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Vodafone Germany to Discontinue 32/64GB iPhone 5, 16GB iPhone 4S

It will be interesting to see how it pans out. The reason I suspect most people here are right with their pricing guesses (that the 5c will sit below the 5) is that current 5 owners would be rather frustrated if their device suddenly went from top of the range to bottom of the range overnight (unlike currently where it goes to the midrange slot).

My guesses

5S 32/64/128 £529/£599/£699 A7 LTE / Fingerprint / max ios 10 / sold for 2 years

5 16 £449 - As is / max ios 9 / 1 year left on sale (for 2 yrs total)

5c 8/16/32 £299 / £349 / £449 No LTE / No fingerprint / slower A6 / 1GB / max ios 9 / updated each year
 
Do you think big sellers like Amazon will drop the old iPhone 5 price to match the iPhone 5C's? Then I would definitely get an old iPhone 5 since it looks so much better if a male adult uses a dark metal phone instead of colorful plastic.
 
bushido said:
Abkündigung:
In a product cycle, the product goes through various changed versions until it gets discontinued all together.
Click to expand...

Actually, it's just the antonym to Ankündigung - announcement, which should translate to "abnouncement" according to Latin morphology: Something along the lines of "the taking away of a notice". But after going all etymological on it, I conclude that it's gotta be a German thing.
 
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Great news for consumers.

It's time to get rid of the ridiculous idea of keeping old technology around for longer than a year. Next stage needs to be to stop giving owners of handsets software updates when new handsets are released. I'm an iPhone 4S user and no way should we be getting iOS 7. Make us pay for a new phone if we want it.
 
dumastudetto said:
Great news for consumers.

It's time to get rid of the ridiculous idea of keeping old technology around for longer than a year. Next stage needs to be to stop giving owners of handsets software updates when new handsets are released. I'm an iPhone 4S user and no way should we be getting iOS 7. Make us pay for a new phone if we want it.
Click to expand...

This is one of the most insane comments I've ever read on Macrumors forums.
 
cclloyd said:
According to google translate, it means 'discontinuation hardware', which sounds incorrect...
Click to expand...

"Abkündigung" is the opposite of "Ankündigung", which means announcement.

Edit:

Seems someone not only beat me to it, but did so rather eloquently:

Giuly said:
Actually, it's just the antonym to Ankündigung - announcement, which should translate to "abnouncement" according to Latin morphology: Something along the lines of "the taking away of a notice". But after going all etymological on it, I conclude that it's gotta be a German thing.
Click to expand...
 
One reason why Vodafone Germany discontinued the iPhone 5:

The iPhone 5 doesn't support the LTE frequencies that Vodafone is using!

The iPhone 5 supports only LTE frequencies that are used by Deutsche Telekom.

Vodafone wants to sell LTE-enabled contracts, that's why they'll sell the iPhone 5C instead, which will definitely support LTE and all the frequencies that european ISPs need.

I think it's better for Apple to drop the iPhone 5 and sell only the iPhone 5C and 5S instead and it's likely that they'll do just that.

1. The iPhone 5 is more expensive to manufacture - Scuffgate, glass-inserts in the back of the case etc.
2. The LTE support of the device is not "good enough", it doesn't support all the necessary frequencies for Europe (and other regions) and it would look bad to sell a more expensive iPhone 5 with worse LTE support than the cheaper iPhone 5C.

I mean, the cost to advertise this disadvantage of the more expensive product would probably be higher than the added revenue of selling the iPhone 5. A few people who return their iPhone 5 to get an iPhone 5C instead (after their ISP told them that they can't use LTE with the iPhone 5), maybe some customer rights organisation suing Apple etc...

Recall the media outrage when some people failed to notice that the iPad 3 didn't support LTE in Europe.

Apple ultimately fixed that by introducing the iPad 4, which supported at least the major ISPs in the EU (Deutsche Telekom, but not Vodafone or O2 in Germany).

This time they will fix it by introducing the iPhone 5C.

The iPhone 5 will disappear, just like the iPad 3 disappeared before it.
 
glenbogle said:
This is one of the most insane comments I've ever read on Macrumors forums.
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Nope not insane. I don't want technology standing still, which is what happens when a large number of people hold onto old gadgets and retain support. Let's keep pushing the envelope and driving innovation forward.
 
dumastudetto said:
Nope not insane. I don't want technology standing still, which is what happens when a large number of people hold onto old gadgets and retain support. Let's keep pushing the envelope and driving innovation forward.
Click to expand...

I understand your sentiment but one year is way too short. Phone contracts are two years. Apple is still selling the 4S today. They should support it for at least two years.
 
Dropping support after 1 or 2 years would mean:
- making sure the demographic Apple could win by making the 5C really affordable would never buy an iPhone again (if I wanted to be left out in the cold I could just buy some cheap Android)

-app-developers would have to choose to either limit their market to owners of current iPhones, make special versions for various version of iOS or just dumb down their app to only use functions found in old iOS versions.

- will hurt Apple bottom line at the app-store buisness

I think what a lot of people are missing/not understanding is that smartphone have for most people reached the point when the are just fast enough. These people won't sign into new contracts with hidden phone-leasing every 2 years just to get 10% more "stuff".
Those people also won't buy a new off-contract phone every 2 years and evenmore not if they stay priced that ridiculous high.

Those are the people that will just buy a contract/prepaid at 10Euro/months (unlimited slow speed data, highspeed capped very early) and then expect to run the same cheap phone on it for 4 years or more.

And if you didn't noticem those are the same people that were buying the orginal iMac or iBook back when Apple was in serious need of saving.
 
This may mean that Iphone 5C won't have any Siri at all
even if the old 4s had it already...
or maybe that the Iphone 5C its just for China..or that the
Iphone 5C won't sport A6 but just and A5X.
 
cclloyd said:
According to google translate, it means 'discontinuation hardware', which sounds incorrect...
Click to expand...
It is incorrect, discontinuation means Einstellung/Stilllegung.

Ankündigung = announcement
Abkündigung = denouncement

Denouncement is to give formal announcement of the ending of something.
Its formal announced that the delivery of these phones has ended.
 
Mind you when I hear "Abkündigung" I would assume that something that has been announced and then canceled.

Sometimes big companies/bureaucrats have a tendency to just make up words without proper need.
 
Lighting connectors across the board

No way the 4S remains in the lineup. I assume Apple is making the necessary moves to standardize the charge cable across the lineup. Still have to wait and see how the product map looks. But the most likely scenario is this:

This scenario would standardize the 4" screen and lighting connector across the line:
iPhone5C (replaces the 4S in the lineup) - 16GB and 32GB options
iPhone 5 - reduced price and memory options - 16GB
iPhone 5S - 32GB/64GB/128GB options

Preferred line up - maintain two screen sizes like they have today (I know I am dreaming...but here goes)
iPhone 5C (replaces the 4S in the lineup)
iPhone 5S (replaces the 5)
iPhone 6 - announced for a December sale date (only way they could control the leaks)
 
dumastudetto said:
Great news for consumers.

It's time to get rid of the ridiculous idea of keeping old technology around for longer than a year. Next stage needs to be to stop giving owners of handsets software updates when new handsets are released. I'm an iPhone 4S user and no way should we be getting iOS 7. Make us pay for a new phone if we want it.
Click to expand...

One of the things that sets Apple apart from the lesser manufacturers and copy cats...is that they faithfully support phones beyond two years old. What you propose is absolutely crazy.
 
All these posts about LTE-A and 128gb etc are great but they are missing one key bit of information. That is that Apple, as of late, has truly disappointed the hard core apple fan. Case in point: Ipad Mini. Sold like crazy to "normal customers", but when everyone on here saw the announcement of a mini ipad with ipad 2 like specs they flipped out. As did i. i was so geared up to get a retina ipad mini that i sold my ipad 3 months before hand and waited. I still to this day havent bought a new ipad yet and im HOPING that the release next month will finally give us the mini we all wanted. And thats the key phrase....Apple, as of late, has not GIVEN us all that we wanted (or truly expected)...in any new device they have released in the last couple of years. SO even though everyone here EXPECTS 128gb will happen and 8gb will go away im much more reserved now than i was before. I cant recall in the last couple of years when we were all BLOWN AWAY by some spec or price or feature in any of the new releases coming out of apple. No real NEW products and the spec updates have come up short...everytime. So with all that said...i think a more TRUE prediction - if you are using my mind set is:

iphone 5S 16gb,32gb,64gb - no LTE-A, no NFC, better camera, faster processor
iphone 5 16gb
iphone 5C 8gb - same everything as iphone 5.
 
Battlefield Fan said:
Why bother with the iPhone 5 if you're gonna have the iPhone 5C?
Click to expand...

Because some people might want a slightly cheaper iPhone that isn't colored plastic.

Also I think the 5C will be FAIL if it doesn't have LTE. Just the fact it's colored plastic, won't have the latest and greatest SOC, camera, fingerprint tech, etc. should be enough of a differentiation. Unless they're going to push this phone hard in countries where LTE isn't prevalent? All I know is once I had an LTE phone I would never go back to one without it.
 
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I wonder if the 5S won't be more expensive than folks expect. That is one way to make differentiation. Even if Apple raises the price across the board by $100, it is no big deal to many folks.
 
TallManNY said:
I wonder if the 5S won't be more expensive than folks expect. That is one way to make differentiation. Even if Apple raises the price across the board by $100, it is no big deal to many folks.
Click to expand...

How often does Apple raise prices on their iDevices or any of their products for that matter? I would assume they want to upsell people to the flagship devices. How does raising the price do that? Or not push some people to Android? :confused:
 
Rogifan said:
How often does Apple raise prices on their iDevices or any of their products for that matter? I would assume they want to upsell people to the flagship devices. How does raising the price do that? Or not push some people to Android? :confused:
Click to expand...

They don't often raise prices, but that doesn't mean they never will. If there isn't going to be a 16GB 5S, I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if the 32GB 5S were priced at the same price as the 32GB 5 is currently being sold at.

The android market capture is vastly overblown as a story. Samsung threw every resource it could at the smartphone market. HTC designed a sweet device. All this happened during the first half of this year competing against no new Apple smartphone. And yet it seems like Apple gained market share in the US this year and held pretty strong worldwide. Assuming there are no flagship smartphones coming out from Samsung or HTC for another 4 months, and I think that is a fairly safe assumption, and assuming that the 5S and 5C will sell incredibly well, I think the Android market share story is going to look very different by the end of the year. Apple might raise prices to gain better margins.
 
dumastudetto said:
Nope not insane. I don't want technology standing still, which is what happens when a large number of people hold onto old gadgets and retain support. Let's keep pushing the envelope and driving innovation forward.
Click to expand...
that isnt innovation though, its planned obsolescence.
Besides, the push these days is to put more and more resources "off device" in the cloud. I personally think it is a wrong headed direction, but it is the buzz. So limiting a device to only what came with it in terms of OS is not only not a good idea, it simply doesn't jine with the modern way of doing things. Besides, just because an OS is newer does not mean it MUST be more taxing. Though that is what we have seen from IOS so far. It hasn't been that way with OS X versions or even the various Windows OS.
 
Am I the only one thinking this way?

iPhone 5S 16GB, $199
iPhone 5C 16GB, $199
iPhone 5 16GB, $0

OK, maybe 32GB for both the 5S and the 5C. The fact is a large percentage of people put their iPhones in a plastic or rubber case. Why not just have it in a plastic case to begin with? Lower weight overall and smaller dimensionally.

As for the storage, I would like to see a bump, but I'm not sure they have much financial incentive. Some people will never come close to using 16GB. For them, it's a phone with the internet and that's all. My next phone will have 64GB regardless if it's a 5S or a 5C. I hope the latter.
 
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