Business

What you need to know about Apple and the iPhone X launch

Apple's earnings conference call gives us a glimpse into how things are going within the company and where it might be headed over the coming months.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor Nov. 3, 2017 at 5:42 a.m. PT

Forget keynotes and product launches, it's during Apple's quarterly earnings conference calls that we really get an insight into how Apple thinks and where it thinks the puck will shift to over the coming months.

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iPhon

Here's what we learned from last night's call.

#1: Apple's being cagey about when iPhone X supply will catch up with demand

"...we're really happy that we were able to increase week by week what we're outputting and we're going to get as many of them as possible to the customers as soon as possible. I can't predict, at this point, when that balance will happen." - Tim Cook, CEO.

So not the next quarter then, that's for sure. This adds weight to the analyst speculation that the iPhone X will remain in short supply until well into 2018.

#2: Apple's doesn't want to be drawn into iPhone X/iPhone 8 preorder momentum

"...we never go through mix, but I would share with you that the iPhone X orders are very strong for both direct customers and for our channel partners, which as you know, are lots of carriers throughout the world." - Tim Cook.

Apple is a company that loves to brag about its successes, so the silence from Apple PR with regards to iPhone 8 and iPhone X preorder boasts are pretty deafening, and suggest that preorders may not be as strong as the company would like.

#3: Cook downplays the price of the iPhone X

"...I think you would find you could buy an iPhone X for $33 a month. And so if you think about that, that's a few coffees a week. It's let's say less than a coffee a day at one of these nice coffee places." - Tim Cook.

No matter how you try to cut it, a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars.

Cook also reminds people that their old iPhones are worth money:

"The other thing to keep in mind is that many people are now trading in their current iPhone on the next iPhone. And the residual value for iPhone tends to be the highest in the industry and many people pick up $300, $350 or so for their iPhone and so that even reduces the monthly payment less."

Here he has a point. iPhones -- along with other Apple hardware -- hold their value incredibly well, and people do seem to be increasingly using their old iPhone to offset the price of the new one. However, the older the iPhone, the less it's worth, so the sooner people upgrade, the better the price they get.

#4: Mac is making bigger moves into enterprise

"... we are also seeing great traction for Mac in the enterprise market with all-time record customer purchases in fiscal year 2017." - Luca Maestri, CFO.

This is in line with what I've been hearing. Lots more enterprise customers are buying Macs.

#5: Tim Cook doesn't think much of the AR apps that are available today:

"...I view AR as profound. Not today, not the app that you'll see on the App Store today, but what it will be, what it can be." - Tim Cook.

Wow. If you're an AR app dev, you just got burned.

(Transcript excerpts via SeekingAlpha.)