laitimes

If the new iPhone product is not developed, where does Apple's pride go?

Yes, that's right, Apple Three didn't sleep in the middle of the night and started to live again.

At about 10 p.m. on March 7, Apple brought two "new products" in the form of direct listing, namely the yellow version of the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Plus. Apple's official website shows that these two "new products" will be pre-ordered on March 10 (this Friday) and officially released on March 14 (Tuesday).

Source: Apple's official website

Now iPhone 14 and iPhone Plus have become the most colorful model in Apple's history with iPhone 11, which has six colors of midnight, starlight, red, blue, purple and yellow, of course, as a real sense of shell replacement products, the two in addition to other configurations in terms of color matching are completely consistent with iPhone 14, and the starting price is also 5999/6999 yuan.

Although there is really nothing to say about a new color matching, as the big brother of the mobile phone industry, Apple still instantly set off a wave of heat on the Internet, and Xiaolei had to sigh that Apple's influence is still completely incomparable with other manufacturers.

Is technology really based on skin changing?

Some readers who are not familiar with Apple may be curious, isn't it a new color, what is the need to go to such great lengths to publicize, in fact, Apple in March every year to launch the new color of the iPhone is already a traditional skill, from the purple of the iPhone 12 to the green of the iPhone 13/Pro to now the yellow, said to be able to provide users with more choices, in fact, just want to drive sales.

Source: Apple's official website

As mentioned earlier, the largest number of colors before this is iPhone 11, which is also one of the most successful iPhones in Apple's history, and even during the 618 period in 2022, it still has good sales on major e-commerce platforms such as Jingdong, you may think that it does not have 5G, no high brush, bad signal, and slow charging speed, but it can not stand its price is indeed "close to the people" and some configurations can still be played, in order to have a certain competitiveness in the price of 4,000 yuan.

In fact, in addition to the iPhone, iPads, Macs and even Homepod mini in the past two years have launched a variety of younger and more vibrant colors. It can also be seen that richer colors have become one of Apple's wealth codes in recent years. In essence, Apple's iterative launch of differentiated colors is a pinching of the consumer's mentality: since I choose to buy a new model, why not buy a new color.

Source: Apple's official website

Xiaolei still remembers that last year there was an iPhone 11 user who was considering whether there was a need to change a new machine, and immediately placed an order after seeing the green version of the iPhone 13 Pro in his heart, Xiaolei also believes that there are not a few people like friends, and Apple has succeeded at this step.

However, compared with the previous two years, it is clear that Apple has felt an unprecedented sense of crisis this year, according to the statistics of Counterpoint, an authoritative foreign data agency, since 2022, iPhone sales have been declining, especially compared to the previous iPhone sales, which is very rare. According to the data, the global sales of the iPhone in December last year fell by 18% compared with the same period last year, and the domestic sales fell by 22% year-on-year, and in January this year, it fell by 11% year-on-year, in addition, the display analysis agency DSCC pointed out in this week's updated research report that it is expected that iPhone 14 sales in March will continue to decline, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are the worst iPhones in their history.

Image source: Counterpoint

And what brought such a humiliating performance to Apple is tonight's protagonists iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, and there is no need to discuss more about the cost performance of these two iPhones. When the industry has repeatedly said that Apple will cut the production capacity of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, it can be seen that these two products have clearly turned over in sales. (January shipments combined contributed only 20%)

Source: Apple official

And I don't know if you have found that last year Apple also specially equipped the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro with a new color, but this year it has become two lower-positioned iPhones, which shows that Cook is really anxious this time.

In order to save the sales of the iPhone 14 series as much as possible, Apple has previously carried out an official price reduction for four models, with a price reduction of between 600 yuan and 800 yuan (direct stores and official stores will not decrease, but authorized stores will decrease). The official price reduction before the release of the new machine is very rare for Apple, which shows that in the current mobile phone market environment, Apple has also encountered a situation that cannot be sold, so Apple urgently needs to rely on more ways to stimulate consumers, and price cuts and new colors are two big kills.

I don't know if it's good to look at or not, but it's really expensive

There is not much discussion here about whether the yellow iPhone 14 looks good or not, after all, everyone's aesthetics are inconsistent, but what Xiaolei can determine is that the price of these two "new" iPhones is really a little expensive, which is really not suitable for the current start.

Maybe some readers are a little dissatisfied when they see this, saying that it is obviously the same price as other colors, how can it be reduced to you? As mentioned earlier, just last month Apple officially lowered the official price of the iPhone 14 series, and on the third-party e-commerce platform, the gap between the official price and the platform price even came to 1300 yuan, which is enough for consumers to have a large storage version.

Source: Apple's official website and JD.com

Therefore, if Apple is willing to reduce the price of the new color in the short term or even let the e-commerce platform price it, it may indeed drive a wave of sales, but according to Apple's consistent style, this possibility is still very small.

iPhone 14 sales are dismal, and this plot may play out next year, mainly reflected in the recent revelations about the iPhone 15, there is news that Apple will upgrade the iPhone 15 Pro Max to iPhone 15 Ultra next year.

By convention, Apple will only give Ultra suffixes to the highest-positioned devices, such as the top-of-the-line M1 Ultra processor and the professionally positioned Apple Watch Ultra. The addition of the Ultra suffix also means that Apple will further open the gap between various models. From Apple's point of view, this helps consumers choose the corresponding model according to different needs, but in fact, we all know that Apple is just to force consumers to take more budget to buy Pro or even Ultra.

Source: Apple's official website

Forcibly use a high refresh rate screen, telephoto camera, smart island (different design) to distinguish between the standard version and the Pro version, and the result is indeed in line with Apple's expectations, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have become the main shipment force of the series, which means that Apple has more profits. However, when it comes to the iPhone 15 series, if Apple continues to insist on "disgusting" consumers, no one knows how many fruit fans will be willing to pay this year.

Apple's Jobs in the sky, Cook's strategy is more inclined to seek stability, Apple's iPhone dares to be conservative the largest capital, or the iOS ecosystem, no matter how the hardware of Android phones plays, unless there is revolutionary innovation, like Jobs took out the first generation of iPhone in 2007 and gently swiped at the screen, otherwise conservative must be Apple's best strategy. But for users, we don't really have a choice, after all, who doesn't like to make money lying down?

"The iPhone is still a star in the mobile phone market, but it has not shone as much as before."

This content is the author's independent opinion, may not be reproduced without permission, please contact [email protected] for cooperation

Read on