Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Working 'Really, Really Hard' to Remedy Supply Constraints on iPhones, Macs, iPads and Some Apple Watches

The results seem to be a mixed bag to me. Some shots look better on the 11, some look better on the 12. It's the same as it was when MR did the comparison with Samsung's and Google's phones. If you get a flagship device from almost any major OEM, you're pretty much going to get serviceable photos. Video is where Apple separates itself imo. I don't think any of the others have caught up with Apple video prowess. Not that it matters much, most of the content is probably going to end up compressed to hell and back on social media anyway.
 
beermode said:
There is supply chain issues. Of course, you can pretend there isn't.
Some of you would have blown an artery if you were mountain bikers. Orders are 6 months out. Brake pads are oos everywhere.
Click to expand...
The mystery is that the number of cases of COVID in China is apparently minuscule if you look at the stats (25 cases total today, 85,000 all up). and there is certainly no issues with sea frieght, although air freight is limited as passenger flights have been cut back.
so Apple should be impacted more than other businesses becuase a lot of iPhones are shipped by air, but for other products it doesn’t make much sense, unless of course those Chinese stats are missing something.


personally, while the shipment dates got pushed back a fortonight or so, IPhone shortages at this time seem business as usual, a marketing tool
 
  • Haha
  • Angry
Reactions: webbuzz and SchrodingersMartian
bLackjackj said:
PANdemic? This has nothing to do with the Pandemic,..where was the Pandemic last year and the year before, and year before that? Stock is ALWAYS either unavailable or sold out on release....ALWAYS! As I said, Apple always tries to produce just enough stock to sell, so their loyal customers ALWAYS have to wait. This is what creates the excitement and FOMO..
Click to expand...

Not this time. Even things like basic laptops are out of stock for example because people are WFH and supply levels are low. Now if you want to think there is some type of Apple conspiracy you go right ahead. I'm really glad there is an ignore feature on here and your the first that is one the ignore list.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nebrie and ececlv
bLackjackj said:
PANdemic? This has nothing to do with the Pandemic,..where was the Pandemic last year and the year before, and year before that? Stock is ALWAYS either unavailable or sold out on release....ALWAYS! As I said, Apple always tries to produce just enough stock to sell, so their loyal customers ALWAYS have to wait. This is what creates the excitement and FOMO..
Click to expand...
People on this forum are already having it easy, many of us who just wanted a new Nvidia graphics card have delivery estimates well into 2021 if we could get our orders in at all...
 
darcyf said:
Stuck waiting in the 3-4 week camp for my Apple Watch SE. It’s my first Apple Watch so if I’ve waited this long, I guess a few more weeks won’t kill me 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
Don't you know the Apple Watch saves lives? Waiting a few more weeks could kill you.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: darcyf
Sydney, Australia here.
Preordered, arrived on the launch day but with a scratch. Tiny scratch on the bottom right corner. They sent me a new one with expected delivery between the 11/11 and 16/11, arrived yesterday. They will collect the scratched one on 20/11. No charge or frozen money on my card either. Fantastic service. No question asked about the scratch either
 
bLackjackj said:
Haha,..this is what Apple do best, in creating fake demand by limiting supply. The idea has always been to limit manufacture & hold less stock, thereby always creating pent up demand. Thats what Steve loved about Tim.

Are you telling me that a billion dollar company, year after year after year, doesn't not know how to stock up??🙄
Click to expand...
There are limits though. There isn’t unlimited space in the warehouse. There are hundreds of components.

I would think Apple rarely goes “line down” in assembly, but it’s probably a balancing act of great proportions to preserve efficiency and keep the profit margin high.

“fixing” the constrained supply might cost money. That seems to me to be a more likely reason. Time and money.

I think they sell a million phones every single day or something. How many per second is that? I don’t think they need to fake the demand for the iPhone - the demand is really there.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Nicole1980 and agsystems
I am going to write my representative in CA and ask for a law that bans sales where supplies run out in a couple of days. Companies hype us to death and then are not ready to fulfill orders when the items go on sale. For instance the 6 week wait of Apple watch bands.
 
hydropsyche said:
I am going to write my representative in CA and ask for a law that bans sales where supplies run out in a couple of days. Companies hype us to death and then are not ready to fulfill orders when the items go on sale. For instance the 6 week wait of Apple watch bands.
Click to expand...
LOL 😂😂😂
 
bLackjackj said:
PANdemic? This has nothing to do with the Pandemic,..where was the Pandemic last year and the year before, and year before that? Stock is ALWAYS either unavailable or sold out on release....ALWAYS! As I said, Apple always tries to produce just enough stock to sell, so their loyal customers ALWAYS have to wait. This is what creates the excitement and FOMO..
Click to expand...
I mean, if problems aren't getting as worse during a pandemic, they're techincally not doing as bad as they could be
 
Yeah, people like it hat Apple works really hard to put customers first during a pandemic. Take a break.

No one wants a shortage, but don't run your way tripping over just to please anyone better. Apple customers will always be apple customers..

Lets face it, where else are you gonna go.
 
bLackjackj said:
Haha,..this is what Apple do best, in creating fake demand by limiting supply. The idea has always been to limit manufacture & hold less stock, thereby always creating pent up demand. Thats what Steve loved about Tim.

Are you telling me that a billion dollar company, year after year after year, doesn't not know how to stock up??🙄
Click to expand...
This is what's so sad about modern society now. If you don't have the expertise to assess a complex situation, you make up a conspiracy to fill in the gap.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Edelheid, justkurious, ght56 and 1 other person
It's not just manufacturing - global air freight capacity is absolutely rammed. Backlogs of cargo all across the planet. Half the world's air freight used to go on passenger jets, in spare belly space. With them all on the ground the dedicated freighters just can't keep up. And volumes have grown massively as well - so the freighters are even more overwhelmed.

Getting the finished products from Asia to the rest of the world must be a nightmare right now.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DEXTERITY
I think this is why we are seeing the yellow OLED panels. Apple simply wants to please as many customers as possible in these times and relaxes the quality control in a gamble.
 
I found a site with a good gallery of full size 12 pro images to download and examine.

Apple iPhone 12 Pro Sample Images | Photography Blog

Sample photos taken with the Apple iPhone 12 Pro smartphone.
www.photographyblog.com www.photographyblog.com

They look pretty good to me. Compared to the 11: I don't know as I don't have either.
I imagine they have improved something with the extra processing power but I would imagine the difference is slight

All cameras can take great shots in perfect conditions even a pinhole camera can do a decent job so any differences you see will be down to in camera processing decisions.
High ISO and low light shots are where you would want to see a big improvement in noise, colour caste (low light tends to go yellow) and detail.

As I say, they look pretty good for a phone and are way better than you would have got from a top quality SLR 30 years ago using Ektachrome at night being pushed to 400ASA for instance.
Looking back at shots taken with P&S cameras from a few years ago or even from an SLR, they look pretty awful in comparison.
But as I say, in perfect conditions you'd have trouble telling the difference: certainly on a phone screen unless you wanted to really crop or blow up for a print.
 
bLackjackj said:
Haha,..this is what Apple do best, in creating fake demand by limiting supply. The idea has always been to limit manufacture & hold less stock, thereby always creating pent up demand. Thats what Steve loved about Tim.

Are you telling me that a billion dollar company, year after year after year, doesn't not know how to stock up??🙄
Click to expand...
^^^
exactly
 
beermode said:
There is supply chain issues. Of course, you can pretend there isn't.
Some of you would have blown an artery if you were mountain bikers. Orders are 6 months out. Brake pads are oos everywhere.
Click to expand...
Yeah, there is a supply chain issue every single time they have a new product come out. If it was only this year I could agree but its not its every single year.
so go stock up on ur mountain bike brake pads
 
ckhris1613 said:
Yeah, there is a supply chain issue every single time they have a new product come out. If it was only this year I could agree but its not its every single year.
Click to expand...

I would assume they use somewhat different vendors and different subcontractors with each new iPhone, so supply chain, quality control, or labor issues could arise with any new generation, especially when you are producing somewhere on the order of a quarter of a billion phones over the period of a single year and your lead times between when you start production to when you begin deliveries are generally relatively short. As big of a company as Apple is, this is still a complex operation involving hundreds of thousands of variables with a job footprint of likely at least several million employees across every continent except Antarctica, and any modification to any of those variables could potentially impact the ability to have sufficient supply.

It's completely fair to criticize Apple when criticism is deserved (and there are certainly areas that they deserve a LOT of criticism for), but this is not one of those cases, and this sure as hell is not some wild conspiracy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: coredev
For those on hear saying Apple are faking the delays to build up demand - do you know how supply chains work? Hundreds of companies contribute to the pieces that go into Apple devices. Those places rely on thousands of materials suppliers to make their parts, those suppliers rely on workers. When there are shut downs it’s like the butterfly affect.

Do they slow down iPhones? They have in the past, but I think that method is on auto pilot right now and out of their hands.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back