OS and Software > All Things Macintosh > Damn Man - iPhone is on a Roll!

reply to skeechan

Re: Damn Man - iPhone is on a Roll!

There is no way on earth that Tim Cook, an expert in supply chain, takes any pride in Apple not being able to deliver product. There is no hype from being sold out only bad PR from not being able to deliver product. The hype is people lined up around the corner...not from walking out empty handed. And with limited devices in the supply chain, there is no in store traffic from it (where users can be upsold) and no impulse buying.

There is ZERO benefit from artificial scarcity when you don't raise the price and in that case there is negative benefit both in lost primary sales and lost sales on the complementary goods.

Apple fans will buy it whether it is scarce or not. No hype. Non-Apple fans will go elsewhere rather than wait. No hype.

Again, there is no benefit unless they raise the price. When they leave price where it is, they simply leave money on the table if they induce artificial scarcity.

Yeah there is.

Hype.

If you have a rare product that is supposed to be amazing, people are going to fiend over it.

It's a lot better if people are going crazy over limited supply than having a store full of retail boxes.
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"If something about the human body disgusts you, complain to the manufacturer" - Lenny Bruce
What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.

This is just nutty. Wall Street Journal quotes Foxconn rep ""the most difficult device that Foxconn has ever assembled." Apple sells more in the opening weekend than any other cellphone launch, by far. Yet on this thread we are too believe they are artificially limiting production. Come on, its not like anyone is capable of mass producing phones on the scale of say M&M's candy at over 400 million a day. Get real people.

reply to itguy05
Okay, I'm wrong, you're right.

Now explain why Apple cannot EVER meet demand on ANY iPad or iPhone release. As for the comments about stringent manufacturing tolerances on the 5 causing problems... if Cook is the supply chain whiz he's supposed to be why did he allow that kind of thing to cause a kink in meeting the demand they knew they would have. If the dollars are more important then don't impose those silly tolerances (it's not a freaking Swiss watch) and remove that constraint.

I am just trying to understand why this genius company cannot meet the demand they create. The reasons given so far don't seem reasonable to me.
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Formerly Nezmo

reply to Mike
There is no benefit to "hype" in itself. Benefit comes from revenues. You don't hype a product you are already selling out of. You make as many of the damn things as you can and get them to market. Anyone think they need to sell out in order to hype an iPhone. It's the most overhyped device on the planet...long before release day. Apple doesn't need to scheme artificial scarcity to promote their device.

No units = no revenues. No units /= hype. No units = lost sales. NO ONE is surprised by a first week sell out. There is ZERO hype from a first week sell out, or a second week sell out. By the 3rd week it is simply frustration.

You would be right if the few units that were available were selling for $1500 per...then sure, there is the benefit to artificial scarcity.

No one is going "crazy". They simply walk out of the store empty handed or with an S3 box in a bag.

Boxes sitting in retail doesn't mean anything. Turnover does. You can have shelves full of boxes if you have high inventory turnover. It's infinitely better to have boxes in retail than zero boxes in retail.
The former means revenue, the latter doesn't.

reply to Nezmo
Because demand always exceeds their sales expectations. 5M units was a record for handsets, yet it is speculated that actual sales could have been 8-10M had the supply been there.

Initial demand is higher than ongoing demand. They have to control fixed costs in the short term. They get as many units into the channel as is reasonable to preserve unit margins, not to generate hype.

reply to Nezmo

The new iPad was very well stocked at launch. The eBay scalpers had to line up and return them back to Apple because there was no shortage.
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dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true...

reply to skeechan
If you're in the Apple system, why would you leave? Someone handed me an iPad mini.. uh I mean a S3 today and it's half phone half kindle. Too big.

Theres your reality distortion field in effect.

If you have a predictable base that can only grow, then your stock price is going to be insane.
--
"If something about the human body disgusts you, complain to the manufacturer" - Lenny Bruce
What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.

There are lots of reasons not to buy Apple products, particularly if you don't run Macs. And the S3 isn't the only competing phone. There are the new Windows phones rolling out, certainly lots of new ICS/JB phones like the newest Razr HD Maxx with crazy battery life, something like 20 hours and the Photon; a slider with a "real" keyboard.

If you are in a Windows world, migrating away from iOS to Android or WP8 can be compelling. I have friends who see no real difference between Android and iOS because they just use it for phone/text/browse/email so to them it is whatever they get a deal on.

If I didn't use Macs, I wouldn't use an iPhone. If I was using Windows on all of my desktops, I'd be on board with the Lumia 900.

Integration.

reply to itguy05

Re: Damn Man - iPhone is on a Roll!

reply to skeechan
I don't think integration is a big problem anymore. Syncing isn't a common activity anymore but iTunes on windows works as well as OS X's version. They also have an iCloud control panel to manage other aspects of integration.

reply to Count Zero
It is for me. I like stuff to just work and work together. I like the potential of Windows 8 + WP8 + XBOX 360.

reply to darcilicious
Best music library management utility I've ever seen or used on any platform. Combined with iTunes match it's awesome.

Agree. iTunes works very well for me for managing, organizing, streaming and sharing my 16,000 song library. It's just RAM hungry - but RAM is thankfully cheaper these days.