Apple To Cut iPhone Production By 10%: Nikkei (nikkei.com)

A new report from Nikkei Asian Review says that Apple will cut iPhone production by around 10% in the first quarter of 2017. From the report: This comes after the company slashed output in January-March 2016 due to accumulated inventory of the iPhone 6s line at the end of 2015. That experience led Apple to curb production of the iPhone 7, introduced in September, by around 20%. But the phones still have sold more sluggishly than expected. Information on production of the latest models and global sales suggests cuts in both the 7 and 7 Plus lines in the coming quarter. The larger iPhone 7 Plus, which features two cameras on its back face, remains popular. But a shortage of camera sensors has curbed Apple's ability to meet demand for the phones. U.S. research company IDC forecasts global smartphone shipments in 2016 on par with the 2015 level. Even Apple has had difficulty creating appealing new features, stifling demand from customers who otherwise would look to upgrade to the latest device.

Comments

Re:Who could have guessed...

[TheFakeTimCook]

Who could have guessed: removing features from a product does not make it more appealing! Shocking, I know.

Apparently, neither does adding or improving features (7 Plus compared with the 6s Plus) :

MUCH improved CPU (Quad Core, vs. Dual Core for 6s Plus), and MUCH faster, too (40% faster than the 6s Plus). Fastest CPU in the mobile industry

MUCH improved GPU (50% faster than the 6s Plus). Fastest GPU in the mobile industry

More RAM (3 GB, as opposed to the 2 GB on the 6s Plus)

Faster Cellular MODEM (depending on model) (4G Speeds up to 450 Mbps vs. 300 Mbps for the 6s Plus)

MUCH improved water-resistance. Now IP67 rated (and easily beats that spec in real-world tests).

Home-button no longer mechanical. (Annoying breaking-point before)

MUCH improved and DUAL cameras, with better low-light sensitivity, ability to do pseudo depth-mapping, and 2 x optical zoom and 10 digital zoom. 4k rear, 1080p front video recording, vs. 6s Plus 720p recording on front camera. Better flash, too.

MUCH improved Bluetooth from the industry-leading Apple W1 chip (backwards-compatible w/std. BT also)

Stereo Speakers

Extended Battery Life (over 1 hour more vs. the 6s Plus).

Twice the maximum storage (up to 256 GB vs. the 6s Plus 128 GB max). 25% Brighter Display (over the 6s Plus), with wide (P3) color gamut

...and that's just from one model-year to the next!

And yet, all people want to do is bitch about a damn headphone jack...

Yeah, nothing new to see here, move along.

Re:Steve Jobs

[Dogtanian]

Apple has completely stagnated under Tim Cook. What have we got since Steve? Bluetooth headphones and touch bar.

Apple Pay, Watch, TV, several versions of Macs, several versions of iPhones and iPads, better displays, faster SSDs, free upgrades of iOS and OSX/macOS

Apple Pay - Well, let's give that a chance, but it hasn't revolutionised the world yet.

Apple Watch - Whatever its performance in absolute financial terms- or even relative to the pre-existing wearables market- by the standards and expectations Apple clearly had at its launch, this has been an obvious flop so far. I know it has a significant percentage of the smartwatch market, but a significant percentage of bugger all is still bugger all. No-one cares.

Apple TV - Seriously? That's been around in various forms for approaching a decade now (since before Jobs' death) and it's never set the world on fire.

"Several versions of Macs" - Er... so what?! That's what computer companies are *expected* to do! (Shades of Chris Rock's infamous routine here). It'd have been pretty damning if they *hadn't* released any new Macs since 2011! Says nothing about whether the changes are good, revolutionary, inspiring or not. And the latest MacBook Pro- released a considerable time after the last major revision- has had a lot of criticism for its "Air-ified", non-upgradeable, non-replaceable battery design. In fact, I get the impression there are a lot of professional Mac users for whom this is the last straw.

"Several versions of iPhones and iPads" - Utterly ditto. Apple's modus operandi is releasing new versions and deprecating old ones- the question is whether they've continued to be revolutionary when they do this.

"Better displays" - The retina displays are nice, I'll admit, and AFAIK were involved in developing those, so I'll credit them that far. Not revolutionary, though.

"Faster SSDs" - I'd expect that from *any* computer manufacturer using third-party SSD technology. So what? If there's a revolution there, it's not Apple's making.

"Free upgrades of iOS and OSX/macOS" - Nothing wrong with that, but it's hardly revolutionary in itself, is it?

Honestly, I think you've made the original poster's case for them. There's nothing there that's taken off in a truly revolutionary manner.