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Apple's Risky Balancing Act With the Next iPhone (macworld.com)
Long time columnist Jason Snell: As there always are at this time of year, there are lots of rumors out there about what the next iPhone will be. This year we're hearing that Apple is going to release a high-priced, next-generation phone in addition to the expected iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus models. [...] By most accounts, Apple's next-generation iPhone will offer a similar design. But also, by many accounts, Apple is struggling to create that product -- and when it arrives, it may be expensive, late to ship, and supply constrained. This is one of those areas where Apple may be the victim of its own success. The iPhone is so popular a product that Apple can't include any technology or source any part if it can't be made more than 200 million times a year. If the supplier of a cutting-edge part Apple wants can only provide the company with 50 million per year, it simply can't be used in the iPhone. Apple sells too many, too fast. Contrast that to Apple's competition. On the smaller end, former Android chief Andy Rubin announced the Essential phone, but even Rubin admitted that he'd only be able to sell in thousands, not millions. Same for the RED Hydrogen One -- groundbreaking phone, hardly likely to sell in any volume. The Google Pixel looks like it's in the one million range. Apple's biggest competitor, Samsung, has to deal with a scale more similar to Apple's -- but it's still only expected to sell 50 or 60 million units of the flagship Galaxy S8.
Why are you talking about us PC gamers?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
If they want to make something exclusive, they have done it before and priced it accordingly. See the Apple Watches that had list prices of $10-17K. Who knows how well they actually sold, but Apple doesn't have a hard time putting a large price tag on something exclusive. I'm also intentionally omitting the diamond studded phone cases and so on sold by high end designers. Evidently there's a market for this stuff, and you have to imagine the margins on a 10K iPhone are going to be huge when it (likely) repurposes most of the guts the run of the mill models.
As is well known, Intel's toughest competition ain't AMD: it's Intel's own, previous CPUs, which w/ multiple cores, is still more than adequate for anything thrown at it. Very different from the 90s where every MHz bump resulted in a major performance improvement. Same for Microsoft: Windows 7 was good enough, and people have had to be dragged kicking & screaming to 8 & 10.
Previously, I had an iPhone 5s and an iPad mini, both w/ 16GB storage. I just upgraded both over the last few months to iPhone 7 and iPad mini 4, both w/ 128GB of storage primarily b'cos I had hit the limit on those. But I don't anticipate getting even close to 128GB on these 2 new toys. While iPhone 7 gave me Apple Pay, which 5s didn't have, there is nothing missing in the iPhone 7 that I'll want in iPhone 8. If anything, the loss of the home button will be a bummer: I like the fingerprint detection way of logging in, buying things and authentication. Essentially, what stops me from buying future Apple toys is that these new ones of mine are good enough for the foreseeable future. I do see myself buying a Macbook sometime just to avoid getting into an annual Windows subscription.
I think you need to get some medical help and probably go on an Apple starvation diet. :) :) :)
It will be the only way to get your sanity back and become a useful member of the human race.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
If Apple is releasing both a 7S model in incremental fashion and a higher-end model, how does scarcity of parts become a problem for Apple?
They can probably already jack up the price of the 7S and get away with it, and presumably the 8 (or whatever it will be called) can be priced wherever their economists/MBAs/wonks think it needs to be priced to limit demand to what their suppliers can provide.
IMHO, their larger challenge is create an "8" that has enough appeal to attract enough buyers at this price point without creating "Apple iPhone 8 FAIL" headlines through weak demand. Haven't upgrade purchases already slowed, as even 2-3 revision behind models are still good performers? It's hard to see too many people thinking they need a $1500 phone when the $900 one is already a marginal upgrade.
I went from Android to IOS last year when my then 18 month old phone wasn't going to get any more updates - even monthly security fixes. (It was a samsung $200 off contract phone that was good enough to meet my needs) I went with an iPhone when i recognized that they are still updating 4 and 5 year old handsets.
I and millions like me don't need the fastest CPU or the most megapixels, we need good, secure and reliable phones that will be patched for security for its useful life cycle. iPhone does that better than any Android device including Nexus/Pixel.
Apple is doomed.
Android Rules Ok!
Use the latest internal parts.*
Revert to including headphone jack.
Go crazy on edge-to-edge screen.
Make an "SE" version.
For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.
Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.
Apple's success will depend on how much of this fantasy they can bring to reality. I've used both iOS and Android for some time now; they each have their foibles. The above phone would get me to buy an iPhone in spite of Apple's OS path diverging from my personal preference (i.e. Trust everything in our cloud! No 3rd party cloud allowed!)
*I don't personally care about touch ID sensor.
The fundamental problem Apple has is that Samsung has the key display technology that Apple needs to do much more innovation with its hardware. LCD panels are a dead end for mobile devices, if thinness and efficiency is the goal. Apple needs to get away from LCD, but to do so right now requires becoming dependent on Samsung again.
This is why we had the whole Tim Cook spin about OLED having terrible colors a few years back. Apple needed to down play the tech that it didn't have. In the end though, it looks like Apple is going to throw the kitchen sink at getting micro LED going, which looks like a technology that could easily surpass OLED in a lot of areas. If they can pull that off before their entire product line becomes dependent on Samsung AMOLED, then they'll be good to go for another 5 years.
In the end though we must keep in mind that all OLED or AMOLED is going to ultimately allow is thinner devices. You could imagine that the next big step will be semi-flexible displays so that we can avoid another bend-gate situations as devices get even thinner. It's cool to see how far the tech is going, but since almost everyone I see puts their thin new iPhone into a big bumper case, it does all feel pretty pointless.
I am going to see what my buddies at the Apple Friend Bar think before I make a decision.
Apple has used up almost al the Steve Jobs karma it had. They are being more and more just another Dell,IBM,Sony, etc.
The Vision is gone. Look for the product lines to dry up and turn into just another dreary corporate marketing exercise.
Chicklet Keyboard mentality.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Haven't seen any in the last five to ten years though.
Very few exciting things happen in tech at the moment. The only somewhat groundbreaking change is the move to all electric, which has less to do with technology than with social norms and expectations.
My next gaming monitor might be 4k and have freesync so that might be a little exciting. It's also probably another year off before I get one.
My next tv will probably be a 4k HDR OLED. Which might actually be exciting, if not for the fact that the tv is mostly used for My Little Pony, Nick's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Last Airbender.
So.... meh?
I fear we've reached peak-iPhone. Just like Windows 10's biggest competition was Windows 7 and XP, iPhone 8's biggest competition is the phone people have now.
If I know that the new phone will have a bigger price tag, a more cluttered interface (dare I say very un-apple-like), and in some cases missing basic features I know and love (headphone jack, anyone?) - that makes for a hard sell.
The features that are getting touted leave me going... meh.
- Denser pixels? Dude, I'm scaling up the text size so I can read even with my glasses.
- Faster processor? Can't say I'm doing anything that needs more.
- Better camera? That's nice- but I have no complaints about the current one. My dedicated camera hasn't seen daylight in years as it is.
- Thinner? Couldn't care less. I never complained about the original iPhone's thickness. I'd rather have a double-thick battery, but ain't holding my breath.
In short, I'm having trouble seeing that's so awesome about the next phone. Or what even could be awesome. Something's going to have to come out of left field, and I just don't see a post-Jobs Apple pulling that off.
Apple is getting too overpriced. It always was too expensive for what you get, but now it is just ridiculous.
Frankly I'm saving my money for one of those new sex robots. If Apple wanted to be ahead of the curve, they would offer an Apple sex robot. I'm serious. They would be so far ahead of anybody else. Why would anyone buy a no name sex robot when you could have an Apple engineered one?
Of course you could have the basic model which is white, or you could pay more for a colored one.
Again, I'm not joking. Apple will be selling sex robots within two years, tops.
Enters the iPhone 8, 90% the same as the iPhone 7?
"Apple is killing innovation and resting on their laurels! Shame on them! This is why we can't have nice things."
iPhone 8 has a new design such as a screen that turns into a mirror, Smell-o-vision, etc.?
"They don't know what to invent anymore, again new pointless features to get people to make needless new purchases! These evil fucks want people to throw away perfectly working phones and buy endless toxic crap. Do they think we have the attention span of a 15-year-old teenage girl?"
Apple is sitting on over $250 billion USD in cash:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02...
I'm sure Apple can spend whatever it takes to make as many iphones as they choose.
Well, the "Music" app is horrible now, which is what i think the OP might have been meaning
It was bad at first, it's been fine for a while now... I'm pretty sure he was complaining about the desktop app.
Try to play and album and switch from non-shuffle to shuffle. I'll wait while you try that.
I either hit Shuffle All at the top of the track list, or hit a song and it plays sequentially from there... yes it was tricky before but like I said they fixed most of the usability issues in the past year or so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's fine if Apple cannot sell 200 million eyePhones. In fact, not only is it fine, it's great. It looks like monopoly is hitting physical limits. More brands should make more diverse phones built across the world. Not everybody has to have the same shiny toy ffs.
The entire OP reeks of First World Problems.
"OMG, we have production scaling issues! What will we do with all the money pouring into our company and making every investor rich? Where will we put all the mega-thousands of people we employ? We don't have the brand or corporate reputation to get what we want from suppliers, or to simply build it ourselves! It's almost like, in order to make some money around here, we have to do some work!!"
They're faced with the contradictory desires of consumers both to make things bigger - Boomers, Gamers, and Twinks - and to make them low power and smaller - Zero Gens, Music Lovers, and Fashionistas.
Thing is, the tech exists to do both. We can power cell phones from incidental power from local wireless now, and have foldable bendable waterproof bioelectric screens we grow.
The question is, which side will win.
I figure they'll do both. You can get a Star Trek communicator "wallet" phone that unfolds, or a comm badge phone that beeps. They'll probably act as if you have to buy both, but you don't.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Any minute now!
It's the world's most valuable company; what more proof do you need that it has nowhere to go but down?
Washed up! Has-been! Can't-hack-it! (...At being the world's most valuable company -- some loss.)
The new phone came with a 2-inch adapter, and I plugged it into the end of my headphone cord, and since then the loss of a headphone jack hasn't affected me at all.
Except for that one time when I wanted to use headphones and charge at the same time, and that's when I discovered that I can get a little bluetooth widget that supports AptX, with a microphone built in, and now I plug the same ol' pair of headphone into that, and I don't even need to be carrying the phone any more when I'm home. I just plant it on the stand, and the bluetooth range of about 25 feet in all directions is good enough to cover the whole house. It cost less than 20 bucks.
In the end, it wasn't like Apple removed the headphone jack, it was like Apple removed the whole damn phone. Now it's just my headphones and a 3-ounce widget I carry around. The music sounds just as good and the calls are just as clear.
Just as the worlds most valuable company before it, one day apple wont be where it is forever. The apple worshippers ignorance is mostly what keeps this terrible company running.
Headphone jacks are so quaint. I suppose you still have manual windows in your car. Or are you more of a horse and buggy man?
Excepting that most state of the art headphones have that 3.5mm jack. Similarly, if one wants to connect the iPhone 7 to an otherwise perfectly good non-Bluetooth speaker (another quaint relic, I suppose), one would have to use the dongle along w/ the aux connector. If headphone jacks are so quaint, why did Apple leave it alone on the iPad Mini 4, as well as all their iPods? In fact, on the iPod nano, it's next to impossible to connect that to anything via bluetooth: I connect it in my car via USB to the iPod player in the navigation system
Apple needs to figure out its overall strategy, instead of forcing people to use lightning connectors on one thing and headphone jacks on others.
Water damage where? In the rain? Dropping it in a drink? Same thing can be said for any of Apple's other toys - the iPads, the iPods, yet none of those have gone jackless as yet. In fact, for the iPod nano 7th gen, if one has one of those Beat or bluetooth headphones or speakers, can't use those things!
In this situation we observe a know effect that appears to be a paradox, but really isn't:
That strong brands - such as Apple - actually have an equalising effect on society. You can get a supsidised and/or used iPhone even as a poor guy, but even the richest guy can't get a better one than the current model. It's the same reasone Vertu went broke these days and Apple discontinued their hyper-expensive golden Apple watches a while back.
I presume making a super-expensive iPhone would have the same effect and that they wouldn't keep it around for long. Damage to the brand would be stronger than the profit generated. In making a scarce iPhone, Apple would actually damage the exclusivity of the Apple/iPhone brand. Sort of like some special Coke that costs 1500$ a bottle, like some exclusive Champagne or something. Being exclusive by scarcity would actually damage the equity of the Apple brand and I suspect Apple knows this.
I really think at this stage Apple should settle for the fact that they really just about have covered the global high-margin market on smartphones and should moving into optimising their toolchain and resource usage even further. As a such obscenely rich company they could actually use their power to do some good, like improving the negative impacts of rare earth mining or something. That would be something to brag about as a company.
My 2 Eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The things you've mentioned are valid complaints, but you've ignored the solutions Apple have already long implemented.
1. Raise-to-wake + Touch ID. I hardly ever press the home-button to unlock my phone now. It's just for quitting apps.
2. I have an SE, which has a mechanical home-button. The 7 no longer has a home-button to break.
3. Phones without RTW can still be unlocked with a single button-press, either power or home, with Touch ID enabled.
4. Compare the length of time Apple supports a major version of iOS to one of its competitors to put some context to your development woes.
5. Notice how many companies have the balls to deprecate APIs and hardware like Apple does. It may not always be the right thing to do, but at least they try.
Yes, Apple keeps updating UI. Wabi-sabi, my good fellow. Wabi-sabi. Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect. But at least the changes are, for the most part, incremental. Compare the evolution of Windows to OS X, or iOS through the years.
Granted, people hate change. It fucks up our spatial training. But it staves-off alzheimer's a little longer, eh?
These fully electrical controls are a disaster. Recently, my car wouldn't start due to a battery issue, so I had to call roadside assistance. He had trouble jumpstarting it too, so he towed it to the nearest repair shop where they did have a charger capable of jumpstarting it. While my car was down, I could not remove my key from the ignition - after all, the battery was low! I couldn't open or lock the car doors using the remote, b'cos those were powered by the battery as well! The 2017 version of the car - a Subaru Crosstrek - is now totally keyless.
One thing that tow guy told me, while we were towing my car, was his torrid experience in fixing someone's Prius just the previous day: since the hood can't be popped mechanically (in my car, thankfully, it still can), it was a major headache for him to draw the connectors to the battery of that Prius. That's the thing w/ these all electronic cars: once the battery is down, they are hosed. He also told me that he & others in his profession refuse to handle Teslas, and that Tesla provides their own roadside service due to this issue. Nothing more glorious than having a single point of failure that makes it impossible to fix what's wrong w/ a car.
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