Apple Slashes iPhone 5 Part Orders Due to Weak Demand

[ChazUK]

Desktops: Custom Linux/Win8 PC | Custom HTPC
Laptop: Samsung Chromebook 5 550
Phones: LG Nexus 4 16GB | Apple iPhone 4 8GB | Sony Xperia U 8GB
Tablets: Apple iPad2 3G 16GB | Asus Nexus 7 WiFi 32GB

so basically you havent bought any Apple product since 2010, and yet you're here insinuating Apple fan boys are trolls on MACrumors

I bought my iPad 2 and iPhone 4 in the last 12 months (both brand new) so you're a little factually incorrect there. I have bought Apple Apple products since 2010.

Stop making a fool of yourself with your assumptions. Just because someone doesn't own the newest models, the doesn't mean they didn't buy them recently.

 

[beatmag]

apple thinks anything with their logo will sell.
well obviously NOT!

suffer apple. everyone told u to put a bigger screen on it. but what did you do?
u go everything right except the tiny screen u put on.

 

[Ayemerica]

Changing suppliers.

 

[Renzatic]

Apple came up with the Mouse/GUI interface, M$ made zillions with Windows.
Apple came up with the smartphone, someone else stole it and made it bigger.. better...

HA! Apple didn't come up with the Mouse/GUI interface, Xerox did. Apple just cleaned it up and made it popular. Plus Apple didn't come anywhere near to inventing smartphones. They just...well...cleaned it up and made it popular.

I guess when Apple takes someone else's ideas and improves upon them, it's "innovation". When someone else does the same to Apple, it's "theft".

 

[katewes]

Those of you old enough to remember Apple's 1st era of market dominance in the early 90's, before it fell off the cliff of near bankruptcy, only to be saved by Steve Jobs' return --- this will feel all too familiar: Apple pioneers a new market segment, dominates market, refuses to budge on price. A competitor comes out with an inferior but widely-licensed product (then, Microsoft/IBM), and gradually Apple loses market share to the point of obscurity.

All this stuff of Phil Schiller's -- "we're not going to reduce price to compromise quality" -- is the same tape recorder as Apple's approach in the late 80's, when Apple did not see it coming. Apple did not see it coming then, and Apple does not see it coming now.

The $120 billion cash pile perhaps makes Apple less vulnerable, but, as you can see from RIM Blackberry, a cash pile will prolong the torture as the victim dies a slow rather than quick death, but a cash pile cannot save you when the market says, "Hey, iPhones aren't cool anymore." That is the point of the death spiral, when a sufficient critical mass says, "Hey, Apple's not cool anymore".

And don't anyone say that's not possible.

All I can say is, the seeds of arrogance have been sowed. Apple thumbing its nose at important market segments, saying they "can't please everyone", and only focusing on the crowd that brings in the money. Well, I have news for Apple. That segment that Apple is kowtowing to, the consumers, are the ones that can, within the space of 1-2 years, decide that Apple is no longer cool, and move to the next cool thing. Is Apple then going to crawl back to its original user-base - the creatives, the professional artists, and start supporting them again.

In history, there is a phenomena known as castles crumbling because of a poor foundation. Apple is destroying its solid base by only focusing on the crowd that, apparently, seemingly, brings in the most money. But, like RIM/Blackberry, that crowd can spin on a time and turn on Apple in an instant.

Apple has rejected the strategy of building a broad user-base, by rejecting its formerly core user base.

Take for example, Apple's 6 year total rejection of the professional graphics market that needs matte or anti-glare screens on its desktop equipment. Do you realise that Apple - as a major supplier of a worldwide OS -- does not provide ANY desktop hardware that has an anti-glare screen.

All fanboys can laugh, and think it is funny, citing that Apple just can't please everyone, and claiming that everyone loves glossy screens.

Well, when the fickle users do a RIM/Blackberry on Apple, at the tipping point when they decide that Apple is no longer cool, Apple will realise the folly of not catering to a wider user-base.

If you think this a rant, you just need to refresh your memories to the recent past when Blackberry was the cool kid on the block, when we admired people with Blackberries, and it was a status symbol.

Anyone who thinks that that can't happen to Apple is no student of history, and those types are bound to repeat history's mistakes.

 

[SILen(e]

in what way does the iphone5 NOT compare with those phones? Let's see the S3 has the worst screen and second ugliest UI and design out of the bunch. HTC has the worst build quality and second worst customer service despite having the best designs. LG has the worst softwares and design and the worst customer support and also the worst battery life. Nokia Lumia has the worst app store in terms of quantity and quality. All of them have batteries that are much bigger than iphone5 yet they achieve similar or worse battery life. IN terms of bench marks iphone5 is on bar with those, lower in some tests but higher in others.

Yeah sure iPhone5 sucks.

----------

Because for unknown reasons, people in the forums (the very vocal minority - the majority of people just buy the things and use them, instead of bitching around on the internet) are whining because "iOS is boring" (TM) and there is not enough "Change" (TM) in the OS or design of the device.

But they just don't understand that "Change" doesn't sell devices, being a great device does!

Apple innovated the smartphone sector when they released the iPhone, no other company has innovated in that sector since then.

Phablet with stylus?

That's not innovation, that is just a larger screen (Can you say Dell Streak?) and styli have been the norm for smartphones BEFORE the iPhone.


If you want to see what is caused by "Changes" just to change something that is not broken?

Windows Phone and Windows 8.

Windows Phone 7 had horrible sales and the sales of Windows 8 aren't that good either.

Windows 7, on the other hand, was nothing more than a perfected Windows Vista.

It had great sales.

Not because of changes - it lacked changes, it was just a newer variant of the same old Windows - but because it was the same old thing that has been around since Windows 95 - just perfected.

I dunno... the iPhone 4 and 4S were the EXACT SAME DESIGN. No one complained... Apple sold more 4S than all other iPhones combined.

Now... when Apple finally changed the design... made it out of aluminum instead of glass... and gave it a proper 16:9 screen... and LTE... now it's stale?

Sheesh...

Oh yeah, that was funny...

When the iPhone 4 was new, everybody whined that glass can break.

When the iPhone 5 was released, everybody whined that aluminium can dent.

When the iPhone 6 will be released and they switch to polycarbonate (which is not going to happen), everybody will whine that it can scratch.


With Apple, there will never be "Oh, it's a great device" - only "Hm, this sucks, that sucks, crApple has lost its edge"...





Oh, and now for something completely different:

To those that think that lowered part orders mean iPhone 5S in a few weeks/months:

Many mentioned that Apple will change every part of the internals BUT the display - please remember that OTHER rumors said that Apple will switch to a new TOUCH ON DISPLAY technology, getting rid of the Fruit Ninja error-prone In-Cell-Touch - and of course IGZO, that has been rumored for a year.

So the display is definitely something that will get changed.


Oh - and there's of course the case that we have seen "New iPhone will be released much earlier" stories for years.

The iPhone 5 has been released about three weeks earlier than the 4S - not 3 months.


And what would Apple change in an iPhone 5S?

Doesn't "S" stand for speed?

The CPU of the A6 is one of the fastest available, the GPU is also one of the fastest available (bested only by the Adreno 320 currently used in the LG devices - the Nexus 4 has thermal problems, so that its GPU is much slower than the one in the iPhone 5, the LG Optimus G won't sell well - LG devices never sold well, so they don't really matter in the market).

So, what would Apple improve to call a device released in march iPhone 5S?

Of course, they could switch the old PowerVR Series 5 GPU to a new Series 6 (Rogue) GPU - that should further increase the performance and add OpenGL ES 3.0 capability - but there's just no demand for a better GPU at the moment and also not in March - Galaxy S 4 will not be released before May (even though rumors suggest that it will be released much earlier - but that has been said in the past and never happened).

And as usual, the Tegra 4 lags behind and seems to barely reach the GPU performance of last generation's iPad (A6X) or even less, so that is no rival either.

 

[Haifisch]

I wouldn't mind seeing Apple getting knocked down for while. I'm not digging their quest for world domination by shortening product cycles or building cheaper products to appease the shareholders. Their growth over the past decade cannot be sustained. In an effort to maintain momentum, they are resorting to building too many products or shortening product cycles, which I think dilutes the brand. Apple has always been in the position to taking risks and challenging norms. I hope they never lose sight of building the best products and the best user experience, at the expense of selling a billion phones to China and India.

 

[coolspot18]

Apple came up with the Mouse/GUI interface, M$ made zillions with Windows.
Apple came up with the smartphone, someone else stole it and made it bigger.. better...
well this time they asked for it, letting him sit on their board of directors.

Apple "borrowed" the GUI from Xerox... more like coerced a demo.

And in the words of Steve Jobs “good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

So...

 

[kockgunner]

That's Apple's problem, the iPhone 5 isn't a "GREAT product" that is pleasing to consumers. I'm a longtime Apple fan, and even I am looking at buying a Samsung Galaxy SIII instead of an iPhone 5. Apple is losing it thanks in part to Tim Cook's lack of vision. As someone said above, the iPhone and iOS is a stale design.

"Stale" meaning it's no longer fresh and exciting for you? Maybe it's time that you get an SIII then if you are looking for excitement. If you stayed with any OS for 5 years you would get bored of it too. Sure, iOS hasn't changed much and that IS Apple's problem, but I really don't see how other OS's have done anything other than fix previous mistakes.

The iPhone 5 is still a great phone for me and many others because it packs so much technology and speed in a small package.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Says a lot about these people doesn't it. With this story, looks like these people are starting to get a clue.

It just seems weird that now the iPhone 5 has a new design, thinner body, LTE, etc... and then they decide to jump ship.

In my opinion... going from the 4 to the 4S wouldn't do a whole lot. Same screen... same 3G...

But the iPhone 5 actually is a new model.

 

[SoGood]

Apple needs to go back to the early SJ model of keeping very tight control on unreleased product information. I know of one friend who was toying her upgrade to 5 but held back because a bunch of friends telling her that the 5S is coming (in March). These grossly exaggerated information don't help. Further, I think Apple needs to reconsider the material they use. Black iPhone 5's lack of scratch resistance in many ways has severely affected the reputation of 5. A very unfortunate situation.

 

[coolspot18]

I'm wondering how Apple would make the move to larger screens. Most apps have bitmapped images in their interface and if you do anything other than double the pixel dimensions, you run into serious computing issues from what I understand. How do the Android variants handle the differing screen dimensions?

Android apps can auto-scale to different screen dimensions:

http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

Android apps can contain multiple bitmapped resources for different screen dimensions.

Pretty iOS has the same type of scaling features... just that not many developers actually implement it all.

----------

It just seems weird that now the iPhone 5 has a new design, thinner body, LTE, etc... and then they decide to jump ship.

Probably because people feel the alternatives offer a better value proposition... like MicroSD and NFC (and to some extent a "fresh" GUI).

The next iPhone or the one after (iPhone 6) really needs to be aggressive or else Apple's marketshare will continue to dwindle and will be in jeopardy of becoming the next RIM.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I wouldn't mind seeing Apple getting knocked down for while.

Knocked down from where, exactly?

The iPhone represents only 20% of smartphones and only 10% of ALL phone sales across the globe.

 

[blackhand1001]

Yeah, and last time I checked, I had to have an Apple account before I could use my iPhone and iPad.

...but I didn't have to sign up to use their email. I guess that makes all the difference in the world here.

You actually don't need a gmail to have a Google account either. You can set up a Google account with your existing email which doesn't create a gmail. If you decide later you want a gmail in that Google account you can open one on a new address and have it automatically move your purchases but you are in fact not forced to have a gmail.

 

[praterkeith]

I think several factors played in to this. I was talking to a person I work with the other day, who just got the Galaxy S3, and I asked why he chose that over the iphone. He said "Man, the screen looks better and it's bigger. The iphone screen is just so skinny."... (he said NOTHING about the specs of the phone, features, OS, nothing!)

And as much as we want to believe everyone will buy an iphone because of quality, os, etc... the average consumer is dumb and wants what is pretty. This design IS awkward. And don't give me the argument about the app designs. I understand that. But the screen should have been around 4.3 and a wider view. Personally, I will NEVER buy another android phone but the truth is that the iphone doesn't LOOK as cool as the other phones out now. It's a brick.

I believe a lot of people saw this screen and decided to keep their 4S. I came from the iPhone 4 and skipped the 4s. I wish I hadn't skipped the 4s so that I will be eligible for an upgrade in case Apple "wows" us with the next iphone design. I'm 4 months into my contract.

I don't believe keeping 3 iphones on the market helps. 2 would be fine, but several friends of mine who didn't have iphones before have opted for the iphone 4 instead of the 5.

 

[coolspot18]

Those of you old enough to remember Apple's 1st era of market dominance in the early 90's, before it fell off the cliff of near bankruptcy, only to be saved by Steve Jobs' return --- this will feel all too familiar: Apple pioneers a new market segment, dominates market, refuses to budge on price. A competitor comes out with an inferior but widely-licensed product (then, Microsoft/IBM), and gradually Apple loses market share to the point of obscurity.

I see the exact same thing ... and it should be clear to whoever has read Steve Job's biography.

If people here need other examples... just look to Palm and RIM - both were leaders in there day, it didn't take long for them to fall off the podium.

 

[Mr. Gates]

It's really simple.

iOS and tiny screens are becoming irrelevant.

Also, many are waiting for a Jailbreak.

All of this is Apple not listening to what consumers want.

 

[coolspot18]

But they just don't understand that "Change" doesn't sell devices, being a great device does!

You still wearing your clothes from the 80s? I'm sure they're well designed... and functional. Or, why do people look forward to each years new car models? Do you get a new hair style from time to time?

People like change.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

100% markup for a u ubiquitous device is rather steep considering two factors: the subsidized model and short product cycles. Additionally, see sawing competition between Samsung and Apple makes it hard for markets outside of US to absorb news products when consumers debate spending north of $700 for a new phone knowing that there is another better replacement in 6 to 8 months. It's time Apple to play a lowball strategy by selling new iPhones at $500. This will squeeze all competitors since Apple owns the component supply chain. Consumers will embrace changing phones every year by then, maybe.

Apple owns nothing. Much of it's components are contracted from Samsung and Foxxcon.

 

[Renzatic]

But they just don't understand that "Change" doesn't sell devices, being a great device does!

I think the long post above yours and the comparison to RIM sums up every problem with your argument.

You're right. Change for the sake of change rarely ever leads to anything good. But improvement, new features, nicer design...that sells. RIM kept the same basic design for years and years and years. They used to be the darling of the smartphone industry, but now? Not so much. They didn't change to keep up with the market. Now they're hanging on by a thread.

Apple isn't quite as bad as RIM. In fact, they've been fairly decent about throwing out new and better up until the release of the 4S. But when the market starts offering better alternatives to what you've been doing, and you refuse to change because you believe "prefer reliability", well...guess what? You'll end up in the same situation as RIM.

 

[gijoeinla]

Haven't the last few weeks (even months) been filled with rumors like "Apple to update iPhone even sooner than expected"? Wasn't there talk of a 5S, even a 6, already under development?

So how is this a surprise to anyone?

I'm calling this report FUD.. If true it could mean nothing. It's pure conjecture -- no one knows how many units were made, what their real plans are, etc etc etc.. I think what is true is that analysts will be licking chops hanging on to every word during the conference call coming up..Seriously this leak was planned to get the stock down ahead of Jan. 18 calls.. This rumor is old news to most of us..

 

[H2SO4]

* No FULL restore of everything when you get a warranty swap or upgrade to a new device

What do you mean by this one?

 

[firestarter]

I never thought I would - but I switched from iPhone to Android just before Christmas (after 3 1/2 years on the iPhone).

Android works great and my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is an incredible phone. Loaded up with 80GB of storage it cost a lot less than the iPhone too!!

With open standards it's not difficult to switch from one OS to another. I'm syncing my calendars, contacts, email with iCloud with no problems. All the main apps I need have good Android versions, no there's no problem there either.

Android is now completely usable, and there are lots of great phones out there. Apple needs to wake up and start delivering a bit more excitement in the iOS world... their competition has caught up!!

 

[eltaurus]

I love to buy next iPhone But it should offer more than iphone4

MicroSD card slot ( this whole 16/32/64 gb pricing is ******** )
Freedom .. ( apple is controlling it too much )

if apple didn't give micro SD & freedom .. my next buy will be Google Nexus or Galaxy S4

 

[Myiphone7]

Buy high and sell low? Oh that is a good idea ...

That's how it goes for many. It's hard to know good value.