Why the iPhone 5 never arrived
blog.deg.io
blog.deg.io
1. Hype up killer pie-in-the-sky feature that makes zero economic sense for Apple (see: retina iPad, 4G iPhone with larger screen). Traffic spikes.
2. As launch approaches, use "inside sources" to mock up designs (Macrumors's "we think the 5 will look like this"). Report on supply chain behavior, leaked case designs, etc. Traffic spikes.
3. Live blog the launch event. Toss in snarky one-liners ("Siri? beam me up Scotty m i rite lolol") because you and your readers are too cool to watch the keynote but I guessssss we'll tune in anyway. Servers overload with traffic.
4. Write editorials complaining about how pie-in-the-sky features from #1 don't arrive. Cover your ass by reporting "supply chain delays" from unnamed sources. Hits among disillusioned gadget connoisseurs (heh) spike.
4.5. AAPL falls 2-3% even though the product will break sales records again. Yawn.
5. Break for a week or two to avoid tech journalism burnout, then repeat for next product. (e.g. iPad HD supply chain rumors in Nov/Dec). Traffic spikes.
Whatever.
EDIT: My favorite was the rumor about the iPad 2 getting a HD screen. The next best screen on the market (the Xoom) was like 140 ppi. Why would Apple drop $n >> 0 per iPad when competitors' screens are relatively abysmal and the iPad would sell out?
Anyone who bought that rumor displayed a serious unfamiliarity with the concepts of marginal benefit and marginal cost.
EDIT 2: Go read the child comment by chugger. It's all about the short positions.
That said, the stock lost some ground, but the thing with Apple's stock, it always goes up before and after their quarterly earnings calls. They continue to defy the numbers people expect from it.
Their profits are going to continue to rise, and with it, so will the stock. The geeks that have to have the new shiny will be disappointed, however, the casual user will love the iPhone 4S and it well sell like crazy. At least just as well as the iPhone 4.
Were we all hoping to see an "iPhone 5" ? Yup. I think we all were hoping, however little, that it would show up. But many of us with any sense of reasoning and logic regarding Apple have pretty much known that this update was going to be almost exactly what it was. Apple is on a two year design plan. Excuse the original iPhone since that was the exception (again, not that the iPhone 5 couldn't have been one as well). But if you look at it now, it becomes a lot more clear. iPhone 3G-> iPhone 3GS (Faster processor, more ram and the same design). iPhone 4->iPhone 4S (Faster processor, probably more ram, same design).
Next year we'll see a new case design, and maybe it'll resemble the tapered design that has been rumored. I'm kind of hoping against it since it would be awkward to hold in landscape orientation. Something that is curved in both directions would be neat. As long as it is symetrical. The problem with a "banana" shape is that it would no longer sit flat on a desk and that would bother me.
I'm pretty happy with the iPhone4/4S case. I kind of wish it was a bit more curved on the edges since I find the metal "mid-case" to be a bit sharp, not a cut you kind of sharp, but it could be more blunt and thus more comfortable in your hand. Think more pebble shaped with regard to the sides.
But at the time, the entire case industry was moving forward with producing cases. They weren't just prototypes, you could actually buy the "iPhone 5" cases. It would have been impossible not to report on the cases and what they represent.
I believe and have been told that the iPhone 5 design was real -- just not ready.
As for mockups. Both sides tend to point and say, oh - look what they got wrong. or look what they got right.
Here's our assistant rendition: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/30/a-look-at-apples-assista... which was pretty spot on.
But the thing about rumors is it's like a statistical distribution. You can't take any one rumor and say "oh, this is it". Eventually, by the time the event happens, the rumors settle around something that frequently is very close to the truth. See, our Rumor Roundup right before the event for the final conclusion from months of rumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/03/lets-talk-iphone-rumor-r...
You guys have done great work in the past. But you've taken things a bit far this time. You win some you lose some, but you helped set expectations way too high and that resulted in some serious disappointment for a lot of people.
Between your terrible moderators, insanely stupid forum readers, and this, I have no desire to really read your site anymore.
1) Spread rumors about a product 2) Watch stock price go up 3) Wait for the actual product announcement 4) Short sale 5) Profit$$$
it happens everyday.
Hedge Funds, Bloggers and the Origin of Apple Rumors http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/30/about-that-iphone-5-d...
Samsung employee caught leaking information to hedge fund manager before iPad launch http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/ex-samsung-worker-s...
It's pretty much free money.
Call it what you want, but it's been a winner for the past 4 years for us.
The iPad 3 was the most egregious example I've seen of this yet. John Gruber said it made sense for the iPad to be on a September release schedule (which actually makes no sense) based on no information whatsoever.
What followed was how the iPad 3 was coming, it had a retina display, the usual unverifiable tales from the supply chain, etc. In the end, unnamed sources said Apple decided to cancel it for a variety of reasons.
Not writing about a product that doesn't (and never) existed gets you zero pageviews. Writing about an Apple product gets you N page views. Writing about an unannounced product and then writing about it being scrapped, being ultimately the same as the first situation, gets you 2N page views.
The iPhone seems to be following a 2 year major release cycle. The 3GS was a relatively minor upgrade to the 3G (with faster CPU, etc) but it had basically the same design. You can make the same comparison from the 4 to the 4S. Next year's will probably have a major shift in outward appearance but that's just a guess.
For me, the upgrade is significant if you play games on your phone. I actually don't (I do on my iPad however). The faster shooting and better sensor are nice but not worth me upgrading I think.
I just wish so many people didn't fall prey to the obvious linkbaiting when it comes to Apple. This pattern constantly repeats itself. Any rational person knew the Fall iPad 3 was never going to happen the second the rumours started. You'll see a new iPad next March/April and probably an LTE iPhone 5 next summer or early Fall.
The iPad, being a contract-less decision, makes a lot of sense as a Christmas purchase.
The stuff about retina displays I think was based on the UltraHD icons and shit found in Lion. I think at least some of the thinking came from the idea that Apple wanted to do a super-high-res iPad (again, based on the direction of icons in Lion) and shift it's product cycle for the iPad from Spring to Fall. Since this was before the iPhone 4S was shifted from early summer, it made more sense a few months ago.
I'd still like a bigger screen on the iPhone. Mah thumbs are big.
More sense than zero isn't significantly different from zero.
I said this a few months ago, and I stand by it now: there was no reason for Apple to refresh a product that had 4-week delivery times. They couldn't stock iPad 2s in Apple Stores, so it made zero economic sense to refresh only 6-8 months later.
(I think this was cletus's point, and FWIW I agree with it 100%)
That said, I wrote the iOS Artwork Tool, which reads and writes the .artwork files found in iOS SDKs. Last night I updated the tool with iOS5 support and to my surprise discovered new iPad-specific @2x graphics. To be clear, the iPad @2x graphics appear to be woefully incomplete... but it's clear that someone over there is working on this.
Timeframes? I'll leave that to the rumor mill. Will it eventually happen? I'll venture a cautious yes.)
It's possible we could have got an iPhone 5, but I'm sure apple is waiting for WiMax/LTE to really ramp up in both semiconductor quality and carrier service. Also, they won't release two phones, so they're going to wait for chips that do both WiMax and LTE at the power consumption they want, which will probably be in about a year.
I think the simple answer is "they wanted to release iOS 5 with the new phone." Rumors point to a lot of delays in iOS 5 development.
Uh, because people will pay more for it?
I would cheerfully fork over $1000 for an iPad with the resolution of the iPhone 4's display.
Maybe in a few years there will be an 'iPad Pro' with a higher power processor, better screen, etc. But it seems unlikely in the short term.
Also a retina display on an iPad priced at 1000$ or so would probably have similar profit to the current iPads. So even less motivation.
The benefits for Apple are manifold, but the two most obvious are:
1. Keep expectations sane - they can't release a radical new industrial design of superbly high quality every year.
2. Give customers on a 2 year contract predictable value rather than leaving them always waiting for the next awesome device
I also noted they should tick the iPhone when the iPad tocks.
Tick: Windows 95, Tock: Windows 98
Tick: Windows 2000, Tock: Windows XP
Tick: Windows Vista, Tock: Windows 7
Plenty of people will buy something called a "4" when the state of the art is a "4S" -- there's no embarrassment there: "Oh, my discount phone is almost as good; it's just missing an S. And it's not like my friends will be able to tell that I'm using last year's model. It looks the same."
But if the latest model is called the "5", then suddenly there's a stigma to having the 4. You're stuck one full number behind the Joneses. And everybody knows, because you're still using the phone with the unfashionable flat back while everyone else has the slick new teardrop design that's all the rage.
The 4S will sell to early adopters and power users, and the 4 will sell to more price conscious late adopters. Either way, Apple wins. They're already doing good with iPhone 4 production, probably have decent amount stocked, and production costs between the two don't change too much.
I still think there were no breakout features this time round though. Siri being '4S' only is a bit of a cheek - and everything else felt firmly incremental. Even iOS 5 doesn't excite me much except for the notification system (though that is much appreciated).
Apple are experts in taking a feature their competitors technically have, but few customers use - and taking it 'mainstream' - nothing along those lines this time.
It seems to me that their next breakthrough in that regard is likely to be the NFC stuff, presumably to arrive with iPhone 5.
I now FaceTime with my Family quite regularly.
I agree though, I love my iPhone 4 and am sure the 4S with it's incremental updates will simply be more-awesome. But for better or worse, I think version number bumps are now associated with big upgrades on iPhones.
Expectations are set high, but then Apple will quite happily just ignore everyone's expectations and do what they want.
Personally, I look at the specs for a 4S and have trouble coming up with anything new that I'd want to add. But of course that doesn't mean other people can't, I may just be unimaginable.
If they had just called what was released yesterday an iPhone 5 there would have been much less disappointment. As far as a full redesign goes, I don't see a whole lot Apple can do. The height and width of the current phone seems near perfect. They could expand the screen a bit to be edge to edge, get rid of the physical home button, and taper the back (seems less likely now that they are using a dual antenna design) I guess.
I just don't see a much larger screen iPhone coming. I think Apple has already said if you want a large screen iPhone, buy an iPad.
By releasing a 4s, Apple is most likely signaling that there will be a radically new phone released soon. (less than a year) I'm going to get a 4s (the new features are great and I can't really wait 6 months) but I probably won't ever actually get the 5 due to carrier lock-in.
Example:
(1) cancellation fee after 12 months at ATT is $325 - 120 = $205. If you had bought an iphone 4 in July 2010 the cancellation fee today would be $165.
(2) new iphone costs $200
(3) a 16 month old iphone 4 in good condition sells on ebay today for between $350-$375. A few months ago that was around $400+.
This is a twist on the old Jade plan for Macbook upgrades where you sell your old Macbook every year and buy a new one, always staying under warranty and continually upgrading -- it's not flawless, you will have to shell out a few bucks here and there but it's a pretty good system.
I guess Apple pulled Siri out of the appstore yesterday.
The iPhone4s is a great device. The expectation though of a lighter, thinner, larger screen iPhone5 with crazy deep Facebook integration throughout made the announcement rather blah.
This is probably the first time I felt like Apple did a poor job controlling the messaging.
In contrast, recall when the iPad was coming out. There was a rumor a bit before launch that it would cost $999. The rumor lasted until Steve was on stage and showed $499. Their ability to prime the market for an upscale pricey device and slam home at less than $500 was beautifully executed.
This release was poorly done -- despite the fact that I agree -- the 4s is a solid product. And one that I think will sell well.
Do people really want this? If they can go edge to edge in the current dimensions, that's fine. But, if they have to make the dimensions bigger it doesn't excite me. I want a pocket sized device that I can easily text on with 1 hand.
I imagine women who have smaller hands would also prefer the current size phone over some of the giant gimmick ones I have seen around.
Yes.
Does everyone want it? Of course not. The edge to edge screen is what was in the rumor mill. A 4" screen would not change the dimensions of the phone in this case.
A bigger screen makes no sense. Apple already made tons of internal studies on the best form factor.
If you want movies, go to an IMAX theater.
Most of the UK news outlets i've seen haven't reported it as a flop of any kind just reported it as an update.
People seem really excited by Siri, they thought it was impossible and I heard similar thoughts on the radio. Not sure if it's just the tech news bubble or that people love Apple.
I got all of the features I wanted but didn't get the design changes. I'm glad Apple didn't call it 4G as technically they can now as what makes 4G was changed once all of these phones called themselves 4G.
I still think that it's too early to dismiss it because of what we've seen with Voice Control, but I agree that there's definitely the possibility that the idea won't catch on. I suppose everything depends on the implementation and whether it can be made seamless enough and useful enough that ordinary people use it.
For all the majority of iPhone 4 users know, Siri could have been in their device all along the they either didn't know or didn't care.
Let's think this through. The use cases for Siri are when a) you can't use the keyboard and b) it a situation where you can talk freely. It sounds awesome for when you're driving. Or if you have a disability. Or... No, I think I'm out of potentially useful situations. And to be honest, Voice Control worked pretty well for me on the one occasion I needed it.
It could be reliable, useful and effective; it could be sometimes useful given the right environments and inputs; it could be a complete flop. No one outside of Apple knows right now.
Not only could app-Siri not do some of the things that people will most often do with iOS-Siri ("wake me up at 7 o'clock", "remind me to call my girlfriend when I get home", "note that I need to buy lettuce"), but you had to unlock your phone and navigate to the app icon before you could even do those things that you could do with it. If you're already using a touch/visual interface to do things, it's cognitively easier to just stick with touches to finish the job. If the interface is entirely spoken/audible, there are a whole other set of things that start to make sense to use voice for.
It works about half the time.
"Play Machine Gun Fellatio"
*"BING! Playing songs by Marvin Gaye"
"ehhh, good enough"
It works slightly better if I put on a fake American accent.
- The tasks that it could actually do were simplistic (pause! play! call Bob! next track!) and often it was more work to turn on Voice Over and talk, and easier to just touch the device and be done with it.
- Voice Over had a very limited verb database that you had to learn. It wasn't so much natural language recognition as simply using voice to input a (very) limited set of commands.
Siri is (ostensibly) not subject to any of the above limitations, so if it works as advertised it really will be completely different from Voice Over.
As you say, time will tell whether it's a hit. I'm betting not.
Seriously, I dont want to troll and I understand that iphone's are cool, people want them and even many people in HN have businesses based on it, but "we all wanted to believe"? is iphone5 that important? This is beyond simple fanboism. This is a disaster.
If one HTC handset is delayed by six months thanks to part shortages, that's a problem for them. They have plenty of other products to fall back on, though. If an Apple product is delayed six months, it's a disaster. Apple would lose billions of dollars in revenue and suffer a PR holocaust. So when I see rumors like the Retina iPad 3, I always filter them by asking, "Can Apple get that part in increments of a million units?" Given that, it should be very rare for Apple to ship the first product containing any given component.
Just remember to answer any question with "It's what I've been saying all along..." and use short, choppy sentences.
Yesterday, his iPhone 4S story offered this astonishing course reversal:
"While confusion was sprinkled throughout the industry on exactly what Apple would announce, most seemed to agree that the iPhone 4S would be the smartphone that Apple ultimately would unveil."
Admit nothing.
It is a terrible time to find a replacement for a lost ipod. I've been waiting until today's Apple event before getting anything. I was ready to be pleasantly surprised.
Turns out Apple has just enough market share and momentum to waive their hands around for renewed sales. Why break ground when you can still make great profits off the old stuff?
Nano is a software update. Touch has a new color (wowsy!). Phone has speaking app installed, a slightly faster chip. It is new technology at the slowest drip possible. Give me a small ipod with tons of storage. Easy enough, right? Look at the cost of memory these days. You can buy a 32GB SD card for $40. But Apple won't do that. The whole iCloud business looms. The iCloud is just a way to capture and sell you data. So they provide iTunes, integration with everything, then reel in the fishes. They haven't updated the capacity of any of their devices for four years. The ipod nano no longer has a camera, no longer shows videos, has a smaller screen than ever before, and the maximum capacity remains 16GB. But they come in a dazzling array of colors; come and get them while they last!!!
Should I wait another 6 months? 12 months?
I've thought about getting one of the old nanos, but I'm learning something about the mac I use for work. The computer itself is awesome, even though it is about 7 years old. It is actually faster and more stable than the 64-bit PC I got a few months ago. The thing is, fewer and fewer programs work on it. Google Earth was automatically updated and no longer works. A bunch of other programs are the same. This old architecture (PowerPC) doesn't support any new Adobe products or really any thing else that is new. Even browsers are starting to act weird. But it isn't the hardware, its great. It is that new software doesn't communicate with it anymore.
So, I suspect the same will be true with these mac devices. Software will be designed specifically for new devices. So on older devices, either you won't be able to get the newest software or software will be automatically updated and cease to work. For instance, the click wheel now only exists on the ipod classic. Once the classic is discontinued, you can bet that any ipod with a click wheel will start having problems with any new OS. And they update the OS at least once a year. So you can't go back, even if the device remains superior.
Welcome to Apple's vision of the future, the - phase it out, throw it away, buy it new - society.
Lots of room for different opinions on the life cycle of electronics but:
1) What you are complaining about is a decades old, industry wide phenomena and not something vaguely unique about Apple.
2) Apple products tend to retain functionality and re-sale value much longer than their competitors.
What?!
apple products are in my experience built to work until they break and the cost of fixing them is more than a replacement. this happens much sooner in tech than in other spaces because it changes so quickly. the CPI has stayed relatively flat† because advances in technology have allowed more purchasing power (though for lower cost goods). the iphone is a technological marvel that was priceless ten years ago because it couldn't exist.
† year by year table of CPI since 1913 ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
It's like your complaining about a countrywide shift from gasoline to ethanol and how your gas-only car engine is finding fewer and fewer gas stations to fill up with pure gasoline as the decades go by.
You'll find things that do not change fundamentally or lend themselves to relatively easy upgrades last for a very long time. Houses, simple tools, cars until they wear out, etc. Things that change and improve frequently like tech does.
Isn't it really the exact opposite? If you have the last-generation iPod or iPhone there's really no good reason to go upgrade. It extends the life of your current device indirectly. With the 3GS being free with contract you can bet it will be very popular which means developers will have to take some extra time to make sure their apps worth with a 2+ year old device. (which also means they will have to work well with older iPod Touches) Apple is upgrading all the iOS devices to iOS5 except for the original iPhone 2G, 3G and the first generation iPod Touch. So probably about 200 million or more users are getting some significant software updates in a week or so.
The screen is dense enough pixel wise, and consumers don't have to wait for new cases, bumpers, etc. since the iPhone 4 stuff works well. It is a good thing for consumers.
I am more and more convinced most of these stories were pre-written as soon as the 4S designation was found in iTunes. I am particularly down on All Things D and feel their reporting is pretty much useless.
It wasn't mandatory for an "iPhone 5" to have LTE in the first place. Just because it wouldn't have had LTE ,doesn't mean they couldn't have made an "iPhone 5".
And if it's all about economics, then I guess it makes even more sense to keep the same design for 3, or even 4 years, no? That's probably what would happen if the iPhone had no competition, seeing how even with strong competition from Android, they still don't seem to care about using the same phone over and over again.
What's funny is that when HTC releases a more "refined" design (but still basically the same), the media is all "oh, same old design from HTC". But when Apple does it, "well, they are just refining a work of art!" or "It's the inside that counts!"
Yeah right. Most people buy phones for 3 main reasons:
1) design - and they don't want the same old one over and over again. It's no coincidence the iPhone 3GS was the most disappointing iPhone launch so far, too - until now that is
2) price - people will buy the phone they can afford
3) value - the most bang for the buck
apple has its reasons for not changing the design and they are sound as ever—evolutionary, not revolutionary. and it makes so much sense for the 2-year upgrade cycle. considering too that apple is trying to make as many devices as possible, the same old design really helps them to that end. i am disappointed. but the product is by no means a disappointment.
(i really wanted an ipod touch 3g with upgraded internals that could go month by month like the ipad and do facetime/skype over wifi/3g)
The downfall of Japanese manufacturers was adding features for features sake and switching up design to manufacture demand for the "new" model. Sony would have some nice products with promise but they always managed to screw something up with every iteration, never quite getting it right or abandoning product lines with passionate fans altogether. They're all struggling to stay alive now. The Koreans are doing the same only a little better (more innovation and focus on technology but still the same frequent changes).
When the dust settles I think you'll see that people who purchase or upgrade to 4S will be more than satisfied with the end product.
The real reason, of course, is that Apple didn't have anything revolutionary to ship (other than an out-of-house software product that they turned into a "hardware" feature by fiat). I'm not convinced that's bad, really. I think a bigger issue is that smartphones are turning into a mature product and there's simply less revolution to be had.
But my gut is with the many other people who have voiced similar intuitions: this feels a lot like the mid-90's, when Apple stagnated in the face of clear motion in the industry, chasing old markets while new ones opened. Is the iPhone 4S the new Centris?
Not so, the pattern of introducing an entirely new model only every second year and a performance boost of the existing model in between is one that Apple has followed since the iPhone 3G:
iPhone 3G -> iPhone 3GS -> iPhone 4 -> iPhone 4S
For that reason I was not expecting an iPhone 5 and was bemused by all the hype surrounding it.
Yet objectively this is a significant upgrade with a huge performance gain, the addition of a very exciting feature in Siri (I suspect it's limited to the iPhone 4S as a result of the decision to add dedicated processing hardware) and a vastly-improved camera. The iPhone 4 design is great and extremely successful, I don't understand why people are so upset that it wasn't changed.
IMHO the iPhone 4 is already fast enough. It didn't need a new system board, it just needed a bigger screen, and they needed to get rid of that Radio Shack-style square enclosure.
This release was an exercise in fixing things that weren't broken while giving the competition a break.
Assuming for a minute that I'm right and the screen size and enclosure are not market liabilities for the iPhone, then my personal opinion is that the upgrades are sufficient to maintain sales, with the performance boost, new camera (along with the improved processing hardware) and Siri all being enough to keep it competitive at the high-end.