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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

#141

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…

My thoughts exactly. Push forward in to where? And I think this is great for users. In the same way that my Core 2 Duo ThinkPad running Windows 7 (with SSD) does everything I need, I don't want to have to upgrade my phone every 12 months due to planned obsolescence. I think one of the glaring areas for improvement is battery life. Won't someone give us the option of a 10+mm thick phone with a huge battery in it. Plea…

Apple has a real opportunity to modernize iOS a lot and kick Google in the nuts since they are very content sitting on their ass doing practically nothing for Android.

- Dark theme. Customization = good. Sends a good message.

- More separate volume controls. For me one volume level for notifications and phone ringer is absurd in 2016.

- LCD displays, really? The iPhone 7/Plus and the iPad Pro 9.7" are first of Apple's devices with an almost 100% correct color reproduction on the professional scales. About time for [s]AMOLED displays.

- More privacy settings and abilities to break the sandbox if the user so desires. If I want 3 apps to have access to the same vault of files, then I should be able to!

Since I sold my 6S Plus back in July I forgot the rest of my complaints but I remember them being between 10-13 in total.

    > I think one of the glaring areas for improvement is battery life.
    > Won't someone give us the option of a 10+mm thick phone with a huge battery in it. Please.
That I absolutely agree with. The obsessiveness with thin phones is something many of us hate with passion. I am a 115kg man at 184cm and pretty strong -- and a bit overweight :D -- and I honestly can't tell the difference between 140 and 200 grams in my hand. I'm sure a 300 or so grams of a phone would be perfect for many people.

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And still, for many daily users the differences are not going to be spectacular. At least not 'drop 700 Euro on it' spectacular. So I guess many people went from a 2 year to a 3-4 year upgrade cycle.

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can definitely relate to that. Using iOS at this point frustrates me so much that sometimes I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 to remember what a wonderful UI and UX that was. The bigger problem is the lack of alternatives. Android is such a mess of inconsistencies and bad UX, added to that are the problems with system updates, lack of a proper flagship device (the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my…

> I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 Does iOS still spam you multiple times per day to "upgrade" to the latest version of iOS? That sort of constant nagging has me seriously thinking of ditching Apple products entirely.

It annoys the hell out of me when apps do this, but I'm very forgiving when it comes to operating system upgrade prompts. The reason is simple: unpatched/out-of-date operating systems tend to have a lot of security exploits. This is also why I've learned to live with Windows 10's mandatory updates.

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

#145
Sluggish sales? Well, they're sold out (and with a sizable backlog) here in Portugal. A family member needed a new phone and we were put on a waiting list for "at least two weeks".

No 7, 6s or SE have been available (unless you really like rose gold) for a week or so now, at least in the couple of retailers and telcos I checked.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does iOS compare to Android these days regarding everyday concerns like sluggishness, app switching, text editing?

YMMV depending on what Android phone you want to compare it to, but it's still not 100% there, even in expensive ones. That being said, it's not longer a deal breaker, I think, for most of the people that used to complain about it and if you have a pixel or a high end Galaxy its very rare to find instances of slugginess or dropped frames when scrolling. I still face more sudden app crashes on Android than on iOS, wei…

It is very rare for a Pixel, but Galaxy phones are a very large step behind them.

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

#147
post #94
post #92

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This is not the first time reputable organisations have wrongly inferred sluggish iPhone sales numbers. In Apple's 2013 Q1, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, warned against reading too much into any rumors about order cuts gleaned from supply chain data after an incorrect story in the Wall Street Journal [1]. I've seen more of these stories that later proved wrong than that were correct. [1] http://www.imore.com/tim-cook-addres…

It's well and good to point out that analysis based on supply chain sources may draw inaccurate conclusions and definitely to demonstrate that such analysis has been wrong in the past (it certainly has, for Apple and others). I do not claim to know whether this analysis will bear out in reality or not. I'm merely pointing out that it is nonsensical to blithely dismiss it or claim it may simply be "made up" when it is…

You are being very charitable to the WSJ. The WSJ article in question said in the second paragraph [1]: Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the first quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had planned to order, the people said.

In the three first months of 2014 Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, compared to 35.1 million in the three first months of 2013 [2]. Unless you believe that they internally projected to sell anywhere near 75 million phones (more than the 47.8 million iPhones sold in the last three months of 2013, traditionally their strongest quarter by far), that rumor reported by the WSJ was flat out wrong.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873242351045782410...

[2] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/04/23Apple-Reports-Seco...

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

#148
post #93

Usually I have upgraded, but I currently have no intention of buying an iPhone 7 or later, unless they fix something! For me it's a double whammy. I don't like the lack of headphone jack, and whereas I feel like I could manage grumpily ... for me it kills the excitement of buying the new device, and I think that is important. (My standard listening headphones are Etymotic ER-4Ps; there is no way I am going to downgra…

I can definitely relate to that. Using iOS at this point frustrates me so much that sometimes I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 to remember what a wonderful UI and UX that was. The bigger problem is the lack of alternatives. Android is such a mess of inconsistencies and bad UX, added to that are the problems with system updates, lack of a proper flagship device (the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my…

Isn't Apple just as bad as google with user data?

I feel that all of them, apple, google, facebook, amazon, they all disregard our privacy.

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

#149
post #40

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No, in a few years everything will be USB-C. The ports are gone for good.

Yeah the devices are coming soon. I find it ironic that the new macbook pro works seemlessly with new google pixel devices, you can just plug in a usb-c cable between them, no dongles needed. If Apple wanted to be really bold they would have swapped lightening for usb-c so the new iphone and macbook pro could be connected with one simple cable.

Totally agree. I made a comment on the original MBP thread that Apple dropped the ball here by not releasing the iPhone 7 also as usb-c. I'll be shocked, and really wonder WTF, if the next iPhone is not usb-c.

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

#150
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we are at the end of anything, much less Apple. AI looks like the next big thing, and Apple needs to be careful not to miss it. Siri is just is not as good as what Google and Alexa are doing, and Apple appears doing nothing to satisfy the home demand. If they somehow completely miss the home AI front then I might get onboard the Apple is dying train. There is still time right now though.

They kinda shot themselves in the foot with their positioning on privacy. You can't get good at AI assistants without huge amount of training data.

The privacy thing is part of it, but Apples AI problem is deeper than that. Google and Amazon both have huge supplementary personalized datasets to pull from. Normal interactions with Apple just do not give away as much personal information, even if their privacy policy did not exist.
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