Shane Cole
Apple is said to be planning the introduction of a new, 8-gigabyte variant of the iPhone 5c — possibly as soon as this week — in what could be a bid to turn around flagging sales of the plastic-backed device.
News of the change first appeared in a purported internal email from German wireless carrier o2, which will list the handset for sale at €509 ($707), €60 under the current €569 ($791) cost of the 16-gigabyte model. The communique was obtained by German blog stadt-bremerhaven.de.
There is no word on what affect such an introduction would have on the availability of the iPhone 4s, which is currently the only iPhone available in an 8-gigabyte capacity and is often given away for free when consumers subscribe to a two-year service plan with a wireless carrier. Apple also sells an 8-gigabyte version of the older iPhone 4 in developing markets like China and India.
A move to replace the iPhone 4s and iPhone 4 could make sense, as those devices still use Apple's older dock connector technology and sport smaller, 3.5-inch displays rather than the 4-inch display introduced with the iPhone 5. Dropping the iPhone 4s from the international lineup would put all current-generation iPhones on a common platform as the company gears up to introduce the so-called iPhone 6, which is rumored to ship with a larger display.
Sales of the iPhone 5c have reportedly fallen short of Apple's internal estimates as consumers opt for the marginally more expensive iPhone 5s. Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that demand for the iPhone 5c "turned out to be different than we thought" during the company's last quarterly earnings call.
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116 Comments
This actually makes some sense, and is about the same time that last year they dropped the $199 iPod touch 4th gen and brought out the $229 rear camera-less iPod touch 5th gen. As some (myself included) speculated at the time, that pointed to the 4th gen being removed in time for WWDC, and allowed Apple to continue to provide every currently sold iOS device the iOS 7 upgrade. If this is true, then something similar could be happening, with iOS 8 being exclusive to lightning equipped iPhones.
This is what was expected.....at the time of launch last September it was said that instead of offering a $0 / 8 GB 5c, Apple would continue to offering the iPhone 4S for a limited period of time..it was unclear if this had to do with inventory or distribution channels, or the relative popularity of the 4S in certain markets at the time....but it was always known that while the 4S was going to be the $0 phone a while longer, it was not going to last the full 12 months. In fact, I think there were reports that said until early 2014....so its falling right in line.
What is funny is that Apple could have done this back in September, made an 8 GB $0 version....and totally padded the 5c numbers to offset all the whiney bloggers and analysts....but they did what made the most business sense instead.
[quote name="pmz" url="/t/165527/rumor-apple-to-launch-lower-capacity-8gb-iphone-5c-this-week#post_2489269"]This is what was expected.....at the time of launch last September it was said that instead of offering a $0 / 8 GB 5c, Apple would continue to offering the iPhone 4S for a limited period of time..it was unclear if this had to do with inventory or distribution channels, or the relative popularity of the 4S in certain markets at the time....but it was always known that while the 4S was going to be the $0 phone a while longer, it was not going to last the full 12 months. In fact, I think there were reports that said until early 2014....so its falling right in line. What is funny is that Apple could have done this back in September, made an 8 GB $0 version....and totally padded the 5c numbers to offset all the whiney bloggers and analysts....but they did what made the most business sense instead. [/quote] If it was clear the 4S was doomed I don't remember reading it. And there is no $0 iPhone. And is it doomed? The price point for the lower iPhone 5c seems higher. Maybe they should have done this from the start, maybe not. Hindsight is 20-20 vision. If they over calculated the 5S sales then they would have had room to introduce a lower priced version sooner. However they probably wanted to wait until the Christmas and Chinese New Year was over.
so they are releasing a phone with a retarded 8gb of tiny space (this is 2014 last time I ckecked) to save 5$ on cost? If they want to sell the 5c in volume they need to drop the price to $400 or below on the 16g models....
Or, you know, do what they’re doing here. Because they know.