You know summer is over when the kids go back to school, your favorite baseball team teases you with a wildcard run that will inevitably sputter (okay, maybe that’s just the Macalope), and Apple announces its fall iPhone event.
We’re a little over a week away from the iPhone 14 unveiling, so if you’d like to say something about it, now’s the time to get it off your chest. There’s no point in waiting for the thing to be announced. That’s just a guess.
According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives has a few predictions about the iPhone 14 that the Macalope finds interesting. First, Apple has ordered 90 million iPhone 14 units. If you can remember it was in June, oh, you’ll remember that 90 million was the generally accepted number of phones Apple expected to sell. Then good friends of Apple at DigiTimes spoke to Trent outside the Gas-N-Sip and Trent said, “No way, bruh. Apple cuts orders by 10 percent, brother. Global supply chain slowdown, bro-derbund.”
Now, before you berate DigiTimes for smuggling false rumors, you should know that Trent was the man who first poured a Red Bull into the knock-off Slurpee they sell at the Gas-N-Sip and is therefore known as the creator of the Power Slush.
IDG
So… Yes. That guy.
Anyway, then it was rumored that, no, Apple is really going to sell Lake than 90 million, 95 million iPhone 14 units, according to the Taiwan Economic Times. Now comes Daniel Ives who says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, it’s 90 million, it’s always been 90 million, just read his meter and go to the next house like the old meter reader did.
Ives calls this launch “another pivotal moment for Cupertino,” presumably in reference to such landmark urban events as the opening of the R. Cali Brothers Feed Mill in the late 1800s and of De Anza College in 1967. It is, as he notes, rather remarkable that in the midst of a global supply chain slowdown, Apple is able to get pretty much as many units as it wants, pretty much when it wants them. Of course it helps to be the biggest fish in the aquarium, a fish that somehow also has a lot of money to throw around. A money shark, if you will.
No, not a money grab, Kevin! Whales are not fish! Try to keep up with the metaphors!
shee.
We’ll have to wait until next Wednesday to see whether or not the iPhone 14 comes with questionable features like faster charging speed, reverse charging, and Macalope’s current favorite unicorn, satellite connectivity. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, the latter is solely based on Apple agreeing a workable business model with carriers for the feature. That doesn’t sound like such a big problem for a money shark to overcome. But then you don’t become the money shark by not being a smart negotiator. If you give too much away on every deal, then you’re just a shark.
The Macalope isn’t sure why every year’s Apple event has to be a make-or-break for the company, but at least this one looks like it’s going to be a makeover.