New iPhone's break more records...
Not to sound jaded... but this really does a lot to prove that the Apple brand is still strong enough for people to be foolish over their products. Which is a good thing for Apple, but perhaps a bad thing for the industry.
This launch should have been, at least, a partial failure for Apple. Why? Because they abandoned the size/form factor from previous generations entirely. How can a device which was so popular have been so wrong? It wasn't. In fact these new phones make concessions to that with a new mode that allows you to lightly double tap the home button to condense the screen to the lower half of the phone so you can still reach it all with one hand. But the wild success of 2 phones which NEED this feature to remain as useable shows that people don't care. It is a cool feature, but an added step and in some ways a concession that what you've built is some hybrid monster. And yet, sales records are broken.
There SHOULD have been a sizeable contingent of past iPhone owners who agreed on the size of prior devices and opted not to upgrade as a result and become angry at its absence now. Similar to the way launching the Z10 ahead of the Q10 ended up being another nail in the Blackberry coffin. The only other source for these 10 million device buyers are people fleeing from other platforms... but that doesn't make a ton of sense either. This is opening week. People who aren't Apple fans generally won't want to wait in lines or wait for delayed online orders for a device which hasn't been out long enough yet to be properly reviewed.
As a result, most of these 10 million people buying new iPhones in its first week are Apple fans. The same people who just 1 month ago probably would have called you an idiot for saying that iPhones weren't large enough.
What makes this bad for the industry is that consumer selection just took a huge hit. And ASP of phones just went up. The iPhone WAS one of the only mainstream smaller phones on the market. Now, it has thrown its form factor in with the same lot as every other device maker. And the phone itself isn't revolutionary at all. And yet... adding the iPhone 6 Plus into the mix means average phone prices went up despite a lack of truly new hardware and a decline in choice on the phone size front. Normally, one would expect an "also ran" device to at least bring down costs. Someone joked (or perhaps was serious) that now is the time for Microsoft to crank out a 4 inch flagship Lumia phone to scoop up those who feel abandoned. And, if they could do so in a timely fashion I don't think it would be a bad idea.
The other issues are fairly standard. It isn't an evolutionary product. It does perhaps show an evolution of the company itself. But from a product standpoint, the changes are not truly all that big. And many of the features that are unique like the new payment functionality COULD have been implemented in prior phones if Apple hadn't un-ceremoniously wrote off NFC in the past. In case you weren't aware, other phone makers have been putting NFC into devices for YEARS.
Not to mention that consolidating your wallet into your phone isn't a new concept either. Microsoft went part of the way there, but didn't bother trying to push an NFC based payment system. Google had Google Wallet but it never really caught on. I'm interested to see what happens with Apple's solution. Frankly, I'll be pissed if it succeeds, because, like these phones there is absolutely no reason why it should succeed. It isn't novel enough compared to solutions that came before. But, as with the craze behind the phone itself, it seems entirely possible that business owners will lose their shit at the sight of a new Apple service and jump on board.
The family controls are a truly nice touch... but those are an OS level feature and all iPhones that get the new OS should benefit. Also, they are largely motivated by lawsuits, changes in the industry and potential changes in the industry. The implementation is nice. But, I suspect Microsoft and Google will jump on board and mimic this one quick. What Apple has done here is addressed concerns over children racking up app store charges, but by bundling it in with other cross device/account functionality like app sharing and family photo albums and the likes they have also made a strong case for having the whole family on the same platform.
The amusing thing about Family Sharing on iOS to me is that it sounds an awful lot like the plans the Microsoft had around families when they first talked about launching an always connected, DRM'd Xbox One. I said then that people were making a fuss over nothing as many of those same people regularly purchase games on Steam and no one bitches about DRM there. Same here, no one seems to be harping on DRM... though technically, the DRM itself isn't new on the iPhone, just the sharing aspect. But that is just a side note.
This launch should have been, at least, a partial failure for Apple. Why? Because they abandoned the size/form factor from previous generations entirely. How can a device which was so popular have been so wrong? It wasn't. In fact these new phones make concessions to that with a new mode that allows you to lightly double tap the home button to condense the screen to the lower half of the phone so you can still reach it all with one hand. But the wild success of 2 phones which NEED this feature to remain as useable shows that people don't care. It is a cool feature, but an added step and in some ways a concession that what you've built is some hybrid monster. And yet, sales records are broken.
There SHOULD have been a sizeable contingent of past iPhone owners who agreed on the size of prior devices and opted not to upgrade as a result and become angry at its absence now. Similar to the way launching the Z10 ahead of the Q10 ended up being another nail in the Blackberry coffin. The only other source for these 10 million device buyers are people fleeing from other platforms... but that doesn't make a ton of sense either. This is opening week. People who aren't Apple fans generally won't want to wait in lines or wait for delayed online orders for a device which hasn't been out long enough yet to be properly reviewed.
As a result, most of these 10 million people buying new iPhones in its first week are Apple fans. The same people who just 1 month ago probably would have called you an idiot for saying that iPhones weren't large enough.
What makes this bad for the industry is that consumer selection just took a huge hit. And ASP of phones just went up. The iPhone WAS one of the only mainstream smaller phones on the market. Now, it has thrown its form factor in with the same lot as every other device maker. And the phone itself isn't revolutionary at all. And yet... adding the iPhone 6 Plus into the mix means average phone prices went up despite a lack of truly new hardware and a decline in choice on the phone size front. Normally, one would expect an "also ran" device to at least bring down costs. Someone joked (or perhaps was serious) that now is the time for Microsoft to crank out a 4 inch flagship Lumia phone to scoop up those who feel abandoned. And, if they could do so in a timely fashion I don't think it would be a bad idea.
The other issues are fairly standard. It isn't an evolutionary product. It does perhaps show an evolution of the company itself. But from a product standpoint, the changes are not truly all that big. And many of the features that are unique like the new payment functionality COULD have been implemented in prior phones if Apple hadn't un-ceremoniously wrote off NFC in the past. In case you weren't aware, other phone makers have been putting NFC into devices for YEARS.
Not to mention that consolidating your wallet into your phone isn't a new concept either. Microsoft went part of the way there, but didn't bother trying to push an NFC based payment system. Google had Google Wallet but it never really caught on. I'm interested to see what happens with Apple's solution. Frankly, I'll be pissed if it succeeds, because, like these phones there is absolutely no reason why it should succeed. It isn't novel enough compared to solutions that came before. But, as with the craze behind the phone itself, it seems entirely possible that business owners will lose their shit at the sight of a new Apple service and jump on board.
The family controls are a truly nice touch... but those are an OS level feature and all iPhones that get the new OS should benefit. Also, they are largely motivated by lawsuits, changes in the industry and potential changes in the industry. The implementation is nice. But, I suspect Microsoft and Google will jump on board and mimic this one quick. What Apple has done here is addressed concerns over children racking up app store charges, but by bundling it in with other cross device/account functionality like app sharing and family photo albums and the likes they have also made a strong case for having the whole family on the same platform.
The amusing thing about Family Sharing on iOS to me is that it sounds an awful lot like the plans the Microsoft had around families when they first talked about launching an always connected, DRM'd Xbox One. I said then that people were making a fuss over nothing as many of those same people regularly purchase games on Steam and no one bitches about DRM there. Same here, no one seems to be harping on DRM... though technically, the DRM itself isn't new on the iPhone, just the sharing aspect. But that is just a side note.
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