Apple iPhone sales dip despite AI rollout | Hacker News Reader

Apple iPhone sales dip despite AI rollout

bbc.co.uk

27 pointscolinprince66 comments

Apple has a reserved billboard right across the street from my apartment. Every time it changes I notice, Privacy ad, Sexy product photos, Shot on IPhone ads. Guess what it is now? AI Emoji, a hot dog holding a briefcase. I’m not surprised people aren’t impressed.

Mine is a snail riding in a car. It's a baffling ad campaign; am I expected to google "Genmoji", or want to buy an iPhone because I can combine emojis? I could combine images on KidPix in 1989...

lol, KidPix. Havent heard that one in a long time -

What do you mean, 'despite'? I don't want it. And it seems impossible to get away from theses 'assistants'. I'm all the time reminded that I have somebody snooping on everything I do and say on my phone because it seems to me that Siri is impossible to get rid of. I know we are talking about 'Apple Intelligence' but I am sure the same shit applies.

What happened to putting the user in control? At least in the OLD walled garden I got toggle the switches (mostly) myself.

> And it seems impossible to get away from theses 'assistants'

Assistants or assailants? Between my Apple stuff at work trying to get me to enable Apple AI, and both Samsung and Google trying to get me to enable their version of this crap on my personal phone, I'm feeling pretty harassed.

Google enabled Gemini in Gmail at work. It’s annoying, time wasting, and useless. I hid the icon with uBlock Origin but they still push it through other means.

In 50 years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more stupid rollout than AI across the whole industry. No wonder I hate it.

user hasnt been in control for years. and virtually never on apple products

I feel like they would make a killing if they made a pro version that would be able to dock into a simplified desktop. I’ve been wanting this for years. They love taking a semi cooked idea and polishing it and this could make Samsung dex look like a child’s tool. I think a lot of this community would be interested in something like that. I like what they did with CarPlay, now they just need office play.

You, me and the general market are completely different. Apple’s problem is their decreasing sales in China, which has been one of the biggest contributors to their revenue and profits. China has been successfully reinventing its image among locals, and “western products” are less prestigious nowadays. I mean, they still are, but people are more willing to spend an equivalent price for Chinese products.

Because some are actually superior. Especially folding phones out of China are well ahead.

I've wanted the same for a long time. The ability to dock my phone and let it drive a display and desktop. Not because I think it would be better at it, but because it already has my stuff.

Google Pixels are heading in this direction, with Pixel 8 supporting USB-c DisplayPort Alt Mode and Android working on Debian Linux VMs.

Hopefully Pixel Tablet 3 will challenge Apple iPad Pro with Linux VMs, https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-tablet-3-power....

You can connect an iPhone to a USB-C monitor and a bluetooth keyboard already. It just kind of sucks.

> You can connect an iPhone to a USB-C monitor and a bluetooth keyboard already. It just kind of sucks.

Because Apple refuses to allow it to be a computer. They don’t want the iPhone consuming their MacBook sales. If Apple really cared about the environment, they’d replace the iPad mini, the iPhone, and the MacBook Air with a foldable, dockable iPhone that gave access to the underlying system just like a laptop.

this is part of a very obvious change they could make to separate the device from the monitor/view capabilities, and have it connect to other apple products and communicate. The reality is that its not an easy thing to do and they would have to create something very new to be able to do it. Don't hold your breath. They actually decreased OS capabilities of the device when they went to mobile intentionally and they have no incentive to increase capabilities.

Apple has come a long way from people waiting outside the stores for products of the future to charging $200 more every release for an extra 2 mega pixel on the camera. They are over due for some disruption. Hopefully, someone sees the opportunity.

> not an easy thing .. create something very new

Some building blocks exist:

  - earlier iPadOS shipped with a hypervisor
  - M3 supports nested virtualization
  - Apple recently allowed UTM to (slowly) run Win/Linux VMs on iOS
  - VM streaming protocols are widely used on Windows and Linux

Google Pixel, Qualcomm Oryon or Nvidia Arm PCs with mainline Linux support would bring needed competition.

I’ve wanted this with an iPad for years. A proper mouse, higher resolution and a few UI tweaks and it replaces a laptop for most people.

I assume it’s just to stop it cannibalising other product sales.

Why would you want to do this with an iPad? That's just a laptop without the accessories. A phone fits in your pocket and you have it with you anyway.

Because an ipad pro is viable as a monitor. With a phone you would need an external monitor.

I know but why an iPad and not a laptop? A phone has it's drawbacks yes, but is a very big tradeoff of always being with you, and being tiny. What does an iPad offer over just a laptop?

An iPad is more portable and lighter and cheaper than a MacBook. On some days I would like to use a tablet for much of my day (between meetings, checking emails) and switch to a laptop like experience for an hour or so.

Samsung had this for years and people are generally uninterested. I love the thought to have the _possibility_ of plugging the phone in a USB-C dock and everything works, but honestly, I have done this... like, zero+1 times. For those times I'd need my proper desktop OS, and mobile apps / file handling etc. are just inferior.

Well unlike Samsung, Apple has a great user friendly “proper” desktop environment they could teach their mobile devices to run. Plug iPhone into a USB-C monitor and get a full macOS computer and I’d have no complaints.

Now, they never will because it just doesn’t seem like their style to give users more capabilities on iOS/iPadOS devices. Even if they put the macOS stuff in a container or VM so there’s a strong security boundary.

I think Apple might be worried it would cannibalise some of their other products like the iPad.

I've liked the idea since the Dex as well, but I feel like there is a product segmentation reason that makes them hesitant.

I basically couldn’t disagree more. This feature would be useful to you and me but to the other 95% of their customers it’s just more feature bloat they’ll never use.

> they would make a killing > dock into a simplified desktop > could make Samsung dex look like a child's toy

is this a pure blind fanboy comment? because even my years old second hand Samsung phone streaming to a TV (without dex) with Termux without root is more capable than your shitty & shinning iPad, let alone a 137 megapixel iPhone Max Pro that barely can sideload an app

edit: fuck the Android too, i just use this shit because society obligates me to (Whatsapp, non-tech friends on Instagam etc.)

Let's be honest, there isn't much of a difference between an iPhone 13 and 16. Why buy? I almost exclusively buy second hand these days.

Since the 13 they’ve all been so incremental. I’m left wondering what’s changed most times.

This is the first cycle I’m not upgrading. I pay for my wife and kid phones and as we all have 15s that feel brand new, I’m looking forward to a few years of “sim only” bills.

I went from an 11 Pro to a 15 Pro and definitely appreciated the difference, but upgrading every year or two doesn’t seem necessary at all

I buy new, with Apple Care. I'm still waiting on a reason to move from my 13 Pro Max.

Apple Intelligence looks very meh.

The notification summaries are good comic relief (only reason I haven’t turned it off), besides that it’s just gimmicks like image generation that never follows my prompt. Very meh.

My first and only iPhone is 11 which is going very strong, 6th year running. It works as good as new, the physical device has taken its fair share of abuse but is nearly as good as new.

Every year I’ve been vaguely following iPhone launches which over index on camera capabilities and recently intelligence. And yet not once have I felt that I’m missing out on anything because honestly for my use what I have is perfect and will probably be like this for 5 more years.

I wonder what % of iPhone users are like this. Happy with their 11/12/13/etc and see no reason to upgrade. I suppose the dip in sales is inevitable give this so maybe Apple needs a new entry level model to go after newer segments.

I used almost all the recent iPhones except 14. 11 is heavy and no MagSafe thus its a hard pass, the camera is also super old; 12 is lighter but poor battery life, camera improved a lot; 13 has better battery life but weird camera optimizations despite they tried to improve the low light performance; 15 Pro is good except the low light spatial video capture is noisy; happy with 16 Pro now.

The 16 Pro has a fantastic hand feel with the titanium body, the stainless steel from previous models and combined with their sharp edges feel barbaric by comparison.

The bigger issue is that the market is saturated with the only real growth opportunities in either taking Android market share or trying to get into developing countries where people are more price conscious.

Even as a mobile app developer, I have no need to upgrade hardware until my phone can no longer support the latest version of IOS. Sure the camera may get marginally better and you may miss out on 5g etc for a few years, but do I really need most of that? No.

Google claims there are 1.4 billion iPhone users. If they replace once every 5 years that’s 280 million phones sold a year without growing the market at all. Apple doesn’t really need to grow iPhone base to make their sales numbers at this point. Keeping the App Store 30% cut is their most important job now.

Apple is very keen, especially on iOS, for the user to be safe. There's not a lot of freedom in the iOS world. And that totally works for most people most of the time.

A truly useful AI (which I have no doubt they are capable of building) is also a dangerous AI. It might do weird shit. So instead it's stuck doing safe-but-trivial things.

AI on the iphone has been absolutely useless.

I was hoping they would integrate AI with Siri, which is mostly useless, but I don't think they did because Siri remains mostly useless.

I don't understand what their strategy is with AI.

for some, s/despite/due to the/ perhaps

That even the wealthiest corporations in the world are too cowardly to take a stance against ruining their products with this inane, tasteless, broken-by-design genai garbage is a sobering lesson on how much "consumer choice" is an illusion.

Choosing not to buy is still a choice and it seems like it's not so illusory as to escape notice by reporters and (by extension) the companies themselves.

I finally replaced my iPhone 14 with a Xiaomi Fold 4 - the ability to turn it in to a small tablet has been far more useful than I anticipated, I also appreciate easy side-loading of apps and multiple stores.

There are some cons, especially with using a phone aimed at the Chinese domestic market (not all features and UI are in English)

But so far it feels like a far more innovative and 'free' ecosystem - iOS/iPhone was starting to feel really stale to me.

Still waiting for one worthy of replacing my 12 mini.

Same with my 13 mini. Small size + lightweight is a killer feature. I want the 5x camera zoom of the iPhone 16 Pro, but it's not worth the tradeoff. And none of the other new features matter to me.

I bought an aftermarket case + swappable lens kit for mine and it’s pretty good for my purposes. The brand is Moment.

Yes, I am now on my third 12/13 mini (after breaking or drowning the previous two). Refurbed iPhones are a third of the price for >80% of the goodness.

Hear, hear

They could reignited sales if all iphones as base had 16GB Ram and 256GB storage. Also easy system wide integration with open source models - something like ollama +but also for TTS and STT. If they cannot make decent on the edge models and they make big release once a year they should allow easily bring open source models like ollama that have tight system integration for UI

Also their appleTV has a lot of potential but is wasted opportunity for them. Wish apple tv could replace router, backup server, wireless charging, smart speaker, vpn, private home cloud, private local ai models hosting - basically acting as home server similar like umbrelOS [0]

[0] https://umbrel.com

Apple Intelligence is terrible and there's barely any reason to upgrade any more.

Services saved the day. Apple needs to restart Siri from scratch.

They are

Perhaps AI features make an object less desirable to the kind of person who purchases an iPhone?

That AI rollout - only in the US

Apple's three biggest markets - the US, China and Europe, we're 6 months into iPhone 16 and they've barely covered the US. No wonder they're down 11% in China.

All this time could've been spent on actually useful features.

I havent personally tested it, but I also havent allowed it on my phone.

I figure either its time to drop the smartphone concept, as I barely use it for more than calls, or try to wait it out for them to realize I/we didnt want or ask for it.

If they can’t innovate the technology they should innovate the design. I’m ready for a new style from Apple, something that looks different.

If you used it you should know how last minute crappy it is.

Whoever is running Apple now has really dropped the ball.

Maybe the ghost of Jobs had found pease and left.

They being said I think tech in general is failing. We see it at Google and other big companies.

My assessment is those who can code are finally outnumbered and out ranked by those who can’t code but want to get paid like people who can actually change the world. Business folks are winning and they will squeeze wifey last cent out before it is worthless.

No. I am not talking about entrepreneurs. I am talking about passionless MBAs who want to remove the art from making amazing products.

I keep getting updates but Siri is dumb as ever. Are the changes only on iPhone 16 and above?

Similarly it amazes me Amazon Echo and Google Home's voice assistants are still so bad. Why haven't they plopped an LLM on top of these devices yet?!

They were all operating at a massive loss before LLMs offered an even more expensive and less reliable alternative.

15 pro/pro max and above.

Astonishing.

Because* ftfy No one asked for it, we are all broke, and the truth is pissing in our faces. The truth being that we must never trust that built by the wealthy at the cost of the rest.

Thank you for the breath of fresh air. The fact so many people are still burning their hard earned money for a overpriced status symbol is insanity.

“Apple Intelligence” shit re-enables itself after every update too.

Apple Intelligence is a nothingburger so far. We'll see if that changes with app intents, or if Siri ever actually gets better (it still mis-hears me on a regular basis!), but I'm getting pessimistic

"despite" "AI"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com