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iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

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Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#41

Post by seiji »

Tichy wrote: post #20
seiji wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect scrolling, your applications can't spy on you, iTunes integration, and you don't constantly need to play whack-an-app to preserve battery life.

How do they manage the "applications can't spy on you" part? (Not counting the WhatsApp debacle). Also: iTunes???

Millions of people have a significant investment in iTunes media. They don't understand DRM-vs-not. They don't understand sideloading or frontloading or rearloading. They just want to plug-n-go.

Pick some well off high school nearby and ask kids how often they buy something on iTunes. You'll cry when a large portion of them say multiple times per week. You'll go catatonic when they mention regularly spending over $100 per month.

We are not the target demo for these devices--normal people are.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#42

Post by jusben1369 »

kumarm wrote: post #28
jusben1369 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very first paragraph of your linked article reads: "Pre-order response to the iPhone 5 has been massive, outstripping expectations of analysts, who were bullish on Apple's latest smartphone to begin with, and apparently of Apple itself." How do I reconcile that with your comment here?

The article is from 19th (Before iPhone was released) where analysts expecting sales to be 10Million during weekend and 6 Million worst case scenario.

Ok. I think what has happened is a) Analysts had lower numbers. b) Analysts blown away by initial numbers which leads to this opening paragraph, c) Analysts raise numbers substantially to 6 - 10 million range as a result and per your highlight d) You assume these last minute updated numbers are expectations that have been set for a while and thus only inline with expectations.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#43

Post by josephlord »

loceng wrote: post #24
josephlord wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales were limited by supply at least in many places although some carriers at least had some stock in particular models. The only real way to judge the sales success is when supply matches demand

Pretty sure Apple controls this to manage the numbers, and have an out if sales don't skyrocket as is/was believed to.

Doesn't matter, you still can't tell the true demand until there is general availability whatever the cause is.

I don't think that they artificially limit supply initially but they almost certainly do launch before they have enough to fully meet demand. If you thought there was demand for 10,000,000 phones would you really wait until you could stockpile $5Billion worth of inventory before you pressed the launch button?

And it isn't worth having enough manufacturing capacity to fully support the initial rush when you know it will be underutilised for the rest of the year. I would target sufficient capacity to support expected demand to be satisfied through peak season (probably Christmas-Chinese New Year) based on production start date. It would be good to be able to expand between now and Christmas if demand is higher than anticipated. I would not produce enough for the initial launch for practical reasons but the free marketing would definitely be a bonus.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#44

Post by lwhi »

alayne wrote: post #27
lwhi wrote: post #2

No mention of Apple maps? Hmm ...

Here's one of your recent comments: "I really hope something awful happens to Apple over the next few years. They deserve it" It's hard for me to think you are interested in any sort of adult conversation here.

I'm constantly amazed by the lengths people will go to defend Apple. It's astounding.

Regardless of what I feel about the company, my point stands.

EDIT: To the downvoters - thanks for emphasising my point.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#45

Post by seiji »

untog wrote: post #29
calinet6 wrote: post #9

Turns out people just wanted a more refined iPhone with 4G. Who would have thought? Seriously though, I remember naysayers about the iPod back when it was first released, bemoaning the interface, design, and pointing out dozens of other mp3 players with longer feature lists at better prices. Yet the iPod still won out because it offered a consistent and predictable user experience, from the purchase to the day-to-day…

I agree that the criticism of the iPhone 5 was overblown, but I don't think these figures are a tremendous validation of the iPhone 5, either. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people are on two year cellphone plans, and it's been two years since the iPhone 4 came out. They took the upgrade in front of them. The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the stron…

If five million devices sold in three days isn't impressive, what kinds of numbers are you used to looking at?

A calculated decision to "stay on iOS" or "switch to android" is about the 6219th most important thing in most people's lives.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#46

Post by hahainternet »

drharris wrote: post #31
lwhi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, it seems quite ridiculous to gloss over such a major failing, with so much optimistic hyperbole. Why isn't there a press release apologising to the people who've updated 'more than 100 million devices' to iOS 6? EDIT: It is a major failing.. To understand why, I suggest you search Google, and see just how vocal that '1%' (!) is. Remember, a lot of people don't live in the USA - and many of those who do…

If it were truly a major failing, you'd see a press release. I haven't seen a single problem with it over the southeastern US. I'd expect the only people who know it's broken are those who have an issue nearby their house, or geeks who read articles about people who do. The 99%? Oblivious and happy.

It made front page BBC news for a full day. It has major problems in such unpopulated places as New York, London, Tokyo

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#47

Post by bornhuetter »

josephlord wrote: post #25
choko wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think iTunes was probably the bigger motivator for customers purchasing iPods. Before iTunes, there weren't a lot of places to legally purchase digital music, and ripping CDs was kind of cumbersome.

I don't think you remember that time period very well. The iTunes store wasn't launched until over a year AFTER the iPod! The original iPod, chunky by today's standards was by far the smallest and easiest to use mp3 player that could carry more than a few hundred MB of data. At the time there wasn't any Windows support but I think 3rd party software became available if you had Firewire on your PC. From Wikipedia: iPo…

They didn't sell many iPods before iTunes came out. I think it's true that what drove the large numbers of iPod sales was probably iTunes, and the ability to legally download mp3s.

See iPod sales chart:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Ipod_sale...

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#49

Post by gtufano »

untog wrote: post #29
calinet6 wrote: post #9

Turns out people just wanted a more refined iPhone with 4G. Who would have thought? Seriously though, I remember naysayers about the iPod back when it was first released, bemoaning the interface, design, and pointing out dozens of other mp3 players with longer feature lists at better prices. Yet the iPod still won out because it offered a consistent and predictable user experience, from the purchase to the day-to-day…

I agree that the criticism of the iPhone 5 was overblown, but I don't think these figures are a tremendous validation of the iPhone 5, either. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people are on two year cellphone plans, and it's been two years since the iPhone 4 came out. They took the upgrade in front of them. The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the stron…

Just remember that not anyone buying is in USA and people in EU don't usually buy phones subsidized on a 2 years plan (that amounts to ~30% of sales, probably). I think, also, that iPhone 4 sold less than 5 million pieces in the first week. (disclaimer: I don't really understand of "upgrade eligibility" works for US carriers so I could be mistaken here).

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#50

Post by Dirlewanger »

OhArgh wrote: post #35
flyinRyan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's advertising on their site. Of course it doesn't need to be "qualified" just because some evangelistic wished every site talked up their favorite products instead.

I just thought it was an interesting claim. And I think it does need to be qualified at least to some extent. http://www.bbb.org/us/bbb-code-of-advertising/#Do

You do realize the BBB has no power whatsoever and therefore their guidelines ultimately mean nothing?
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