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KGI: Apple to Discontinue iPhone X Rather Than Sell at Lower Price When Second-Generation Model Launches
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Regardless of the current point, taking what Apple says at face value is a mistake.
The company is a lot like a politician. It says to the right audience the right thing that is most true at that moment.
Take Face ID and controversy that it was a late breaking decision. Apple has said this was something they decided far in advance because it was good enough on its own.
I believe we’ll find out that it was actually not good enough but that it was the best they could do and were actually so unsure of the decision they had to bring the 8 our alongside as backup.
We’ve seen the company express great confidence in products and services that have turned out to underperform, like the Touch Bar or Ping.
Rarely does the company admit it has made a mistake. And it surely does not do so when a product is still early in Iran release.
When Apple makes a claim, you have to treat it somewhat dubiously, like you would a politician. Because it is trying to please a lot of different people.
You are conflating two very different types of communication. Having confidence that one of their new products or serivices will be a success is very different than lying about the material facts of a situation.
Of course all marketing claims are to be taken with a grain of salt. (“Magical”, “revolutionary”, etc.) Anyone who doesn’t have such a filter should legally be considered a child and banned from significant adult activities like driving and voting.
But assuming Apple is actively lying about material facts regarding their product development is another matter altogether. And a slippery slope. When will you selectively “believe” them and when won’t you? My experience has been that Apple is more honest than most companies when it comes to communicating the material facts of an event or situation. They are, in fact, extremely careful about what they say, and often choose to say nothing rather than lie or make un-keepable promises.
One good example: the public paranoia/nonsense regarding TouchID below the screen the was flying around the web. Apple’s hardware development is locked in wayyyy before the products launch. By some reports it’s ¾ of a year or more. The speculation that they were still equivocating on whether to include sub-screen TouchID months before the product came out is absolutely insane. Anyone who knows how Apple operates knows that this is just not how they do things. And to make the case even more definitively, multiple writers with inside sources (who have historically pretty much been 100% accurate) have said, unequivocally, that Apple was absolutely committed to FaceID-only for the iPhone X about a year before it launched.
You’re free to interpret what they say however you choose. But my advice to anyone who doesn’t wanna waste a single neuron of their brain’s bandwidth on pointless distractions is: take all marketing with a grain of salt, and take each one of Apple’s direct communications as truthful until that message is specifically and unequivocally proven otherwise.
It is the facts of the situation that take away from the meaning of it, though. What people want to know is, “is Face ID enough to do great auth on iOS devices?” For whatever reason the focus is on the facts of when the decision was made to go Face ID only. Apple may be truthful that this was settled way earlier than expressed.
But what it doesn’t answer is why was this decision reached? Was it because they truly felt Face ID was good enough on its own? Or was it a more that it just wasn’t feasible on the dev timeline for the device? This is much more important because for the folks that bought the X, who are legitimately finding fault with the Face ID only auth method, they are hearing, “Apple thinks this is good enough.”
But if the next iPhone has both Touch ID and Face ID, I think it will be apparent that this confidence in marketing and focus on facts that myopically don’t tell the picture of the real decision making. And as a result customers may have been misled that this was phone with features that would stand the test of time, and not an experiment.
“is Face ID enough to do great auth on iOS devices?” Yes.
Face ID is great. It’s an order of magnitude more secure than TouchID, and for 80% of use cases it is far superior to TouchID. There are a few areas it could definitely improve and likely will, just as TouchID did. But it’s all just normal user interface evolution for Apple. There is no controversy or conspiracy, other than those created by click-hungry websites and people with a penchant for paranoia. Anyone who knows and understands Apple’s history of product development knows that there is zero news here, other than the fact that 3D facial recognition will likely be the dominant industry standard for security in a few years. And the fact that everyone who is currently wringing their hands will eventually look a bit silly.
The flaw is not security, it is UX. It can’t get X-ray vision no more than Touch ID can work through gloves. 1 in 5 use case fail is a major problem.
If true, this is a no big deal thing. Apple isn’t stopping the sale of iPhones, they would only stop producing the X. The 7/7+/8/8+ will probably all still be around. The new 2018 phones will be available with all the X features plus improvements, albeit at most likely a higher price point.
This will only hurt those who expected to get the X at a dropped price upon the 2018 release. For them, it may be prudent to look at any offers that come up with carriers and retailers. Again, this is if this rumor is true.
This will only hurt those who expected to get the X at a dropped price upon the 2018 release. For them, it may be prudent to look at any offers that come up with carriers and retailers. Again, this is if this rumor is true.
Where the hell did you hear that it has a 1 in 5 use case fail? That is patently false.
The article is rather misleading. Each year Apple releases phones. When that happens, Apple will stop (at some defined time) manufaturing a previous model phone. Apple continues to support said phones hardware and software wise for a lengthy amount of time.
What is happening with the iPhone X is nothing new. I think MacRumors should have made that clear.
If you damage your iPhone at the end of the year or even some time next year etc., Apple will fix it for you.
Jesus, the product lineup is an utterly confusing cluster-mess up. How did it get to this?
What’s so confusing? There’s definitely a transition from the older generation to the modern iPhone, but I have no issue reading and understanding the differences between models.
I share his general notion but cannot speak for him.
The lineup is confusion relative to how elegant it used to be. It now includes three types of phones (SE, iPhone 8, and iPhone X) with two different sizes in two of those groups.
There is no design cohesion.
Seems like you have it figured out. They are in a transition and had to offer the legacy design to appease people who weren’t ready to move on from the home button. It is what it is.
“Transition” doesn’t excuse four legacy designs (8, 7, 6S, SE) with their plus variants and color configurations, each with their own trade-off.
That’s beyond confusing for the end user and I don’t understand why you’re defending a zillion dollar company that cannot clean up their SKU lineup.
They have sold older models for years. Nothing new. People want iPhones at different price points. I don’t know, I guess I don’t have a problem reading and understanding the differences in models. I guess it’s just me, not that difficult.
I guess it’s just you. When you have to explain what’s REALLY different between 3 identical looking device generations spanning 3ish years, at the end it either boils down to price or the latest offering for a morsel or future proving. The rest are noise.
The whole device lineup is so cluttered it starts to resemble Sculley’s Apple.
I don't see it, but that's okay. I am able to understand the difference between models.
Car manufacturers have been doing this for years. I also dont have an issue understanding the lineup, neither does my non-techie wife. So it must be us also. Apple is catering to what its consumers want, and the lineup is in transition based on some of the leaks.
It’s likely the se will retain the home button and get Touch ID while the other two models will have Face ID with lcd and oled.
And sculleys Apple aside, this, IMO, is where Apple is going....more options for consumers.
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Apple is not a car manufacturer, and it didn't get to where it is by acting like one.
Not quite. Consumers don't want to overthink their options. The maximum to choose from should be 4 (marketing 101). If anything, Apple overloading the lineup with clutter, both from past and present, shows a profound lack of courage and confidence in their own offerings.
As for Sculley.. didn't Jobs have to save the company from him?
This isn't 2007 it's 2018. Times have changed, the consumer electronics market has changed and Apple has to change with the times.
You created a strawman with "consumers don't want to overthink their options". Options and choice are good, not bad. It shows courage to break traditions from the past, not a "lack of courage".
As for the entire saving Apple thing, it goes back to my point above. Times have changed and imo, more options are better for consumers, not less.
Doesn't matter if it's 2007, 2018, or 2030. It's not an opinion matter, or a strawman, it's fundamental consumer psychology.
In fact, it's exactly because consumers are bombarded by so many similar-looking options of a peaked product (a.k.a. the smartphone) in 2018, that it's in your best interest to enable them to confidently make a quick choice that maximises their value without having to think too much.
That's where Apple used to excel: giving you absolute confidence that buying the (vanilla or Pro) Apple version of whatever is a great balance of value, quality and utility. It also saved us all a lot of time by not having to think about different variants or everything else on the market. That's not really the case anymore.
In a nutshell, choices are good, too many choices are not.
PS. I also kinda wish it was 2009 and I had me a spiffy new upgradeable MacBook Pro that runs Snow Leopard..
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It's perfectly okay, we have different views on this. Kind of reminds me of the old expression: "you can have a car in any color as long as it's black". That is not where consumers of 2018 are and imo, Apples customers want different price points and flavors of iphone, as evidenced by the success of the SE.
Apple certainly is dictatorial and steps in with some things, eg headphone jack, but it seems they want consumers to have more choice than color or amount of memory. Also, I really don't know how much time I wasted, by deciding on iphone 8+ or iphone x. And who defines too many choices?