Hold Up on the IPhone 5

[Travisw13]

I have heard so many different reason why Apple is not shipping the IPhone to the Phone Carries. Can someone set the record straight? Are they having trouble making them? Is it the fight the broke out in the factory and it had to stop production for a while? Or are they just trying to keep the hype around the phone at any cost?

I know Steve Jobs is turning over in his grave for this issue!!!

 

[Skull One]

I have heard so many different reason why Apple is not shipping the IPhone to the Phone Carries. Can someone set the record straight? Are they having trouble making them? Is it the fight the broke out in the factory and it had to stop production for a while? Or are they just trying to keep the hype around the phone at any cost?

I know Steve Jobs is turning over in his grave for this issue!!!

The only people that can set the record straight is Apple.

But, I will do my best to give you some insight to the issues at hand.

1) The aluminum backed shell is causing issues with quality control.

2) The new tolerances for fit are causing issues with production count.

3) The yield rate on the new display is slowing down production rate.

4) Manufacturing 3 unique base models (GSM LTE, CDMA LTE, World LTE).

5) Manufacturing 3 memory sizes for each unique model.

6) Manufacturing 2 colors for each unique memory size and model.

7) Deployment to more than a dozen countries.


Notice I didn't list the standard "Higher than expected demand"? The reason for that is simple. Apple will never be able to manufacture the numbers of units needed for a launch because Apple can not predict how many units they will need. It is impossible. Especially when you are looking at 18 unique devices. And to top it off, there is still a huge demand for the iPhone 4 and 4S which are still in production and account for another 6 unique devices.

Then if you really want to look at the big picture, you have to take into account the iPad Mini which was being ramped up, the retooling for the iPad 4 and the iPod Touch and iPod Nano refreshes. There are only so many workers, with so many hours, with so much floor space for manufacturing, with so much raw material for processing that has a limited yield rate of final parts that passes QC (Quality Control).

Or to look at it another way. If they hire 3 million people to make the devices and contract 1000 companies to make the parts and they knock out the entire quantity needed for the first month of sales, what happens to all those people's jobs after month three when manufacturing capacity outstrips demand by a factor of 10. They all end up laid off and Apple is stuck with a bill that eats every penny of the profit they just made.

Hopefully this rather long winded answer gives you a much better appreciation for the reality of the issues that has to be considered and dealt with.

 

[Travisw13]

I understand all that... The demand for the apple products has always been there. But, they produce the first round phones, and then nothing for what 4-6 weeks and then we get a second round of shippments. Why are they waiting to ship in balk, once they have the phone approved for shipment then ship the phone!

 

[Skull One]

I understand all that... The demand for the apple products has always been there. But, they produce the first round phones, and then nothing for what 4-6 weeks and then we get a second round of shippments. Why are they waiting to ship in balk, once they have the phone approved for shipment then ship the phone!

Bulk shipping is one way to get phones to their destination, but in this case, they aren't hitting that issue at all. Remember when I said there was 18 unique devices going to over a dozen countries. Well the second and third wave of countries added in mere weeks after the US launch had to have production runs of their own. Odds are that lasted easily up until 10 days ago. So US made ones might finally be back on the production line, but odds are they are producing all 18 versions at once right now and that means if they are able to make 5 million a week, divided by 18 that comes out to 277K of each version. So lets go with 277K all going to the US of that version. Divide that by 50 states and you are down to 5.5K per state. Notice how few that is even though they might have built 5 million iPhones total? I think that pretty much shows what is going on. BTW, I don't think they can make 5 million iPhones a week right now. Odds are the numbers are lower.

 

[Travisw13]

Thanks for the info but it still sucks!!! I'm very close to saying hell with it and getting a new Droid. I've had 1 for 4 years now and I love them. But, I really wanted to try something new! But, this is really hurting the excitement around the phone.

 

[Skull One]

Thanks for the info but it still sucks!!! I'm very close to saying hell with it and getting a new Droid. I've had 1 for 4 years now and I love them. But, I really wanted to try something new! But, this is really hurting the excitement around the phone.

Seriously, stick with Android if you can't handle waiting. Because iPhone only gets one refresh a year versus Android which gets at least 4 a year. If you are used to customizing everything under Android, you will hate not being able to customize anything under iOS unless you jailbreak.

But if you want a phone that works 100% of the time, has a clean and very polished interface that includes the best app store on the planet, then I highly suggest you continue to wait. Because I came from Android and even 4.1 does nothing to change my mind about how screwed up the Android phone market is.

 

[hookbill]

Seriously, stick with Android if you can't handle waiting. Because iPhone only gets one refresh a year versus Android which gets at least 4 a year. If you are used to customizing everything under Android, you will hate not being able to customize anything under iOS unless you jailbreak.

But if you want a phone that works 100% of the time, has a clean and very polished interface that includes the best app store on the planet, then I highly suggest you continue to wait. Because I came from Android and even 4.1 does nothing to change my mind about how screwed up the Android phone market is.

Don't exactly follow you on "refresh," are you referring to phone company updates? If that's the case I would say only 2 or 3, at least on my Droids and my Bionic is still waiting on ICS.

I've seen a few updates on the original iPad, I know they don't get any now but I assumed the iPhone got about the same amount.

 

[Skull One]

Sorry, I should have typed major hardware upgrade. Android tends to have the latest CPU/GPU/Size introduced 4 times a year based on my casual observations.