Thursday Apple Rumors: iPhone 5s Supply Constraints Frustrate Verizon

by Christopher Freeburn | October 17, 2013 12:39 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for today:

Limited: During a conference call discussing its quarterly results, an executive at the nation’s largest wireless carrier said that the company couldn’t fully meet consumer demand for Apple‘s (AAPL[3]) new flagship iPhone because it didn’t have enough of them[4], CNN Money notes. Verizon Wireless CFO Fran Shammo said that orders for the new iPhone 5s were heavily backlogged during the first few weeks after it launched because the available inventory of the phone was so low. Verizon said it activated 3.9 million iPhones during the third quarter, flat against second quarter iPhone activations, but up 26% from the same time last year. iPhones accounted for 51% of all smartphones activated by Verizon customers during the quarter. Analysts had expected a higher number of iPhone activations due to the launch of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in September. But severely constrained supplies of the iPhone 5s may have affected the number of iPhones activated during the quarter. Verizon (VZ[5]) has announced plans to acquire Vodafone‘s (VOD[6]) minority stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion by early next year.

Cleared for Takeoff: On Tuesday, the Cupertino City Council voted to approve Apple’s new 2.8-million-square-foot corporate headquarters[7], the San Jose Mercury News notes. The vote was expected to go in the iPhone-maker’s favor. The massive campus will feature a huge, glass-enclosed circular building that has been described as looking like a spaceship. Plans for the complex were initiated under Apple’s late CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. Hundreds of Apple employees were present in the council chamber for the vote. The new headquarters will offer space for 14,200 workers. With the approval, Apple expects to begin removing existing structures from the site by the end of this year. Prior to the vote, a few Cupertino residents expressed misgivings about the location of the new headquarters and the amount of street traffic it will generate.

Detection: Problems with certain sensors in Apple’s new iPhone 5s may be the result of a switch to a new supplier for the phone’s accelerometer[8], Gizmodo notes. Soon after the new iPhone launched last month, many users began to report wildly inaccurate measurements from its motion sensors. One developer says that the iPhone 5s uses an accelerometer component from Bosch Sensortech. The iPhone 5 used accelerometers from STMicroelectronics. The manufacturers use different bias specifications in their components, which are thought to account for the measurement errors reported by iPhone 5s users. The problem can be corrected by adding a calibration routine into apps and the iPhone’s firmware. Apple has not yet commented on the issue, though some software developers are currently working on possible fixes.

For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[9] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/10/thursday-apple-rumors-iphone-5s-supply-constraints-frustrate-verizon/

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