Appleviews – 21st July 2023
iPhone 15 delays
Apple’s flagship iPhone 15s may face a delay in being released this year.
September 12th is the date I have slated for the event, but this week Wamsi Mohan, a global securities analyst at Bank of America issued a warning that Apple may face a delay.
According to Mohan the iPhone 15 event may now slip back a few weeks into the 4th financial quarter which covers October to December. He came to his conclusion after having checked Apple’s supply chain inventory.
Mohan who is a regular at the Apple earnings calls is forecasting a September quarter revenue of $87.1 billion which is some way short of the predicted $91.6 billion. Sales are expected to be down too from the anticipated 51 million units to a more conservative 48 million units.
Mohan seems to be alone with his prediction, so I’d not hold too much sway by it. Apple’s next earnings call is on Thursday, August 3rd.
iPhone 15 – what coming
Away from the less genuine rumours there now seems four features that are pretty much locked in for iPhone 15 – even if it is late.
Dynamic Island as anticipated will roll out through the entire four-model lineup which will mean a final wave to the iPhone’s notch. But the Always-on display & ProMotion will still only be available on the Pro and Pro Max models.
Apple is hoping that including Dynamic Island across the range will help boost sales in a difficult economic environment.
Splitting the range will be the processor. The Pro & Pro Max will debut the A17 Bionic chip whilst the 15 & 15 Plus will inherit an ‘enhanced’ A16 Bionic chip.
The A17 will use TSMC’s new 3nm architecture and is expected to boost performance by 35%.
The last two certainties that will be coming to iPhone 15 this year will be a USB-C port finally replacing the slow and outdated Lightning port and a Periscope lens is coming to the cameras on the two Pro phones.
Auction fever
A regular at auction sites this year has been classic iPhones – and they’ve been fetching good money.
In February a first-generation factory fresh iPhone sold for $63,356 and a few months later another phone sold for a ‘meagre’ $40,320.
This week though, those prices have been eclipsed. Both those models were the regular 8GB handsets, but a very rare 4GB model has just smashed all records. The 4GB iPhone was only ever on sale for a very short time, 68 days, before it was withdrawn and that was reflected in the price it eventually fetched.
Because of its rarity, LCG Auctions had expected it to fetch around $100,000. It turns out that was very conservative as the final price achieved was – $190,000!
It’s not clear how many were originally sold, but it’s thought to have been around 200,000 units. The price at launch was $499 which was soon reduced to only $299 to clear stock.
Another gem
This year we’ve seen all sorts of Apple memorabilia sell at auction from rare unopened iPhones to original office signage and even a pair of Steve Jobs Birkenstocks.
Well, now you can add to that list a pair of original Apple sneakers. The sneakers were featured as a free giveaway at a National Sales Conference in the mid-’90s – so they were never on sale to the general public.
This men’s size 10 pair is a rare custom-made pair of Omega Sports Apple Computer sneakers that are up for auction with Sotheby’s and have never been worn.
They feature the old Apple logo on the side and tongues and are made from a mixture of leather and breathable cotton and rubber and have a retro style heavy elevated wedge style sole. There is a pair of white and red laces in the box.
The minimum reserve if you are interested…$50,000!
Apple TV+ on the up
Apple has firmly placed itself amongst the top streamers over recent months.
A new survey this week has backed that up too. Whip Media’s latest results look at the 10 most-streamed shows in the U.S. for Q223 – and Apple has made more appearances in that list than any of its competitors.
Apple TV+ made 31 appearances in that period which is an 81% increase. In the same quarter Netflix had 26 appearances and Max only 18. Five shows were at the heart of these fantastic results – Ted Lasso, Silo, Schmigadoon!, Platonic and The Last Thing He Told Me.
Apple Original movies also had a good quarter with nine appearances in the survey with Ghosted, Tetris and the Michael J. Fox documentary Still all performing well.
Things are expected to slow down to almost a halt soon though for all the streaming services as the writer’s and actors’ strikes begin to take grip.
New to Apple TV+
Stephen Curry: Underrated – a doc-movie about the career of the NBA legend is now available to watch on Apple TV+.
The movie received an amazing reaction at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and currently has a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Peter Nicks-directed movie had a short theatre release ahead of coming to Apple TV today.
Nicks focus is on Curry’s time spent at Davidson College through to helping the Golden State Warriors win four NBA titles. There is also some archive footage sitting alongside new interviews in this cinéma vérité style movie.
Stay of execution
The dispute between Apple & Epic which started way back in 2020 still rumbles on.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused an injunction that would have required Apple to immediately allow developers to add in-app links to outside payment platforms.
This gives Apple time to ask the Supreme Court to hear its appeal – but there is a 90-day time limit until the Supreme Court says whether it will hear the appeal.
3D is coming
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote this week that he believes that some parts of the next-gen Watch Ultra could be 3D printed.
“Although currently the mechanical parts made by 3D printing still have to go through the CNC process for back-end processes, it can still improve the production time and reduce the production cost,” he says.
If this rollout goes well then potentially Apple will look to use 3D-printed parts on other devices which would help with supply-chain issues and reduce production costs.
The 2nd generation Watch Ultra is thought to have a larger 2.1-inch screen, a larger battery and possibly a Micro LED panel as well.
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