“Apple’s new 5.5-inch iPhone will come several months later than the new 4.7-inch model in order to avoid competition between the two models, rather than due to poor yield rates at 5.5-inch production lines as being reported, according to sources in the iPhone supply chain,” Cage Chao and Steve Shen report for DigiTimes.
“The different timetables have been set as Apple does not want to repeat the mistake it made in 2013 when it launched the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c simultaneously, said the sources,” Chao and Shen report.
Chao and Shen report, “Yield rates have not been an issue for the large-size iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: How would that work, exactly?
A) Apple pretends there’s only one new iPhone, the 4.7-inch model, so they can sell it out before unveiling the 5.5-inch model. If it’s only a couple months later (in order to to make it in time for Christmas), nearly everyone will be pissed off once it appears (deceitful, buyer’s remorse, bad business). If it’s “several months later,” say in March or April, it misses Christmas plus the rumors and leaks of the model have been so strong that everyone knows it has existed for months anyway and nearly everyone will be just as PO’ed.
B) Apple unveils both iPhones upfront in September and makes the 4.7-inch model available nearly immediately and begins taking pre-orders for the 5.5-inch model – thereby not really avoiding competition between the models at all, just creating a pause in the iPhone market while people who want the largest iPhone possible (a significant portion of the market – rough guess: at least 20% of iPhone buyers) wait for the largest iPhone possible.
C) Apple unveils both iPhones upfront, but makes the 5.5-inch model so much more expensive than the 4.7-inch iPhone that it makes a simultaneous unveiling with a delayed pre-order period meaningless to many, who’ll opt for the 4.7-inch model instead. The 5.5-inch iPhone would be the Mac Pro to the 4.7-inch iPhone’s iMac; an aspirational product priced for a small audience. Of course, this would still wreak havoc with iPad mini pricing or iPad mini would, perhaps, begin to cannibalize the 5.5-inch iPhone. Plus, why introduce yet another screen size (fragmentation) if you don’t intend to sell tens of millions of them? Suffice to say: Another messy option for users and Apple.
None of these options seem very palatable. Or realistic. Or smart. None of them delights customers or Apple.
Unless by “several months” DigiTimes means “twelve,” then we’re having trouble seeing how this would play out well for Apple or their iPhone customers.
And, BTW, Apple’s iPhone 5c outsold every Android flagship phone. Some “mistake” that was.