iPhone 5S, 5C Announced

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Yeah, seems like they underestimated its popularity.

Unlikely. I'm with David on this: it seems deliberate. It's the gold version, after all, and having it initially sought after due to its perceived rarity (and thus additional prestige value) is a good marketing strategy.

The artificially created shortage, and the implication that waiting might equal "missing out", may cause formerly undecided, but prestige-desiring customers to drop the money. Those who were already set on getting the new model might do so anyway, regardless of the color.

[holymadness]

Shrug. I've heard the same conspiracy theory about Apple artificially constraining supply every single year. That it never turns out to be true doesn't seem to diminish the fervour of its believers.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

We'll see. How many people do you know who are buying 5C's? I know five people buying the 5S and none of them waited in lines today.

My husband works in downtown Chicago, and saw long lines outside both the Verizon store and the AT&T stores near his office.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by David Munch

I dont think so. They always produce less than what they estimate they can sell. It is great PR, and stock holders love "demand is overwhelming!" Statements. One thing that springs to mind is that they didnt have "more phon preorders than ever before!" Which they usually love to gloat with.

And making the gold model almost non existant they make it even more mysterious and sought after.

^ this

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Shrug. I've heard the same conspiracy theory about Apple artificially constraining supply every single year. That it never turns out to be true doesn't seem to diminish the fervour of its believers.

Well, considering that the gold model completely sold out before everything else, one could argue that the theory already turned out to be true.

The counter-argument would be that of course it sold out the fastest, since not many were made available. It's just different sides of the same thing and the result is identical: the gold models sold out.

I don't look at it as a conspiracy, though. It's a perfectly valid marketing strategy, and I don't feel that it's ethically or morally problematic.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Mivo

Unlikely. I'm with David on this: it seems deliberate. It's the gold version, after all, and having it initially sought after due to its perceived rarity (and thus additional prestige value) is a good marketing strategy.

The artificially created shortage, and the implication that waiting might equal "missing out", may cause formerly undecided, but prestige-desiring customers to drop the money. Those who were already set on getting the new model might do so anyway, regardless of the color.

Indeed. I read somewhere that only 10 or so gold units were sent to each store, per carrier. The fact that, after 7 years, they still "fail" to estimate their demand is nothing but yet another PR stunt to hype their product and create headlines. Nothing new to see here, move along, move along.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Shrug. I've heard the same conspiracy theory about Apple artificially constraining supply every single year. That it never turns out to be true doesn't seem to diminish the fervour of its believers.

But isn't the fact that you always have a supply shortage each year precisely what points to this being a marketing scheme?

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But isn't the fact that you always have a supply shortage each year precisely what points to this being a marketing scheme?

There could be a lot of different reasons. I'm guessing that the extra cost of manufacturing capacity as well as the extra cost of warehousing enough units would be the biggest problem, either on Apple's end or their suppliers.

Besides, wouldn't you love to operate a business where you could pretty much produce the product as it's needed: no worries if sales projections were overly optimistic, since you won't end up with surplus.

Don't get me wrong. Marketing definitely has a role here. For a lot of businesses, being unable to meet demand would be their death knell. For Apple, over supply would be a marketing disaster.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

There could be a lot of different reasons. I'm guessing that the extra cost of manufacturing capacity as well as the extra cost of warehousing enough units would be the biggest problem, either on Apple's end or their suppliers.

Besides, wouldn't you love to operate a business where you could pretty much produce the product as it's needed: no worries if sales projections were overly optimistic, since you won't end up with surplus.

Don't get me wrong. Marketing definitely has a role here. For a lot of businesses, being unable to meet demand would be their death knell. For Apple, over supply would be a marketing disaster.

Manufacturing capacity: isn't the shortage for only about a month? If this was an issue the shortage would last longer.
Extra cost of warehousing: not really a problem since the shops would love to have the phones in stock.
Surplus: not really a problem since the release shortage happens as holymadness said: every single year.

[Penforhire]

The color shortage is pure marketing, um, gold.

[WillAdams]

Never mind.

[Sil_liS]

If you were impressed by the fact that the sensor recognizes toe prints you are going to be impressed by this, but make sure that the volume is down when you play it:


It might be interesting to see if helper dogs can be trained to answer the phone and put it on speaker for their owner.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

If you were impressed by the fact that the sensor recognizes toe prints you are going to be impressed by this.

how long until we see "my cat purchased something from the app store without my knowledge"
I'll have to go looking for it, but I saw mentioned in an article somewhere that there's a video of some guy in Japan registering his nipple as "fingerprint" and successfully unlocking his phone with it.

[BenG]

At least the NSA won't find your nipple prints useful.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Mivo

Well, considering that the gold model completely sold out before everything else, one could argue that the theory already turned out to be true.

No, the theory requires you (or anyone) to prove that Apple deliberately underproduced or withheld the gold model as a marketing ploy. I won't hold my breath waiting for that one.

The fact is that demand is so strong Apple doesn't need to bother to generate lineups at stores and a frenzy of online pre-orders at 3 AM. Moreover, the market judges Apple far more on units sold (witness this morning's stock price, up 6% to nearly 500 points) than on soft metrics like "demand exceeds expectations." They have very little to no plausible interest in artificially creating supply shortages, which only discourage buyers, as I mentioned.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But isn't the fact that you always have a supply shortage each year precisely what points to this being a marketing scheme?

Nope. It boils down to hugely increased demand each year, combined with the increasing technical complication of producing the devices, as well as the particular timing of the iPhone rush.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Manufacturing capacity: isn't the shortage for only about a month? If this was an issue the shortage would last longer.

You've got it backwards (again). The shortage only lasts for a month because there is a massive initial rush of orders for iPhones that declines over time. There's no point investing in manufacturing infrastructure to meet a 2-4 week demand only to let it lie fallow for the rest of the year.

In other news...

Apple sets another opening day record for iPhone sales

It's almost inevitable: release a new iPhone, break a sales record. This year, Apple released a pair of iPhones, the 5S and 5C, and unsurprisingly sales have been strong. Apple sold a combined 9 million iPhone 5S and 5C smartphones over the handsets' first full weekend of sales — the most it's ever done. That's enough for Apple to have already sold out of its initial stock of the iPhone 5S, though the company does say that retail stores are regularly receiving more shipments of the phone. "The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible," Apple CEO Tim Cook says in a statement. "We appreciate everyone’s patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone.”

The 9 million figure compares quite favorably to the five million iPhone 5 that Apple sold in the opening sales weekend last year, and four million iPhone 4S it sold during the equivalent period in 2011. However, it's difficult to make year-over-year comparisons, as Apple's launch markets have changed each year. This year, the company made both its new iPhones available in China on day one for the first time. Apple's press release also doesn't reveal what the split of phones was, so we don't know how well the 5C or 5S did individually either. Having said that, analytics firm Localytics estimates that the 5S outsold the 5C by nearly three-and-a-half to one, suggesting that the iPhone 5S accounted for about 7.65 million of the total iPhone sales. Apple has adjusted guidance for its Q4 earnings based on the new information, and is now suggesting that it's likely to end up "near the high end" of a previously announced range of $34 billion to $37 billion in revenue. The company's stock has jumped up over 6 percent pre-market in light of the news, and is approaching a $500 share price.

Apple also revealed that iTunes Radio has been something of a success right out the gate. It's already seen over 11 million unique listeners, with the launch weekend's most listened song being a fairly new Drake track, "Hold On, We’re Going Home." Its new operating system, iOS 7, has also been off to a strong start as well, with over 200 million devices already running it under a week after launch. According to Apple, that quick proliferation makes it the fastest software update adoption in history. Not surprisingly, Apple is pleased with the response it's seen. "This is our best iPhone launch yet," says Cook.

Update: Apple's stock opened at a share price of $496, after closing at $467.41 on Friday. The company's stock peaked just above $500 the day before it announced the new iPhones, but had slumped in the days that followed. Though Apple saw some increase late last week, today's opening marks a big jump as investors react to news of the latest iPhones' sales figures.