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

I think it is important for Apple to fully understand why there was less then anticipated demand for this model. While some of the reasons are obvious, price and conflict with the iPhone 8 release, apparent OS quality issues, ultimately even for a company like Apple that kind of analysis is important rather then rushing to market a bunch more variants of flagship phones.

While iPhone X may still have been an impressive sales feat by most companies standards, by Apple standards it was a miss and any good company needs to understand why they missed their expectations before setting up a road map for future products.
 
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Yeah, just putting this out there in case Apple ever reads this: I’m not going to “upgrade” my iPhone X from OLED to LCD. That makes zero sense. Hopefully this report is full of it—otherwise this yearly upgrader will stop.
 
The Game 161 said:
I think they are but Alot simply can't afford a phone at this price.
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The phone is expensive. And during it's release news broke you will basically have to replace it or put in a new battery about a year, or two, after purchase due to Power Management doesn't help.

Dare someone say Apple is doomed?
 
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827538 said:
You and me both, I actually bought an X to replace the 6S but sold it instead. The pricing is obscene, here in the UK it’s £999, my other half in the states is paying $999. I think I’ll replace the battery in my 6S and wait until Apple come to their senses. All I want is the OLED display.
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OLED displays make sense on an larger device where you may need a high quality display for editing images and so on. The OLED display makes **** all difference for day to day use on a phone. For the the premium we have to pay on a phone it makes little sense right now. The battery life on the iPhone X is still rubbish so it's not like I can even spin any positively citing amazing battery life thanks to low energy OLED screens.
 
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Played with a iPX for a while during a recent trip. My colleague had one - gift from her boyfriend. She disliked it and complained about Face ID not reliable and too clumsy, for example when using Apple Pay (made perfect sense to me - after watching Craig’s demo my impression was that Face ID will be slower in day to day usage). Another colleague stated in his circle of friends many share similar sentiments.

I might be the odd one out, but i prefer the screen colors of my 6S+. I don’t get the hype about OLED, especially on a smallish phone screen, but that is maybe a personal preference.

What was strange that the iPX didn’t really feel fast(er) in navigating home screen and using standard apps compared to my phone. Scrolling through a WhatsApp chat looked shockingly choppy and laggy.

There is no way on earth I would ever pay such a ridiculous amount of money for that thing. Seems like others are having similar thoughts.
 
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laudern said:
This is what happens when you price yourself out of the market.
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This is what happens when customers demand from a major manufacturer

novelty (technological innovation) and
novelty (cosmetic attractiveness and
alas, now also novelty ("it just works")
​
year after year from a single and quite mature generic product line.

The major manufacturers do of course aim to please, which means not relinquishing market share if they can help it. But how to please everyone? No one's ever figured that out but we demand it anyway from smartphone makers. Good luck to them and to us as well.

Meanwhile I'm starting to thinking more about the fact that I generally carry a handbag large enough to accommodate my 10.5" iPad Pro, so what could be wrong with just having a dumb phone in there too...

Any niche players still trying to sell flip phones and clamshells: rejoice, your hour may be coming 'round again. A red one would be fun... let's reboot the novelty-demanding game from the dumb phone side. :D
 
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If $999 seems like a lot, the same model is ~$1450 or so in the EU (going up to ~$1650 for the 256GB)... I just can't see a smartphone at those prices ever becoming ubiquitous. Imagine if they sold for that in the US? How many people would actually buy one?

Since they launched I've only seen a handful of iPhone Xs out and about here in Berlin. I think a lot of potential customers are waiting for bezel-less to trickle down to cheaper models (and let's face it, for the average person that's the most important feature of the iPX).
 
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belvdr said:
That's the problem: judging based on what monthly expense can be afforded rather than look at it from the angle that they will be spending "x" amount for a product.

For example, say someone cannot afford a higher priced vehicle, so they push the loan out to 7 years to reduce the payment so it becomes affordable. The interest rate usually goes up and they pay more than it appears. It seems okay, because their monthly payment didn't rise.

I know of some people who put all of their Christmas gifts on a credit card and are unable to pay it back and the debt is still there by the next Christmas. Rather than buy gifts they can afford, they want to give nicer gifts. I find the whole thing disconcerting.
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The problem of the iPhone X is not the absolute price. People who can afford a $750 phone [every two years, minus the resale value] overwhelmingly have the disposable income that allows them to also easily afford a $1000 phone. The problem is perceived value. Last year, the iPhone 7 (at $750) was perceived to be worth $100 more than an iPhone 6s (for those who bought it). This year, fewer people perceive the iPhone X to worth $250 more than the $750 (they used to pay for the entry-level storage on the flagship, non-plus model) or the $450 more than an iPhone 7.

(Depending on which storage size you need/want, the price differentials will vary to some degree. If you got the 256 GB iPhone 7 last year, you'd payed $849. The 256 GB iPhone X is $1149, ie, 'only' $400 more. If you got the 128 GB iPhone 7, and you now 'need to' get the 256 GB iPhone X, the price difference is $500. If you needed 64 GB of storage and got the 7 128 GB last year, the 64 GB iPhone X is only $250 more expensive this year. If you got the Plus model mainly for the dual cameras last year and/or find the iPhone X screen to be close enough in size to the Plus models, the price differential is noticeably smaller, eg, $869 to $1149, ie, $280. If you move from a 128 GB 7 Plus last year to a 64 GB iPhone X this year, the price increase is only $130.)

If I did the comparison correctly, getting the iPhone X this year will cost you between $130 to $500 more than what you might have paid last year for an iPhone 7 version. Or in percentage terms, between 15 and 53% more. It's that percentage increase that usually matters in regard to perceived value (increase).
 
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I'm really confused. I know MacRumors is not big on fact checking and will publish anything for clicks, but one day the iPhone X is selling better than expected and is the best selling model ever, then tomorrow it's not selling and Apple is cutting orders?

Which one is it?
 
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maflynn said:
Price and features, ok so you want to sell a phone for 1,000 dollars, but the competition is largely selling similary configured phones for less and that's a bitter bill to swallow. I get that Faceid is more advanced then what Samsung has to offer (yet it seems FaceID is fails to unlock for many people). To the average consumer I don't think they care about how advanced it is. Its just facial recognition
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Actually, what I want more than FaceID is the Portrait camera in the smaller form factor. That is why I will be buying the X soon.
 
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djc6 said:
I mostly don't want the iPhone X because of a lack of Touch ID.

Siri is always telling me "you need to unlock your iPhone first" and usually if I'm asking Siri something, it means I don't want to pickup my phone and hold it up to my face. Touching phone briefly much more convenient when its in the phone cradle on the dash of my car.

I like my headphone jack too, so iPhone 6S+ where I'm at until the phone goes kaput.
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Siri and the button isn’t the main problem. The main problem is having to hold up the iPhone at a certain angle to get it to unlock which is annoying and far less convenient than TouchID. I love TouchID with the rare exception of when my hands are wet. It’s nice to have the iPhone unlocked by the time it’s out of my pocket with TouchID. It just doesn’t work with iPhone X. The screen isn’t worth the price, and the notch is a poor design decision and not symmetric which is what allows us to envision beauty. Add in a worthless TouchBar on MacBook Pros, missing deadlines with product launches and most importantly screwing over customers to get them to upgrade equals an Apple I don’t even recognize. #Dislike iPhone X x 100 #Dislike Tim Cook x 5000000000000
 
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RickInHouston said:
The phone is expensive. And during it's release news broke you will basically have to replace it or put in a new battery about a year, or two, after purchase due to Power Management doesn't help.

Dare someone say Apple is doomed?
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They are still crushing the market in individual sales so until that Stops they are fine
 
I'm taking numbers for all the "iPhone X is not in demand" deniers who would like to apologize to me. Unconditional support of any new Apple Product today is a huge mistake. The decision to try and create a $1,000 entry point for the X was a disaster, and all on Tim. The BOD needs to remove him in 2018. :apple:
 
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macjoshua said:
The price tag was the reason I just held onto my 7 plus. Hopefully their lineup this year is more reasonably priced with better storage options. Otherwise, a Pixel 3 may be in my future.
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I got the pixel 2 XL it is officially $850 but currently @BESTBUY its 250off for signing with verizon what ppl r doing is playing 600+ tax and canceling verizon before 3days by going to the verizon store and paying off the phone in full but for some reason u have to pay in cash at the store. but it has the best camera ever and it has technology no other phone has.
VR is so damn good i am always on VR for youtube, movies , famous landmarks I am not a gamer.
The only thing with this bestbuy 250 off deal is u have to pay all of it in full. infact i got the target deal which had a 250 GC so i ended up paying close to 900 in full

https://slickdeals.net/f/11157959-v...ayment-plan?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1
 
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iPhone X is Apple’s Vista, sort of. Vista was a big shift on how Windows worked behind the scenes and what the end user saw, but set the course for how Windows is today. The iPhone X is a change on how you interact with the phone. Face ID is a new authentication change and the OLED screen has moved from the Apple Watch to a bigger market. It’s not getting the numbers Apple may have anticipated because it’s priced out of some people’s hands. The X sets the pace on how Apple’s mobile products will be going forward.

Face ID works more than 95% of the time for me. It doesn’t work when I wake up because my face is buried in the pillow and certainly doesn’t work landscape. It works as fast, if not faster, than a first gen TouchID phone. I like my X, but I don’t love it. I can’t see myself going back to any other model though.
 
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I think another problem with X is, that Apple has been "SO BRAVE" to remove components that are being used today. (head phone jack, touch ID). I so miss the headphone jack in my iPhone 7+. No way I was upgrading to the X to lose touch ID as well. The Face ID is a neat idea, and I like it on my Surface, but on a phone, sorry, wrong application for the product. I also agree, the price, for a lot of people, is another key issue. I have the 256 iPhone 7+, so I don't mind spending for the top tier, but no way I am spending 1200 on a 256gb iPhone X that the only thing it is really giving me is an OLED screen, and talking animals. Sorry, just not worth it. If I did anything, I would go with the 8+, but why, the 7+ does everything fine. I said it before, my 7+ will most likely be my last iPhone. Not sure which direction to turn too, just see how long my 7+ lasts.

One other thing, ok, two, lets not forget how Apple told us there is no bezel, ok, there isn't but you still have a border, so what's the difference? Oh, and don't forget the cutout notch at the top...Why did you have to add EARS to the display?
 
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