Did Apple Make a Mistake By Releasing Two New iPhones?

Nerval's Lobster writes "As noted by CNET, Apple hasn't released data on the number of iPhone 5C units it presold in the device's first 24 hours of availability—a first for the iPhone since 2009. Why is that? Reporter Josh Lowensohn speculates that iPhone 5C sales 'may not be as impressive when stacked up against tallies from previous years,' with one outside analyst suggesting that Apple racked up 1 million iPhone 5C preorders last Friday, or roughly half the 2 million presales scored by the iPhone 5 on its first day of ordering availability last year. However well the iPhone 5C ends up performing on the open market, Apple's decision to launch two iPhones this year—rather than a single 'hero' device—could result in self-cannibalism, as users who would've bought the iPhone 5S instead gravitate toward the cheaper option. Cannibalism is a topic that Apple knows well, as it's been dealing with the iPhone cannibalizing the iPod for the past several years; but a new iPhone eating away at another new iPhone is fresh territory for the company. During earnings calls, Apple CEO Tim Cook likes to argue that cannibalization—whether iPhones feeding off the iPod, or the iPad taking the place of MacBooks—is a good thing, so long as it's Apple products eating other Apple products. But it's far more questionable whether he would welcome the iPhone 5C—almost certainly a low-margin device, despite its current-generation components and plastic body—taking a bite out of the more expensive, and presumably higher-margin iPhone 5S. Margin erosion remains a prime concern of investors and Apple watchers; anything that contributes to that erosion is bound to be viewed unfavorably."

Comments

Why a 64-bit phone is good:

[yakovlev]

Timing... for developers.

You want to get your 64-bit processor out the door so that people who make apps that might benefit from more than 4gb of memory can start to write their apps for 64-bit BEFORE you actually start shipping phones with more than 4gb of memory. This allows them time to convert to 64-bit without being rushed into it. It also gives your OS developers time to get the 64-bit OS out the door. If the 64-bit OS isn't ready when you ship the product, you release with a 32-bit OS and you just don't advertise the 64-bit feature. (Or you say "64-bit ready" or something like that and promise the next OS release will bring 64-bit to existing phones.

In short, as a consumer, you don't care... yet. You want the 64-bit in a year or two when you have 8 gigs of memory in your phone. In order to have applications for that 8-gig phone, you want Apple to release a 64-bit phone now, so that developers will be ready with 64-bit applications to put on that 8-gig phone.

The other aspect here is that most architectures tend to clean things up when they move to 64-bit, and ARM is no exception. Some of those architectural changes that come with 64-bit will be more valuable sooner, and could translate to performance boosts right now on some applications that switch to the 64-bit architecture.

Re:Why a 64-bit phone is good:

[BitZtream]

Bullshit.

I've written apps for iOS 7 ... that work on 3.0. Of course, the same can be done with Android if the developer has a clue. But thats not the point.

The point is how many Android phones EVER get an OS upgrade.

iOS 6 will run on phones sold from the 2009 refresh (3GS) onward to now.

A lot of small publishing/design houses got burned in the transition from OS9 to OSX.

Which ones would those be? The ones who couldn't figure out how to double click an icon and have OSX automatically fire up its OS9 compatibility layer? What publishing/design houses were even USING OS9? 1 ... 2? OS9 was shit, most stuck on OS8. OSX had relatively decent compatibility for an entirely redesigned OS, as pre-OSX ... Apples OS sucked ass as far as stability and multitasking. Within a couple years, every app that mattered had an OSX version that worked, during which time, minor updates were provided to the few souls who refused to move forward and join the modern world.

This is the way of things. Apple would have died had they not dumped pre-OSX variants, they were pretty damn close anyway.

Re: In summary...

[Anonymous Coward]

which if Jobs was still alive, that phone would've never made it into production in the first place

Yeah, because Apple never had a history of introducing lower-end colored models into their lineup.

iPod. iMac.