“Apple Inc’s newest iPhone left Wall Street and fans wishing for more than a faster version of last year’s device, drawing a rare outburst of criticism and disappointment on the Internet,” Poornima Gupta and Alexei Oreskovic report for Reuters. “Newly minted CEO Tim Cook ably helmed his first major product launch without former boss Steve Jobs, but failed to ignite the sort of excitement and buzz that the Apple co-founder once did. Investors and fans, looking to be blown away by some amazing surprise, sent the shares down as much as 4 percent.”
“Jobs did not show up as some expected. Cook, who took the reins from the Silicon Valley icon in August, and his executive team instead showed off a souped-up device that comes with voice recognition and a better camera, but it looked identical to the last phone and did little to lift the bar for smartphones,” Gupta and Oreskovic report. “‘It’s been 16 months and all you’ve got is an A5 processor in the existing iPhone 4,’ said BGC Partners’ analyst Colin Gillis. ‘It’s a mild disappointment, but they’re still going to be selling millions of units.’ WP Stewart portfolio manager Michael Walker said, ‘It’s kind of funny — if they have gone and called it the 5, the stock would have been fine, but they’re calling it the 4S, which is a disappointment to some. It’s a faster chip. The form factor is the same as the prior one, which might be a disappointment also to some people.'”
Gupta and Oreskovic report, The iPhone event took place at Apple Central — the same venue where the iPod first was introduced years ago — versus the larger, splashier venues of more recent choice such as downtown San Francisco’s Moscone center. The restricted attendance may have triggered a surge in online viewership, which slowed or crashed live blogs run by websites such as Engadget, Wired and Gizmodo.”
“Interest was high with Google emerging as a formidable competitor, but many fans came away disappointed,” Gupta and Oreskovic report. “‘Please note I will be selling some ‘S’ stickers for $0.99 so iPhone 4 owners have a cheaper upgrade option,’ wrote HAL9000 on Twitter. Tomlinsonr tweeted, ‘I’ll have a double helping of ‘meh’ with a side of ‘whatever.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Debacle. You either leak “no iPhone 5” to a credible outlet in order to tamp down anticipation beforehand or you name the damn thing “iPhone 5,” even if you don’t think it worthy, and be done with it. The former is far preferrable to the latter for integrity’s sake, but doing neither signals a worrying degree of tone deafness. Managing the media, not to mention peoples’ expectations, is part of your job now, too, Tim.
BTW, we are Day One iPhone buyers for every model and we will be buying iPhone 4S units on Day One, too. But we understand why iPhone 4S is different from iPhone 4 and that the 4S is simply the best damn smartphone ever made. We’re not just sure the general public is going to get it. Maybe Siri, if properly and widely demonstrated, will help sell it. Hopefully, Apple has some really good TV commercials ready to explain to the average Joe and Jane why they want an iPhone 4S. Otherwise we don’t expect to encounter any problems pre-ordering online or with in-store lines.
Related articles:
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Apple unveils new iPhone 4S with dual-core A5 and Siri intelligent assistant; launches iOS 5 and iCloud – October 4, 2011
Apple to launch iCloud on October 12 – October 4, 2011
Apple brings new features, more affordable pricing to iPod touch and iPod nano – October 4, 2011