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If Apple had just priced the iPhone 5c at the equivalent of US$349 (16 GB) and US$399 (32 GB) for the "unlocked" versions, they would sell out the phone in no time flat. They should have done that right from the start.
 
I believe, and suspect Apple have predicted and planned for, that 5c sales will rocket when the next iteration of the iPhone arrives in 2014 and the 4s is phased out. The 5c will then be the 'cheap' iPhone both in terms of lower production costs and in actuality for customers. Until then the 5c is a deliberate loss-leader for Apple to allow them to break into the mass market in the future.
 
Apple's Executive Boardroom meeting:

"I just don't get it. People want the phone from last year with a few slight improvements way more than they want the phone from last year with a colourful plastic backplate... why is that?!"

Disclaimer: I LOVE the build of the 5C, but it's simply the wrong price for what it is.

because number of back covers are available in market to make your Apple colourful :)
 
Again and again same stupid comments, apple should lower the price, apple should compete with cheap android phones, etc. etc..... While you all bag for lower prices (to get ios toy cheap) apple is doing well and gets majority of smartphone revenues... You want cheap, go android;)
 
on what planet is the 5C considered a 'low cost phone?'

Only the people who look at the post-paid upfront price and think 'it costs 1/2 the 5s price' think that it is cheap.
The prepaid carrier I use offers a 5s for $550, 5c for $450, or 5 for $405.
If the 5c is essentially a newly cased 5, why pay 11% more for it?

To your point precisely, when I switched from AT&T to my current prepaid provider which I love, I only had about $200 to spend on a phone and the cheapest iPhone at the time was more than double that. I ended up with Android because there was no iPhone in my price range.

I wish Apple could have stuck a $10 wireless device in a $150 iPod Nano, charged me $180, and taken my money. Well they COULD have, but they just didn't.

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Again and again same stupid comments, apple should lower the price, apple should compete with cheap android phones, etc. etc..... While you all bag for lower prices (to get ios toy cheap) apple is doing well and gets majority of smartphone revenues... You want cheap, go android;)

(assuming you meant "you all beg for"...
Apple followed your advice with PCs in the early to mid-90s and it almost bankrupted them. They rationalized smaller and smaller market shares and even Microsoft had to bail them out.
First it's about market share and when you start losing market share, it's about revenue.
When you start losing revenue, it's about profit.
When you start losing profit, it's about pride.
When you start losing pride, it's about nostalgia.
Us older Apple users don't want to repeat the past. Please learn from it, too.
 
Only the people who look at the post-paid upfront price and think 'it costs 1/2 the 5s price' think that it is cheap.
The prepaid carrier I use offers a 5s for $550, 5c for $450, or 5 for $405.
If the 5c is essentially a newly cased 5, why pay 11% more for it?

To your point precisely, when I switched from AT&T to my current prepaid provider which I love, I only had about $200 to spend on a phone and the cheapest iPhone at the time was more than double that. I ended up with Android because there was no iPhone in my price range.

I wish Apple could have stuck a $10 wireless device in a $150 iPod Nano, charged me $180, and taken my money. Well they COULD have, but they just didn't.

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(assuming you meant "you all beg for"...
Apple followed your advice with PCs in the early to mid-90s and it almost bankrupted them. They rationalized smaller and smaller market shares and even Microsoft had to bail them out.
First it's about market share and when you start losing market share, it's about revenue.
When you start losing revenue, it's about profit.
When you start losing profit, it's about pride.
When you start losing pride, it's about nostalgia.
Us older Apple users don't want to repeat the past. Please learn from it, too.

Really? So what you offer is no revenue - big share strategy? Same that htc, nokia and others use and are losing money every quarter? Innovation is the onlyvway for apple, not selling cheap crap... Look at android user base, less wealthy and not so willing to pay base (in general, dont want to offend anyone) these are people apple should fight for? As to the 5c - it is same as 5 with different casing - same price 5 would get if not discontinued, would all the critics say anything about 5 sales today if they were same as 5c are? I doubt it
 
I am totally Mac, or was until a couple of weeks ago (several Mac laptops in my family + 2 iPads and various iPods and others). A couple of weeks ago I bought a Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone. Why?

I hoped Apple would produce an iPhone without the huge Apple tax on it and that would compete with mid-range phones from other companies. Not so. I held out until after the phones were released in New Zealand to examine the pricing, and came out disappointed. So I bought a Lumia 920 at about half the price of an iPone 5c.

Since then I have followed the blogs like MacRumors that are focussed on Windows Phones and my guess is that within the next year Lumia sales are going to take off. Currently they have about 10% marketshare in Europe and are growing rapidly in the USA. There is a huge market and thus huge $$$ to be made on these devices. The apps are not as good as the iOS apps yet, but the platform and interface are really nice (and I say that as a hyper-critic of Microsoft).

It feels a little funny partially returning to Microsoftland after many years on Mac. I still strongly dislike so much of their software, but that said, Skydrive feels years ahead of iCloud (which I think is a mutt -- sorry to insult dogs) and the UI for WP8 is really polished with more upgrades and improvements to come shortly.

You are not alone. I'm about to replace an iPhone 4 with a Lumia 820. Smart enough for what I do with it, the 4.3'' screen is already a sizable improvement over my current 3.5'', I can add 64 Go of storage for 40 EUR - and all of this at less than half the cost of an iPhone 5C.
 
I posted a while back that I believed the 5c would be the best selling iPhone to date. It gave everybody what they wanted, colors and a reduced price. Yet I see it is failing the world over. Apple fans have made it their mantra that plastic is the devil so of course your biggest supporters are going to steer clear of it. Apple has to be aware of who their users are, the lot of them are wannabe elitists and zealots and to them plastic feminine colored phones aren't going to cut it.
 
If the $350 Nexus 5 is a serious competitor to the iPhone 5S and even beats the iPhone 5S in a lot of areas, than it's nuts charing $599 for the iPhone5C.

Bad marketing of Apple. The iPhone 5C should cost around $300. It's also very cheap to make those iPhone's.
 
I believe, and suspect Apple have predicted and planned for, that 5c sales will rocket when the next iteration of the iPhone arrives in 2014 and the 4s is phased out. The 5c will then be the 'cheap' iPhone both in terms of lower production costs and in actuality for customers. Until then the 5c is a deliberate loss-leader for Apple to allow them to break into the mass market in the future.

and when that dosent play out the plan all along was to rule ebay/craigslist for second hand phones.

btw if the 5c were to follow the "cheapest" (still far from cheap while bought without contract) model and only have 8 gig a year from now that would mean it had two reasons to fail.
 
Well, the thing is that people HAVE been doing that. The 4S was a big seller after the 5 came out. The 4 still sold after the 4S came out. etc.

Apple has done well with the "$100 less for slightly lesser phone" plan for years now.

Since the only difference between last year and this year is the year-old-phone's design, I have to conclude that the design is the problem.

People could have also wisened up. I had a friend who bought the iPhone 3GS instead of the 4 thinking its cheaper a couple of years ago. She was nonchalant when I asked her why she signed a full contract with an older model phone - she was just thinking about the upfront price. This time out, she went and bought the 5S, fully aware that the 5C was internally mostly the 5.
 
It should have been FREE with 2YR contract, and $299 for purchase.

Who knows the real reason the 5C exists (I remember pre-launch supporters constantly throwing out it's for emerging countries), yet it's not a cheap phone. Every time I see one with that ugly swiss-cheese cover on it, I think "what was Apple thinking?", and then I think about the person that chose it, over the 5S, and wonder how their home is furnished. :) $49.99 vs $99.99...hmmmm...

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Apple has to be aware of who their users are, the lot of them are wannabe elitists and zealots and to them plastic feminine colored phones aren't going to cut it.

And some of them are zero-class people like the 300 lb woman who sat in front of me at a hockey game last week, leaning forward in her seat to rest against the rail (blocking my view of the goal) and recorded the ENTIRE hockey game on her 5c. Not only was my view of the goal area blocked, but it's very distracting. She actually followed the action with her phone, and watched the game via her phone!

In between periods he was constantly chatting and FB'ing. The man she came with said about 2 words between them the whole game.

Apparently she has money for a 5c but not for a DVR.
 
Also something that should be disclosed. Many people don't understand this. It's quite simple for cell companies to make people aware.

It's standard practice to make consumers aware of subscriptions and subsidies in nearly all other industries.

I don't think it's in the interest of the carriers to do this. Why would they go out of their way to stir the pot? Customers who have the brains to know already do, those who don't wont get it either way.
 
It should have been FREE with 2YR contract, and $299 for purchase.

Who knows the real reason the 5C exists (I remember pre-launch supporters constantly throwing out it's for emerging countries), yet it's not a cheap phone. Every time I see one with that ugly swiss-cheese cover on it, I think "what was Apple thinking?", and then I think about the person that chose it, over the 5S, and wonder how their home is furnished. :) $49.99 vs $99.99...hmmmm...

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And some of them are zero-class people like the 300 lb woman who sat in front of me at a hockey game last week, leaning forward in her seat to rest against the rail (blocking my view of the goal) and recorded the ENTIRE hockey game on her 5c. Not only was my view of the goal area blocked, but it's very distracting. She actually followed the action with her phone, and watched the game via her phone!

In between periods he was constantly chatting and FB'ing. The man she came with said about 2 words between them the whole game.

Apparently she has money for a 5c but not for a DVR.

Lol, what does this story has to do with iphone 5c? It only tells a lot about you...
 
?....... Until then the 5c is a deliberate loss-leader for Apple to allow them to break into the mass market in the future.

How is the 5C a "loss leader"?? It's last years internals within a plastic case and no touch ID, yet only about $100 cheaper than the flagship model. If anything this has some hefty margins. A loss leader is something priced below break even margin - I don't think there's any Apple product positioned as a loss leader. Amazon, Google and maybe even some Samsung products have that covered.
 
The deals in the UK for the 5c are tremendous. The phone is free on 99% of tariffs at £32 and above and these all contain unlimited calls/texts to all networks and at least 1GB of 4G (some offer 3G) data.

I personally know 3 people who upgraded from a 4s to a 5c this week when their contacts expired and they are enjoying their new phone.

The problem with the 5c is not the price. The problem is that the tech media and rumour mill ran stories for months that Apple was releasing a low cost phone when the company didn't even hint at as much. When the 5c came it was labelled with the "low cost" moniker adopted by presumptuous journos and bloggers alike.
 
The deals in the UK for the 5c are tremendous. The phone is free on 99% of tariffs at £32 and above and these all contain unlimited calls/texts to all networks and at least 1GB of 4G (some offer 3G) data.

I personally know 3 people who upgraded from a 4s to a 5c this week when their contacts expired and they are enjoying their new phone.

The problem with the 5c is not the price. The problem is that the tech media and rumour mill ran stories for months that Apple was releasing a low cost phone when the company didn't even hint at as much. When the 5c came it was labelled with the "low cost" moniker adopted by presumptuous journos and bloggers alike.

how do the deals for the 5s compare?
 
how do the deals for the 5s compare?

5s is £119 up front to get the same minutes/texts/data mentioned above.

If you go up to £42 to £47 per month then the 5s is free with certain carriers (O2).

£32 per month with unlimited mins/texts & 4G data with a free 5c is a very enticing deal.
 
5s is £119 up front to get the same minutes/texts/data mentioned above.

If you go up to £42 to £47 per month then the 5s is free with certain carriers (O2).

£32 per month with unlimited mins/texts & 4G data with a free 5c is a very enticing deal.

certainly is.

how long is the contract?
 
certainly is.

how long is the contract?

Standard 24 months.

I think there is a certain amount of people who look down their noses at the 5c and their owners, the usual elitist snobs who think having the latest phone makes them something "special".

To people coming from a 4 or 4s the 5c is a great phone, especially on those deals.

I'm paying £37pm just now for unlimited mins/texts (all networks) and 1GB of data. I paid £99 for the 4s up front.

Come upgrade time I could reduce my monthly bill by £5 a month, move onto a 4G tariff and get a brand new, latest handset for absolutely free. At the end of the day, my upgrade isn't until March so come then the 5s will be older and the deals may well level out. However if I was upgrading today I would be all over that 5c deal.
 
Standard 24 months.

I think there is a certain amount of people who look down their noses at the 5c and their owners, the usual elitist snobs who think having the latest phone makes them something "special".

To people coming from a 4 or 4s the 5c is a great phone, especially on those deals.

I'm paying £37pm just now for unlimited mins/texts (all networks) and 1GB of data. I paid £99 for the 4s up front.

Come upgrade time I could reduce my monthly bill by £5 a month, move onto a 4G tariff and get a brand new, latest handset for absolutely free. At the end of the day, my upgrade isn't until March so come then the 5s will be older and the deals may well level out. However if I was upgrading today I would be all over that 5c deal.

personally i got nothing against the phone. would be enough for me (still get by on the original). however the price difference between it and and 5s is so small when out of contract that i think its a much lesser investment.
 
personally i got nothing against the phone. would be enough for me (still get by on the original). however the price difference between it and and 5s is so small when out of contract that i think its a much lesser investment.

Yeah. It is baffling that in the US it's $99 up front yet here in the UK it's free on almost every tariff.
 
Because people aren't idiots.

You are basically calling idiot everyone who bought an iPhone 5c ...

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The 5C isn't a low cost iPhone, it's only $100 cheaper than the flagship 5S so most people are going for the better specced model.

I think this is the ONLY problem with iPhone 5c ...


If it was 200$ less than iPhone 5s, numbers would be different. But the best seller would be iPhone 5s nevertheless, because Apple's target buyers are people with a good amount of money and the willing for the last gadget on the market.

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Just bought a Samsung Galaxy S4 that had been used once. Perfect condition.

The equivalent iPhone 5C is £225 more expensive than what I paid.

And so ?
I still prefer iPhone 5c over a Galaxy S4.

The problem is the price of 5c vs the price of 5s, not any android phone.

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I agree that price point is the issue. At $299 off contract I would have bought one, maybe two. The current price is laughable.

At 299$ you are just dreaming .... iPhone 5 was 699$ (or something like that) until agust.

I think the right price for iPhone 5c is 499$.

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Do we have any data that suggests the 5C isn't selling as well as the 4S did last year and the 4 before it?

Actually we haven't any data about how well (or bad) iPhone 5c is selling ...

The news is about PRODUCTION rate cut.
If it is selling at a 3:1 rate with iPhone 5s, it is selling quite well.
 
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