Tim Cook. You remember that guy? Turns out—who knew?—he’s still running Apple. Can you even believe that?
Writing for the Forbes contributor network and stuffed animal tea party but with actual bears that have just eaten too much, Ewan Spence brings us the “bad news”.
“iPhone X Failure To Ignite Passion Is Bad News For Tim Cook.” (Tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody.)
The iPhone X was expected to lead a resurgence in Apple’s market share…
No. What. No. Who is talking about market share? No one—at least nobody who matters—cares that much about market share.
This is covered material. This is Apple 101. If you’re not going to do the reading, just drop the class already.
The promise of the iPhone X Super Cycle was a simple one. Although Apple would release a new wave of handsets that would iteratively build on the previous years handset, there would be a ‘super’ handset that would attract new users to the iPhone…
Again, no. Sure, maybe some analysts thought that was what was going to happen, but the iPhone X was clearly aimed at Apple’s core group of customers, specifically those who were willing to spend even more to get even more.
Stroll on over to Apple’s quarterly results and take a look at that spike on the iPhone’s average selling price on the third to last graph. Then try to read “bad news for Tim Cook” again without spit taking so hard you split the space/time continuum in half, destroying all of creation. (“FRAGILITY OF SPACE/TIME CONTINUUM BAD NEWS FOR APPLE.”)
Apple has pulled this trick before. In 2015 it launched not only the iPhone 6, but the iPhone 6 Plus. This was its first ‘phablet’ device with a larger screen.
Yeah, but the iPhone 6 was unveiled at the same price point as the iPhone 5S, $649, not $350 more. In that instance, Apple was getting a host of people holding out on upgrading as well as those who had been using larger phones from other vendors. It wasn’t just giving more options to the ultra-high-end.
There’s no doubt that sales are up…
Sales are up! Revenues are up! Things are looking down. Tim Cook sure is in trouble.
The truth is, the high end of the smartphone market is pretty saturated. Apple figured out how to squeeze more revenue out of it. That’s a good thing. Well, for the company. Possibly not your bank account.
But the story spun by Tim Cook and his team of the accelerating sales power of the iPhone X has failed to materialize…
Sales are up, but not enough to satisfy people who seem preternaturally dissatisfied by all things Apple. That doesn’t strike the Macalope as any kind of emergency. More like “It’s Thursday.”