iPhone SE Launch Day Overshadowed by Tesla Model 3

[tedson]

I went to my local apple store about 9:05 am. (Store opened at normal 10:00am time) There was only one other customer ahead of me and they were there to buy the new iPad Pro. I left to get breakfast and came back about 9:45 am. There were about eight people waiting now and I was second in line for an SE. When the store opened, I was able to trade in my 4s for a SIM-FREE 64GB SE and was out the door by 10:12am.

Glad there wasn't a huge demand for so I could choose exactly what I wanted.

 

[SMIDG3T]

You can't really say it was overshadowed. The reason there are hardly any lines at an Apple store now is because the majority of people order online. I'm sure more iPhone SE's will be sold than this new Tesla Model 3...

 

[ghost187]

Nope, iPhone SE launch was totally overshadowed by the line at Starbucks this morning.

 

[SBlue1]

Joe, Tesla is competing with Apple? Or what do you mean by "overshadowed"?

 

[vmistery]

How many peoples ordered the Tesla online? My guess is around 0

 

[Analog Kid]

I was going to say that Tesla totally stole the idea of waiting in line for something you can buy online from Apple until I went to Tesla to find out what the heck the Model 3 is and found this: "Unveil at 8:30pm; Online reservations at 7:30pm".

Getting people to line up and preorder something before you've even told them what they're buying: that's innovation right there.

Apple needs to step up their game.

 

[quagski]

Good, as it should. Advancements in a more resilient and sustainable mode of transportation should trump a phone which will be obsolete in a year or two.

 

[theluggage]

the average new car sold in the US last year cost $31K

Aside (not aimed at ArtOfWarfare personally):

Beware averages (assuming "average" to mean "arithmetic mean" unless otherwise stated). They tell you very little unless you know the data has something resembling a normal distribution, ie. a nice, symmetrical bell curve.

Car prices range from, what, $10K ball park, through $100K "luxury" cars bought by the 10%ers to $1M supercars for the 1%ers. Plug those 3 very crude guesses into a spreadsheet and you'll get an average price of about $28K - now "downgrade" the 1%ers from a $1M Bugatti to a $500K Ferrari - a change which doesn't affect 99% of the population - and it knocks the average down by $5K. That's *not* meant to be a credible estimate of anything real BTW (for starters, what fraction of the population actually buy brand new cars?) the point is how much changes to the extreme end affect the average.

Generally, if you don't know what the distribution is like, the median is more useful than the mean since then, at least, you know that 50% of car buyers paid the median or above. That's probably why it never gets published

Same applies to "average wage" which is disproportionately inflated by very high earners, although in that case "median wage" seems to have caught on, especially when journalists really want to mix it by comparing median earnings with average new car price. D'oh! (Mind you, 50% of the population suffering the ignominy of having to buy a used car is hardly the most damning inditement of the inequality of society you could come up with).

Bottom line: nobody should be taught about averages (including mean, median, mode) without being made to spend some time looking at graphs of real data and understand that all of these simple measures can be hugely misleading... and if anybody wants to write an article about some statistics put the bloody graph in! We live in the age of immersive IT - it takes minutes - why are we rooted in the days when a graph meant half a day's work for a clerk and a draughtsman?

(End of rant)

 

[RockSpider]

I suspect Elon Musk is just a puppet frontman for some sort of free / electric energy suppression cabal. I also suspect Volkswagen was going to release a revolutionary electric car but got crucified with that MPG scandal or whatever it was. Elon Musk strikes me as less intelligent than he makes himself out to be.

How intelligent does he make himself out to be, I think he might be a bit more intelligent than you.

 

[ghanwani]

My local store was out of all unlocked phones by the time I was able to get there. They don't know when they'll be getting more. At least I got to look at them. Pink is out for sure. Could go with either silver or gold, most likely gold. But have no idea when they'll be available. What a bummer!

 

[dazed]

Sounds reasonable to me, after all the Apple event wasn't exactly ground breaking. A lower priced Tesla which could get more people into electric vehicles and less reliant on gas is much more news worthy and exciting.

 

[Cwolk]

Great car... I think most would agree that the Model 3 is relatively better than the SE.

 

[doelcm82]

Musk said during the presentation that they had passed 115,000 in orders. That was a few seconds after I clicked the button to reserve mine.

I would prefer to get mine in 2018, rather than at the end of 2017. I don't think that's going to be an issue if there are 115,000 people ahead of me in line, even if Tesla meets its deadline. But I'll likely be moving back to Texas from Florida at the end of 2017, and a new car on top of the move is more stress than I need.

Two questions I'd like answered (I'm sure it will be made clear soon). Musk said even the base model car would come with autopilot hardware. That's not the same as saying that id comes with autopilot software enabled. So what's the real deal there?

Second, he said the Model 3 would have access to the SuperCharger network. That's not the same as saying it will be able to charge up for free. Will using the SuperChargers be metered?

 

[kingofwale]

Musk said during the presentation that they had passed 115,000 in orders. That was a few seconds after I clicked the button to reserve mine.

I would prefer to get mine in 2018, rather than at the end of 2017. I don't think that's going to be an issue if there are 115,000 people ahead of me in line, even if Tesla meets its deadline. But I'll likely be moving back to Texas from Florida at the end of 2017, and a new car on top of the move is more stress than I need.

Two questions I'd like answered (I'm sure it will be made clear soon). Musk said even the base model car would come with autopilot hardware. That's not the same as saying that id comes with autopilot software enabled. So what's the real deal there?

Second, he said the Model 3 would have access to the SuperCharger network. That's not the same as saying it will be able to charge up for free. Will using the SuperChargers be metered?

if it has the hardware, how hard is it to just download the software? It's like saying my phone has GPS, can i download map app

when was the last time you pay for superchargers??
[doublepost=1459490311][/doublepost]

How many peoples ordered the Tesla online? My guess is around 0

thank god your guess means absolutely nothing.

115K people ordered before the announcement. will probably sell close to 1 mil by release date.

 

[RockSpider]

I've just come back from my Apple Store, it was pretty crowded and I thought i might have been wrong about Australians not going to buy these two new overpriced products, so i asked the Genius which tables had the new gadgets. He pointed over to the two completely empty tables, bit embarrassing.

That little Heinz phone is even smaller than I could remember the early iPhones being, I cant believe theyre asking nearly $700 for the little hybrid phone. Id pay about $250 for it. As far as $900 for the iPad thats just completely absurd.

 

[Mums]

How intelligent does he make himself out to be, I think he might be a bit more intelligent than you.

You are convinced that he is more intelligent than me.

 

[nurban1992]

People have been able to buy this phone for years, it's called the iPhone 5S.

Not quite. It's an iPhone 5S with iPhone 6S internals. That's a pretty big difference in performance to just shrug off like that.

 

[Gudi]

Both sizes were completely sold out, and there were tons of people at all the tables. So did the Apple Store traffic where I live overshadow the Tesla 3 launch?

There was nothing launched by Tesla today, they only unveiled a car that may or may not go on sale by end of 2017. We will have at least two more iPhone generations until then.

 

[Oblivious.Robot]

Okay this was highly unexpected!

I was personally planning to get a Merc by 2018, and that was gonna cost me 'bout 100k.
Gods am tempted by Tesla now, but am pretty sure there isn't a lot of infrastructure in place over here.
Even though I live in the richest part of the entire country, I fear it'll be limited to the cities, not that I venture out much by a car anyway, and if the current government indeed does grant tax incentives then am sold.

Seriously, Apple where you at with your Apple Car?
Ah the future is delightful!

 

[selfsilent]

Elon Musk strikes me as less intelligent than he makes himself out to be.

Seems like an odd thing to say about a multi billionaire who has pushed the boundaries in 3 totally different industry sectors (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX) and starting in a 4th (Hyperloop). He's a genius but just doesn't have the polish you expect when he talks in public.

 

[RockSpider]

You are convinced that he is more intelligent than me.

He's not on here commenting on the merits of a phone that cost about $50 to make, he's actually making money.

 

[doelcm82]

if it has the hardware, how hard is it to just download the software? It's like saying my phone has GPS, can i download map app

when was the last time you pay for superchargers??

Not hard at all to download an app. The question is whether the Autopilot "app" is a feature you have to pay extra to turn on.

If you have a Model S or Model X the Superchargers are free to use.

But I have NEVER plugged a Model 3 into a Supercharger, and neither have you.

You can't buy an adapter and use the Supercharger for free on a Nissan Leaf. It isn't like plugging into a dumb electric outlet. There is handshaking between the car and the Supercharger. The Supercharger knows not only what kind of car is attached, it knows who owns that particular car. So it's possible they will want a credit card on file so they can automatically charge you for the amount of electricity they dispense.

 

[Mums]

He's not on here commenting on the merits of a phone that cost about $50 to make, he's actually making money.

You're not commenting on my post. I did not comment on any phone.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Being in the city with no private parking, it makes it difficult to own a car and especially an electric car.

There are 3x as many Supercharger stations and Destination chargers in NYC as there are gas stations.

So it's actually easier to own an electric car than a gas car when you live in a city. Whereas a gas station takes up a huge amount of space because it needs to have a huge underground tank to store gas for a few days, car chargers take up very little space.

Any business can request a destination charger from Tesla - they'll come out and install it for you for free. Then your business shows up on their maps as a place that Tesla owners (who tend to have a lot of money) should stop if they need to charge. It's win-win for the business and for Tesla.

 

[Mums]

Seems like an odd thing to say about a multi billionaire who has pushed the boundaries in 3 totally different industry sectors (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX) and starting in a 4th (Hyperloop). He's a genius but just doesn't have the polish you expect when he talks in public.

I appreciate lack of polish in speaking - it usually signals authenticity to me. In Elon Musk's case, it makes me suspect dishonesty.