I upgraded from a 4 as well. I could not be happier so far. There were many apps that I had thought were just complete sh that now zoom on the 5s (spotify, g+, and a few others). Finger print reader is surprisingly useful, although a minor feature. Possibly the most noticeable thing for me from the 4 to the 5s is the speaker. I always have podcasts running as I walk around the house and noticed a huge difference in quality and volume. With the 4 I often had to plug in headphones to be able to hear over an AC unit or a my car's engine. The 5s speaker cuts through a lot better.

I'm not so sure why you wait that long, maybe things are different in the UK, but I think this info could be useful to a lot of people. I'll just throw out a scenario I tell everyone when it comes to buying Apple devices that's strictly just financial and not exactly being an Apple 'fanboy.'

Two options here, if you buy a phone on contract for say $200, then you can always sell it in a year, or even two, for around double of what you paid for it. Example, iPhone 5's are going for around $450 in my local market. I just paid $200 a year ago for it on contract. Some people hate contracts and say it's cheaper to not have data or what have you, but like I said this is just this particular scenario if you are on a plan.

Option B, you can buy a device for full price, ie $650 and wait the year or two and sell it for ~$450 but now you have a gap of $200, but you still own the device outright. Sometimes depending on what carrier, you can get an iPhone discount of $100 when not in your contract and that could bring it down to ~$550.

These examples exclude taxes and exclude some abnormalities with the pricing and buying markets such as unlocked > locked phones such as Verizon. Verizon phones don't have the same desire as AT&T phones because of the CDMA vs GSM difference with being able to use it on other prepaid carriers easily and worldwide use.

Anyway, that's my two sense from what I've learned over the years. If you buy a phone on contract and take care of it, you'll still get a great phone and double your money in a year when you go to sell it. That's how the markets have been treating them so far over the years.

Edit: I will say that if you wait too long such as the large jump from 4 to 5S, the resale value on the 4 is now dipped to ~150-200. So to me it makes more sense buying every release or two on contract, and then letting the phone pay for itself.

First time Siri user? Tell her "OK, Glass!" ;-)

The 5S is my first cell phone. I love being able to make calls from outside of my house and quickly and easily write "text" messages to my friends. I use to have to wait until I was at work or at home to make a phone call, but now I can do it from anywhere! I also love these app things, there is one for everything.

I also can't believe I can just connect to the internet from anywhere, and there are not even any tubes connected to my phone. How is that possible?

FTA: Analysts had predicted between 5 and 8 million launch weekend sales across both devices

That is a link to another earlier article on Apple Insider discussing such predictions:

"In fact, Kuo said in a note to investors on Wednesday that Apple will likely ship 6 to 8 million new iPhones over the devices' first weekend of sales. By comparison, Apple racked up 5 million sales when the iPhone 5 debuted last year. Earlier in the day, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster forecast 5 to 6 million unit sales, a more conservative number based on the prior model's in-store launch sales."

Well I read several folks ranging from 5-8 mil. I think even Piper said 7 mil possible. Either way they blew through them all.

First of all, this is an international phone. Second. there are TWO phones. It's likely that sales figures are very similar to last year's marked-down 4S and 5 sales combined, but if you count the delayed international launch last year and combine the sales after all markets were opened to the net sales this year, there's likely little to no difference.

As mentioned on the other thread, pointing to the official announcement, the iPhone 5 launched in China on a different date, so it had 2 million sales on its launch there.

So to get the real comparison you need to add first weekend sales of the 4S in standard launch countries and China to that 7 million figure.

This year there are two new models, that is why they are grouped. Last year the iPhone 5 was the only new model released on opening weekend.

I don't think that comparison would be completely apt. In the eyes of the public the different name and colours will stir up different buying emotions.

It depends what you mean by "fair." One could just as easily argue that it's not fair to compare last year's 5 + 4s sales to this year's 5s + 5c sales, since this the latter is two brand new models.

and to illustrate my point, HN post, a mere 12 days ago:

Apple's Windows 95 problem. http://blog.raavel.com/2013/09/11/apple-problem/

"Apple recently unveiled its new iPhone 5s and 5c models, to a collective “meh”. The stock sold off and is poised to continue moving lower. The market is telling Apple that it is not innovative enough and that its need to do much more, and within that lies the crux of Apple’s problem."

But yeah, a lot of comments, falling over each other in their collective agreement. will that same random blog now turn 180 and consider it's failure?

Yup, Apple is as doomed as ever. Also their customers are sheeple, they are marketing geniuses (even when I write a blog post painstakingly detailing why their ads are terrible), reality distortion field, disruption, etc etc.

Is anyone actually claiming that Apple are going out of business? This kind of reflexive defensiveness doesn't really help anything.

In the long run we are all dead. And all companies go bankrupt.

Aggregated numbers do not tell the whole story.

If smartphones mature to good enough and people shift to slower upgrade cycles (think 2006-7 in PC terms) then apple will have trouble growing. And in our quarterly reports world growth is what counts. Which is already hard when you have the revenue of a couple of countries. And there are not many people that can afford to pay the apple premiums and are not already paying them.

For me the interesting stuff is what is the breakdown of the sales. If the majority of these 9 millions are iPhone 4/S users that switch it can mean one thing, if 6 of those 9 million units are new customers is another story.

We work in industry where the rise and falls of titans is rapid. I will be equally unsurprised if in 5 years Apple still have amazing performance or they are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Apple have some structural problems that they need to address to stay on top - the lack of Steve Jobs (mostly as a perception thing for the products), the store, how to reach to new users that are poorer and protect the margins and the perception of premium-ness of their brand, deal with the growing share of Android etc. None of them are unsolvable but combined they are a challenge.

I couldn't watch it in one go... this is staged right ?

The glasses on the last guy were seriously cool.

> Stock buybacks are just dead money

That is an oversimplification. Apple has more money than it could possibly hope to reinvest in its core business. When that is the case, and when the stock is undervalued as is the case with Apple, stock buybacks are a great use of a company's cash.

Carl Icahn does not a market represent. Carl Icahn and his Twitter account represent himself (and potentially a growing disconnect with reality since his CompUSA days)

I’m honestly not too sure about that. Knowing the split between the two would be very interesting.

I would imagine that they can make tons of 5c phones while the 5s may be more problematic. So the balance between the two may be more even than it seems. (Also, I would be really interested whether the 5c or 5s is the more high margin device. I could imagine that at least for now the 5c has a higher margin than the 5s – well, at least the 16GB 5s.)

It's only really good for Apple if the profit on the more expensive model is greater than the profit on the cheaper one.

All the Apple blogs were talking as if the 5s wasn't really available in large numbers and the plan was to sell lots of cheap-to-make 5c models instead. Which is just one more terrible prediction to chalk up, but it seems they at least thought that would be a good thing before today.

I wouldn't know where to start estimating the profit margins on either phone, but it's worth mentioning since every other discussion about Apple is about how much profit they make, not how many they sell.

Of course it is. Counting the price of the phone and service over two years, the S is less than 5% more expensive than the C.

https://gist.github.com/gregclermont/6669056 - It's being worked on. Doesn't look to be malicious at current.

I've seen someone complains about this somewhere, and it happened to me on another website, quite confusing. Thanks for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6430521 explanation

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6430077 - HN post/comments

Realistically, I'd estimate somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000, which is only slightly less absurd than your joke. From what I've heard, Apple stores typically only had ten or so gold units each available on launch day. That's what it was at the store where I was, and I've heard the same from others. Multiply that by the 413 Apple stores worldwide and... that's not very many. Pretty crazy.

>> "A lot of people waited to upgrade because the iPhone 5 was an iterative device"

What?? The 'S' is the iterative product. The 5 was a new design and new screen size and overall a much bigger update.

>> "people are waiting for the second version of Apple products to get it 'right'."

What was wrong with the 5 that the 5S fixes?

Sounds like you're saying: "I know a lot of people on the 4S/5S refresh cycle."

As long as these people are buying an iPhone every two years, Apple is delighted.

+20.17 @ 9:59 AM

Including China sales the increase was 29% (7m -> 9m).

33% China would be 50% increase in China (2m -> 3m) and up 20% (5m-6m) elsewhere.

40% China would be a near doubling in China (2->3.6), and up 8% (5m->5.4m) elsewhere

For reference, the smartphone market is growing at about 50% a year, in Q2 Apple's sales numbers rose 20% year-on-year and their share dropped over 3 percentage points year-on-year (16.6% -> 13.1%).

(These launch numbers assume that no-one bought a price-dropped 4S on the launch weekend last year)

This was just their minor release cycle, so yeah it will be crazy to think how the 6 will sell.

> – At the Apple store I was at, Apple staff greeted people entering the queue, asked them what they intended to purchase and gave them a card (reservation)

Didn't do that at either of the two Apple stores I'm aware of (there are 5 in my area), or the three AT&T stores my friends went to.

> – You overheard a conversation in another company? Good ears. Extra credit for "she".

Grownup companies sometimes do things together, not every other company is your competitor.

> – "Hey neighbour! I couldn't help noticing you aren't mowing your lawn with a phone?!" "The screen was too tiny neighbourino!"

My neighborhood has a very active community message board and I know many of the member personally from neighborhood events.

> – "IT'S TOO LOUD, HOW DO YOU SHUT IT OFF?? I'M BLIND!!!"

Here are the exact quotes

Neighbor 1: "I'm not a fan. Hate what they did to ical. The new icons look like they are for small children (that i can get over). And the bright white is obnoxious. What the hell did they do to safari?? I'm sad ... But im sure i will eventually get used to it. "

Neighbor 2: "I'm not "upgrading" yet. Hate the font."

Neighbor 1: "Everything is bright white and hard for me read...feeling old."

Neighbor 3: "So far I actually like it. The calendar took me a minute to get used to as well. At first I didn't like it until I realized you get a 5 day shot when you turn it on its side. I can't figure out how to do a list view yet - is there one?"

Neighbor 1: "I have light sensitivity issues (Astigmatism in both eyes - and I also have cataracts - God I sound old!) so the bright white is just harsh for me and not having huge contrasting colors is also hard on my eyes. Yep I agree the one swipe to have controls is nice and I do like what they did with the photos."

Neighbor 4: "Steve Jobs is probably rolling over in his grave right now..."

Neighbor 5: "I downloaded on my iPhone the other night, not a fan. But I downloaded on my iPad earlier today, and I don't mind it at all. But it is way too bright."

Neighbor 1: "Thank you for saying its too bright ... I was beginning to wonder if it was me."

> – 'Hey Wifey, wanna line up in this 2 hour queue? Dum, de dum [two hours in the queue pass]. Oh hey, we're at the front of the queue! Nah this sucks. Wanna go buy some Samsung Galaxies? YES!'

Talked to him in person (he's next door). And that was pretty much the conversation.

> – Your astro-turfing obviously disinterests you, as does your job and it shows dude :[ Quit your job.

What does my job have to do with this?

Wow do I wish I could downvote this more times. Stop being a douche.

What's more interesting is why do people do that just with Apple phones?

Samsung seems to get their phones out and about without the same kind of theater and is matching Apple sale for sale these days.

It's like people waiting in line to see the latest Star Wars film, but a crappy movie about Blue Forest Indians riding Dragons outsells it.

Looks like around 9 million, if you assume 1 phone per person. One way Apple does it is by having good marketing, but I think the more important way they do it is by having consistently excellent consumer satisfaction ratings for their mobile products.

>You missed the part where the fingerprint is stored so it's not even accessible to the OS and are never stored online?

I guess you missed the past 14 weeks of revelations. Either that or I admire your dedication to believing general company claims in the face of all evidence that this is not the status quo.

I take it you are OK with _lawful_ spying by the NSA?

I do not believe them the fingerprint is not stored.

People claim just a hash is saved, maybe - but what is stopping the gov for example to use the same algorithm and hash their existing fingerprint db?

You're wrong. Nothing is communicated to Apple, ever. Fingerprint data stays in the secure memory on the A7 and the scanner is the only thing that has access to it. The system is completely closed to the device which contains the TouchID sensor. For example, you can't use your fingerprint to activate a new device.

Since you are making this claim, I'll assume you've read the entire codebase of iOS. Is there anything stopping Apple from sending out an update that uploads the fingerprint?? Is there anything stopping the NSA from requiring Apple to do this?? It's not paranoia anymore.

Weird. I just travelled from Minneapolis, to Atlanta, and back again and I'm all but certain I did not actually touch ANYTHING in any airport.