Is anyone really shocked? Here, I'll write out the tech media "design pattern" for a new Apple product.
1. Hype up killer pie-in-the-sky feature that makes zero economic sense for Apple (see: retina iPad, 4G iPhone with larger screen). Traffic spikes.
2. As launch approaches, use "inside sources" to mock up designs (Macrumors's "we think the 5 will look like this"). Report on supply chain behavior, leaked case designs, etc. Traffic spikes.
3. Live blog the launch event. Toss in snarky one-liners ("Siri? beam me up Scotty m i rite lolol") because you and your readers are too cool to watch the keynote but I guessssss we'll tune in anyway. Servers overload with traffic.
4. Write editorials complaining about how pie-in-the-sky features from #1 don't arrive. Cover your ass by reporting "supply chain delays" from unnamed sources. Hits among disillusioned gadget connoisseurs (heh) spike.
4.5. AAPL falls 2-3% even though the product will break sales records again. Yawn.
5. Break for a week or two to avoid tech journalism burnout, then repeat for next product. (e.g. iPad HD supply chain rumors in Nov/Dec). Traffic spikes.
Whatever.
EDIT: My favorite was the rumor about the iPad 2 getting a HD screen. The next best screen on the market (the Xoom) was like 140 ppi. Why would Apple drop $n >> 0 per iPad when competitors' screens are relatively abysmal and the iPad would sell out?
Anyone who bought that rumor displayed a serious unfamiliarity with the concepts of marginal benefit and marginal cost.
EDIT 2: Go read the child comment by chugger. It's all about the short positions.
(Random aside: I agree with all your arguments against the retina iPad display.
That said, I wrote the iOS Artwork Tool, which reads and writes the .artwork files found in iOS SDKs. Last night I updated the tool with iOS5 support and to my surprise discovered new iPad-specific @2x graphics. To be clear, the iPad @2x graphics appear to be woefully incomplete... but it's clear that someone over there is working on this.
Timeframes? I'll leave that to the rumor mill. Will it eventually happen? I'll venture a cautious yes.)
The iPad 3 was the most egregious example I've seen of this yet. John Gruber said it made sense for the iPad to be on a September release schedule (which actually makes no sense) based on no information whatsoever.
What followed was how the iPad 3 was coming, it had a retina display, the usual unverifiable tales from the supply chain, etc. In the end, unnamed sources said Apple decided to cancel it for a variety of reasons.
Not writing about a product that doesn't (and never) existed gets you zero pageviews. Writing about an Apple product gets you N page views. Writing about an unannounced product and then writing about it being scrapped, being ultimately the same as the first situation, gets you 2N page views.
The iPhone seems to be following a 2 year major release cycle. The 3GS was a relatively minor upgrade to the 3G (with faster CPU, etc) but it had basically the same design. You can make the same comparison from the 4 to the 4S. Next year's will probably have a major shift in outward appearance but that's just a guess.
For me, the upgrade is significant if you play games on your phone. I actually don't (I do on my iPad however). The faster shooting and better sensor are nice but not worth me upgrading I think.
I just wish so many people didn't fall prey to the obvious linkbaiting when it comes to Apple. This pattern constantly repeats itself. Any rational person knew the Fall iPad 3 was never going to happen the second the rumours started. You'll see a new iPad next March/April and probably an LTE iPhone 5 next summer or early Fall.
> John Gruber said it made sense for the iPad to be on a September release schedule (which actually makes no sense) based on no information whatsoever.
The iPad, being a contract-less decision, makes a lot of sense as a Christmas purchase.
The stuff about retina displays I think was based on the UltraHD icons and shit found in Lion. I think at least some of the thinking came from the idea that Apple wanted to do a super-high-res iPad (again, based on the direction of icons in Lion) and shift it's product cycle for the iPad from Spring to Fall. Since this was before the iPhone 4S was shifted from early summer, it made more sense a few months ago.
I'd still like a bigger screen on the iPhone. Mah thumbs are big.
Since this was before the iPhone 4S was shifted from early summer, it made more sense a few months ago.
More sense than zero isn't significantly different from zero.
I said this a few months ago, and I stand by it now: there was no reason for Apple to refresh a product that had 4-week delivery times. They couldn't stock iPad 2s in Apple Stores, so it made zero economic sense to refresh only 6-8 months later.
(I think this was cletus's point, and FWIW I agree with it 100%)
I don't know how anyone could reasonably anticipate an iPhone with a larger screen. From what I can tell, the resolution of the OS is effectively fixed and layout is done with pixels. A larger screen would mean lower DPI if the same resolution were to be maintained. That be rolling back on all the retina display hype.
Yup. MacRumors really did a disservice to everyone with that mock up stuff. I get what the reasoning was, but that doesn't make it any better. Sometimes the rumor sites just flat out get it wrong, and MacRumors I think is responsible for a lot of over-zealous reporting.
That said, the stock lost some ground, but the thing with Apple's stock, it always goes up before and after their quarterly earnings calls. They continue to defy the numbers people expect from it.
Their profits are going to continue to rise, and with it, so will the stock. The geeks that have to have the new shiny will be disappointed, however, the casual user will love the iPhone 4S and it well sell like crazy. At least just as well as the iPhone 4.
Were we all hoping to see an "iPhone 5" ? Yup. I think we all were hoping, however little, that it would show up. But many of us with any sense of reasoning and logic regarding Apple have pretty much known that this update was going to be almost exactly what it was. Apple is on a two year design plan. Excuse the original iPhone since that was the exception (again, not that the iPhone 5 couldn't have been one as well). But if you look at it now, it becomes a lot more clear. iPhone 3G-> iPhone 3GS (Faster processor, more ram and the same design). iPhone 4->iPhone 4S (Faster processor, probably more ram, same design).
Next year we'll see a new case design, and maybe it'll resemble the tapered design that has been rumored. I'm kind of hoping against it since it would be awkward to hold in landscape orientation. Something that is curved in both directions would be neat. As long as it is symetrical. The problem with a "banana" shape is that it would no longer sit flat on a desk and that would bother me.
I'm pretty happy with the iPhone4/4S case. I kind of wish it was a bit more curved on the edges since I find the metal "mid-case" to be a bit sharp, not a cut you kind of sharp, but it could be more blunt and thus more comfortable in your hand. Think more pebble shaped with regard to the sides.
It's easy to look back and say, oh, those case mockups or cases shouldn't have been reported on since they were wrong.
But at the time, the entire case industry was moving forward with producing cases. They weren't just prototypes, you could actually buy the "iPhone 5" cases. It would have been impossible not to report on the cases and what they represent.
I believe and have been told that the iPhone 5 design was real -- just not ready.
As for mockups. Both sides tend to point and say, oh - look what they got wrong. or look what they got right.
But the thing about rumors is it's like a statistical distribution. You can't take any one rumor and say "oh, this is it". Eventually, by the time the event happens, the rumors settle around something that frequently is very close to the truth. See, our Rumor Roundup right before the event for the final conclusion from months of rumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/03/lets-talk-iphone-rumor-r...
You guys have done great work in the past. But you've taken things a bit far this time. You win some you lose some, but you helped set expectations way too high and that resulted in some serious disappointment for a lot of people.
Between your terrible moderators, insanely stupid forum readers, and this, I have no desire to really read your site anymore.
More importantly is why didn't it come out sooner, like in June? My guess is that the soonest it would have came out is actually came out is August 10, six months after the iPhone 4 CDMA, and probably because a contract between Apple and Verizon to not let Sprint in on the action quite yet, especially since the iPhone 4 could run on Sprint the entire time. Furthermore the white iPhone 4 didn't really come out until April. October is a fairly convenient 6 months after that as well.
It's possible we could have got an iPhone 5, but I'm sure apple is waiting for WiMax/LTE to really ramp up in both semiconductor quality and carrier service. Also, they won't release two phones, so they're going to wait for chips that do both WiMax and LTE at the power consumption they want, which will probably be in about a year.
The best aspect of all of this for apple today is that they have so many products, so you can jump from rumor-hyping one to the next, avoiding burnout. You can go from the retina-ipad to the iphone 5 and then you still have plenty more places to hop around to (such as macbooks, itunes, acquisitions, ebooks, etc.) before you hop back to the ipad or iphone.
I don't know about the spreading of rumours, but alot of funds short apple on the day of product announcements as their stock almost always goes down during the announcements.
In fairness, that sounds apocryphal. If it were really common then there would be no money in doing it because the market would have factored in days before the event the fact that the price were going to fall.
Long nicknamed the “favorite yo-yo” of daytraders and hedge fund managers – Apple’s high beta of 1.43, its prominent position in finance media and its vulnerability to rumors has made it a choice stock in short term profits, both through long and short positions
http://www.investorguide.com/article/6809/apples-aapl-mini-c...
Because the profit comes over a shorter period, i.e. shorting stock from the 3rd to the 5th. If they just bought at the lower price after the announcement they would have to wait for a longer period before they would gain the same profit as through shorting the stock.
iPad is a new product line and need to reach mass appeal. Apple is betting a lot on a form factor that has repeatedly failed. They need to sell a high volume of units, not sell a few high end units.
Maybe in a few years there will be an 'iPad Pro' with a higher power processor, better screen, etc. But it seems unlikely in the short term.
Also a retina display on an iPad priced at 1000$ or so would probably have similar profit to the current iPads. So even less motivation.
I agree with all of the above and add that Apple's only plausible competition is from _below_ (e.g. the Kindle Fire) and so if anything they're probably figuring out a plan for what to do if sales start flagging from such competition (e.g. can Apple maintain margins on a $299 iPad2? $399?).
Whether or not you're right, if Apple is worried about competition from "below," as you put it, it will be the very first time since 1978 that they have done so.
1. Hype up killer pie-in-the-sky feature that makes zero economic sense for Apple (see: retina iPad, 4G iPhone with larger screen). Traffic spikes.
2. As launch approaches, use "inside sources" to mock up designs (Macrumors's "we think the 5 will look like this"). Report on supply chain behavior, leaked case designs, etc. Traffic spikes.
3. Live blog the launch event. Toss in snarky one-liners ("Siri? beam me up Scotty m i rite lolol") because you and your readers are too cool to watch the keynote but I guessssss we'll tune in anyway. Servers overload with traffic.
4. Write editorials complaining about how pie-in-the-sky features from #1 don't arrive. Cover your ass by reporting "supply chain delays" from unnamed sources. Hits among disillusioned gadget connoisseurs (heh) spike.
4.5. AAPL falls 2-3% even though the product will break sales records again. Yawn.
5. Break for a week or two to avoid tech journalism burnout, then repeat for next product. (e.g. iPad HD supply chain rumors in Nov/Dec). Traffic spikes.
Whatever.
EDIT: My favorite was the rumor about the iPad 2 getting a HD screen. The next best screen on the market (the Xoom) was like 140 ppi. Why would Apple drop $n >> 0 per iPad when competitors' screens are relatively abysmal and the iPad would sell out?
Anyone who bought that rumor displayed a serious unfamiliarity with the concepts of marginal benefit and marginal cost.
EDIT 2: Go read the child comment by chugger. It's all about the short positions.