Apple will 'set the world on fire' with iPhone 6 sales

Apple will 'set the world on fire' with iPhone 6 sales - Computerworld

Well, I hope they get those "fires" going soon because the new Samsung "Galaxy S 5" with a 5.1" screen is selling like crazy around here. The large screen and sleek body makes my iPhone 5c look "left behind". ;P

I'm always a bit concerned when I read such articles that includes the "...analysts said this week..." part.

And especially concerned over at least part of the name "analysts"...

I'm beginning to think we should keep a scorecard on these guys to see who has the best accuracy. You just can't please some of these guys. Let's not forget some of them have been behind some Apple predictions that were way out there. Apple TV set for example.

I stopped attenting to this when I realized there was no pleasing some of them. If the new iPhone arrived Monday and had phenomenal sales numbers there will be something to complain about.. The whining would follow one of three likely lines:

1. If sales were high but didn't reach analysts expectation gloom and doom will follow immediately. The "failure" will be blamed on some missing feature that its mot clear people actually want. This would be followed by a lengthy treatise on how Android is not only killing iPhone but the iPone will be obsolete within six months. The proposed replacement will be android based with a screen the size of the flight deck of the U S S Ronald Reagan.

2. If Apple doesn't produce enough phones to meet the initial demand they will be cast as idiots for not anticipating demand well enough.

3. If they have a surplus of phones available then it's gloom and doom because clearly they aren't selling what they expected to sell.

Apple has made numerous mistakes over the years. Some real others imagined by analysts. Some mistakes were bad management others were part of the cost of innovation. For now I;ll ignore the analysts.

I have news for those analysts... Customers don't care about their projections. The rumors these past two weeks of delays, unavailability of the sapphire glass in these models, plus now the news that the 5.5 inch phablet may be pushed back to 2015 are making a lot of people waiting to upgrade and new phone buyers pretty ticked off. Many of them feel that there isn't enough features and innovations in these phones to justify the hype. I'm seeing a ton of people walking in to the Verizon store or Best Buy to start to seriously research the LG G3, Samsung GS5, and the new HTC phones as their next purchase. And still more of them are waiting for Samsung to release the new Samsung Note 4.

Apple needs to "knock it out of the park" with the two versions of the iPhone 6, or they will be losing, not only potential new customers, but also current iPhone clients as well. Apple has waited too long, IMO, to advance features on its phone product lines, and the competition has been catching up, and in some sense, leaping forward. The only thing that has been stopping some customers from jumping at the competition has been the hesitancy of moving to Droid, and the promise of a larger and more feature ladden iPhone, and apparently, Apple is not all that ready to deliver the goods this year.

Lovely just what we shareholders like to hear!

My youngest son, an avid Apple users would certainly agree with your comments I'm sure, and like so many others, he and his wife gave up on Apple and their top-end iPhones and became one of the many switchers to "the other side" and their cell phones many months ago.

And their decision was based on both hardware and available software, so I'd say Apple has a lot of catching up to do in their cell phone market for a lot of users.

Catching up is over I think, when you look at the other brands out there what could Apple really do to leap forward.
Not much really, add a few extra gadgets, and tweak the software and really thats about all.
It will only do well because its Apple by name.
The iPhone should have been what the Samsung and HTC is today with the release of the 4s.
I for one looked at the other brands and only went with the iPhone 5s because everything is in sync with our other Apple products, apart from that I felt let down by Apple with the lack of advancement.
But lets hope I'm wrong and the phone will be out of this world, or at least compete with the others, till then I'll keep on using my 5s.

If the Galaxy S5 is selling like hotcakes, I wonder why Samsung doesn't seem to know that?

Samsung reports 15 percent revenue drop from previous quarter | Electronista

In particular: "IT and Mobile Communications (the latter being the smartphone division) underperformed as well when compared to the $34.6 billion (35.54 trillion won) in 2013. It represents a decline of $6.9 billion (7.09 trillion won), or about 20 percent."

This is not to say Samsung's on the rocks or anything, but the Galaxy S5 is pretty widely acknowledged as, well, a product that failed to meet sales expectations, like the Galaxy S4 before it. Samsung, in point of fact, makes most of its money on low-end phones, not its high-end products. This is their major advantage over Apple, IMO -- they compete in lots of markets Apple doesn't even bother with (and I'm not referring to just phones here).

I also read with interest a survey that indicated that approximately 35 percent of Android users would switch to an iPhone if they made one with a larger display. I'm dubious about that being perfectly accurate, but it has been my experience that every single person -- without exception -- whom I have ever asked "why did you buy this Android phone" has answered in one of two ways:

a. "Bigger screen" (the vast majority)
b. "Free on contract or cheap with no contract"

Accidentally drop a S5 into water then a IP5. Which will work afterwords. That alone impressed me. Sorry. And accidents happen with cell phones.

dtravis7 said:

Accidentally drop a S5 into water then a IP5. Which will work afterwords. That alone impressed me. Sorry. And accidents happen with cell phones.

Click to expand...

That is the single best quality of the S5 in my opinion. Definitely something worth considering, if they haven't already duplicated it with the iPhone 6. Too many people lose phones this way. I was thinking about this just the other day while we were in an amusement park. How easy would it be to get splashed or caught in rain.... and what would I do with my phone if I did?

I like the Lifeproof and similar cases, but they are bulky and expensive. Truly, all Apple would need to do is add a few O-rings / gaskets in the right places and the iPhone would survive just as well.

The sad thing about it is that there is zero short-term financial incentive for Apple to do this, so the likelihood is that they won't.

It won't stop me from buying an iPhone 6 (sorry, but Android's apps still suck), but definitely something that costs them some customers for sure.

I would agree with that analysis, I'll part with my 2 year RAZR HD w/a iPhone with at least a similar size screen.

Apple is late to the game and finally discovered folks really want BIGGER screens.

My middle-aged eyeballs have been struggling with the iPhone 5s 4" screen, so I'm eagerly awaiting the iPhone 6! I'll have to wait until both models (4.7" and 5.5') are available, to compare the two side by side, to see which one I can see better and which one is more practical, size-wise, to carry daily.

That's a good point. I put a drop proof case that I purchased from OWC on my 5c but took it off after 5 days. It just made the phone too bulky to carry around in my pocket. If the iPhone 6 likewise winds up being too bulky even with the larger screen, I'll pass. Phones with larger screens and bulk seem not to be a problem for the ladies because they carry them mostly in their purse. My wife's purse is as large as a business person's briefcase.

Samsung's failing to meet sales expectations can be attributed to the specific market that they heavily target. Couple that with the Chinese dumping cheap duplicates in the market. And both LG and HTC have stepped up their products. In the higher end, Apple has stayed ahead due to their marketing plan, software and hardware integration, and the fact that their phones are still reachable from a cost standpoint. I was reading a business oriented site the other day stating that Apple was planning to increase the price of their phones, 'allegedly' in order to recover some of the cost of new innovation such as their sapphire glass. And though I understand some of the rationale, IMO, the results would be disastrous. Apple can absolutely not price themselves out of competition,and that including the US higher and mid level markets. Not when you have comparable products from Samsung, LG, and HTC hot on their heals. They may not be as polished as the iPhone, but they are excellent products in their own right and each one has at one point or another, (Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G3, and the HTC One M8), receive strong reviews from owners and technical sites as being the best mobile devices in the market today. Apple absolutely does not want to paint their products as being unaffordable in today's market.

Regarding the waterproofing: I guess that's an advantage, but I don't see even Samsung stooping to advertising their phone with "the S5 -- the phone for people who drop their $600 phones in toilets." I think Apple's approach on this is along the lines of "maybe be more careful with expensive things," but I imagine they will add the waterproofing chemical to their phones when it is environmentally safe to do so.

As for bigger screens: be careful what you wish for. Most of the bigger screen phones I've seen are actually *harder* to read, because they pack more resolution into the space so everything is actually smaller, you just get a lot more of it. That's why Apple invented "pinch to zoom" and prefer Retina displays (a ceiling on resolution) rather than infinitely more resolution.

Interesting. Another series of articles came out in business publications over the weekend stating that Apple lost some additional shares of the world mobile phone user markets over the past year. Apple continues to base it's marketing strategy to targeting legacy clientele and upper price sector, but the target market seems to be hitting a certain threshold where buyers are looking at other brands for comparison. Pricing is a huge factor. Another series of articles are bringing up a possible pricing issue for Apple, (one of them puts it this way.... "You are nuts if you think that pricing will not play a factor in the success of the iPhone 6"). Specially true in new developing markets, according to these articles.

Another interesting part was how the different Droid phone manufacturers compete among themselves at several market levels for the mobile phone market shares. And who those companies are. The articles states that Samsung seems to be the most affected by this competition as other manufacturers work to take shares of mobile devices sold away from the company. A couple of Chinese companies are coming up with some pretty inexpensive phones to attack the lower cost markets. Some of them, similar to devices released by other companies, (knockoffs).

Interesting to see how these companies jockey for market shares. They all seem to agree that the iPhone 6 is a pivotal release by Apple, (long overdue is the opinion), that can either catapult them forward or compound their losses in market shares of mobile devices.

Well... It's official. IPhone 6 in 4.7 and 5.5 variations came out this morning. And the only word to describe them is underwhelmed. In some ways, all Apple did was to try to catch up to the competition, and in many ways.... Not even that.

This, folks... Is a swing and a miss.

WolfsBane said:

Well... It's official. IPhone 6 in 4.7 and 5.5 variations came out this morning. And the only word to describe them is underwhelmed. In some ways, all Apple did was to try to catch up to the competition, and in many ways.... Not even that.

This, folks... Is a swing and a miss.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty jazzed about it. Really, the only disappointment is the fact that they're still bilking people for the 32GB upgrade, which should be standard.

What feature(s) were you expecting/hoping for that it's missing?

cwa107 said:

I'm pretty jazzed about it. Really, the only disappointment is the fact that they're still bilking people for the 32GB upgrade, which should be standard.

What feature(s) were you expecting/hoping for that it's missing?

Click to expand...

1. Better design that maximizes screen size and minimizes bezel size, (LG G3 is a good example). The iphone 6 plus makes the LG look petite and it has the same size screen.
2. Better screen resolution and pixel density. Apple insist that most people would not notice the difference between a 326ppi and a 460 ppi screen... But I can tell the difference.
3. Better camera. Take away the bells and whistles, and that 8 megapixel camera is pretty dated.
4. Upgradable internal storage. You are right, they love to bilk us for just a few gigs of storage.
5. And the price that they are asking for the iphone 6 plus is a no go, sorry. There are other options out there with better specs at a more affordable price.
6. At least 2 gigs of ram