posts any negative conclusions, are trolls. Plain and simple. Because if you're not a troll, you're too stupid and irresponsible to be allowed near a computer.

Apple must be thrilled, as this iPhone launch completely blew their expectations out of the water:

Apple was geared up to sell more iPhone 5C and fewer iPhone 5S (although they would have wished for the opposite). Knowing the market as they do, they knew there was a chance that their flagship product would so impress as to be the best seller, BUT they had a huge caveat with the 5C....first time ever releasing a "new" model alongside the flagship model..Less expensive, And, with attractive design/colors that many smartphone buyers are looking for.

So Apple was fully prepared to sell more 5C than 5S and eat some early margin loss for the sake of overall sales.

But, the market for a flagship $200+ phone proved to be bigger than anticipated, and to Apple's sheer delight, the 5C sold better than the 4S YOY, and the 5S sold the best of the two new phones.

Apple couldn't have wished for a better outcome, and that was probably a delightful phone call for them to make: Ramp up 5S, slow down 5C.

= More Money.
 
What people didn't want a phone that had last year's technology in it? Shocking.

many purchase "last year's" phone when the new one comes out because it is cheaper...the 5C is an attempt to capture that market with a fresh look...I see parents buying these for their kids, and expect that the sales of them will increase as we approach the holiday season...
 
I'm glad if way less people buy the 5C than Apple initially expected.
I feel sorry for anyone buying the 5C, its essentially last years phone, but unlike in previous years, it is made even worse/in cheaper production manners since they replaced the more expensive shell parts with plastic.

Since of course the whole idea behind the 5C is selling the old thing at even further reduced production costs at maximised profit range, so yeah, why change that if there's not absolutely a need for it.

They actual made a number of hardware changes that improved the 5c over the 5: 1) Larger battery 2) Superior front-facing camera + rear light sensor 3) Support for additional LTE/cellular bands. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/apple/3468120/iphone-5c-vs-iphone-5-comparison-review/

Also, the 5c costs essentially the same to produce as the 5s. Its a 26.00 difference:
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/24/ihs-iphone-5s-component-tally-reaches-199-iphone-5c-costs-17/
 
If this had been a Samsung phone that got discounted and production was pulled back on, we would say that it was because the phone was not selling as well as expected. We wouldn't miss a beat.

The iPhone 5c is not selling as well as expected. The 5s is selling better than expected. 5s was ramped up. 5c scaled back.

End of story.

To be fair most Samsung phones or indeed of pretty much any other manufacturer have price drops almost immediately after launch from at least some outlets. I don't think the 5S is selling better than expected, I think it is simply that production problems have reduced supply as evidenced by the long wait times for delivery. The 5C may or may not be selling as well as expected, we just don't know for sure. High availability of the 5C is probably a better indicator than supply chain rumours. But whatever we read from this the fact is that the 5C is selling better than the 4S did when the 5 came out so it seems to be a win.
 
I think it's time for Apple to cut it back on the front page of apple.com, too. I'd rather see the fancy 5s on the front page.

That's silly. Why advertise the iPhone (5S) that's selling immensely and in high demand and put the low-selling one on the back burner? You're suppose to highly advertise the one that isn't selling as well. Business 101.
 
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