Apple tells suppliers to produce 10% fewer new iPhones

Why not both?

Sure but that was one of the sections with reasons. They also said

> While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.

I don’t think we should ignore these either.

But we'll see when China picks up again, if Apple is back on it's level or not there - everything else is speculation.

Chinese people also have a higher rate of fixing things when they break and they have specialist repair shops everywhere that can replace any component of the phone, so its a different market.

You can't just look at a market and say "oh, its going down for no reason whatsoever" there is always a reason. Its just a question whether the lack of growth will cause a crash in the overall market now.

Ding ding ding.

There are all kinds of variables driving a global recession but the biggest pieces are the Chinese economy plateauing, Brexit and Trump showing just how divided the Western world really is. America's political civil war just driving this point home even more. These factors combined with a changing climate and a general populace that is only short of revolting thanks to the infinite variety of 'bread and circuses' available to us. It's like this is by design or something...

It could be the other way. Capital flight from China to safer grounds.

Samsung's declining earnings has all to do with the declining memory price. The company had been under pressure to increase production to lower the price of memory products all year last year. Apple's problem is in China, fewer unit sales -- their timing is pure coincidence.

Also note that Samsung's market share in China is almost nil, from #1 just four years ago. The company has really nothing to lose at this point.

I don't think ppl are ignoring it. Appl cannot only be a 'good economy company'. Look at Xiaomi for example in your link, its winning international markets by making good affordable phones. Apple should adapt to the market conditions, like xiaomi did, and give ppl what they want in all economic circumstances. Pointing out that apple is( self-admittedly) a fair weather company is not missing forest for trees.

From your own link

> Samsung loses ground in global phone market as Chinese rivals gain share

> While Samsung still leads the world in smartphone sales, it’s being squeezed by Chinese handset makers like Huawei Technologies Co.

I think I missed it somewhere but where did samsung say that their slowdown is due to 'poor economic performance' of china?

You want to know the main reason for the revenue shortfall? Market saturation. China certainly has to do with it as well, but generally Chinese fluctuation have been offset by other markets...but now they aren't, due to saturation.

And the abnormal price hikes of the new model of iPhones indicate that Apple was well aware of the possible economic downturn, and thus sought to compensate the anticipated fall in sales by squeezing higher profit margins.

But what is their excuse for not penetrating the next biggest market in the world, one of the world's fastest growing economy, right next to China - India?

To me, Apple's attitude in India, and many other countries, is akin to that of a spolied brat who won't do things unless he has his own way. Some examples -

a) Apple management lamenting that India doesn't have a debt-based culture. (That's a broad view - the comment was more on how the cellular services providers don't sell their phones bundled with "plans" in India, and Indians and to buy their cell phones outright which obviously makes the iPhones to expensive and unaffordable to many).

b) In the last 2 decades are so, India has witnessed a revolution in digital payments and seen various innovations in this area. This has made it very easy to do micro-transactions. And yet Apple in India REFUSES to integrate with the local financial infrastructure of the country, and only accepts credit cards / debit cards from Visa or MasterCard for Apple Pay or iTunes. (Note that this is deliberate because the indian options give more privacy to the user - for example, with a credit card, Apple can know our credit rating and better profile us, but with certain indian payment options they will be deprived of this valuable information).

c) Objecting to certain policies of the government (this is understandable though from a capitalist point of view to maximise profit).

d) Totally ignoring the way how Indians use their phones and their requirements. (For example, Indians have been demanding a dual SIM phone for many years, and it is kind of a de facto standard feature here. And yet, it took about a decade or so for Apple to respond to that).

To summarise, Apple's management seems to lack creativity and the COURAGE to step out of thier comfort zone and try out new business models and / or new processes in other countries.

Honestly, none of my friends care how latest is my iPad, and neither do I. There’s no use case the newer version has that makes me think, “Wow, I need this in my life.” Speaking of which, combine all this with the ridiculous pricing of the new iPads, it just doesn’t make financial sense to throw away money.

It's not Apple's fault Intel/AMD has been producing pile of trash CPU's for years.

Not to mention charging money for mediocre services.

Apple is slowly declining (a percent per year) their market share (they are no longer number two - oppo/oneplus has that position now), next year they won't be number three (Huawei). What happens when they go below 10%? Will developer still deliver applications for OSX? Is there a possibility for the same scenario as it was in the Mac vs PC?

Reality is that modern Android mobile phones are good enough for most. Unless you're really into the status symbol part of the Apple, they really don't have something special. Plus there is no need to upgrade a phone anymore. I bought my Galaxy S8+ a year after lunch (much cheaper) and would replace it only because of consumerism - to get a new phone. Arguably there is nothing that really warrants an upgrade today.

Headphones, while a great move, won't help them in a long run - not enough margins and good competition. The silver lining with Apple is the that they have a growing services business. Too bad Netflix is kicking their ass in video content wars. Siri is also mostly mediocre. Homekit - who knows, what happens if your market share is falling.

Reality is that Android won 3 years back. We'll see if Apple can turn around thanks to their endless coffers of cash. It's not over yet, but they need to do something and not just upgrade what they have.

The original iPhone was rather underpowered even at the time for what it tried to do, but it was so crazy focused and the vision of what it would allow you to do so exciting, that you were willing to look past it. It didn’t matter that it didn’t have 3G or the best camera. Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with. Best chip, best camera, best number to write on the back of the box. Boring.

As an aside, I am increasingly certain that the sad truth of the iPad today is that a majority of sales are probably the cheaper models used as Envoy terminals, POS devices, and conference room check-ins. If I count iPad’s I see day to day, it’s incredibly lopsided to these uses. What a waste.

With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac.

What’s the narrative of the hodge-podge of devices we have now? Vague speeches about “health” and “AR”, always troublingly highly reliant on the hope others will make use of these technologies. Apple used to lead by example, the first party software set the bar for what others should do. Nowadays there’s just the hope that Adobe bringing Photoshop to the iPad will breathe new life into it. Meanwhile, Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband. It’s been 8 years! Apple can’t figure out a single new app that can take our breath away? If they’ve run out of ideas of how this thing can be used, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

But for the past decade, they haven’t really made any interesting software. iOS is great for iPhones, it’s not great for a laptop replacement. I think OS/x would be a much better fit for the iPad Pro, but perhaps something completely new would be even better? I think the surface book shows us just why that is by the way. If I didn’t personally find windows so terrible, I would leave Apple for one of those in a heartbeat.

Rather think of a regular consumer, of which there are a lot more. Just doing a bit of browsing on the sofa, writing a few emails, reading news, watching Netflix in bed or playing some game.

Personally, I read a lot of papers and ebooks I get via university on it. It's great for that. Not once did I want to use SSH on it, with or without an external keyboard. I use a proper laptop or computer for stuff like that.

Steve made Apple great but it's an illusion to think a company will grow forever.

Steve was also lucky to have Apple in a time where a lot new stuff was developed. He didn't develop it, he applied it the right way. Things like touch screen and tablets were really new back then.

But today there is not a lot that is new. VR is from the eighties, so is AI.

So I think even today Steve would have troubles to keep Apple growing.

Taking advice from the same audience who said in 2001 “less space than the Nomad, no wireless, lame” hasn’t proven to be a winning strategy....

With that said, there are plenty of improvements needed. File handling is certainly one of them. How to get my RAWs into LR for example is a pain.

> Steve thought all features to the end.

This is simply not true. If you were lucky enough to have your use case match Steves exactly, then maybe.

Your point on sharing files via the cloud would also apply to laptops on Wifi as much as to iPads. Yes you can tether with a Cat-5 on a laptop, but most people don't bother and do pro work just fine.

I was worried the iPad would get neglected since Android for tablets is practically abandonware at this point so it has no credible competition at the high end, but instead they're doubling down on the hardware and the software. iOS 12 for iPad was a huge upgrade and the larger screen sizes make running multiple apps side by side a lot easier. sales may have flattened, but they're consistently selling twice as many iPads as laptops.

Jobs didn't want the iPhone to have apps at all. The original vision was for all third party software to run inside Safari. This is the same man who didn't want slots in the Macintosh, and killed the floppy drive as soon as he returned to Apple.

Jobs would have loved the iPad Pro.

You mean, like iPhone XS?

Please, phone manufacturers: if you hear this, listen. I do not care about large phones. I couldn't care less about "screen-to-body ratio". I don't want a notch or a stupid sliding mechanism. I want a simple, small phone. It should have excellent battery life (don't care about thickness), be sturdy. Calls, texts, pictures, and emails are about all that's necessary, along with occasional web browsing and music playback. Maybe a reader app. That's it. But I guess you can't charge $1,500 for that.

Edit: Oh yeah, and leave my headphone jack alone. Seriously.

The market. Small phones don't sell well unless they're at a significant discount. Or else Sony would have owned the Android market with their Xperia Compact series.

For a majority of users, their phones are their #1 computing platform. For many, it's also their ONLY computing platform. They need all the screen real-estate they can get.

As an SE-owner, I suspect you misspelled iPhone 5s there.

Customers.

I played with the phones yesterday at an apple store, and they were lovely. I really liked everything about them, aside from some odd phony bezels in safari.

But not for $1k. It’s not that I think they aren’t worth it. I think they are. Just like a nice bmw is worth $80k. But not to me.

You'd give up a headphone jack, which is the big dealbreaker for me, but for a price of free... eh, I could see why you might upgrade.

A lot of people really care about the quality of the camera and the overall speed of the experience since they spend 10 hours a day on it. Don't forget that many millennials have a phone but no TV or computer. But equally a lot of people don't care about those things. And probably most of these are like yourself happy to stay on the 6s.

As Tim Cook said as long as you're happy that's all that matters because at some point you will upgrade and you will likely stay with Apple. Just not every year like maybe you used to.

The battery is lasts significantly longer. I kept and eye on my old phone and it was still at 90% capacity. With the 6s, I'd /usually/ make it through the day, but doing anything hefty and I might not. I purposefully stopped charging the Xs during the day today because I was curious and my phone is slightly under 50% charged in the late evening.

I bought a few wireless chargers my wife never used so I tried those. I really like it, especially at night. I think I was using an underpowered power adapter, which is why my wife had problems and gave up on it. My 6s would get pocket lint stuck in the lightning port and a few times a year I'd have to dig it out with something. I think recently the port itself on the 6s was probably getting worn out because more and more of my chargers were finicky.

I really like face id. I liked touch id, but often my hands would be wet or I'd be wearing a glove. It would be kind of annoying to move your thumb over to open your password manager or bank app. Face id is noticeably more convenient even after a day or two.

The camera is great, the speaker is noticeably louder, it's nice to get the shortcut for the flashlight on the lock screen.

I'm still getting used to the OS changes on the new phone. I had to look up how to power it off. Using swipe for Home and the other gestures were pretty easy to get used to. I'm not a fan of using the top-right for control center because I can't use one hand for it anymore. It feels slightly bigger and heavier than the 6s, but I miss having something the size of the 5. I also think it's silly that it comes with a 5w charger.

Battery life (5S was failing though). OLED screen is amazing. Screen real estate is great. It's a bit to big for my small hands, but it rarely gets in the way (I use assistive touch quite heavily though). Camera is good but nothing I care too much about. Swipe gestures (in lieu of buttons) is great (quick switching between apps). Tap screen to wake up (maybe existed before?) is nice.

I'd say do the update. I can't see myself using anything else going forward (until I'm forced to update in a few years I guess).

edit: chart of AAPL stock price for the past 12 years

Some of us like small cellphones. This trend towards bigger and bigger screens has only made one-handed usage harder for me.

Even though I have big hands, I like a small phone.

Apple doesn't publicly revise their estimates every year, though.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/1/18053782/apple-earnings-q...

I handled a modern iPod Touch recently. What a wonderful form factor - small, light, but feels durable and well-built. I'd love to get that but with a cellular modem and OLED screen. The rest of the modern Apple features (telephoto lens, Face ID, force touch, 3D touch, etc.) I can live without. Wireless charging is very nice, but not worth making the phone bigger, more brittle (glass back), and more expensive.

I bought the latest XS max because I wanted the bigger screen, faster phone, and nice oled.

In addition the OLED screen is night and day: you won’t want to go back if you switch, but I’d say that isn’t a reason to upgrade on its own unless you aren’t happy with the current one.

All that being said, like others here I too would prefer an iPhone SE form factor with similar specs. Maybe they will get back there but I imagine it will take a long time for the battery and screen and performance to all fit back into the smaller size.

If you don't care about any of those things then save your cash and don't upgrade.

?

> removes fingerprint reader

…and replaces with Face ID. It's not like they just completely removed biometric authentication.

> nerfs nfc

As far as I'm aware, they've only improved their NFC support as time goes on.

> replaces screws with pentalobes

iPhone has had the same screws for years.

That's an absurd price for a phone. A brand new OnePlus 6T is a third of the price.

Their new laptops are also insanely priced. The 2018 Macbook Air is more than 2x the price of the 2017 Macbook Air.

I don't know what kind of pricing strategy this is, but it has turned me completely off the company's lineup.

Almost every other company has followed Apple’s move and removed the headphone jack. This really isn’t much of an issue, especially as wireless becomes more ubiquitous.

Do you actually think the average Apple consumer gives any thought into the type of screws? Really?

For people who always want the latest and greatest: https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program