Reviewers React to Apple’s New iPhones With a Resounding ‘Meh’

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Apple stock - Reviewers React to Apple’s New iPhones With a Resounding ‘Meh’

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Investors hoping the newest iterations of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhones would justify the twelve-month, 40% gain Apple stock has dished out are likely to be disappointed. With a few days to take a closer look at the new iPhone specs since last week’s official unveiling, the professional reviewers give it a collective ‘meh.’

Don’t misunderstand. The new iPhone XS and the bigger-screened iPhone XS Max are amazing devices. But, given the full year that’s separated the release of this line up and its predecessors’ unveilings, one would have expected more.

It’s not the end of the world… not even for the most loyal of iPhone lovers. For shareholders though, this is a new paradigm that could slowly but surely prove to be a drag on long-term AAPL stock price uptrend.

The New iPhones Are Good, But Not Great

It’s not a premise Apple stock’s faithful followers will easily accept. Those investors and consumers have grown accustomed to — and even anticipatory of — significant technological leaps with each new smartphone. The most recent versions, however, have been less and less impressive than the previous-generation devices. Indeed, the newest iPhones are largely indistinguishable from the iPhone X devices unveiled in September of 2017.

Largely — but not entirely.

The OLED screens are not only sharp, but also support HDR 4K video. The phone’s camera is also superior to the X camera. The XS even supports dual SIMs, and even eSIMs …for the handful of users that might need such flexibility.

Experts who have taken closer looks at the XS have, at best, mixed opinions.

Chief among the concerns is the price tag. The XS starts at a price of $999, and the XS Max starts at $1099. iPhone fans that want to max out their screen size and storage will be shelling out $1449. Even at the lower end of the price scale, the company is asking a lot of consumers. Making monthly payments through a wireless carrier makes the price tag more palatable, but the new phones still add between $50 and $60 to the monthly wireless service bill for what’s essentially a lease.

TechRadar summed up the pricing scheme by saying, “this is a premium phone with an even more premium price tag.” Wired’s Lauren Goode said the XS phones “don’t spark strong feelings — except maybe chagrin that they cost so much,” adding that they were “an evolution, not a revolution.”

Bigger may also not be better.

The XS’s 5.8-inch screen (measured diagonally) and the XS Max’s 6.5-inch screen are both bordering on the unwieldy. Though the New York Times’ Brian Chen conceded he was becoming a fan of larger phones, he also conceded “These devices spend a lot of time in your pocket and your hand, and there are often compromises in portability and comfort when the screens balloon in size. For those reasons, I never liked the Plus phones, the line of iPhones that Apple introduced in 2014 with 5.5-inch screens. They felt impossible to use with one hand and far too bulky in a pocket.”

And as for the camera, though it’s better than prior iPhone cameras, the XS cameras aren’t necessarily the best available on any smartphone. The Verge’s Nilay Patel is still a fan of Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Pixels. He explains “we’ve been saying the best smartphone camera on the market is Google’s Pixel 2 for a year now, so that’s the standard to beat. And…I think the Pixel 2 still has a better camera than the iPhone XS.”

Perhaps it was Goode’s broad assessment that raises the most eyebrows: “They’re great phones. Just don’t expect to feel the kind of feelings, as you’re sliding this phone out of your pocket or purse, that you’d get with a radically redesigned piece of hardware.”

Bottom Line for Apple Stock

These are anything but scathing reviews. But, it’s clear that the intangible magic of the iPhone is fading.

That’s not a dig against Apple. Above all else it’s a phone, and there’s only so much a phone can and should do. Silicon, glass, plastic and a variety of polycarbonate materials can only do so much and still remain portable. Besides, Apple has turned up the heat on revenue-bearing products other than the iPhone.

Still, the ho-hum response is something Apple stock owners should keep in mind as a potential red flag. Consumers are decreasingly enamored with the company and device they once put on a pedestal. Even if the whole point of a high-end phone is to sell more of its older and lower-end devices, the relative “aspirational” motive still seems to be in jeopardy.

That kind of dynamic has a funny way of showing up in a stock’s price sooner or later.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter, at @jbrumley.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2018/09/reviewers-react-to-apples-new-iphones-with-a-resounding-meh/.

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