It’s hard to say whether Apple is in a good spot or a perilous one with its new slate of iPhones.
Over the past several days, reports have been swirling that say the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are in trouble. The devices’ sales are much lower than expected, and there are currently no signs that they’ll turn around anytime soon. But those same reports have also said that iPhone 8 sales are down because demand is so strong for Apple’s next smartphone, the iPhone X.
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So should Apple (AAPL) be pleased or concerned? At least so far, the company hasn’t said anything about iPhone sales, so all we have is speculation.
But it wasn’t just an iPhone week. We also heard reports about strong Apple Watch Series 3 sales, and got a look at a new Apple Store. We even found out where on Apple sits on the political spectrum.
This is Coins2Day’s latest weekly roundup of the biggest Apple news. Here’s last week’s roundup.
Read on for a look at this week’s biggest Apple news:
- Rogers Communication CEO Joe Natale said this week that so far, Apple’s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus sales have been “anemic” at his company’s retail stores. His comments followed reports from KeyBanc analyst John Vinh, who told investors that more customers are buying last year’s iPhone 7 than the new iPhone 8. Apple, however, has yet to say how many iPhone 8 units it’s sold and whether sales are matching its expectations.
- In a note to investors this week, GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives called the Apple Watch Series 3 a “game changer release for Cupertino to open up this wearables category for the coming years.” He estimates that Apple has sold 30 million Apple Watch units since the device’s release in 2015, and is seeing its sales momentum soar, thanks to the Series 3.
- According to a study from researcher Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), Apple customers are most likely to buy iPhones at carrier stores, iPads at Best Buy locations, and Macs at Apple’s own retail outlets. Just 11% of iPhones bought in the U.S. Are purchased on Apple.com or at an Apple Store.
- China has stopped allowing new Apple Watch Series 3 owners from connecting to wireless carrier networks with the device’s built-in LTE chip. The feature, which allows users to make calls from the Apple Watch without a connected iPhone, was turned off on September 28, according to reports. It’s believed China turned off the feature because it couldn’t track Apple Watch owners when they connected to a carrier network.
- Apple opened a new flagship store in Chicago on Friday. The store has a carbon fiber roof designed to be as “thin as possible,” 32-foot glass facades, and sits along the river on Michigan Avenue. Apple design chief Jony Ive said the store was created to remove “boundaries between inside and outside.”
- Apple’s Project Titan self-driving car effort was featured in a series of tweets this week from car startup Voyage. The tweets examined the cameras and sensors Apple’s using, as well as some expert insight into how self-driving cars work.
- Interested in a chronology of Apple’s iPhone X launch? Read all about what Coins2Day colleague Aaron Pressman calls a “no good, very bad iPhone X launch.”
One more thing… A site called 2ndVote has ranked Apple and other tech giants on their conservative values. Apple landed at the bottom of its scale.
