One of last few iPhone 5Ss STOLEN from within MASSIVE POLICE CORDON at Apple Store A man's new iPhone 5S was stolen in Apple's flagship London store just seconds after he bought it this morning. Despite more than a dozen cops turning up at the packed Regent Street shop - where the latest mobe went on sale today at 0800 BST - an enterprising pickpocket managed to swipe the gear. The Register understands the …
You'd think there would be a way to lock the serial numbers.
After all, the phone S/N is on the bill (hence proof of payment), so the buyer should have been able to log the phone as stolen and get Apple to flag that it has tried to authenticate and maybe identify the associated iTunes account. Such a measure will render phone thefts useless, and I know the Apple store has a record that ties the credit card to the specific phone.
FFS, if the US has such deficient privacy laws, could we at least have some *positive* use of that?
Which makes me think its deliberate so they can create free headlines about shops selling out.
When the raspberry pi sold out they massively underestimated and it destroyed websites. You can tell by what happened - its genuine.
But like you say to pre-print signs smacks of marketing hype and artificial low stock. Apple are one of the richest companies in the world in pretty sure that after 5 years of doing this and probably the some of the best analytics of their customers they know exactly much how many they need for customers (and how many they needed to MAKE SURE they sell out everywhere :-) )
"Which makes me think its deliberate so they can create free headlines about shops selling out."
1) You'd think they would have done that for the 5C if that were the case ("ooh, look how popular this one is too").
2) Stock control and supply chain management says that you shouldn't operate to try and fulfil demand on day 1. To do so would be to start stockpiling models for ages, and tying up capital in your warehouses. Say they can sell 100,000 on day 1, and can make 1,000 per day (all made up figures). They would have had to start producing them over 3 months ago and stockpile them all as the levels get gradually larger. Stock in a warehouse is an utter waste of capital. Using those figures along and averaging the value to be around £600, they'd have £60m tied up in a warehouse, doing nothing but waiting for launch day.
In reality the figures will be much higher.
As opposed to billions lying in off shore accounts doing nothing but waiting for a tax amnesty.
You really need to know the basic fact that that money is not "lying there". It's being used. Maybe to finance your job. It's just that someone has a claim on it.
And as long as the tax part hasn't been hoovered away, it's probably being used to produce stuff people want as opposed to stuff bureaucrats imagine people want (less the skim-off for bureaucrats' paycheck, of course)
"1) You'd think they would have done that for the 5C if that were the case ("ooh, look how popular this one is too")."
Not really. I should imagine they have teams of people reading the tech reviews/ previews/ popular blogs and, realizing world + dog (even hardened fanbios) think a poorer quality but only slightly cheaper iShiny is a shit idea, instead focused all their attention on the expensive iShiny.
"Starving the market" is an old trick, and is one Apple has successfully employed every year since 2008. How many more years they can get away with it remains to be seen, however.
'1) You'd think they would have done that for the 5C if that were the case ("ooh, look how popular this one is too").
Not really. This gives them absolute 'excuse' on the next wave to declare 'our customers have shown us that they really prefer quality and high value products' and then they'll jack up the price on the next 'premium' phone and accessories by £100.
<quote>Indeed, plus the way they say they're sold out "today" when their next shipment will be in October (according to the article anyway).</quote>
No, the article says that orders placed online will be shipped in October. About 2am the online store was saying 7-10 days, and it's now slipped to "October", so there is (at least one) earlier batch that is already fully claimed for online sales, but presumably the physical stores will operate on a first come, first serve basis and they'll get some allocation from the earlier batch(es).
" thieves are on the lookout for the distinctive new mobes"
They'll need good eyesight, as these look like any other smartphone of the day.
I suppose the most worried will be Lumia owners, whose garish plastic babies were previously theft proof, but may now be swiped in a tragic case of mistaken identity that all concerned will rue.
Or alternatively in Apple pitched the 5C in such way as to make the fruity fanbois think: "Oh my gawd, I don't wanna be stuck with a 5C, I GOTTA have a 5S to be a successful & stylish thinkfluencing barista!" Not that Apple would really do anything to ramp hysteria among the (not so) poor fashion victim community. No no. Not never. As if!
</tinfoil-conspiracy-fandroid-wanker>
Apple "sell out" of their new phone. Wow, that's never happened before.
If only they send a few more of the thousands of them, sat in warehouses somewhere in China, to the stores, they could avoid inconveniencing their customers, just for the sake of pointless publicity claims of how well they're selling.
Interesting ...
In classical product marketing, you create a high end, high priced product (pardon the pun .. Gold Model) and also offer a more affordable version (Silver Model) of the same product which typically offers 70-90% of the Gold Model. Normally you expect the Gold Model sets the aspirational bar, with the expectation that the Silver Model will actually account for 70-80% of sales as it seems to offer really good value for the money whilst the Gold Model sells in much lower volumes. In car sales this has worked well for many years. In old Ford money ... L, XL, GXL... Most of the volume was XL..
Apple seem to have changed this, in that the 5S may sell more than the 5C. So why might this be?
Either ...
1) They have changed the product perception model for Apple products
or
2) There is no need for a Gold Model as the Gold model is perceived to be the Apple Brand in general ... which means that ... The 5S is the Silver Model and the 5C is perceived as the Bronze Model (low rent version). Nobody wants a Bronze Model... especially when the product is a personal fashion status symbol as opposed to just being a utilitarian piece of equipment.
If 2 is true, then the 5C is therefore expected to sell in low numbers because it is deliberately low rented to persuade the purchaser to buy the 5S (spend more money) so as not to appear as a cheapskate. The Gold Model is perceived to be the Apple Brand and it's future expected product ... the iPhone 6 and that is currently unattainable by anyone, because it is not available/developed/marketed yet.
Having said the above, I think this may NOT have been what they intended. The 5C was probably just a reaction to loosing market percentage points, and pressure from the city and analysts to make sure they compete in the this sector rather than holding onto their principles (expecting to command a 20% type market share with much higher ARPU than the competition in the 80% of the market).
Perception is the reality ...
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