'Anemic' iPhone 8 demand drags Apple shares lower | Hacker News Reader

'Anemic' iPhone 8 demand drags Apple shares lower

reuters.com

32 pointsprando74 comments

Apple Stock is up 34% in the last year [1].

Its only over the last 2 months that it is very slightly down or flat.

Seems like iPhone 8/X was already priced in the stock and its going mostly as expected.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+stock

The story is about a near-instantaneous ~23 billion dollar drop in the market cap of Apple after reports of production slow-downs; at least that's the story several analysts are telling. Your comment is very insightful and puts this drop into perspective (i.e. it's not that big of a drop), but the reality is some major investors clearly found the news unexpected.

For those major investors, however, is $23 billion even a significant number? Or is it just a blip on their radar, a routine adjustment their automated trading systems which were ingesting the various production information feeds acted on? I'm always curious about things like this. $23 billion sounds like a lot of money, but in the case of Apple, wouldn't it just be 'artificial' money? Would anyone outside of the financial services sector be affected in the slightest? Apple employee compensation certainly isn't related in any way, shape, or form to the value they're creating, probably not even the C-level executives have any relationship to that any longer because the numbers are simply "too big".

The only thing I can think of is the uncertainty of the iPhone X launch meeting targets. But from what I have heard and from my own experience the X is going to sell out or have really good sales on launch day. I am holding off on a new phone if I will get one at all until the X comes out.

$23 billion sounds big, but it’s less than 3%, and assigning a cause to any stock market movement is fraught with peril.

Stocks are oscillatory by nature! At least some people understand this caveat. Not to mention the X comes out soon, and it'll probably rocket again.

The current iPhone line up is to broad. There's currently five different models of iPhone, not counting the Plus models.

Introducing the X, and the 8 seems like a mistake that only serves to confuses customer, or worse, make them reconsider their actual needs. I don't think most owners of the iPhone 6, 6s or 7 are displeased with their phones, so there's no need to replace them. If they break, then why not save the money and buy the cheaper option, which have served them well until now?

The beauty of the iPhone marketing, as least initially, was that there was at most two models to pick from. It makes the choice much easier for the customer and made the sales figures for then new models look better.

My first thought upon the unveil was that the 8 might not have a great market and might get classified as the 'poverty phone' as absurd as that sounds. Given that new model iPhones are already a luxury good, splitting that on price so substantially seems... strange. If you're buying a luxury phone, dropping hundreds of dollars on one... are you going to be satisfied with anything less than the X? Are the social status symbol needs the consumer is trying to meet with those phones going to be met with an 8?

Yes it reminds me of when the Xbox 360 released a $100 cheaper stripped down "Core Pack" without a harddrive, headset and other things. It was mocked by gamers and the enthusiast game press and labelled (not very appropriately) the "retard pack."

To be fair, losing the hard drive was a pretty big deal, regardless of the verbage using colloquially. To many it seemed like a maneuver to try and get unknowledgeable buyers (parents and grandparents)to get the better deal. Which they would then have to buy the peripherals later on down the line.

The number of models is I think more a symptom that the platform has stopped improving. Frankly there isn't much the X does that the 6s doesn't do well, the audio jack and touch id less. A slightly bigger, non rectangular screen and animated instagram filters may be a big deal for a couple of teenagers and apple fans, but for the vast majority of their customer base, I don't think so.

They decided to make a smooth way out for previous gens, probably to appeal for people who really liked it, who couldn't afford and to facilitate selling remaining stock.

It's a bit of a large line, but I'm sure they're monitoring the ROI and still winning.

My iphone 6 is probably on its last legs. The X phone is too expensive and not available anyway. The 8 isn't that much of an improvement on the 7, so if I don't want an X, I'll probably save money and go with a 7. Sluggish sales for 8 are not surprising.

I know a few people who were in need of new phones and went with iPhone 7s even though the 7 is out, probably based on similar reasoning to yours.

There is no 7s. I think you mean that they went with the 7 instead of the 8.

(I think he was just pluralizing "iPhone 7")

Yeah. I saw a similar article to the one linked above and wrote about my own thinking: https://jakeseliger.com/2017/10/18/apple-isnt-selling-as-man..., which is similar to that expressed here.

I jumped from 6 to 8s and it is astounding the speed difference. I am of the every other generation buyer. That and I am not ready to give up my touch id and habits in how I use it. Throw in that for some reason that notch on the X just bothers me

what made you choose the 8 over the 7?

Not OP but I did the same thing. 7 and 8 seemed comparable but for a pretty negligible price difference, it seemed to make sense to just buy the latest and greatest. Agree that the speed is unbelievable. I was totally fine with my 6 and how it worked until iOS11 came in and wreaked havoc. The 8 + iOS11 is a lightning fast experience and I have no regrets about upgrading.

I did exactly this. I waited for the announcements, then went and bought iPhone 7 the next day. iPhone 8 is simply not big enough update to justify the price difference, and iPhone X is not something that I'm interested in (price or feature wise).

Count me in since iPhone 7 launch. On the day it launched I didn't find it worthy of the price (and it is missing the earphone jack!) and got myself a 6s. And I'm not upgrading till this phone dies.

Same. I have a 5s and I'm tired of running out of storage space, so it's time for an upgrade.

As a Mac fan, I follow Apple news, but even though I watched the press conference I've forgotten if there were any substantial benefits to the 8 over the 7 other than presumably faster specs and a mildly better camera. Seems pretty similar.

I definitely feel no need to grab the 8, and the 7 (or even 6s) seem like good options when one considers the price drops.

iPhone 6S 128GB is a solid choice.

Does it runs iOS 11 smoothly?

My iPhone 6s plus lags almost everywhere on iOS 11. Plenty of free space.

Just a few minutes ago I was reading an e-mail and there was a few second delay for the link to show up on a telephone number. (ie blue underline)

11.1 will likely help a bunch, if the beta is an indication.

I have a 6s 128gb. It was was fast on the latest iOS 10, was acceptable on iOS 11.0, but on iOS 11.1 (currently beta4), it seems as fast as, if not faster than, ever. I think I could happily wait until next year to upgrade, even though I usually upgrade every other year.

I had the 5s. Now have an SE. those are the two best phone apple ever made.

Just put in a (bigger) MicroSD-card...

Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, however it does remind me of the famous "I need a new car, the tank is empty" (or, in earlier times "the ashtray is full") quote of senseless consumption. Hardware-wise those devices should be able to last much longer than this, were it not for the planned obsolescence of limited memory space, OS-update mandated slowdowns and eventual abandonment.

Hardware can last a long time if it is made to last. It can remain useful for many more years than the 2- or 3-year update cycle. My phone is 6 years old, I'm typing this on a 13 year old laptop, both still work fine for daily use. Both have user-replaceable parts, both can be upgraded.

Both run free software.

The problem is that the combination of an old iPhone and a new OS tends to suck. And batteries wear out.

I'm in the same boat - I have a 6+ 128gb and it's starting to lag with the most recent iOS. Apple is just going to do Apple things and intentionally slow it down.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I was thinking of buying a refurb 6s+ (I really want a 3.5mm jack) and send it off to apple to refresh the battery and live with that for another 2 years.

The 7 and 8 aren't that interesting in the same way that I haven't updated my late 2013 15" Retina MacBook Pro. If they fix their stupid mistakes (touch bar, deleting the 3.5mm jack) I'll upgrade. Otherwise I'll hold off until the products die and then I'll buy something from their competitors.

How will a refurb 6s help with speed? I assume the infamous slowdown-on-new-OS is due to the new OS being optimized for new hardware, not an old phone "wearing out".

It's my (incorrect?) assumption that going from a 6 to a 6s would buy me another year worth of acceptable iOS speed. My best option may be to deal with the performance and get my 6+ refreshed by Apple.

Thinking about it, I haven't added a new "must use" app in some time. Maybe refreshing my 6+ is the way to go.

The 6s is a lot faster than the 6.

6s doubled RAM from 1GB to 2GB. The CPU was almost twice the performance as well.

I was rather annoyed by how smooth my wife's 6s was when she upgraded versus my (then) year old 6 Plus

FWIW, my current iPhone SE is a 6s with a lesser camera, 4" screen, no 3D Touch, but it's just as zippy and smooth as my wife's 6s (which is buttery smooth with iOS 11).

In fact some benchmarks show the SE performing better than a 6s or 7 in certain cases. Fewer fancy hardware bits to schedule work for, maybe?

A similar argument could be made for 6s to 7 though (and I suspect a lot of people did make that argument), so there will be plenty of 6/6s people out there who will see it as an improvement.

From the circle of people I know, it's rare to upgrade every model. Every other model upgrades seem more common.

I compared an 8 Plus to my wife's 6s (non-plus).

There was little perceptible difference in speed when navigating around iOS generally.

Heavier hitting apps loaded faster, but not noticeably so.

Slack behaved exactly the same, even scrolling through long histories.

I ended up getting an iPhone SE to save money ($175 credit for my iPhone 6 Plus helped). It's a 6s with a lesser camera, 4" screen. Runs smooth as butter.

I will never understand the decision to name the new model "ten" instead of "ex". It made the iPhone 8 two generations obsolete before it even arrived.

Either way, demand for the X will inevitably shift this blip in the other direction after it hits the streets and people see it in action.

only problem is that there won't be enough to go around!

It's the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.

They have no excuse. They painted themselves into this corner before with Mac OS. Not to mention the history of abject failure of anniversary edition Macs.

Not a surprise.

People who want the latest and greatest are waiting for the X.

The 8 isn't big enough of a jump over the 7 so many will keep their 7 or if they have an older model will simply buy a 7 to save money.

Side by side, the 8 is impressively faster than the 7. I don't know about cameras or anything, but the CPU upgrade was no joke.

What do you practically use the extra speed for?

I've got a 7+ and frankly I'm struggling to see what more I could want. So probably going to skip a generation.

Just you wait until the next iOS :)

Bastards. It's all a scam. :p

I reckon it is topping out though. A bit like any i3 or whatever is now sufficient to do any office task imaginable. You're not going to spreadsheet any faster with a i7...

sure, but for 99% of what most people do, web,text,maps. Is it appreciable?

There is no upper bound on what "web" will require of hardware. Web developers will see to that.

Text and maps worked fine a decade ago. Web, too, though it depended amd still depends a lot on the sites you use.

The issue is that it's not enough to be good enough 99% of the time. That's assumed.

It's performance in the last 1% that really makes or breaks the user experience (or maybe the right ratio is 95/5 or 80/2...).

Obviously, any car will have sufficient power and traction to maintain cruise on the highway. It's those few seconds of acceleration to pass, or that panicked emergency stop, where you'll definitely notice a difference.

I'd lower that 99% to 90-95%%; A not insignificant number of people do use the IPhone for graphics intensive games; and its graphics chips and programs are drastically ahead of android competition by most reviews.

But your point stands that 100% of hard core gamers that want the biggest fastest new thing have 0% use for the 8. (The x/ten has the bigger better screen too)

The camera update was not big this time around. Since that's one of the major reasons people upgrade, it's not surprising that people are buying 7's and 7 Pluses right now.

Also, anyone who's moving up from a 6 or 6S will see a huge speed improvement if they move to a 7, and for most "normal" usage I'm not sure the move to the 8 would make that much difference.

That may be true, but if customers decide that what they have is good enough for what they do, they're not going to rush out to upgrade at the earliest possible moment. I mean, I carry an iPhone 5 and it does fine for me. I'll replace it when it dies.

Steve Jobs revitalized Apple by streamlining the product line and guaranteeing high quality. Tim Cook has done exactly the opposite. Makes me really sad

Reading all those stories of lagging iphones after upgrading to ios11 really makes me start to believe in planned obsolescence... has anyone seen an article giving any kind of concrete proof of a company such as apple doing that ?

Apple hasn't done enough to make me want to upgrade from my 6S . Should I break/lose my 6S, I may even replace it with another one and pocket the price difference between the newest models.

Many of the more interesting features are in the Plus sized phones (cameras), which I'm just not in the market for. My pockets aren't getting any bigger no matter how many features they add, and I'm not convinced the iPhone X will be a UX improvement over Touch ID yet.

I upgraded to a 6s (from a 4!) as soon as they came out. The girlfriend got a 7 as soon as they came out, then got a 6s after she broke the 7. Neither of us see any reason to upgrade any time soon (we both buy our phones outright so that's a nice chunk of change). I would like an iPhone X -- just because it's "cooler" -- but I really can't justify spending that much for it when I have a 6s that works just fine.

I think the demand for the iPhone X will be tepid. It is too expensive and no popular apps require that much CPU/GPU horsepower. My iPhone 7 still works great.

iPhone X looks more like a dev kit.

You underestimate the draw of new and shiny. All my friends that use iPhones skipped the 8, and most are dying to get the X. I am betting that Apple struggles to meet demand.

Expensive is a relative term.

For someone who can afford an iPhone+ and usually not the lowest storage capacity, iPhone X is clearly affordable/manageable.

The whole iPhone line up has a price anchoring effect pushing the buyer to consider the next slightly expensive option, from iPhone SE all the way to iPhone X. I know many who are waiting for X, which is ideal for the Snapchat generation of (literally) rich kids as well as the ones who want the most sought after gadgets.

I think the 7+ sales really gave Apple an idea about how much customers were/are willing to spend.

The current price of iPhone X is positioning Apple well for selling an iPhone X+, when/if that ever happens, they can just reduce the current iPhoneX price by $50 and have an X+ for $50 or $100 more.

With the product and price lineup Apple has, its set for a great year in 2018. If $AAPL goes down, imo its a great chance to get a few.

Either the X isn't expensive enough or the 8 isn't cheap enough.

For me, a 128GB 6+ user, the 64gb storage option doesn't work.

My options are: $950 256gb 8+ $1150 256gb X

$200 isn't enough of a difference when the cost is spread out over two years. Why on earth wouldn't I wait 2 months to buy "10" instead of "8"?! when the cost difference is so minor.

I thought the main feature of the iPhone X is that you get a larger screen and better cameras in a not-much-larger than an iPhone 8 (not plus) package. At least, that's the main feature to me.

I did get the 8, because I was moving up from a 5. I had pretty poor battery life on the 5 somehow - it would drop to 1% from 20-30% instantly! And performance was manageable but not great with the latest iOS version and apps (like Google Meet which is needed for work).

Overall, I went for the 8 believing it will have good overall standing in the long run, in terms of performance and battery life, as opposed to the 7.

I have a 6P. I had been thinking about getting a 7 because I wanted the NFC stuff for metro cards. Looking at the cost of a used 7 vs a new 8 and taking into account the speed differences I will likely get an 8. There is no wow factor that is driving this however. My 6P was fine for everything until I put IOS11 on it at which point it lags so badly.

I have a 7. I may get an 8; but since I know the X is coming out soon, I figured I'd wait a bit longer.

I wouldn't be surprised if lots of people are in a holding pattern like I am. Not long after the X comes out, some pent-up demand will avail itself on Apple's supplies of both the 8 & the X right through Christmas.

It seems that the iPhone 8's sole reason for existence is to cater to the conservative crowd and prevent a backlash of public opinion when Apple takes things to far in a way that that segment considers too radical.

Apparently those people contrive not that big of a percentage and everyone else is holding on till iPhone X.

Apple has been iterating on the same phone body for too long. For better or worse Apple had a reputation for pushing design limits over and over, yet the last 3 models (6/7/8) have looked exactly the same. The X is what the 7 should have been. Two years too late and $200 too expensive.

They should have split the release into 6 months like Samsung (S vs Note) . Call the iPhone 8 the iPhone 7S and then 6 months later release the iPhone X under the name iPhone pro or something like that.

You can't even pre-order the X yet. The demand for the X around my neck of the woods is massive.

Sort of article that will be pointed to when Apple inevitably breaks sales records yet again.

How is it “anemic” when it’s pretty much sold out everywhere?

"everywhere" NYC/BOSTON/SF is not everywhere...

It’s even sold out online, on the Apple store. You have to wait 2-3 weeks to get one.

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