Someone on the Verge forums made an intersting observation: that the 5C might be a transitional product and next year it becomes the low end and the 5S doesn't go plastic. Of course the question then might be why didn't Apple get rid of the 4S and replace it with the 5C and keep the 5 as the mid-range. I think we know why, but my guess is that's what Wall Street wanted. Until of course Apple reported quarterly results and margins and profits were down.
The costs to build out new manufacturing and assembly lines is high. As you produce more and more units from those same lines, the costs come way down. The 4/4S lines have been in place for over 3 years now - talk about maximizing costs! It's probably extremely inexpensive to produce this model now, much cheaper than even the 5C. I also think that the iPhone 5/5S production has turned out to be more costly than Apple figured, which is why the iPhone 5 was dropped and replaced with the 5C. For this reason, the iPhone 5S will get axed next year as well.
The line up should be...
5C - $0 on contract (same internals)
5CS - $99 on contract (same internals as the 5S and look the same as 5C)
6 - $199 on contract (New design, new internals, 4" display)
6X - $249 on contract (New design, new internals, 4.7" display)
The second screen size is a long shot (maybe the next generation), but I think the next iPhone will be designed around the ability to use a larger display without necessarily making the overall device much larger. This same design could also then be used to make a phone with a 4" screen smaller than it is today.
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>Rogifan</strong> <a href="/t/159476/apple-granted-iphone-network-license-for-china-mobile-worlds-largest-carrier/40#post_2394387"><img alt="View Post" src="/img/forum/go_quote.gif" /></a><br />
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And yet Wall Street dings the stock when profits and margins are lower than prior quarter/year. Give me the name of one analysts that says they want Apple to sacrifice margins and profits.</div>
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<p>Apple did a good move on margins. The 5C at $550 as better margins than selling the 5 at $550. The problem is its still a high end phone on the price side. Despite adding new carriers, I dont think Apple will be able to sell more phones than last year in the long run. It should do better that last year in the first weeks, but volume will quickly died down after just a few months. Apple will need to do a phone launch in early 2014. Maybe this is what they have planned.</p>
The stock is getting absolutely hammered so we'll see how Apple responds (if at all). Honestly I have little time for Wall Street investors that hammer the stock when margins and profits are lower than prior periods but at the same time complain that Apple's products are too expensive. Well sorry, you can't have all three.
Apple has to support its ecosystem. Profit is the number one way to do that. If they sold a hundred million extra iPhones, they would have to spend $X amount in order to beef up the back end to support (data centers) all the new users. Apple is not going to sacrifice quality of service, potentially pissing off customers, to make investors happy. They have been very smart to roll out new services incrementally. First on top tier products and then waiting to move down product lines until the service has the back end support to serve much higher demand.
Marketshare for marketshare's sake is a meaningless endeavor, when you already have a thriving ecosystem in place, huge developer support and the most satisfied customers in the industry. Developers aren't going to run to Android just because it is "shipped" on more devices - they'll go to whichever platform has real users. So while Google talks-the-talk and claims more "Activations", which is supposed to impress, Apple walks-the-walk and reports a very different and much more important number to developers, how much money developers have made thus far; over $10 billion. Activations do not mean anything unless you have other numbers to back the reason why it is so important.
To say that 'marketshare for marketshare's sake is meaningless' is a truism.
With the kind of volumes Apple sells -- and therefore of components they purchase -- I would have expected the much-vaunted economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies to kick in quite solidly by now, allowing Cook to make an aggressive pricing move. Indeed, operations and supply chain efficiencies were Cook's strong suit, as Jobs's super-successful COO.
What I am finding surprising -- while not minimizing the challenges associated with the sheer volumes involved -- is how misplaced the faith in Cook on that front (including on my part) has turned out to be thus far. Coming on top of a set of botched iMac introductions, supply shortages, dramatically slowed (and bunched) product intro schedules, the 5C pricing and features (e.g., only 32GB?) is quite unimpressive. At least, for me.
Don't get me wrong: the 5S is a huge leap (although I am slightly disappointed at the lack of the 128GB).
Well... we will hear the same BS over and over again until that day, the day that we are waiting. The day when Apple gets over 10 billion net profit in the christmas quarter. Trolls will eat it. Then the usual procedure of rumours and BS will start.
For me, the only difference this time around, is that rumour sites and others newspapers really created an idead of what Apple should do in order to have a nice keynote: Apple should have done a "really cheap" phone otherwise it would be a failure. Not only that, but the biggest scam: Apple should do something unexpected otherwise it would be a failure. 2x faster device? granted. Sensor? granted. Best camera? granted. Everything was granted and still that wasn't enough, otherwise the stock would get destroyed.
And here we are.
Personally, I couldn't care less about the stock or what ignorant fools think about Apple. I really think that they are risking a lot by not offering a bigger screen iphone, but low cost devices is overrated. What I "demand" is that Apple's offerings make sense.
In this day and time, an iPhone 4 for 400€ unlocked didn't made sense to me and and only a fool would buy it. But the twice as fast, improved on every way, equal gorgeous 4s? Only the connector pisses me off. Because of those rumours, I thought that Apple would stop producing the 4s and that the 5c would be the cheaper offering. Of course, it would still be expensive to me, so I bought an Android device. Sometimes, the WIFI fails. It lags. I had to root it and install a "clean" rom. It still doesn't provide a great experience, despite the fact that Google does their job pretty well.
The 4s will be very capable with iOS 7.
F*ck you:
- Digitimes; - Business insider; - Wall street; - WSJ; - Every analyst; - sites like AI to report on things like that.
A lot of pundits thought the iPad mini would be cheaper too.
In fact, there's a key difference here. A lot of pundits thought the iPad mini HAD to be cheaper. They were completely wrong. Therefore it's highly likely they'll be wrong about the iPhone 5C.
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
They finally got the contract to be on the network, but too bad they forgot to bring the "inexpensive" phone they need to succeed in that market.
Says every troll everywhere for the next few weeks until sales come in.
To garner market share. Apple has been downgraded by 3 banks today despite the china mobile deal. The stock market wants apple to surrender margin for share, it is a platform war after all. Android is fast becoming the developer first option here in Europe. America may be an iOS bubble. The world isn't. And why wouldn't apple compete?
So the banks are idiots. By what standard is Apple a dramatically worse investment today than yesterday?
Their flagship phone was just dramatically upgraded and is better in every way than its predecessor - and is far better than what the competition has to offer.
its midrange phone is dramatically better than yesterday's midrange phone - and also comes in a new design that will appeal to a younger, more fashion conscious audience.
They now have access to a massive new market.
So what is the logical reason for downgrading them and selling the stock? Because Apple didn't do what some idiot analysts suggested? Too bad.
<div class="quote-container">Quote:
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>dasanman69</strong> <a href="/t/159476/apple-granted-iphone-network-license-for-china-mobile-worlds-largest-carrier#post_2394318"><img alt="View Post" src="/img/forum/go_quote.gif" /></a><br />
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Isn't the 4S $450 now?</div>
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<p> </p>
<p>imo $450 for a 8g 3.5" phone is insulting. The 4.7" Nexus 4 at $200 beats the 4s on almost all metric. That being said, Apple could still do good on the tablet side, the stock could be a buy around $400 </p>
Except for a couple of problems. First, the $200 Nexus 4 is no longer available. Second, it contains only 8GB of storage - which is largely useless. Finally, it's nowhere near the quality of Apple's system.
Yeah. Get over it customers who want a cheaper phone for themselves or presents, investors who wanted to see market share increase, existing customers who would like to see Apple maintain market share so the platform is viable for developers, Android users who would like to switch, pre-paid customers who want an iPhone or future investors who would like to invest in a growth company.
Everybody else is happy though.
Total nonsense. First, developers are completely happy with Apple's ecosystem - that's where they make 80% of their money. The customers who are looking for cheap phones are not typically the ones the developers are after.
Apple learned a long time ago that market share doesn't make a company great. If they simply wanted market share, they could take $200 off the price of every phone - and the stock would plummet, anyway.
In what capacity do you consider the 5C 'better' than the 5? For Apple's bottom line yes, but I consider it a different option not a better one for consumers.
It's better because it appeals to a different audience.
To say that 'marketshare for marketshare's sake is meaningless' is a truism.
With the kind of volumes Apple sells -- and therefore of components they purchase -- I would have expected the much-vaunted economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies to kick in quite solidly by now, allowing Cook to make an aggressive pricing move. Indeed, operations and supply chain efficiencies were Cook's strong suit, as Jobs's super-successful COO.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
In Anant's defense he was specifically mentioned the 5C pricing which you accidentally clipped off his quote, not the 5S. He's hardly alone in expecting Apple might have been able to be more aggressive in that particular products pricing. Of course by choosing to offer generally the same user features as the flagship 5S it perhaps wouldn't have been a smart decision to sell it for any less than they have (at least to begin with) as you've said yourself.
I hope we see a huge advertising blitz from Apple right away. They need to keep the desire up for these phones. The media meme right now is "too expensive". It's way worse than when the iPad mini came out. Apple needs something to drown out the "too expensive " drumbeat. The media negativity is higher than ever and I don't think Apple can afford to assume it doesn't have an impact. The way to shut up all the naysayers is with really good first weekend sales.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
I have no doubt they did. Some.
What made the iPad such a brilliant product competitively -- I still recall the collective facepalm on the competition's part -- was its pricing. SJ took a risk by betting big on the price, and the bet paid off. I think that a similar opportunity was missed with the 5C (especially considering it is largely an updated 5 except for its back).
I believe that a killer 5C intro -- one that truly put the competition to bed -- would have been 16/32/64 priced at $449/$549/$649 unlocked. I think it may still happen, but the move will lack the same punch.
I am now convinced that Apple's refusal to make a bigger screen iPhone was a mistake. It is following almost the same strategy as BlackBerry did a few years ago, of ignoring market trends. Even if they do damage control within the next few months, the momentum they have now lost to compete with the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG will affect Apple in the long run. The short sellers are going to have a field day for the next couple of months.
Complete hyperbole.
Apple's iPhone strategy isn't even comparable to what RIM did with the Blackberry. That failure had nothing to do with the size of the screen and had everything to do with the UX and UI. Mobile devices at the time has desktop UI's crammed onto tiny screens that made use a nightmare for most people. The iPhone showed how simple these devices could be to use if the UI and UX were rethought and done right - they didn't just make a phone with a bigger screen, they redesigned everything to work with your fingers. It was amazing to use for the first time, and best of all, it was fun!
Whether the iPhone screen is 4" or 5" or 6" ... the OS and the software will be exactly the same and just as useful.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
In Anant's defense he was specifically mentioned the 5C pricing which you accidentally clipped off his quote, not the 5S. He's hardly alone in expecting Apple might have been able to be more aggressive in that particular products pricing. Of course by choosing to offer generally the same user features as the flagship 5S it perhaps wouldn't have been a smart decision to sell it for any less than they have as you've said yourself.
Yes, I was referring only to the 5C.
The 5S is brilliant, as I've repeatedly said (except for the lack of 128GB, which is not a deal-breaker).
What made the iPad such a brilliant product competitively -- I still recall the collective facepalm on the competition's part -- was its pricing. SJ took a risk by betting big on the price, and the bet paid off. I think that a similar opportunity was missed with the 5C (especially considering it is largely an updated 5 except for its back).
I believe that a killer 5C intro -- one that truly put the competition to bed -- would have been 16/32/64 priced at $449/$549/$649 unlocked. I think it may still happen, but the move will lack the same punch.
Might it be possible that in certain markets Apple could/would drop the price in the future? I mean if the 5C really is overpriced we will see that in lowers sales, no?
Yet, AAPL getting punished now, down $19 pre-market. Clearly, the market is reacting negatively to the surpringly conservative 5C pricing. It's a huge opportunity lost.
You people make me laugh. Thank god none of you have sensitive positions in marketing or business in general.
Might it be possible that in certain markets Apple could/would drop the price in the future? I mean if the 5C really is overpriced we will see that in lowers sales, no?
Of course. But since that won't happen, every moron screaming the the 5C is overpriced will be automatically silenced, and will never ever chime in to admit how pathetically wrong they were. It is almost embarrassing how uneducated and uninformed these blog whiners are. Almost no one with real marketing or business experience, at all. Just whiny tech-watchers.
Of course. But since that won't happen, every moron screaming the the 5C is overpriced will be automatically silenced, and will never ever chime in to admit how pathetically wrong they were. It is almost embarrassing how uneducated and uninformed these blog whiners are. Almost no one with real marketing or business experience, at all. Just whiny tech-watchers.
I'd like to believe it won't happen but I don't have a lot of confidence in Phill Schiller and the marketing team. And Apple needs to do something to drown out the negativity.
With the kind of volumes Apple sells -- and therefore of components they purchase -- I would have expected the much-vaunted economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies to kick in quite solidly by now, allowing Cook to make an aggressive pricing move. Indeed, operations and supply chain efficiencies were Cook's strong suit, as Jobs's super-successful COO.
That has kicked in already- those savings are offset by other higher priced components and manufacturing costs. You don't think the A6 and A7 were developed and made for free do you? Apple just spent almost $400 million to put a sensor under the home button of ONE model of phone. Who else does that? There are few other companies that would.
Tim Cook is doing a brilliant job of maximizing costs and always has. The design of the 5C is going to help push costs down, and eventually prices as well. Just wait and see. Apple wouldn't have released a second model unless they saw a need for it. The iPhone 5 will be the first iPhone where Apple is just going to have to eat the costs - probably turned out to a bigger pain than they originally planned for. You can bet the iPhone 6 will be designed around making it extremely easy to assemble but still be just as refined a product.
The moment Apple makes an aggressive pricing move, is the moment we all start worrying.
Comments
Someone on the Verge forums made an intersting observation: that the 5C might be a transitional product and next year it becomes the low end and the 5S doesn't go plastic. Of course the question then might be why didn't Apple get rid of the 4S and replace it with the 5C and keep the 5 as the mid-range. I think we know why, but my guess is that's what Wall Street wanted. Until of course Apple reported quarterly results and margins and profits were down.
The costs to build out new manufacturing and assembly lines is high. As you produce more and more units from those same lines, the costs come way down. The 4/4S lines have been in place for over 3 years now - talk about maximizing costs! It's probably extremely inexpensive to produce this model now, much cheaper than even the 5C. I also think that the iPhone 5/5S production has turned out to be more costly than Apple figured, which is why the iPhone 5 was dropped and replaced with the 5C. For this reason, the iPhone 5S will get axed next year as well.
The line up should be...
5C - $0 on contract (same internals)
5CS - $99 on contract (same internals as the 5S and look the same as 5C)
6 - $199 on contract (New design, new internals, 4" display)
6X - $249 on contract (New design, new internals, 4.7" display)
The second screen size is a long shot (maybe the next generation), but I think the next iPhone will be designed around the ability to use a larger display without necessarily making the overall device much larger. This same design could also then be used to make a phone with a 4" screen smaller than it is today.
Apple has to support its ecosystem. Profit is the number one way to do that. If they sold a hundred million extra iPhones, they would have to spend $X amount in order to beef up the back end to support (data centers) all the new users. Apple is not going to sacrifice quality of service, potentially pissing off customers, to make investors happy. They have been very smart to roll out new services incrementally. First on top tier products and then waiting to move down product lines until the service has the back end support to serve much higher demand.
Marketshare for marketshare's sake is a meaningless endeavor, when you already have a thriving ecosystem in place, huge developer support and the most satisfied customers in the industry. Developers aren't going to run to Android just because it is "shipped" on more devices - they'll go to whichever platform has real users. So while Google talks-the-talk and claims more "Activations", which is supposed to impress, Apple walks-the-walk and reports a very different and much more important number to developers, how much money developers have made thus far; over $10 billion. Activations do not mean anything unless you have other numbers to back the reason why it is so important.
To say that 'marketshare for marketshare's sake is meaningless' is a truism.
With the kind of volumes Apple sells -- and therefore of components they purchase -- I would have expected the much-vaunted economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies to kick in quite solidly by now, allowing Cook to make an aggressive pricing move. Indeed, operations and supply chain efficiencies were Cook's strong suit, as Jobs's super-successful COO.
What I am finding surprising -- while not minimizing the challenges associated with the sheer volumes involved -- is how misplaced the faith in Cook on that front (including on my part) has turned out to be thus far. Coming on top of a set of botched iMac introductions, supply shortages, dramatically slowed (and bunched) product intro schedules, the 5C pricing and features (e.g., only 32GB?) is quite unimpressive. At least, for me.
Don't get me wrong: the 5S is a huge leap (although I am slightly disappointed at the lack of the 128GB).
For me, the only difference this time around, is that rumour sites and others newspapers really created an idead of what Apple should do in order to have a nice keynote: Apple should have done a "really cheap" phone otherwise it would be a failure.
Not only that, but the biggest scam: Apple should do something unexpected otherwise it would be a failure. 2x faster device? granted. Sensor? granted. Best camera? granted. Everything was granted and still that wasn't enough, otherwise the stock would get destroyed.
And here we are.
Personally, I couldn't care less about the stock or what ignorant fools think about Apple. I really think that they are risking a lot by not offering a bigger screen iphone, but low cost devices is overrated. What I "demand" is that Apple's offerings make sense.
In this day and time, an iPhone 4 for 400€ unlocked didn't made sense to me and and only a fool would buy it. But the twice as fast, improved on every way, equal gorgeous 4s? Only the connector pisses me off.
Because of those rumours, I thought that Apple would stop producing the 4s and that the 5c would be the cheaper offering. Of course, it would still be expensive to me, so I bought an Android device.
Sometimes, the WIFI fails. It lags. I had to root it and install a "clean" rom. It still doesn't provide a great experience, despite the fact that Google does their job pretty well.
The 4s will be very capable with iOS 7.
F*ck you:
- Digitimes;
- Business insider;
- Wall street;
- WSJ;
- Every analyst;
- sites like AI to report on things like that.
In fact, there's a key difference here. A lot of pundits thought the iPad mini HAD to be cheaper. They were completely wrong. Therefore it's highly likely they'll be wrong about the iPhone 5C.
Says every troll everywhere for the next few weeks until sales come in.
So the banks are idiots. By what standard is Apple a dramatically worse investment today than yesterday?
Their flagship phone was just dramatically upgraded and is better in every way than its predecessor - and is far better than what the competition has to offer.
its midrange phone is dramatically better than yesterday's midrange phone - and also comes in a new design that will appeal to a younger, more fashion conscious audience.
They now have access to a massive new market.
So what is the logical reason for downgrading them and selling the stock? Because Apple didn't do what some idiot analysts suggested? Too bad.
Except for a couple of problems. First, the $200 Nexus 4 is no longer available. Second, it contains only 8GB of storage - which is largely useless. Finally, it's nowhere near the quality of Apple's system.
Total nonsense. First, developers are completely happy with Apple's ecosystem - that's where they make 80% of their money. The customers who are looking for cheap phones are not typically the ones the developers are after.
Apple learned a long time ago that market share doesn't make a company great. If they simply wanted market share, they could take $200 off the price of every phone - and the stock would plummet, anyway.
It's better because it appeals to a different audience.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
In Anant's defense he was specifically mentioned the 5C pricing which you accidentally clipped off his quote, not the 5S. He's hardly alone in expecting Apple might have been able to be more aggressive in that particular products pricing. Of course by choosing to offer generally the same user features as the flagship 5S it perhaps wouldn't have been a smart decision to sell it for any less than they have (at least to begin with) as you've said yourself.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
I have no doubt they did. Some.
What made the iPad such a brilliant product competitively -- I still recall the collective facepalm on the competition's part -- was its pricing. SJ took a risk by betting big on the price, and the bet paid off. I think that a similar opportunity was missed with the 5C (especially considering it is largely an updated 5 except for its back).
I believe that a killer 5C intro -- one that truly put the competition to bed -- would have been 16/32/64 priced at $449/$549/$649 unlocked. I think it may still happen, but the move will lack the same punch.
I am now convinced that Apple's refusal to make a bigger screen iPhone was a mistake. It is following almost the same strategy as BlackBerry did a few years ago, of ignoring market trends. Even if they do damage control within the next few months, the momentum they have now lost to compete with the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG will affect Apple in the long run. The short sellers are going to have a field day for the next couple of months.
Complete hyperbole.
Apple's iPhone strategy isn't even comparable to what RIM did with the Blackberry. That failure had nothing to do with the size of the screen and had everything to do with the UX and UI. Mobile devices at the time has desktop UI's crammed onto tiny screens that made use a nightmare for most people. The iPhone showed how simple these devices could be to use if the UI and UX were rethought and done right - they didn't just make a phone with a bigger screen, they redesigned everything to work with your fingers. It was amazing to use for the first time, and best of all, it was fun!
Whether the iPhone screen is 4" or 5" or 6" ... the OS and the software will be exactly the same and just as useful.
And what makes you think they didn't take advantage of supply chain efficiencies? Apple's high end products are roughly the same price as competitors' high end products, yet Apple's new 5S offers a number of substantial advantages. On top of that, of course, Apple actually makes a nice profit that they can reinvest into R&D.
In Anant's defense he was specifically mentioned the 5C pricing which you accidentally clipped off his quote, not the 5S. He's hardly alone in expecting Apple might have been able to be more aggressive in that particular products pricing. Of course by choosing to offer generally the same user features as the flagship 5S it perhaps wouldn't have been a smart decision to sell it for any less than they have as you've said yourself.
Yes, I was referring only to the 5C.
The 5S is brilliant, as I've repeatedly said (except for the lack of 128GB, which is not a deal-breaker).
Maybe because of the color choices but not because of the material it's built with.
Finally. Huge news.
Yet, AAPL getting punished now, down $19 pre-market. Clearly, the market is reacting negatively to the surpringly conservative 5C pricing. It's a huge opportunity lost.
You people make me laugh. Thank god none of you have sensitive positions in marketing or business in general.
Might it be possible that in certain markets Apple could/would drop the price in the future? I mean if the 5C really is overpriced we will see that in lowers sales, no?
Of course. But since that won't happen, every moron screaming the the 5C is overpriced will be automatically silenced, and will never ever chime in to admit how pathetically wrong they were. It is almost embarrassing how uneducated and uninformed these blog whiners are. Almost no one with real marketing or business experience, at all. Just whiny tech-watchers.
Stop the tripe, and engage in a serious discussion, if you can. Otherwise, get lost.
People love the products, and people own the company's stock. Deal with it.
With the kind of volumes Apple sells -- and therefore of components they purchase -- I would have expected the much-vaunted economies of scale and supply chain efficiencies to kick in quite solidly by now, allowing Cook to make an aggressive pricing move. Indeed, operations and supply chain efficiencies were Cook's strong suit, as Jobs's super-successful COO.
That has kicked in already- those savings are offset by other higher priced components and manufacturing costs. You don't think the A6 and A7 were developed and made for free do you? Apple just spent almost $400 million to put a sensor under the home button of ONE model of phone. Who else does that? There are few other companies that would.
Tim Cook is doing a brilliant job of maximizing costs and always has. The design of the 5C is going to help push costs down, and eventually prices as well. Just wait and see. Apple wouldn't have released a second model unless they saw a need for it. The iPhone 5 will be the first iPhone where Apple is just going to have to eat the costs - probably turned out to a bigger pain than they originally planned for. You can bet the iPhone 6 will be designed around making it extremely easy to assemble but still be just as refined a product.
The moment Apple makes an aggressive pricing move, is the moment we all start worrying.