hi and welcome back to Mingis on Tech I'm Ken Mingis executive editor at
computer world I'm here with Michael Simon from Mac world we're gonna be
talking about some things at Apple's up to like bent iPads and earnings revenue
warnings what the hell stick around
okay so Mike first thanks for being here happy new year thank you for I'm gonna
warn our video producer there may be bad language here in fact there will be bad
language here because I want to know what the hell is going on with Apple uh
over the holiday break as I'm sure you know wait wait what
happened yeah right okay well let me tell you over the holiday break Apple
announced that apparently some people are getting bent iPads well they didn't
really announce it they tried to squash well okay let's say it because people
who were getting these been iPads made a big stink Apple acknowledged it and
basically said that's the way they're supposed to be they're not really bent
or if they're bent you shouldn't worry about it which is just and I'm sorry I
just need to make sure that my outrage meter is pegged appropriately because my
first response is what okay I wrote an article over the break I call the guest
lighting yeah I mean they're basically saying no no it's fine and you're
looking at this thing that and it's low your honor I know the pictures you can
see it did you know it's it's torqued and they're what Apple is saying
basically is that these things meet whatever parameters 400 microns I'm not
supposed to see 400 micron this is visible yeah in fact a macro reader sent
us pictures of his and Apple said no we're not fixing anything use one of the
two instances of damage protection accident protection which costs money
which costs 50 bucks at 30 bucks and he is 50 yeah and it takes you only have to
write for two years so it takes one away and forget all that they basically made
him accept plane for a for what I would for for most people I think with it
severe probably be a flawed a piece of there's reports and I've read that
people take it out of the box and it's broke and it bent it if I spent even if
I got the cheapest one eight hundred bucks I'm pulling this thing out of a
box and I can see that it's bent it ruins it from of course it does I mean
and I mean I'm a big Apple fan I've had Apple hardware for twenty years I've had
every version of the phone just about every iPad etc etc I am NOT here just to
slam Apple for slamming Apple but I you have one right there clearly you
like their product I do and but I'm actually stunned that a company that
bases so much of what it does on the customer experience completely beauty
the joy the magical you know whatever that you get by buying something from
Apple totally that when these things start showing up but again it may be a
small number it doesn't matter one is too many and more than one is worse when
you've got something like that and then the company comes back and says well
yeah it's bent but that's ok and they never even issued a official statement
they said we're gonna now that now they have anything on their website that
talks all about this micron phone being above a-- but they never came out with
an official media statement that explained anything or even accepted
culpability it's crazy and let's say it isn't a quote-unquote manufacturer
defect and they were arriving straight this thing has been in the market for
two months yeah there is nothing that someone can be doing to abuse it to
create that type of a slight Bend even if they're if they're drawing it in a
bag which is what you're supposed to do yeah that's a manufacturer defect yeah I
don't care how you how you slice it how you parse it or how you measure it Apple
should be supplying replacement devices for people who bring them into the store
that have a noticeable bent that's it okay so my outrage meter is bad I'm with
you and I can't believe that it's like it seems to be blowing over well I do we
assume that there was a problem that Apple is ignoring or pretending isn't
there if they fixed it and they're hoping that you know eventually yes but
that's not for a company like that that you expect that from a smaller company
and that's gonna you know go bankrupt by replacing Apple can certainly afford to
replace people's iPads even if it's a big number but it doesn't seem to be a
huge number seems to be relatively you know one maybe five percent of iPads
yeah that's not gonna hurt Apple's bottom line and if it does they're
they're dealing with enough about that anyway but I would think the publicity
around this I mean this is this is going to give them a black eye if they don't
think they have a black eye now this will come back to haunt them down you
know and I I'm just surprised I mean really surprised that they would even I
mean it just it so doesn't make sense it's gross and the people who are buying
them they're there best finns right you know the people who
running out to buy the most expensive ipad ever immediately yeah and then
apples look at them in a phase and saying no it's fine
well i guess the reason i wanted to call attention to this is because i'm
concerned that it sets a precedent it so that when the next iPhone comes out and
it's got a little chip in the corner apple can say oh that's the way we
design it that's within our tolerances well it's the same as those dead pixels
way back wine on the imax they it was like I think five or something right
listen man I I had one of those machines back then and I had one one dead pixel
once you see it you thought was he did not look away no matter what it was
doing what I was looking at that pixel bothering you then and eventually they
they lowered the tolerance it robbed the screen you could try this it was always
there and certain colors it didn't show up but it drove me nuts and back then we
didn't have these millions of pixels so they were pretty big right those those
squares were you know they were noticeable yeah an Apple had I think it
was five or three or eight whatever it was that was below their threshold but
they eventually kind of softened to that and realize that listen we're selling a
product we're selling a piece of hardware fine but more above all that
the Apple experiences why they are who they are yeah and by having a I pad
that's bent you're not gonna be able to overlook that III couldn't anyway when
it comes to iPads yet bad apple um all right so outrage acknowledged future
black I acknowledged we'll see where this goes from here it doesn't bode well
for Apple on what they're thinking moving on to more recent news Tim Cook
last week last week put out a note a lengthy letter I guess explaining that
revenues were gonna fall short of where Apple thought they would be for the the
quarter blamed economic slowdown and in particular China yeah no it's that was
the crux of I don't remember anything in the air about high prices he left that
he left that graph out do we think that that's what's going on do we think I
mean I've seen some other reports from other manufacturers since and them say
they also having no idea there's definitely a slowdown in China there's
no question and I also think there's something to be said
or the fact that we there's we've reached somewhat of a peak no everything
has a curve right and you know our phones have been growing just forget
about the iPhone and just by itself smartphones in general I've been growing
and growing and growing and growing and the premium market it has some plateau
at some point right and it seemed as though we've we might
have reached that but the prices are certainly helping reach that plateau
yeah I think we you know we were always gonna get to the point where we've
reached what they call peak iPhone but I do think that the the quick run-up in
prices over the last couple of years with the iPhone 10 and and of course the
10s and 10's max I'm you know I one of the pieces you had written for Mac world
talked about you know if you had bought an iPhone 10 year and a half ago and you
didn't want the larger phone which I did this most recent iteration of the iPhone
there wouldn't be a whole lot to it now there's not much there and I mean I
think Apple was was creating the 10s for a new generation of buyers but it's the
same price for one so that means the antenna two 10s max is 1100 which you
know unless you're a die-hard Apple fan that's a lot which I used to money a lot
to spend if they would have lowered the prices let's say the tennis was eight
was $8.99 and that 10s max was $9.99 and the 10r was $6.99 mm-hmm psychologically
that is a huge difference and I think that there was a little bit of hubris
and doing the role greedy involved in their pricing scheme this year they say
they saw last year and they said wait a minute
people were using yeah and I think a lot of people actually actually bought not
$2,000 one but the $1,150 one yeah because they were sold to Apple diehards
let's let's be honest yeah most of the people who bought that ten were people
who wanted to be on board with early technology who are Apple's biggest fans
yeah it's not you know that the sheep or whatever you want to call them yeah
but the Apple Apple more so than any other company has a pretty large
contingent of diehards who want the first thing they want it now and they're
gonna go and they get a pen 3:00 in the morning to order
I can yeah yeah this year those people aren't necessarily moom some some are
maybe 10% maybe 20% are buying the larger one well as you said if it
weren't for the larger one there's no reason and I think I belong under stood
that so they made a 10 s which is a slightly better and they made the bigger
one for the people who want to something different and the money more was put on
the 10 are you know now the 10 are is it's a it's a great phone it's probably
the best phone of the year it's a higher price then the 8 was in the 7 and those
were 699 now it's 750 which doesn't seem like much but it's it's more right I
don't care how you want to say all it's only $50 or it's only 3 dollars a month
if you have the upgrade program it's still more money and the 10r didn't it
doesn't if there's not really a WOW factor it doesn't move the ball down the
field very much and I it's a very nice phone it's a great phone but and I think
people who have a 6 or a 7 look at anything and maybe I'll just wait for
next year mhm and you know there's a lot of people and I'll use an example I was
talking to my mom over Christmas she has a actually it's mine it's my old 6 she
upgraded she she had a 5 and I gave her my 6 I think a year ago and I was
talking to her about you know cuz she was talking about her contract was up
and blah blah blah or something was going on with Verizon what she was gonna
go in the store and look at phones and I said are you gonna get a new one she
said yeah I don't think so she's like I don't want to pay 700 800
now is for a new phone and I said to her well you know you were always paying
that mm-hm you paid $200 upfront but with all the
fees and things that were building you could yeah she doesn't believe me or
care because it's not like the bill has gone down you know that much Verizon
still you know I think the plans are still what they are you know you're
getting more data you know it they're still finding ways to get your hundred
dollars a month mm-hmm and you know she basically was
just saying that I don't want to spend that much on a phone and that's what
Apple's running into here they previously people handed over 200 bucks
and walked out with a phone you can't do that anymore right you know you're
spending $50 a month four dollars a month
or for two years and for more from for you continually upgrade it's just
perpetual it's like leasing look there's that too that's that well that's the
next thing is as a service than what everything you know you're gonna be
paying Apple forever yeah but I think that people are balking at that monthly
bill because it's you know they're seeing the full cost of the device and
I'm not even saying that it's not the iPhone is a 700 l device I'm not saying
that Apple's gauging you I'm just saying that there's it there's a reality that I
said in now that Apple somehow has to figure out how to get over that hump
yeah of perception and purchase well and I wonder you know to sort of tie these
two things together if you've got a company that is charging top dollar for
admittedly you know very nice for and software but a company that also when
you get that expensive admittedly nice software and hardware package can now
tell you oh you know it's okay if it's bent or whatever problem I just think
that's a recipe for a real quick decline yeah I know art I don't I hope that's
not gonna be the company's policy going for I think this is a very specific I
mean who knows but it is done once just when you open the door like that I wanna
when a company makes a decision like that however that decision was made or
not made the concern is that the next time because something there will be
some future she effective some piece of hardware down the road and Apple having
not gotten a lot of grief for this one may feel like what we you know we got
away with it before we can get away with it again
and again it you're eating into the very base the you know the the people who
really most want to buy your product and you're telling them to stuff it I don't
think that's a good recipe for success yeah and also in that letter Tim Cook it
was it was interesting he brought up the battery problem which was cheered at the
time you know I both took a problem what happened was just a quick recap it came
out that the iPhone 6 there was something built into iOS that starting
with the iPhone 6 they would lower the performance of the of the CPU if the
battery Wow how's the battery health went down
with his liveries below a certain threshold they would you know Billy
basically slowed down your phone to preserve battery life they thought this
but their reasons were that this was that was the argument that was the
public statement anyway now at the time people argued well they are purposefully
slowing down our phones to upgrade and you know I didn't believe that line and
thinking the fact that Tim Cook mentioned it in his letter as a reason
for slowing sales perhaps they were onto something well you know again if you're
going to speed to think in sort of a conspiratorial way yeah and you start
seeing decisions made this way and solutions that you know come out the way
apples roll these things out it doesn't dissuade you right away from
the conspiracy theories and I can tell you what we're not gonna see another
battery program any time soon no I don't think so
all right so that's the state of Apple right now in early 2019 oh I should
mention how are you liking the air power oh wait it's not there let's just you
know just noting that 2018 came and went air power did not arrive so another fail
um as far as I'm concerned he did promise you they promised it and it's
not there so um so Mike listen thanks a lot like I say I wanted to get a quick
bead on a few things that have happened over the holiday period especially since
they're kind of crazy it was it was a busy season for me it sure was not in a
good way so we'll have to revisit this at some
point down the road but thanks for stopping by you for now that's a wrap