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How hard is it to make a phone that's a minor variant of the phone they were already making?

What's new:

Brand new finger scanner technology

Brand new 64-bit processor (A7)

Brand new motion chip (M7)

Brand new camera sensor & flash

Brand new cellular baseband chip

What's the same as the 5?

The case

The screen
 
Last year my sister was a dancer, but she got cancer. The doctor said she still had two months more. I thought she had time, so I got in line for the new iPhone at the Apple Store...She laid there dying with my father and mother, her very last words were, "Where is my brother?".

Thank God I don't have a sister to worry about this year..

SO STOKED

That put all these stupid gadgets into perspective. I always thought the same thing but didn't know how properly to phrase it, nor did I have a personal anecdote like you do.

Sorry to hear :(
 
So you think stores are going to be full of phones on Friday? Because the only thing Wall Street cares about is getting a press release from Apple next Monday saying they sold a crap load more phones than they did last year this time.

The art of excellent marketing is ones ability to use/manipulate statistics to your advantage. Bring on Monday.
 
This is a controlled leak to the media that is designed to create long lines and big headlines. Apple knows that this launch would be a bit underwhelming with many people wanting a larger screen so they chose to not do preorders of the 5S and leak that supplies were constrained so that demand would appear high as everyone shows up to wait in line. Had they allowed preorders and not had "limited supply" there would be nowhere near the media buzz
 
What's new:

Brand new finger scanner technology

Brand new 64-bit processor (A7)

Brand new motion chip (M7)

Brand new camera sensor & flash

Brand new cellular baseband chip

What's the same as the 5?

The case

The screen

And even the case is different if you count colors gold/space gray
 
Apple's logic in capacity is crazy and flawed.

The fact they double capacity for $100 is nuts. The profit made on 32GB and 64GB models is outrageous. I think the cost was once posted that Apple pays $8-11 more for the 32GB and $16 more for the 64GB.

So Apple is charging $200 more for the 64GB and their costs only increase by $16.

I agree man, it's ridiculous that they are still charging that much even though NAND prices have dropped.
 
If I order a phone with a 2yr contract and I'm switching carriers, can I control when it ports over my number and start the new contract? The problem is my current 2yr contract with AT&T is over at the beginning of Oct. However, they told me that if I port and end the contract before the end of contract, they will charge me $75, even if it is 1 day before the end of the contract.

If I order the phone at launch for verizon, and get it a few days later, can I wait till after my contract is over to port, or does it start ticking immediately?

If you received it early, just don't activate it.
 
Apple is no longer the prestige handset that everybody is aspiring to !

The iPhone 5S/C is just one dirt-cheap upgrade for China Mobil...Bloomberg reports that research firm Canalys has just found that the iPhone’s market share fell to just 5% in China in the second quarter of 2013, down from 9% in Q2 2012. Nicole Peng, Canalys’s China research director, tells Bloomberg that Apple is getting walloped by low-cost Android phones being pushed by vendors such as Lenovo, ZTE and Xiaomi, which have all been peddling dirt-cheap smartphones with surprisingly strong specifications.

This is why the inventory is so "severely constrained" at lunch :cool:
 
Anyone that thinks this is part of a "plan" by Apple to make the phone seem more in demand is insane.

Every customer that can't get an iPhone 5S they want on launch day is a potential loss of hundreds of dollars -- money that very easily might go to a competitor and further hurt Apple's bottom line in lost app, music and accessory sales.

You think the bean counters or Wall Street likes that kind of money walking out the front door?
 
Some of us would just like it if they would increase the base storage sizes every five years or so. Pictures and apps are bigger now.

Looks like I will be up at 3 AM to order the 64 GB model myself.

I think we all will. I see why they didn't do preorders.
 
Sometimes I think Apple does these things on purpose. This happens like every launch. It's not a bad business strategy, but it gets old quick.
 
I think Tim Cook's (or was it Phil's) comment at the keynote was a bit telling.

He joked (paraphrasing) that some of us might have seen the phone before. IE - because of the leaked photos.

I am not putting on a tin foil hat. And I don't believe Apple has anything to gain from restricting inventory. However - I also believe there's a decent chance that Apple has had controlled leaks to build a press swell around the launch. And those that would argue that Apple doesn't "need" it - I would argue otherwise. Yes they always get a ton of press. But as competition grows, the need to keep up the press frenzy becomes more and more important.
 
Those on this forum who think the impending shortag is some sort of publicity stunt are, sorry to be harsh but, complete idiots. Wall Street isn't impressed with lines on 5th avenue, they're impressed with the cold hard cash Apple makes everytime an iPhone is sold.

There is no doubt that the supply constraints are due to ramping up volume production with a lot of new components, and in particular you have to suspect the fingerprint sensor which is a very novel technology.

On top of that they are launching in the US, UK, China, Japan, etc. all at the same time. It's not easy to go from 0 to 2 million per week in the snap of the fingers. It only takes a shortage on one component to hold up the entire production line.

So, please stop with the conspiracy theories. : )
This. Of course every year we see the same posts, even though it makes zero sense.
 
Seems like it happens every time. More like a marketing formula rather than true demand and supply. Am I wrong here?

Yes, you're wrong.

Who else sells 5 million phones in a weekend?

Nobody?

Yes, nobody.

Now they're launching in another country, and a major one at that, on the first launch weekend.

When someone else sells remotely as many phones as apple does in such a short time, we can start thinking about other possibilities in general. But Apple thus far continues to sell out of their launch supplies despite every year having a significantly greater supply available at launch, followed by 2-3 months of scarcity, despite ever growing sales numbers. If Apple is selling as many phones as they are at launch and continuing to sell a ridiculous amount of phones after launch, consistently stripping them of their supply, then there's quite obviously a lot of demand for the iPhone. That there's no major press circus to document the lines after the launch weekend should also tell you that the demand is real and the supply is what it is. And Apple's ability to supply a certain iPhone model still hasn't been matched by another smartphone maker in such a short time, as even it's stronger competitors don't have the individual sales numbers of the various flagship iPhone models in the early going of the products.

Bear in mind that everything I'm about to say is pure speculation, but one thing I find interesting about at least U.S. demand post-launch relative to the concurrent launch in China stems to a story I heard from a few Apple employees and one play out many times firsthand when visiting multiple Apple Stores in the morning in the month or two following iPhone launches. Every day, there will be a line of people there to try to buy the iPhone. Every day, at least half of the people in these lines are the same, day after day, for weeks on end. They're scalpers, they're oftentimes there with their whole families to bypass the device limit rules, and from what I was told, they send them off to China to be sold when they're able to get them. If you've got these types trying to snag up what little inventory is available for the first couple of months in the U.S. to send to China, it might make sense to take steps to bypass them by launching in a market that has a crazy demand for the product right away, thus cutting the value of iPhones attempting to be resold in China that were released in the American market. It also then opens up more of that supply trickling in to users in the intended market. They're going to sell them either way, so I assume they'd prefer to sell them directly to people in China if possible and to have happier customers in America. And maybe it'll just play out like that, in that the supply to America will be less, but it will go to customers at the same rate, and in the Chinese markets, they won't have to resort to paying scalper prices so often. I don't know, like I said, it's just speculation, and just due to the size of the market and the demand, it's not as if they need any more justification to launch in China right away. I'm more just curious to see if it changes how things go over here in the month or so following the launch.
 
Apple's logic in capacity is crazy and flawed.

The fact they double capacity for $100 is nuts. The profit made on 32GB and 64GB models is outrageous. I think the cost was once posted that Apple pays $8-11 more for the 32GB and $16 more for the 64GB.

So Apple is charging $200 more for the 64GB and their costs only increase by $16.

exactly! Apple has absolutely crazy markups for extra storage. that's the chief reason why the 64GB model is not as popular as the lower capacity ones.
Here is a link to iphone 5 BOM from last year.

The BOM difference between 32GB and 64GB models was just 21$ then. It should be even less now. I suspect that the BOM difference for a 128GB version (if they were to make one) would be in line with those numbers. I really wanted a 128GB 5S - I'm tired of constantly swapping songs and audiobooks and my music library is not all that big. I'm always amazed how people manage things with just 16GB. One more things to consider is the 64-bit switch. as I understand it, once the devs start upgrading their app they'll make universal binaries which include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions as was done during the OS X switch to 64-bit. That will make the apps bigger. I don't know by how much (can somebody comment?) but given the storage constraints of iphones every little bit counts.
 
what has that got to do with the price of fish?

I think he is referring to the article stating that only about 10% of people want the 64GB model... The demand would be even less than that for a 128GB Model. It just doesn't make sense for Apple yet
 
Severely constrained at launch is not at all a surprise. 5S. 5C is also just as constrained because it will be in vastly larger demand in the rest of the world (ROW). Plastic has higher reception, water resistance, consideration of hard handling, and of course is slightly lower cost and somewhat colorful.

We need a waterproof iPhone.

The recent high in AAPL predicted a China success. If that happens then AAPL will double. 5C is the passport to success. 5C is the new 3GS.
 
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