“Following on from Apple’s conference call and quarterly results this afternoon, the impact of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on the iOS ecosystem is clear,” Ewan Spence reports for Forbes. “The two handsets are breaking Apple’s sales records, and demand in the 32 countries where the handsets are currently on sale is ‘markedly higher,’ says CEO Tim Cook.”
“How much of an impact? Mobile marketing platform Localytics has released data that shows the two latest devices in the iPhone family already account for seven percent of the current iPhone market,” Spence reports. “The iPhone 6 represents six percent, while the iPhone 6 Plus makes up the balance. I wouldn’t read too much into the 6:1 split – given the still-limited supplies of the iPhone 6 Plus many initial adopters may have little choice but to opt for the smaller model, even if the iPhone 6 Plus has the greater potential of the two models.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on January 3rd:
Some portion of [those who want larger smartphone displays than Apple currently offers] are too stupid, blind, or pathologically anti-Apple to have ever purchased an iPhone, regardless of screen size.
This is not to say that Apple, the world’s most valuable tech company, rolling in more billions of dollars than they know what to do with, shouldn’t have a larger screen iPhone available by now. They should. It’s criminal malpractice on the part of Tim Cook that they don’t. The sales Apple have left and continue to leave on the table should have been keeping Phil Schiller up at night for at least the last year.
Yes, Apple should have a bigger iPhone yesterday, but this is just simple logic: Not all phablet owners would have bought an iPhone even if a bigger iPhone was available.
We understand fragmentation. We understand the issues of producing apps that work on devices with various screen sizes (intimately).
None of it matters because too much of the market wants an iPhone with a bigger screen. Developers will simply work harder for the premium customers found on the premium platform. Period.
This omission – not iMacs and Mac Pros that miss Christmas or anything else – is Tim Cook’s biggest mistake to date. Apple should have a bigger iPhone on the market by now, but since, for some inexplicable reason a company with more cash at their disposal than Intel Corp. is worth doesn’t, the sooner the better.
And, as we wrote on January 23rd:
When Apple finally extracts their collective head from their collective ass and ships iPhone models with larger screens, they’ll do more damage to slavish copier Samsung than all of their endless, plodding patent infringement cases combined.
We believe that Apple became infatuated with the fact that only they could produce small, thin smartphones with an efficient OS that could work with the small batteries that these compact iPhones housed. “Nobody else can do such things.” Meanwhile, battery-hogging Android leeches like Samsung slapped larger screens on their phones to hide the fact that they needed significantly larger batteries in order to run for even a few hours (Android phones are notorious for running out of charge).
Far too many otherwise intelligent consumers saw little or nothing of Apple’s considerable engineering superiority (the iPhone 5s is simply the best smartphone anyone has ever produced), these otherwise intelligent consumers only saw iPhone’s smaller screens. They didn’t see Android’s inefficiency or inferior ecosystem, they only saw phones with larger screens.
If we’ve heard from one person who went with an Android phone for a larger screen who in fact really wanted an iPhone – “I’d have gotten an iPhone if only they had a larger screen” – we’ve heard it from a thousand. These are top tier, cream-of-the-crop customers (i.e. Apple’s target demographic), not low information cheapskates. They want to be Apple customers and participate heavily in Apple’s ecosystems, but, for a few years now, Apple has been blowing these sales by failing to deliver the product these high value customers desired. It’s inexplicable; any downsides (fragmentation, inventory management, etc.) are vastly outweighed by the vast sales potential to those who should be Apple customers, but are now carrying a plastic piece of crap from Samsung.
Bottom line: Apple screwed the pooch on this one. Shit or get off the pot, Tim.
Finally, as we wrote on January 28th:
No iPhone with a screen larger than 4-inches – it’s now 2014 – despite a plethora of high-value customers who obviously want to buy one, but have turned to other platforms in order to get a smartphone with a larger screen. Oops. Mismanaged.
One-handed interaction is a concocted load of bullshit attempting to cover for not having a proper lineup of iPhones offering customers varied display sizes at even this late date.
Wow you are so brilliant MDN. While you are at it please share the take you did on Ping when it was first released….
Ooh, MDN trusted some guy named Steve Jobs to launch something good with Ping. Then MDN wrote this:
“Ping is a flop. And, unless and until Apple integrates it with social networks that people actually use, it will remain a flop.” – MacDailyNews Take, December 10, 2010
Ahhh yes you’ve chosen one of MDN’s many takes done with the benefit of hindsight. How about that marvellous take proclaiming the brilliance of Ping when it was launched – i’m sure its been iCal’d….
The day Ping was released, Apple had Facebook integration in Ping. (Jobs was trying to force Zuckerberg’s hand, but Zuckerberg’s didn’t blink.) MDN’s Take on Ping took Facebook integration into account. Facebook did not approve Ping integration and Apple pulled Facebook shortly after launch. MDN’s Take calling Ping a “flop” came a few months after launch when it was far from clear for most everybody what the future held for Ping, so, yes, MDN is, in fact and obviously unlike you, brilliant. Your example only supports MDN’s brilliance.
What “hindsight?” MDN called Ping a flop two months after it launched and two years before it was discontinued. Your example only highlights MDN’s brilliance at correctly calling all things Apple, good and bad, while proclaiming yourself to be a vapid, confused asshole.
Name: vapid confused asshole troll.
Poor old name seems to have gone quiet under such a battering, might be better he come back as ‘no name’ in future to better reflect his knowledge or lack there of.
I heard UK is working on a law against trolls on Internet…just FYI
better keep ya mamma off that interweb thang then.
Way to apologise, after not researching, before calling MDN out on Ping, when it was Facebook that was the problem.
Perfect timing is when the product is perfected and the market is ripe. If they’d brought out a half-arsed product a year ago the results wouldn’t have been spectacular.
I still think at some stage they’re going to release a 3.5″ phone for people who want an actual small, light, one-hander phone. There is a market, especially with people who cary a full-size iPad.
Why would it have been “half-assed?”. MDN is right: Apple blew it when they made the iPhone 5 at 4-inches. It should have been 4.7-inches. Then tens of millions of users wouldn’t be stuck on Android, not knowing they are using shit, and Apple wouldn’t be in the position of trying to win them over from another platform. If the iPhone 5 was the right size, Android and Samsung would have never shipped so many pieces of crap.
Android users stuck in android are android users stuck in Android!
The fact that they are Android users says it all.
No enforcement by Apple inc. was required for them to go down that wide road of self indulgent pleasure and debauchery only to find that they have effectively given their souls to beezlebubb in exchange.
The “right” size is a matter of personal taste. For some, it is 4.7″; for others 5.5. Personally, I appreciated the increase from 3.5 to 4.0, but my hand is too small for the iPhone 6 to be really comfortable. If I had to change from my iPhone 5 today, and had only the options of going up to 4.7 or down to 3.5 (with all the features of an iPhone 6), I would take the smaller phone, but I don’t have that option.
I hope that Apple provides an iPhone with current specs and a 4.0 screen someday. The lack of that option has made me delay what would otherwise have been an automatic purchase for me. Choice is good, because there isn’t a universal “right size” for every user.
My daughter is short. She thinks the 5 is larger than necessary.
Samsung makes a shit load of small feature phones with a markup of 35¢ per phone. Bargains galore, get two.
Uh huh, thanks to the take by MDN, Apple hopped to it and developed two larger screen iPhones in just eight months.
“If only the iPhone 5 hadn’t had a 4″ screen.”
“If only Google hadn’t created Android.”
“If only Samsung didn’t exist.”
“If only people made wiser decisions.”
Well, it did, they did, it does, and they don’t.
We now have the choice of larger iPhones and Apple will eventually bring more of the ill informed into the fold.
Apple isn’t perfect but they’ve done a pretty good job by NOT following all of the expert opinions doled out from sites like MDN. Get over yourselves.
The facts remain: Tim Cook was wrong and MacDailyNews was right. Again. As usual.
Whine and moan about it all you like, but the facts remain.
That’s like saying Greenpeace was right and Apple was wrong, when Greenpeace demands some action and two months later Apple announces that a year-long plan is coming to fruition addressing exactly that.
MDN isn’t referencing any Take earlier than January of this year. This means that the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were *already* well under way by the time MDN stopped buying into the “one handed operation” justification for keeping a smaller screen.
Further, Apple is traditionally locked into a 2-year design cycle. That means the 5s was almost certain to be the same form factor as the 5, which itself was the last design influenced by Steve Jobs.
You want facts? Many of us weren’t buying the one-handed justification, or MDN’s own “larger phone hides larger battery for inefficient Android” take (who cares, end result *the screen was bigger*), and were called Android trolls and told to go Android and not let the door hit us on the way out, long before MDN came around.
Get off the pot. Apple had been working on bigger phones for 2 to 3 years.
Apple has to make it perfect before they manufacture.
Once again, a MacDailyNews Take was dead on target.
Comments regarding MacDailyNews’ January 3, 2014 Take:
— alanaudio: … and a few years ago it was also crucial that Apple should offer a Netbook too. Huge numbers of them were being sold by every company not called Apple, so if Apple didn’t produce a Netbook, they would be doomed. But Apple still didn’t produce a Netbook.
— bkire: What would a bigger iPhone do that the iPad mini cannot already do? Just because an iPhone can be made bigger doesn’t mean it should be made. I don’t want to use a device where I have to use two hands or would have to do hand acrobats. The current iPhone screen size is a perfect form factor in my opinion for people on the go.
— Mikey: How big do they think my pants are? I’ve got a 5s and I can’t imagine carrying around something even bigger.
–Derek Currie: PHABLETS 😆
😆 😛 😆 I don’t think so.
— His Shadow: No matter how many times people are thoroughly embarrassed by the reality of just how little people understand what Apple “must” do, bozos still pretend to know what is best for Apple.
— eyeschool: Apple MUST make a bigger phone and an iWatch and a bigger iPad and a midrange tower and… Where does this crap come from? Please, someone, get a shovel and start clearing the manure out of here. Beavis IS a Butthead! dmz
Comments regarding MacDailyNews’ January 23, 2014 Take:
— Crabapple: Shame on you MDN! 🙁 You are now behaving like an anal yst & what is worse, you should know better since you every so often remind us of your iCaled entries.
— His Shadow: MDN’s comment is bullshit. Apple needs to make phablet in the same way Apple needed to make a netbook. I am surrounded by people with iPhones inside and outside work and I have never once heard anyone say about their iPhone “I wish this was tablet sized”.
Comment regarding MacDailyNews’ January 28, 2014 Take:
— Tom: I don’t come here for MDN’s lame “takes” on Apple. I come for the often funny, sometimes interesting, and occasionally insightful comments of interesting posters.
Well, I’m flattered that you pulled one of my quotes, and chagrinned by the context in which I was quoted. My comment, in context, was not about the forthcoming products, but about the commenters on here demanding that Apple MUST produce these products or they’re DOOMED. I’m still of the same opinion. Kudos to Apple for making up their own mind in their own time and with their own rationale for what, and when, they develop any product. I’m sure Apple doesn’t pay much attention to the commenters on here who are demanding Apple make this or that…
dmz
My comments were valid then, and are still valid now. Based not on hindsight which we all know has twenty twenty vision, but based on the available information then.
MDN was being unreasonably irritable with a splash of smugness and it had to be said.
On being a Superior Being, “How about you pull up my comments back in circa 2007 and 2008 about how Apple incs. road map was to eventually pull all their hardware together underneath a single OS that had been optimized for each hardware item based on a single universal core”?