iPhone 5c preorders to go live Friday at midnight Pacific, 3 a.m. Eastern
Apple partner carriers Verizon and Sprint have announced on their respective websites that U.S. preorders for Apple's iPhone 5c will begin at 12:01 a.m. Pacific, 3 a.m. Eastern on Friday, Sept. 13.
Sprint's iPhone landing page shows upcoming preorder status.
Both Verizon and Sprint have confirmed the preorder schedule for Apple's latest iPhone 5c, though as confirmed to AppleInsider on Tuesday, advance orders will not be accepted for the flagship iPhone 5s.
The timing is consistent with Apple's previous launches, including the last-generation iPhone 5. While Apple has not yet announced a specific time for its own preorders, it is highly likely that the Online Apple Store will begin processing orders alongside the carriers.
As announced at Tuesday's iPhone media event, two-year contract pricing for the iPhone 5c will start at $99 for a 16GB model, while the 32GB version comes in at $199. The iPhone 5c is slated to ship alongside the iPhone 5s on Sept. 20, one week after preorders open.
Those interested in preordering can check eligibility status through Apple's website.
Sprint's iPhone landing page shows upcoming preorder status.
Both Verizon and Sprint have confirmed the preorder schedule for Apple's latest iPhone 5c, though as confirmed to AppleInsider on Tuesday, advance orders will not be accepted for the flagship iPhone 5s.
The timing is consistent with Apple's previous launches, including the last-generation iPhone 5. While Apple has not yet announced a specific time for its own preorders, it is highly likely that the Online Apple Store will begin processing orders alongside the carriers.
As announced at Tuesday's iPhone media event, two-year contract pricing for the iPhone 5c will start at $99 for a 16GB model, while the 32GB version comes in at $199. The iPhone 5c is slated to ship alongside the iPhone 5s on Sept. 20, one week after preorders open.
Those interested in preordering can check eligibility status through Apple's website.
Comments
On a serious note though, I feel quite unhappy about iPhone 5C. I think in my dictionary, I can call it a fail Apple product (not because it won't sell, but because as an Apple product, it fails to win my heart).
Personally, I think it would have been about 23.45 times better if iPhone 5C was never introduced. iPhone 5 is much much better looking and now would have costed the same. iPhone 5C could have made some sense if it would cost about $400 unlocked. But the fact that Apple would replace a perfectly sexy iPhone 5 with an awful-new-Ive-design-philosophy-inspired 5C, doesn't make me feel good.
Anyone sharing my thoughts about 5C?
The 5S should have been simply, the iPhone.
Ladies and gentlemen, place you bets on which colour out-of-stocks first.
Kind of sad. This is the first year in many that I won't be staying up late to pre-order. I'll be taking my chances at 12:01am on the 20th, hoping for an In-store Pickup option so I can secure one, and show up after I get off work since I no longer have the sort of job that is cool with me taking a day off to sit in line for a phone.
I was critical of the iPhone 5c pricing in a couple of threads yesterday, but I've now had more time to think about it, and guess what, I've changed my mind.
Those who know me or my posts on this forum, know that I've always been arguing that Apple should never join the race to the bottom game that virtually everybody else plays, and the good news is that with the iPhone 5c, Apple has decided not to play that game. A few ANALysts were butthurt, but screw those people, most of them are clueless. I admit that I was fooled by all of the rumors leading up to the announcement, about a plastic phone, that the C either stood for China or Cheap or Color. I had already resigned myself to the thought that this was going to be Apple's entry into the "cheap" market, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it. This is what the internet and wild speculation leads to, it makes people stupid.
Every once in a while, we get people here whining about the third world and emerging markets, and how the only thing that matters is gaining more customers. That's how some of those douchebag analysts think also. That's Android's game, making tons of crappy phones and dumping them around everywhere to undesirable customers with no money to their name.
With the iPhone 5c release, I think that Apple is saying, we're a premium brand, and don't expect anything else from us. If you can't afford an iPhone, then too bad, go buy something else, go get an Android for free and knock yourself out. An iPhone is not a human right, and if somebody lives in a poor country (so called emerging markets), and makes 5 dollars a month, then there's no iPhone in this person's future. Apple has better things to do than make cheap crap for people who can't afford anything. Does that really sound like a smart business move?
The iPhone 5c is indeed a premium product. This is not Samsung plastic that we're talking about here, this is Apple plastic, and the phone feels great according to many reports and first hand impressions. The internals are better than what would normally be Apple's number two phone this time around, the iPhone 5. The battery is larger, the Facetime camera has been improved and the LTE bands have been expanded, making the iPhone 5c better than the iPhone 5 (at least internally), and the iPhone 5 was no slouch.
And it doesn't really matter which phone people decide to choose. If somebody wants an iPhone, then they'll have a few choices to choose from. It's a win, win situation for Apple. Forget about poor people, emerging markets and all of that nonsense. Apple makes the best phones in the world, running the best mobile OS in the world, with the best app store in the world and the best apps in the world, by far. Some people line up for days to hand over their money to Apple.
Only desperate companies with no talent and poor product needs to play the pricing game by making ridiculously low priced items. That says a lot about their customer base and the worth of that customer base. Apple doesn't need to do that, and in retrospect, I'm glad that Apple decided to stick to it's principles and not make a "cheap" phone.
I smell triskaidekaphobia. Lol.
On a serious note though, I feel quite unhappy about iPhone 5C. I think in my dictionary, I can call it a fail Apple product (not because it won't sell, but because as an Apple product, it fails to win my heart).
Personally, I think it would have been about 23.45 times better if iPhone 5C was never introduced. iPhone 5 is much much better looking and now would have costed the same. iPhone 5C could have made some sense if it would cost about $400 unlocked. But the fact that Apple would replace a perfectly sexy iPhone 5 with an awful-new-Ive-design-philosophy-inspired 5C, doesn't make me feel good.
Anyone sharing my thoughts about 5C?
Everyone, even Gruber, thought it was going to displace the iPhone 4S. We were wrong. Next year it will move into the lowest pricing tier and everything will make more sense. In the meantime they are trying to eke as much profit out of this move as they can. Cook is obviously confident Apple can carry through to September 2014, without having to tank their margins and spook the market. This is a good thing.
Think about it this way. Samsung/Android has less potential for growth. They got an early edge with screen sizes and a smattering of poorly-implemented gimmicks. Apple makes the same amount of profit from a smaller user base. When smartphone ownership moves to a zero sum game Samsung has everything to lose. Because they managed fragmentation well Apple has built up an arsenal of deeply integrated features that will start to get more and more traction with users. At any point in time Apple can pull the trigger on larger screen sizes and smoke Samsung out of the market.
The iPhone 6 redesign presents a clear opportunity to rethink many aspects of the design, including the screen size. They now have an objective reason to do so because the A7 is the first processor capable of processing graphics above and beyond limitations imposed by the 4 inch screen:
Egypt Onscreen test shows a lower than expected average FPS. This is because the iPhone 5S artificially caps the max FPS at 60. This capping does not occur in the Offscreen test.
I feel like the screen is the next area for innovation. The iPhone 4 got retina and the iPhone 5 went to 4 inches with a new aspect ratio. People will pan Apple for being "late" to the game but if they go 4.5-5 inches and double the resolution the same way they did with retina all the current iPhone 5 apps would work flawlessly. It's a cleaner approach than Android which simply obsoletes all software designed around a particular screen size with each hardware iteration. The PPI boost would have typography benefits, particularly for Chinese text. If anyone is capable of finding the optimal balance between usability, features and battery life it's got to be Jony Ive.
Perfect.
Pink
Cue the "Apple is screwing its east coast fans with the 3am start" rants.
It's very nice plastic, but it's still plastic.
I was critical of the iPhone 5c pricing in a couple of threads yesterday, but I've now had more time to think about it, and guess what, I've changed my mind.
Those who know me or my posts on this forum, know that I've always been arguing that Apple should never join the race to the bottom game that virtually everybody else plays, and the good news is that with the iPhone 5c, Apple has decided not to play that game. A few ANALysts were butthurt, but screw those people, most of them are clueless. I admit that I was fooled by all of the rumors leading up to the announcement, about a plastic phone, that the C either stood for China or Cheap or Color. I had already resigned myself to the thought that this was going to be Apple's entry into the "cheap" market, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it. This is what the internet and wild speculation leads to, it makes people stupid.
Every once in a while, we get people here whining about the third world and emerging markets, and how the only thing that matters is gaining more customers. That's how some of those douchebag analysts think also. That's Android's game, making tons of crappy phones and dumping them around everywhere to undesirable customers with no money to their name.
With the iPhone 5c release, I think that Apple is saying, we're a premium brand, and don't expect anything else from us. If you can't afford an iPhone, then too bad, go buy something else, go get an Android for free and knock yourself out. An iPhone is not a human right, and if somebody lives in a poor country (so called emerging markets), and makes 5 dollars a month, then there's no iPhone in this person's future. Apple has better things to do than make cheap crap for people who can't afford anything. Does that really sound like a smart business move?
The iPhone 5c is indeed a premium product. This is not Samsung plastic that we're talking about here, this is Apple plastic, and the phone feels great according to many reports and first hand impressions. The internals are better than what would normally be Apple's number two phone this time around, the iPhone 5. The battery is larger, the Facetime camera has been improved and the LTE bands have been expanded, making the iPhone 5c better than the iPhone 5 (at least internally), and the iPhone 5 was no slouch.
And it doesn't really matter which phone people decide to choose. If somebody wants an iPhone, then they'll have a few choices to choose from. It's a win, win situation for Apple. Forget about poor people, emerging markets and all of that nonsense. Apple makes the best phones in the world, running the best mobile OS in the world, with the best app store in the world and the best apps in the world, by far. Some people line up for days to hand over their money to Apple.
Only desperate companies with no talent and poor product needs to play the pricing game by making ridiculously low priced items. That says a lot about their customer base and the worth of that customer base. Apple doesn't need to do that, and in retrospect, I'm glad that Apple decided to stick to it's principles and not make a "cheap" phone.
I'm going to disagree with you and understand up front that there have already been a few hundred posts on these topics across multiple threads. I know you're not the only person feeling this way, you just happened to be the post where I managed to jump in early in a thread rather than 200 posts into the discussion.
Apple really needs the 5C to be a low cost phone FOR THEM and it is necessary for it to be at about $400 to help stop their marketshare from shrinking to the point that factors begin working against them rather than for them with regard to volume, app eco-systems, etc.
Apple is a premium PC seller. If they were still trying to sell any Mac today for the price of the initial Mac's, they wouldn't be selling more than a handful of boxes. The Mac started at $2495 in 1984 which would be $5428.38 in present dollars. While Apple is still a premium computer maker, and while their multiple solutions across multiple price points are overall higher than most of the market, they still do not have only one real solution that costs $2500 or $5000+ dollars. If they were trying this, no one could or would defend it.
Apple introduced the iPod. The first one started at $400. While Apple still charges more than the market for the same value of MP3 or PMP, they are not charging $400 for their lowest end iPod nor are they charging $500+ inflation adjusted dollars.
We know the iPod has also been commoditized. It has solutions that go from $50 to $400.
The original iPhone started at $500 for the 4 gig and $600 for the 8 gig. $500 inflation adjusted for 2012 is $550, exactly the price of the iPhone 5C.
Mac's have had to get cheaper. iPod's have had to get cheaper. The iPhone has not gotten cheaper. No one is saying Apple has to go dive down into the territory of dual sim $150-200 Android phones. However it would not have killed them to make a $400 so that the iPhone doesn't become a niche product and end up hitting a negative feedback loop whereby they can't get certain software or hardware accessories due to the overall market being so much larger.
Apple has basically failed to drop the price of the iPhone relative to inflation, have failed to commoditize across several price points and now seem to believe they are above market forces and they have clearly already shot their wad for the entire next 12 months of phones.
Apple makes iPod nanos. They make Macbook Airs. None of these products are "cheap" nor do they prove Apple is racing to the bottom. Imagine if Apple made a Macbook Pro with retina display starting at $2200, offered a non-retina Macbook Pro at $2000 and that was the entire laptop line. We would declare them up shit creek without a paddle and no amount of defense would change that point. Instead Apple offers the Air that starts at $999. It isn't as cheap as most PC laptops but the point is that it is a Mac solution and it shows you can get a Mac without having to spend 600% more than a PC.
After 6 years, it ought to be a little cheaper to buy a new iPhone than it was in 2007. Everything else gets faster and cheaper. Apple has just gotten faster but not cheaper, literally not even by a single cent in six years. Sure the PC market raced to the bottom and made terrible $250 netbooks while Apple stood above the fray with the Macbook Air at $1000. However Apple didn't just offer only the Macbook Pro at $2200. People would worry for them and think they were nuts.
Apple likewise doesn't have to go down to $150-200 smartphones. However they are still standing at over 300% higher price and have nothing premium but mid-tier priced for the iPhone. Everyone got that the iPod Nano was not the same as the HD based iPod which retained higher pricing. No one has ever claimed a Macbook Air is better than the Macbook Pro in terms of specs and performance. Apple took the mid-tier components and kept the high end price.
It has nothing to do with Apple managing expectations. It has nothing to do with youthful colors or other nonsense. There is a race to the bottom. Apple doesn't have to go all the way to the bottom but claiming they can make all products, including plastic ones with last year's tech in it, command the same day one price as the first iPhone which had a five year headstart and no real competition, is just lunacy. Apple didn't intro the iMac and declare because they took a few things out but gave you a monitor that it should be $1499 while the Powermac started at $1599. They made it $999. It as a full third cheaper than the high end solution. It wasn't a $599 cheap ass PC.
The iPhone 5C should be a full third cheaper than the highest end iPhone 5S. It isn't and history shows Apple has made plenty of money while offering a premium experience at a mid-tier price. For some reason, they don't trust that to happen here and the concern that this could harm them long term is legitimate.
Ladies and gentlemen, place you bets on which colour out-of-stocks first.
White. Then the kiddies can add a colored case if they want it to match their pants.
Ladies and gentlemen, place you bets on which colour out-of-stocks first.
None! No color will be out-of-stocks!
When a 16GB iPad with A6X + Retina Display Wifi + Cellular costs 4888 HKD
and 16GB iPhone 5C with A6 costs 4688 HKD, something is seriously wrong with the pricing of the 5C!!
If you read hands on reviews from those who were at the event you get a different picture. For instance Engadget said, "not only does it feel great, it's the most solid polycarbonate build that we've ever laid hands on."
I personally prefer the aluminum 5S but don't hate the 5C and from everything I've read it seems to be a very well made device. So why all the hate? Was there this much hate when Apple released the 3G and 3GS? Did people complain because those phones weren't aluminum?
I'm actually quite surprised how much hatred some people have for the colored plastic. 99% of the comments over at MacRumors pre-order thread are negative. What's most annoying is not one of them has actually seen this phone in person and held it in their hand but have already decided its cheap crap because its plastic.
If you read hands on reviews from those who were at the event you get a different picture. For instance Engadget said, "not only does it feel great, it's the most solid polycarbonate build that we've ever laid hands on."
I personally prefer the aluminum 5S but don't hate the 5C and from everything I've read it seems to be a very well made device. So why all the hate? Was there this much hate when Apple released the 3G and 3GS? Did people complain because those phones weren't aluminum?
You are surprised because you have AAPL shares and so your vision about reality is skewed. If you were show the Apple 5C with an Android OS on it and didn't know it's an Apple phone, I bet you would have scream that it's a crappy piece of plastic shit from Samsung and it's ugly as death!
Except that most people agree Samsung plastic is shitty. I don't recall ever saying that about the Lumia phones.
The iPhone 6 redesign presents a clear opportunity to rethink many aspects of the design, including the screen size. They now have an objective reason to do so because the A7 is the first processor capable of processing graphics above and beyond limitations imposed by the 4 inch screen:
Unfortunately, times when competitors were "not even visible in a rear view mirror" are long gone.
5S is barely in top 3 for this benchmark:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/the-first-benchmarks-scores-of-samsung-galaxy-note-3-are-in/
Galaxy Note 3 is way ahead with 68 fps.
Seems like Apple did not use the next gen PowerVR Rogue tech in this iteration?
See this is a thoughtful post and not just 5C sux because its cheap colored plastic. I actually do think Apple made a strategic error in pricing. I expect both the 5C and 5S to get really good reviews save for the price. And I think the idea of the colored plastic phones as another product line was a good one. They appear to be really high quality phones. But there isn't enough differentiation price wise with the high end phone. And I don't think Apple did that because they want to upsell you to the 5S. Go to Apple's website and the first thing you see is the 5C. It got plenty of attention at the keynote. Maybe Apple's thought was the 5C will be really popular so they're putting the highest price out there they think they can get for it so they don't have a sharp decline in margins and ASP. I'll be really curious to see if Apple announces any preorder sales figures next Monday. And even more interested to see how flexible Apple is on price if the 5C doesn't end up selling as well as they expected.
1. most complaints is about non-subsidy price of 5C. but do anyone know what is the % of sales for non-subsidy iphones? what if it is that 80% of iphone sales are subsidy and only 20% rest (just example)? then, who cares that full price of iphone is higher than expected?
2. plastic. i used long time 3G version which was plastic is it right? now i use 4 and of course it has different material but i cant say its better than old 3G. honestly, it took me several days or few weeks to start like 4 over 3G plastic. So if 5c will be improved plastic over 3G, i have no problem with it.
Regarding #1, I guess the question is will that ratio stay the same going forward, especially if Apple is really trying to make a push in emerging markets? On #2, John Gruber says the 5C feels much better then the 3G/3GS. He said it feels like a premium phone.