“Anemic” iPhone 8 Demand Drags Apple Shares Lower

nutzo said:
The iPhone is no longer a status symbol now that everyone else has one.
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It's still a status symbol. The iphone X will be that status symbol, and X owners will be snobby around non-X iphone owners.
Kim Kardashian for sure will get one.


Everyone is prematurely shitting on the Face ID; no one has any firsthand experience with it.
Demos are pretty fast....

I remember when touch ID came out years ago, people shit on that too.... until they used it.
 
hitched said:
Wow I dont keep up with the iPhone craze but I can't believe they got rid of the fingerprint scanner that is such a horrible move...

As for the headphone jack that is one thing I'm glad there starting a trend on! Everything I use is Bluetooth and I would trade the headphone jack in my note 8 for a second speaker in an instant
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At my workplace, it's forbidden to bring in any bluetooth enabled device for security reasons. So no headphone jack = no sale.

Besides, bluetooth headphones tend to stink, and no one bothers to but a quality DAC in the headset itself (too expensive).
 
JUst you all wait.
iPhone 8 sales will decline...then the X will launch and the Apple fans will buy it in droves
 
Ocellaris said:
Huh, turns out releasing a lineup of phones that look exactly the same every year is a bad idea.
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So do MacBooks, iMacs and pretty much everything that Apple makes yet they call it think different. I never seizes to amaze me how they can peddle their outdated stuff for so long, just go to say how much brand power and showoff has in people's minds (just take Mac Pro that still sells and it's a 2013 model, even now model year says 2013. Price is pretty much the same as it was years ago. It's still the most powerful Mac too! lol). This is one of the reasons I will never purchase anything Apple. Vote with your wallet people and don't let the fanbois and zealots get to you!
 
gamerk2 said:
At my workplace, it's forbidden to bring in any bluetooth enabled device for security reasons. So no headphone jack = no sale.

Besides, bluetooth headphones tend to stink, and no one bothers to but a quality DAC in the headset itself (too expensive).
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Totally agree however who really uses good headphones with a cell phone with already has shitty dac anyway. For Android in some cases you can use external usb dac but IMO you might as well get a high fi player for this purpose. If I want quality audio I don't use my phone as player. However I still prefer having 3.5mm jack for convenience so I'm not tied up to BT. Besides, BT is a big security issue to have enabled on the phone all the time... Oh yeah, BT headphones pretty much all suck but for casual listening make do.
 
rudy said:
Do you really think that in the span of 1 year humans just suddenly became smarter? I don't. What is going on here is mostly that apple has this other product and large amounts of people are waiting for it. Apple users for so many reasons want the latest apple offers. In 10000 years humans will never become less susceptible to marketing and psychology, that you can count on.
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No, I think the cumulative effect of year after year of being fed increasingly large amounts of bullshit, combined with a hostile social environment (why buy a new phone to show off when you're staying home more because you're afraid of Nazi's or Thugs, depending on which side of the stereotypical coin you happen to align with) has made people fearful and gun-shy about discretionary spending. I think a lot of the people who supported a company like Apple happen to be, well, young. And those young people aren't having the "next 4 years of good feelz" they expected under Hillary, so now they're back living at home at 30+ and working craptacular jobs because their parents didn't push them into STEM. Now, before I go too deep into the rabbit hole, let's talk about Apple: Apple has been selling us the iphone 1 for a decade. Its received some facelifts, but its the exact same damn thing. A sheet of glass with a few buttons on the sides.

There does reach a point where buying the exact same thing becomes less and less and less interesting. And I think we're finally there, courtesy of the social climate...why buy an overpriced version of something you already own, when your friends might now, instead, go "Oh wow you bought that? So much money and it doesn't really look any different". RUH-ROH, so if you aren't upgrading for your friends to be impressed, *why upgrade*? The damn thing does everything the last phone did......and, honestly, the one before it......do you need a 40 core processor to read facebook, send mail and text? No, I could do that with a flip phone 12 years ago.

I think phones are like jewelry, people buy them the way they buy a $4000 watch...to show off, rarely to 'gain increased functionality'. That's my take on it, anyhow.

But getting back to the bigger picture, I think with the fall of Media (half the country doesn't trust the other half's channels), the profiteering that is being shown from all these formerly feel-good endeavors like UBER (2 years ago: UBER IS GREAT, LET PEOPLE WORK!. Today: UBER IS AWFUL, THEY ARE RIPPING OFF THE WORKERS!), and then brands like Volkswagon...my god even those hippies at Volkswagon were completely and totally LYING about their "they actually crap rainbows" super high efficiency cars....and other companies like Facebook and Google being exposed at being bullies AND so INVASIVE, people are like "Wait, stop....I thought you were the NICE companies? I thought we could TRUST YOU, you said you loved Transgender people and wouldn't harm puppies!" and so forth, I think that naive' is starting to melt away. Sure, it won't last but at least for a moment, it's nice to see people see some of this shit for what it is: FOR PROFIT companies doing what they do best.....lie/entice/cajole/shameing you into wanting their product, and then buying it, and then buying it again. The problem is, really, the turn-around: We just can't keep buying, buying, buying, buying every single year...more and more and more choices, it's overload. It used to be a joke the people who take pills to go to sleep, who take pills to wake up...we used to make fun of people like that in the 80's, they were yuppies, they lived in NYC or LA. Today, that's like half the people in the country, if not more..and someone's getting rich off that situation.

I do not blame the companies for wanting to spin their product, I blame society for buying into the marketing so foolheartedly (I mean 'Cult of Apple'?? That basically says people have given up rational thought to buy into a shitty church of idealism) that they've let these companies run amok. If Apple can't convince people it's this awesome church-like company you should embrace and worship by buying their shit at all costs, they're stuck admitting they've been selling you the same sheets of glass for 10 years..and they have nowhere to go. Their laptops are popular, their ecosystem is popular, but.....their devices are stagnant, and it's kind of painfully showing.
 
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Ive got a radical idea.

Make a phone with all the existing features + focus on making it easier for people to keep as long as they want it by:
Making it so they can change the battery
Make it more durable out of the box

But instead, they've trained people on the 'perma-rent" model
 
sboucher said:
Funny, for the first time ever I would actually consider an Apple phone (The X). I've been pretty anti Apple over the years, but lately Google and Android has been pissing me off. It's just that price, holy hell, when phones between $800-$900 here in Canada are starting to be considered the "mainstream" (S7, G6, etc) .. fuck that. That X, when it arrives is going to be $1300+.
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That's what I thought too. The X looks pretty decent but the price is getting out of control on the super phones. I used to buy all the note phones but they were in the $800-$1000 range, this is a pretty big price bump.
Pixel 2 XL from telus, $1160 no term CAD
Note 8, $1300 no term CAD
iPhone X, $1,319 no term CAD
 
Very strange strategy by Apple. This one just cannot work out for them.

The iPhone X is what everyone wants, and releasing an iPhone 8 with a minor spec bump was a huge mistake, the first real mistake I’ve seen Apple make since the beginning of iphones.

They will simply not be able to make enough iPhone x’s to keep up with demand, and many people will not pay a premium for the iPhone 8.

The iPhone 8 should have been what it really is, an iPhone 7+, and the pricing should have been discounted, or the design should have been changed, offering thinner bezels on the display would have been enough for most people to upgrade.

Apple really fucked up this year, and if they continue their insistence on LCD displays with huge bezels in 2018, people will not be up for spending over the top for it. The 2018 models should all be like the iPhone X, just different screen sizes and cameras to differentiate.
 
nutzo said:
The iPhone is no longer a status symbol now that everyone else has one.
For a while have the latest model gave you more creed, but even that doesn't matter to most people any more.
It's just another smart phone that's more expensive than many other phones.

The main reasons I see for someone at the office getting a new iPhone is because their old only broke or got lost.
Main reason they stay with an iPhone is due to the apps/music investment, or they just want to stick with what they already know.

It's rare that I see someone come in with the just released new model and ask for help connecting it to email.
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You’re wrong, and the demand for the X will prove it to you. It’s all people are talking about right now, and Apple will create an even higher demand by restricting availability for the first few months.

This, however will not make money for Apple, so from that perspective Apple are loosing out this year.
 
nutzo said:
The iPhone is no longer a status symbol now that everyone else has one.
For a while have the latest model gave you more creed, but even that doesn't matter to most people any more.
It's just another smart phone that's more expensive than many other phones.

The main reasons I see for someone at the office getting a new iPhone is because their old only broke or got lost.
Main reason they stay with an iPhone is due to the apps/music investment, or they just want to stick with what they already know.

It's rare that I see someone come in with the just released new model and ask for help connecting it to email.
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This is gonna sound crazy, but maybe everyone has an iPhone because they got tired of their Androids? :eek:
 
I personally won't pay more than $500 for a phone.. high end eventually becomes mid tier..
 
Emission said:
This is gonna sound crazy, but maybe everyone has an iPhone because they got tired of their Androids? :eek:
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No.
I still see the same ratio of Apple vs Android at the office.
If anything, it's tilted more toward Android over the past year, but that could be due to hiring more technical people than marketing/sales :D
 
Stimpy88 said:
You’re wrong, and the demand for the X will prove it to you. It’s all people are talking about right now, and Apple will create an even higher demand by restricting availability for the first few months.
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Wait & see.
Apple is chasing a shrinking group of buyers than must always have the latest trendy product.
I'm sure that will sell a lot of the X model, but the numbers will be lower than the 7
 
given the jerryrig video on the pixel 2 and what it brings (or lack of) i imagine that will send alot more sales to iPhone 8
 
focbde said:
That's fair enough of course, and I'm sure there are plenty like you who have bluetooth-everything, but the fact is that many, many people would rather use wired headphones to avoid issues with battery as well as being unwilling to tolerate the loss in sound quality.
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Yep most of the best headphones and speakers are still analog, and since those speakers/headphones can last decades not everyone is ready to just throw them away to spend money on an inferior sounding product that requires yet more battery management fun. A 2nd speaker on a phone just makes it go from sounding extremely shitty to sounding shitty which doesn't seem like a huge gain to me.

I of course realize a lot of people are satisfied listening on crappy earbuds to poorly produced highly compressed music though, so the loss of quality with Bluetooth isn't really an issue for them. Many people don't listen to much/any music on their phone either. It's a deal breaker for me, but I suspect the fingerprint issue is more of a deal breaker for most people.
 
collegeboy69us said:
It's pretty simple I think -- after 10 years of coasting on the same damn phone/idea, most people don't want or don't care about the latest apple gadget that does less for more money. They've gotten how many generations of sales out of the same people? You can only shove so much bullshit down a sheeps throat before it falls over and dies.

Come up with something new Apple -- it's been 10 years. They've been playing it safe ever since their messiah kicked the bucket, when you are sitting on as much cash as they are, you can afford to have some pretty wild ideas/projects that might change the world again.

*shrugs* many of us grew up in the past 10 years and realized that there are way more important things than spending a ton of money on a phone that will be obsolete in a year. At this point all I care is that it makes calls and has a decent battery life.
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Or maybe everyone is still happy with their iphone 7 and sees no reason to upgrade...
 
Trying to release the 8 and X right on top of each other was pretty dumb. But I also think the market is just saturated. If you have a 6/6s or 7, the 8 just isn't a compelling upgrade. It's practically the same phone, just with wireless charging, and no headphone jack and a sucky home button like the 7. The CPU is a little faster, but the kinds of people who buy iPhones mostly don't care about that.

Also, anyone who is smart will avoid the X, and I'm not talking about the price tag. It's a first generation Apple product. Practically a concept/prototype phone. I'm sure it will have tons of issues in daily use that won't be fixed until later models just like pretty much every other first gen Apple product.
 
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Is wireless charging the new cripple feature they finally trickled out added? My 3 year old nexus5 has that and it was 70USD.
 
There's a group of people (older, and established) that like wearing shirts that have the 'polo' horse on there... for status... economic or what not. But the younger generation is not economically strong. They are going for generic clothing without symbols. I think the same will come down to technology. When mommy and daddy aren't going to pay for Apple phones, and young see it's difficult to pay for, they will acquire value phones. Apple's release of the iPhone X, and the general style of $1000 phones may come to harm the companies that release them. Companies that charge reasonable prices could come out on top in the end.
 
It's bizarre that the iphone x is released just a month after the iphone 8, and it's even more bizzare how fugly the design is.

When both facts are taken together, it seems like the execs had no faith in the design and didn't bother to improve it or give it its own time to shine.

I don't know one person who is excited about either phone, and It seems like with the x they have given the *style* consumers the perfect out to get off the apple train ...but then again with the lack of iphone 8 demand... I can't wait to see how this plays out.
 
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