Items tagged with iPhone
Earlier this month, Apple issued its first revenue guidance revision in over a decade in part due to soft iPhone sales. Apple placed most of the blame on weakness in the great China area, which was compounded by the country's trade war with the United States. But China isn't the only reason for the revenue shortfall. The wounds were also self-inflicted by way of Apple's battery replacement program that was announced in late 2017. To appease customers after it was discovered that the company had been throttling iPhone performance (due to underperforming and worn batteries)...
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You can only push prices so far before customers start turning away from your products. That seems to be the case with Apple's 2018 lineup of iPhones, which are the most expensive ever introduced for customers. A new report indicates that many Chinese retailers have taken the uncommon step of slashing the prices of relatively new iPhones in order to win the attention of customers. According to Reuters, popular Chinese retailers like Suning and JD.com are discounting models like the iPhone XR by as much as $118 off its starting price. In total, six retailers have instituted dramatic price cuts...
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Apple recently admitted that it hasn't been selling its latest generation iPhone models at the clip it expected, and it was also reported that the company told its iPhone suppliers to cut back production. Even so, the company is forging ahead with new models. For 2019, the company may release three more iPhone models, including one with three rear cameras. It will be interesting to see what kind of price points Apple's upcoming phones hit. The smartphone sector at large is in a bit of a slump, in terms of demand, and part of the reason could be the high price tags attached to flagship models. The...
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A report out of Taiwan says Apple has slashed production of its newest generation iPhone products this quarter as it deals with softer than expected sales. The report comes just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook lowered the company's revenue guidance, which he attributed in part to "economic weakness" in emerging markets. According to the report, Apple in December told its iPhone suppliers to scale back production by 10 percent. If true, this would be the second time in just two months that Apple has instructed its iPhone suppliers to make fewer units. Sources who are supposedly familiar with the matter...
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Few things are more embarrassing to big brands than mistakes on social media. Android device makers certainly have been embarrassed on multiple occasions by social media folks who forget that when you Tweet from an iPhone, the little "via Twitter for iPhone" tag goes with your post. Huawei found this out the hard way around midnight on December 31 when a post to its official Twitter account was made to wish the world a happy 2019. via Marques Brownlee The post itself was fine; the embarrassment came in the fact that the tweet was posted via an iPhone. While a mistake of this sort is nothing new,...
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It looks as though not all is well in Cupertino. In a rather odd and rare break from Apple’s usual cadence with respect to its earnings releases, CEO Tim Cook posted an open letter to investors this afternoon to state that it has revised its revenue guidance downward for the December quarter (fiscal Q1 2019). When Apple issued it fiscal Q4 2018 earnings report in early November, it forecasted revenue of between $89 billion and $93 billion for fiscal Q1 2019. Now, however, Cook is warning that revenue will come in at right around $84 billion. That is a shortfall of $5 billion at...
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Have consumers finally had enough of Apple's efforts to jack iPhone pricing into the stratosphere? There are numerous warning signs suggesting that this is the case. However, Apple's decision to not breakdown sales numbers for iPhones, Macs and iPads in its future earnings reports could obfuscate any real analysis of sales data. Apple's flagship iPhone prices have been on the rise for years, but things took a turn towards the extreme with 2017's launch of the iPhone X. The device, with its notched display and first-generation Face ID system, launched with a starting price of $999. Despite analysts...
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A new AT&T device has been seen passing through the FCC that isn't a phone or a smart wearable. Instead, it is a very slick charger aiming directly at Apple device users that can charge the iPhone and Apple Watch on the go, at the same time. The gadget is called the Power Drum Wireless Charger & Apple Watch Power Bank, and it was spied at both the FCC and in documentation from the Qi Wireless Power Consortium. The Power Drum has a flat section around the perimeter of the device that is meant to wirelessly charge the Apple Watch. The iPhone would be placed flat on top of the Power Drum to...
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Of all the features that Apple's iPhone popularized, one of the most maligned was the notch. The notch came to be when the iPhone screen grew larger, and Apple needed somewhere to put the front camera and sensors for the smartphone. Several Android devices also use the notch, but some are already moving to using holes punched through the screen that the front camera shoots through. A new rumor has surfaced that claims Apple won't be following the punched hole screen trend with the next iteration of the iPhone. The rumor came from Chinese leaker Ice Universe who recently tweeted that the new iPhone...
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Here's a friendly PSA if you own any recent iPhone. Apple's [reduced] cost iPhone battery replacement program is ending a week from today, December 31st. If you recall, Apple dropped the price of its battery replacement to a flat $29 (out of warranty) after it got caught throttling performance of iPhones whose batteries were not performing at optimum levels. Apple's reasoning for the throttling was understandable, as the company explained in an open letter to customers around this time last year: Device use also affects the performance of a battery over its lifespan. For example, leaving...
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Apple has had some significant issues of late. Recently it said that some bending of iPad Pro tablets right out of the box was normal and that if the tablet bent during use, it wouldn't affect the usability of the device. Continued rumors that the iPhone XR is selling poorly have been met with claims by Apple that the device is one of its best selling models. Apple now has a major issue with its latest iOS update. Some iPhone users who upgraded to iOS 12.1.2 have found that after the update they were unable to place calls or send text messages. Apple launched iOS 12.1.2 last week, and shortly after...
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Apple continues to claim that the iPhone is selling well despite reports to the contrary. Reports have been particularly critical of sales numbers for the iPhone XR, something that Apple refuted last month when it claimed that the iPhone XR was its best selling model. Apple has also been hit with iPhone sales bans by Qualcomm recently in Germany and China. Now, analyst Jun Zhang from Rosenblatt has issued an investor note predicting that Apple will cut iPhone production. According to Zhang, production could be cut by another 4 million units during the March quarter of 2019. Zhang writes that Apple...
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T-Mobile announced that it has launched the app needed to bring support for eSIM activation to the iPhone XS, XS Max, and iPhone XR. For now, the eSIM app only supports activation for prepaid lines. The carrier is justifying the prepaid-only support for eSIMs by saying that the service aims at those wanting a secondary prepaid line on their device or for travelers coming to the States. If you are using prepaid as your primary service, you can now use the iPhone SIM card slot to add a second postpaid phone line; perhaps this will be a useful feature for people who are currently carrying one...
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There are a lot of people out there who like iPhone hardware and software, but don't like the way Apple locks them inside the App Store walled garden. For these folks, the alternative to the App Store was to jailbreak their iPhone and then use the third-party Cydia app store that provided both free and paid apps. The apps on the Cydia store that sold for a fee used PayPal for payments. Cydia founder Jay "Saurik" Freeman announced on Reddit that the Cydia app store was shutting down its payment system. He went so far as to say that he wanted to shut down the entire Cydia Store before the...
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