Apple Reportedly Cuts iPhone XS and iPhone XR Production Orders Amid Lower-Than-Expected Demand

[H.E. Pennypacker]

It is a compromise due to cost. The original iPhone was not compromised because of costs.

Compromised to who? Tech savvy individuals, sure I’ll bite. Sure it’s compromised for people who want the latest and greatest in every facet, but for a non tech savvy consumer, nothing is compromised about that phone. It’s an excellent choice at an excellent price point, and I would disagree that the original iPhone wasn’t compromised. Pretty sure it was running EDGE and GPRS when 3G was available and used by many other devices.

 

[Act3]

2014 Apple's largest base model top tier iPhone was $749
2018 Apple's largest base model top tier iPhone is $1099.
You need to compare the same line not the highest priced unit of 2014 to the low end new phone of 2018.

Good point.

The "low" end iPhone 6 with 64 gig was $749 USD out of contract. Exact same price as the 2018 iPhone Xr with 64 gig. Sure the iPhone 6 with 16 gig was $649.

 

[kaneda]

Stopped slowing down people old phone, higher price new phone. Of course not everyone is going to buy a new phone.

 

[Kiorr]

The Notch our times mullet!

 

[DevNull0]

I think there are a quite a few of us out there that still like Touch ID and don’t want the phone to unlock with our face. I’m hanging on to my “old” 7 for as long as I can. Still does everything I need it to do.

I got an XR 2 weeks ago, I still liked my 7+ but my mom needs a new phone badly, so I was going to take the XR and give her the 7.

I've got to say I absolutely **HATE** the XR. It is by far the worst smartphone I've ever owned. FaceID is absolutely useless, it misses 90% of the time requiring me to enter my pin. The rare time it does work, I still have to swipe up from the edge of the screen. Way worse than hitting the home button as I pick up the phone to unlock it and clear the lock screen.

The home gesture is clunky and a PITA. The GUI is so defective it can't even show the battery percentage. It's hard to hold the phone without touching the screen. I may give away the XR and keep the 7.

 

[Gudi]

6+ wasn’t the cheaper ‘new iPhone’. That was the $100 less iPhone 6.
XR is the cheaper ‘new iPhone’ of 2018.

No, it’s not. The XR is a big screen LCD iPhone, which replaces the $799 iPhone 8+ from last year. There simply is no new small screen LCD iPhone at the iPhone 8 price point.

LCD and OLED are like Air and Pro. The redesigned MacBook Air isn’t the “cheaper new MacBook Pro” of 2018. Last year there was no redesigned MacBook Air and this year there’s only a 13-inch version and no 12-inch version of the new MacBook Air with Retina.

You can bemoan the missing 12-inch Air at $999, but you can’t expect the 13-inch Air to hit this price point at least not in the first year of its redesign. Apple has another 12-inch subnotebook on offer which should be $999 by now, but that’s a different story.

As far as this analogy goes the XR price should be in line with previous Plus phones and it is. You want an OLED phone, you’ll pay for an OLED phone.

 

[mdatwood]

I got an XR 2 weeks ago, I still liked my 7+ but my mom needs a new phone badly, so I was going to take the XR and give her the 7.

I've got to say I absolutely **HATE** the XR. It is by far the worst smartphone I've ever owned. FaceID is absolutely useless, it misses 90% of the time requiring me to enter my pin. The rare time it does work, I still have to swipe up from the edge of the screen. Way worse than hitting the home button as I pick up the phone to unlock it and clear the lock screen.

The home gesture is clunky and a PITA. The GUI is so defective it can't even show the battery percentage. It's hard to hold the phone without touching the screen. I may give away the XR and keep the 7.

Maybe you have a defective phone? FaceId on my X is like magic. I double check sometimes to make sure I have locking turned on. When I do have to go back to touchId, it feels like using really old technology. And the new gestures are great. I never liked double tapping on the home button to do something.

 

[chatin]

I've got to say I absolutely **HATE** the XR. It is by far the worst smartphone I've ever owned.

I needed to collaborate with someone and share the same iPhone XR. I had to bring out the iPhone 8 so we wouldn't kill each other.

 

[Baymowe335]

Odd - vastly over-priced and fragile hardware not proving to be super popular .... who knew ?

Even more odd - the numbers aren't even out yet and people are making statements like they're fact.

Nevermind these stories are always proven fake news when the real numbers are released...

 

[groadyho]

As far as this analogy goes the XR price should be in line with previous Plus phones and it is. You want an OLED phone, you’ll pay for an OLED phone.

That right there is part of Apple's problem, attitude. Oled has been in phones for years now at far cheaper price points. Heck my old 950xl has oled.

 

[miflgr92]

It was slashed because they weren’t selling. The market wants bigger and bigger phones.

While I agree with your statement, I think the market would choose a smaller phone if it had the same features as the larger ones. I know a lot of people who reluctantly bought the iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus over the regular versions because they wanted the better camera. I have an 8 Plus right now but would gladly get rid of it if Apple were to ever release a phone that was similar in size to the SE with a higher quality camera.

 

[egraphixstudios]

Make the top end phone less than £1,000 and maybe you will sell more ?

 

[Baymowe335]

Make the top end phone less than £1,000 and maybe you will sell more ?

You'll also make less money?

Seems Apple's strategy of selling 218M iPhones in 2018 for $166,000,000,000 is better than selling 217M iPhones for $141,000,000,000 in 2017.

Notice how this means iPhone revenue was up 18% y/y?

It stinks when the facts totally kill your argument, doesn't it?

 

[The Game 161]

Good. Can we go back to smaller (and, ideally, more affordable) phones now?

Nobody wants smaller phones

 

[Gudi]

That right there is part of Apple's problem, attitude. Oled has been in phones for years now at far cheaper price points. Heck my old 950xl has oled.

And my retired iPhone 4 has iOS which Android still misses. The XR looks ahead at years of feature and performance upgrades, whereas ~95% of Androids will die with the same version they shipped with. I don’t want my money to be spend on licenses for Samsung’s OLED patents. I want to be part of an growing ecosystem which comes up with surprising innovations. The first Retina smartphone. The first 64-bit smartphone. The first fingerprint, the first notch, the first animoji. Give it to me!

You can be so arrogant to believe some 950xl is superior to an iPhone only because of OLED.

 

[bleak7]

Nobody wants smaller phones

Yes, we do

 

[pat500000]

Next keynote
Tim cook “welcome. Welcome. We sold just enough iphones since death of steve jobs.”

Audience: “how about since 2018?”

Tim: “i think it’s been amazing.”

 

[Abazigal]

Even more odd - the numbers aren't even out yet and people are making statements like they're fact.

Nevermind these stories are always proven fake news when the real numbers are released...

I have never in my life seen a more toxic forum than what I see regularly at the MacRumors forum. I recall there used to be a lot more discussion and a lot less insulting and arguing. These days it’s just pure Apple hate. There are a lot of people on MacRumors that who apparently the need to insert themselves into every discussion and let everyone know how much they hate Apple, they they don’t buy Apple stuff because of X, Y, and Z, Tim Cook sucks, etc. etc.

I find that it’s just not a very productive place to go to just TALK about Apple anymore like it used to be back in the day.

It’s official. The trolls have taken over.

 

[The Game 161]

Next keynote
Tim cook “welcome. Welcome. We sold just enough iphones since death of steve jobs.”

Audience: “how about since 2018?”

Tim: “i think it’s been amazing.”

Your post suggests apple aren’t selling a crazy amount of phones when they clearly are

 

[Baymowe335]

I have never in my life seen a more toxic forum than what I see regularly at the MacRumors forum. I recall there used to be a lot more discussion and a lot less insulting and arguing. These days it’s just pure Apple hate. There are a lot of people on MacRumors that who apparently the need to insert themselves into every discussion and let everyone know how much they hate Apple, they they don’t buy Apple stuff because of X, Y, and Z, Tim Cook sucks, etc. etc.

I find that it’s just not a very productive place to go to just TALK about Apple anymore like it used to be back in the day.

It’s official. The trolls have taken over.

I agree. No one is interested in being rigorous or doing a second more work than reading a headline and automatically assuming it's true.

I try to post numbers, facts, and real supporting evidence in my replies and mostly get people parroting back what they read on a headline designed to get clicks.

 

[apfelmann]

You can still purchase new 6S phones - Sprint, for example, is selling them for $450, and the 6S+ for $550. Other carriers probably are similar.

Wow, this is expensive in the US

Here in Austria the 6s plus (32GB) is sold for 399 euros (without contract) in supermarkets

A great price for a great phone

 

[run1976]

Compromised to who? Tech savvy individuals, sure I’ll bite. Sure it’s compromised for people who want the latest and greatest in every facet, but for a non tech savvy consumer, nothing is compromised about that phone. It’s an excellent choice at an excellent price point, and I would disagree that the original iPhone wasn’t compromised. Pretty sure it was running EDGE and GPRS when 3G was available and used by many other devices.

Fair point. Yet the screen is less dense than on an 8+ and personally I think regular people will not keep on spending over 800€ on a phone. As the market gets more saturated prices for mainstream phones need to come down to sell. It has been that way in every market. I do not see a reason for the smartphone market to be different. Samsung and others are coming down with their street prices at least. Apple is going in the opposite direction. This will not work. I bought an iPhone X last year, an Apple Watch 4 this year to replace my series 2. So I am in no way a hater or plan to leave the ecosystem. But I am privileged income-wise. Everbody around me is shaking their heads in disbelief to Apples pricing strategy. Why is Apple trying to price the middle class out of its product lineup? I really don’t get it. I don’t want to be part of a small elite that can still afford Apples products. But that is where I see the company headed. Besides the regular iPad and old phones there is not much affordable stuff in the lineup these days for regular families.

 

[Ceviche Lover]

They can only go up in price so much before customers start getting turned off by their pricing.

My prediction? Apple will slowly start moving away from this 'data privacy' stance they have, and start getting into the ad-based revenue business like Facebook/Google.

 

[apfelmann]

I have never in my life seen a more toxic forum than what I see regularly at the MacRumors forum. I recall there used to be a lot more discussion and a lot less insulting and arguing. These days it’s just pure Apple hate. There are a lot of people on MacRumors that who apparently the need to insert themselves into every discussion and let everyone know how much they hate Apple, they they don’t buy Apple stuff because of X, Y, and Z, Tim Cook sucks, etc. etc.

I find that it’s just not a very productive place to go to just TALK about Apple anymore like it used to be back in the day.

It’s official. The trolls have taken over.

Apple wanted it that way. A lot of Apple users have a “relationship” with the brand and the products ...

And I can understand why many users feel betrayed

In 2010-2014 the best iphone you could get (with minimum storage) was about 600-700 euros

Today it is 1300 euros!!!!!

 

[Danilo - Italy]

Is simple: iPhone XS is good but TOO expensive. iPhone XR is a little less expensive but is bad looking. Anyway all Apple products are now too expensive.