Apple's Decision to Slash iPhone X Production Volume in Q1 2018 Could Delay Future OLED Models

[OlliFlamme]

To me... it’s been audacious of Apple to adventure in a dependency of its main competitor, which by all common sense is utter idiocy.

Secondly, It appears to me that Apple wants to artificially crank up its revenue and share value by by the pretentious idea that “if we make it, they will buy it anyways”. I haven’t got a clie on the margin rate for the beauty, but hey... if you can make a Macbook air for that price...

Lastly, its software, folks. Stepping from a flagship full option 7 Plus 128 gB to an X 256 gB is ... a technical and nerdy upgrade, but! The software experience, independent of hardware... is in general terms lower in value than that 7 Plus. I mean... portrait mode, where are you? Fingerprint easy of touch and it will abide, where is it?

To be honest, an iPhone 8 in a ceramic body, that would be the choice for me. Am I alone? I saw that Chinese phone, and only was like “wow, now why didn’t Apple come to this??”

 

[Makayla]

I will wait for the actual report from Apple itself as we still don't know the actual vs projection for sure.

But IF the X doesn't live up to expectation, from what I read here the reasons are:

1, price (by far the most sited reason)
2, no Touch ID
3, size (long and narrow, screen itself not that big)
4, a distant 4, the notch. (My reason. I know I know, I am shallow like that. Lol I have come to realize I am a form over function phone buyer. As long as an iPhone looks good and functions semi decently I am willing to hand over Apple my money. I don't need the latest technology and I am fortunate that price is not a factor. I am the ideal Apple customer but too bad Apple couldn't even do that for me this time.)

 

[apolloa]

Yeah, but the smart investors are aware that Apple always cuts production rates after their peak launch/holiday quarter.

By half?

 

[BornAgainApple]

I'm a long-time Apple customer. When I'd upgrade my iPhone I'd get the highest capacity of the flagship model. This time around though I decided that the 64GB 8 Plus was all I was willing to spend. I'm not surprised to read that others in the market for a new iPhone came to a similar decision.

Same here, but I actually sacrificed a bit of CPU/GPU performance (and wireless charging which I’m not concerned with) and went with a 7 Plus with 128GB, which was $100 less than the 8 Plus.

 

[OlliFlamme]

By half?

Exactly... did Macrumours report about slashing iPhone productions before...

 

[pearvsapple]

Only to get held back by AMD's crappy graphics. Cmon Apple, switch to Nvidia already.

 

[MrBat]

What does a white collar job have to do with anything (especially nowadays)? White collar could be you're a claims processor in an insurance company earning 30k/year, but with financing of devices nowadays most anyone can afford ~$30/month. Fact is the number of iPhones sold in last 3-4 years will far outnumber the X no matter what, and the number of people who buy a phone is easily outnumbered by already sold iPhones. Every year it takes in the major cities i live around 4-5 months for the new iPhone to be "noticeable in volume comparatively." Anyway, this is silly. Even if sales are half of "expectations" there are still MANY MILLIONS of X sold, it's hardly not selling.

Amusing. Was providing context of my environment. No more, no less.

This conversation does seem a bit silly though, yet entertaining nonetheless.

 

[gtg465x]

I think apple misread the situation with pricing the X so high. I have one, and its a good phone, but I will say its not 1,000 good.

I bought an X and don't regret it. That said, I am reducing my upgrade frequency from 1 year to 2 years due to the much higher price. In the long run, Apple will actually make less money on me at $1000 every 2 years vs $650-$750 every year. I really think $850 is where the iPhone X should start. It's more expensive, but not so much that people would slow their upgrade frequency or avoid it altogether due to sticker shock.

 

[BaldiMac]

By half?

Not in the last couple years, but I don't remember earlier. 6S was reported at 30%. 7 was 10%, maybe? 8 was recently reported at 50%.

But these numbers have nothing to do with Apple's total sales expectations. They have to do with how high they can get the production rate during the holiday quarter before they drop down to more stable demand.

 

[ryanwarsaw]

I'm a long-time Apple customer. When I'd upgrade my iPhone I'd get the highest capacity of the flagship model. This time around though I decided that the 64GB 8 Plus was all I was willing to spend. I'm not surprised to read that others in the market for a new iPhone came to a similar decision.

I also drew the sand in the line and picked up an 8 plus 64. I will never again play Apple’s storage game. I decided $800 is the most I will pay for a phone going forward.

They can look for me to upgrade next time when whatever base model I am looking at is 128 GB.

 

[JimsFlutes]

It’s about 3 days before the next Apple earnings call.... cue the market manipulation/Apple is doomed articles.

 

[KPOM]

Haven't seen that many iPhone X popping up on my friends' and colleagues' pockets. Most of them are pretty happy with their 7 Plus or 8 Plus. I prefer the iPhone SE though, small and handy.

Interestingly, I’m seeing more Xs than I thought I would from people who I’d have guessed would opt for a cheaper model.

That said, we’ll get more reliable data from Apple’s published forecast on Thursday.

 

[rizzo41999]

I don't think this has to do with price as much as value proposition. FaceID isn't enough to make someone spend more money on a product they already see as "Premium." Plus, who wants to unlock their phone with FaceID? I know 3 people who returned the X because unlocking it when driving was just hopeless.

 

[UL2RA]

I don't think this has to do with price as much as value proposition. FaceID isn't enough to make someone spend more money on a product they already see as "Premium." Plus, who wants to unlock their phone with FaceID? I know 3 people who returned the X because unlocking it when driving was just hopeless.

I have zero issues unlocking my X while driving.

 

[KPOM]

I don't think this has to do with price as much as value proposition. FaceID isn't enough to make someone spend more money on a product they already see as "Premium." Plus, who wants to unlock their phone with FaceID? I know 3 people who returned the X because unlocking it when driving was just hopeless.

I prefer Face ID. It works a lot better for me than Touch ID (I have an iPad Pro and use both Face ID and Touch ID every day).

 

[mi7chy]

Late to the party and overpriced by 2x compared to the competition. Worse is the ugly missing chunk in the screen just to be different, unfamiliar interface without the smashable home button and insecure Face ID that even Apple has no confidence in by disabling for family app purchase. At the end of the day the iPhone X offers nothing more than the $300 iPhone 6S Plus.

 

[MrBat]

I don't think this has to do with price as much as value proposition. FaceID isn't enough to make someone spend more money on a product they already see as "Premium." Plus, who wants to unlock their phone with FaceID? I know 3 people who returned the X because unlocking it when driving was just hopeless.

No clue. I'm not quite convinced with Face ID. I see the point on putting that on a MacBook and iMac though, but on a phone? Hm, not quite convinced. Sometimes at night, jut put the finger on Touch ID, unlock and check whatever and that's it. Don't want to go on the hassle to position the device in front of my face to unlock and so on.

And what about iPad with Face ID? So apple will put 2 Face ID just for when you have the tablet horizontal? Touch ID is more convenient... does not matter the orientation of your device.

Anyway, just my totally subjective opinion.

 

[BaldiMac]

I don't think this has to do with price as much as value proposition. FaceID isn't enough to make someone spend more money on a product they already see as "Premium." Plus, who wants to unlock their phone with FaceID? I know 3 people who returned the X because unlocking it when driving was just hopeless.

Evidently, it is enough to make 60+million people spend more on a product they already see as "Premium".

 

[UL2RA]

Late to the party and overpriced by 2x compared to the competition. Worse is the ugly missing chunk in the screen just to be different, unfamiliar interface without the smashable home button and insecure Face ID that even Apple has no confidence in by disabling for family app purchase. At the end of the day it offers nothing more than the $300 iPhone 6S Plus.

The 5 minute learning curve of the new interface isn't exactly a burden. The not being able to use Face ID to approve family purchases is incredibly disconcerting though because it's supposed to be the replacement for Touch ID ... Touch ID can be used to approve family purchases. So if Apple isn't even confident in Face ID ... well ...

 

[falainber]

Well said. yes a lot of people posting how horrible it is are just angry bitter people...







This is such a boring old argument. Apple stuff is far from a fashion statement and if it ever was one its been YEARS since anyone saw it as something special. Not sure why so many people walk around spewing this "Apple is a fashion" blah blah still.

What you get with apple is something only one Android device does (and at best 2 years post release date), consistent and reliable software updates. My iPhone 5 got timely updates for 5 years (. Name one android phone that does similarly, heck even the Google android phones get 2 years (dont get me started on Google abandoning my Nexus 7 tablet 1.5 years after i bought it). It's a joke the number of android devices in existence with active and easily exploited exploits. And lets not even get into the lackluster privacy protection that was the norm for Android apps for years until google finally got around to putting more finite control over permissions a user granted an app, and the continued malware sort of apps in the Google Play store.

I too think Apple is expensive. then I remind myself that I do get something for that money, support.

I have Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and 4 (4+ and 3+ years old). They are getting security updates. And as we know, 3 year old iPhones simply die nowadays (infamous battery issues that started with iPhone 6). Whatever Android security issues are never have I met anyone who experienced them. The only real issues I heard pof were related to installing suspicious apps but App Store is in similar situation in this regard.

 

[bmark]

Yeah, but the smart investors are aware that Apple always cuts production rates after their peak launch/holiday quarter.

The fact that they are coming out with a 6.1" LCD model shows they failed on the iPhone X. Not everyone wants an OLED screen especially at $999 and up pricing. Should be interesting to see how it shakes out when Apple misses their earnings estimates.

 

[sunman42]

Read the history, decide for yourself if there's any shred of truth to this "rumor."

http://appleinsider.com/articles/18...sleading-iphone-supply-cuts-story-from-nikkei

 

[KPOM]

Late to the party and overpriced by 2x compared to the competition. Worse is the ugly missing chunk in the screen just to be different, unfamiliar interface without the smashable home button and insecure Face ID that even Apple has no confidence in by disabling for family app purchase. At the end of the day the iPhone X offers nothing more than the $300 iPhone 6S Plus.

Paternal false regarding Face ID. It’s the only facial recognition system that any phone maker trusts to validate payments.

The lack of a home button takes about 5 minutes to get used to. It’s also one less part to break.

 

[NT1440]

You do that, and Apple will still be worth 45 billion dollars less then a week ago.... but you go starry eyed at its profits.
Real share holders and investors don’t look purely at profits. They also look at production orders being halved!

Sure, whatever.

Putting aside that the stock market is a sham (don’t know why you’d allude to me being “starry-eyed” over the precursor to the next crash), you’d have to be a very special kind of investor to follow the SAME rumor of production cuts that comes up EVERY year.

I do like that your logic includes just outright believing the cut, based on the same analysts that are wrong EVERY year about (seriously, look at KGI’s predictions on production cuts, it’s like they have a reminder set in their calendar) this exact topic....
[doublepost=1517262076][/doublepost]

Read the history, decide for yourself if there's any shred of truth to this "rumor."

http://appleinsider.com/articles/18...sleading-iphone-supply-cuts-story-from-nikkei

Thanks for that.

 

[ackmondual]

What you can live with and what you want are two different things. Needs vs. wants. I could live with a flip phone. I want an x, but own a 6s, for now.

FWIW, to me, anytime people say "they need product 'X'" on a tech site, I'm assuming it's strictly from a consumerism standpoint, as opposed to an actual, survival standpoint. Food, shelter, air, and shelter are still the 4 things we really need.