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Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#61

Post by kjsthree »

djrogers wrote: post #32
jseliger wrote: post #2

I'm not surprised sales are weak: the regular iPhone 7 seems to offer few improvements over the 6s or 6, with only the 7+'s camera being a really notable differentiator.

Better camera, better screen, faster, waterproof, more ram, Taptic Engine, nicer finish options, more durable home button, and on and on. It's a better phone in almost every measurable way.

I should start measuring the time I spend fishing around my cluttered desk looking for that stupid dongle because I'm now done with a Hangouts call on my laptop and would like to switch back to my phone to play a podcast. iPhone 7 will crush that metric! Oh wait, lower is better? Eph!

There's also that time that it was 2pm and I still hadn't had lunch. I ended a Hangouts call, yanked my headphones out of my mbp, cruised over to the elevator, and excitedly made my way to Eataly for a prime rib sandwich. Sat down with my sandy, pulled 1/8" jack toward base of phone… Eph again!

The experiences that end in me loathing Apple are building slowly and steadily.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#62

Post by microtonal »

erikb wrote: post #8

I have an iPhone 6S since its first month. Just thought, you know, test it once. But I always look jealously at my friends who run Android phones for half the price. You can just do more with Androids, it's more efficient, the keyboard is more efficient, apps can run concurrently, and to my surprise even the cameras seem to be way better. Besides the brand I really don't know what reason there is to buy iPhones. So t…

I had an Android excursion from 2013-2016 (Nexus, Moto G, two generations of Moto X), because the grass is always greener on the other side.

It is definitely true that there are great Android phones at half the price of an iPhone. It's also true that the latest Android versions are pretty good and material design is great.

However, upgrades and handling of warranty is a complete nightmare on Android. Even Motorola, which used vanilla Android, was rolling out updates at a snail's pace. And when updates came out, they were incredibly buggy (e.g. Android 5.0 for Moto X 2014 had terrible memory leaks and it took them half a year to release a fixed version). When you have an issue with your phone (e.g. my Moto X 2013 would spontaneously reboot), you are basically without a phone for 1-2 weeks. My Moto 360 had a crack, and long story short, I had a replacement after 2 months (!).

Life is too short for that nonsense. With an iPhone, you can just bring your device to an Apple store and usually have it fixed within a few hours. (E.g. my iPhone 5S recently had a screen issue, it was fixed in 2 hours, no questions asked.)

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#64

Post by kjsthree »

tajen wrote: post #42
kjsthree wrote: post #20

My Christmas wish is that sales tank to the point of triggering serious introspection. This would obviously bring back the headphone jack, and hdmi/magsafe to the mbp. ;)

Do you know any company which recovered from introspection? It feels to me like they all tank, whether it be Yahoo! or Nokia. My Christmas wish would be to have enough competition that we'd have a real choice for privacy, performance, jack/hdmi/magsafe/Fn keys, and open-source. "Be the change you seek", they say.

No, you're right. Alas, my wish is fanciful. :(

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#65

Post by auggierose »

I switched back from Android to iOS because the only decent Android phone (Pixel) is in the same price range as an iPhone. I got a jet black iPhone 7 and I love it, it just feels great in my hand. The only thing I am a little disappointed about is the notifications system, which is still sub par compared to Android (like, 2 touches instead of 1 to clear a notification, and I cannot properly configure Gmail to show only certain messages as notifications; why Apple Mail can pull Gmail only every 15 minutes is beyond me ...) So I feel iPhone 7 will be doing well enough.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#67

Post by matwood »

untog wrote: post #47
matwood wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better screen, better camera, better external speakers, added waterproofing, and faster. I'm not sure what people were expecting when they say nothing has changed.

Out of that list, the waterproofing is the only one that really stands out. The rest are minor, iterative improvements. We're used to Apple making larger leaps on even years (4,5,6) then iterative improvements in odd years (4S, 5S, 6S). But this year they broke that - the 7 feels more like an iPhone 6SS than a 7. Yes, it's better, but it's not "full price for a new phone" better.

> We're used to Apple making larger leaps

I think what people mean when they say this is they are used to Apple redesigning the outside of the phone every 2 years. I just do not see that as necessary. Unfortunately, many people care more about the superficial it looks different instead of the real improvements which it had many.

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#68

Post by erikb »

microtonal wrote: post #62
erikb wrote: post #8

I have an iPhone 6S since its first month. Just thought, you know, test it once. But I always look jealously at my friends who run Android phones for half the price. You can just do more with Androids, it's more efficient, the keyboard is more efficient, apps can run concurrently, and to my surprise even the cameras seem to be way better. Besides the brand I really don't know what reason there is to buy iPhones. So t…

I had an Android excursion from 2013-2016 (Nexus, Moto G, two generations of Moto X), because the grass is always greener on the other side. It is definitely true that there are great Android phones at half the price of an iPhone. It's also true that the latest Android versions are pretty good and material design is great. However, upgrades and handling of warranty is a complete nightmare on Android. Even Motorola, w…

Yeah, the update problem was a big one for some time. They seem to have fixed that now to a big degree though. Warranty I'm unsure, but convincing me that Apple does that better is not hard. Haven't thought about that at all, since I never had an issue before using a phone for 2+ years (whcih meant replacing it with a newer one was the better option anyways)

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#69

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

shmerl wrote: post #46
microtonal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, more in general, all the obvious improvements to the current smartphone form factor/concept have been made now: capacitive touch screen (iPhone), retina display (iPhone 4), fingerprint unlock/secure element (iPhone 5s), always listening Siri + Force Touch (iPhone 6s), plus huge improvements in CPU/GPU speed with all models. Where force touch was already quite a marginal improvement. I have an iPhone 5S and my p…

There is always room for improvement in hardware and software. And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often, so the drop in sales is not due to technology saturation, but due to more competition becoming better than Apple.

And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often

You're joking, right? If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle. Why do all these phones' screen break so easy. Why are all the batteries so terrible.

No, I disagree. Here in Australia, I know at least one carrier (Telstra) who will allow you to pay an additional amount (AU$149) 12 months in to a 24 month contract to allow you to upgrade the phone earlier.[1]

1. https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/plans-and-rates/new...

Re: Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

#70

Post by bcuzitsppl8383 »

djrogers wrote: post #32
jseliger wrote: post #2

I'm not surprised sales are weak: the regular iPhone 7 seems to offer few improvements over the 6s or 6, with only the 7+'s camera being a really notable differentiator.

Better camera, better screen, faster, waterproof, more ram, Taptic Engine, nicer finish options, more durable home button, and on and on. It's a better phone in almost every measurable way.

Not $850 better than this iPhone 6+ purchased at launch.

It's trivial for folks to turn a light on if their pictures are too dark

Unless you're making a living off iPhone photos, most people will do fine with performance and features of the SE even

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