I think Apple has a huge hit on its hands. It’s just not the Apple Watch.
As I said in my column today, I think Apple’s new smartwatch has some serious shortcomings that could keep it from being a mainstream success. But that doesn’t mean the company’s event yesterday was much ado about nothing.
In addition to the new watch, Apple unveiled two larger-screened iPhones. The iPhone 6, with its 4.7-inch screen, is likely to rival the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the HTC One m8. Meanwhile, the iPhone 6 Plus, with its 5.5-inch screen, is clearly targeting so-called “phablets” like Samsung’s Galaxy Note series.
I think the new phones are going to sell like hot cakes.
Over the last couple of years, there’s been a big shift in the market toward larger-screened phones. In the United States, more than a quarter of the smartphones sold in the second quarter of this year had a screen that was 4.7 inches or larger, according to NPD Group. That was up from just 2 percent two years earlier.
Worldwide, 40 percent of smartphones shipped in the second quarter of this year had screens that were 5 inches or larger, according to Canalys. That was up from 18 percent in the same period last year and less than 1 percent in the second quarter of 2012.
Until now, Apple fans interested in a bigger screened phones faced a tough choice. If they insisted on getting a bigger-screened phone, they had to buy an Android or Windows Phone device, because Apple didn’t offer what they wanted. Apple likely lost sales due to the screen factor and it’s a good bet that it played a role in the iPhone’s loss of market share in recent years.
The situation reminds me of Apple’s decision when it launched the iPhone to only sell it through AT&T. Consumers who wanted a smartphone but weren’t willing to switch to AT&T had no choice of an Apple product. So they bought Android phones instead. By leaving out Verizon and other carriers, Apple arguably helped jump start the market for rival devices.
When Apple finally did bring the iPhone to Verizon, its iPhone sales surged. I’m betting a similar thing is going to happen now that it’s offering big-screened smartphones.
Apple could also get a boost from the carriers. Immediately after Apple’s event on Tuesday, Sprint announced a new service plan just for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus customers. The company plans to charge $50 a month — not including the cost of the phones — for unlimited calling, texting and data usage. It also announced an “iPhone for life” plan, that allows users to pay a $20 monthly fee to essentially lease their phone, with the right to trade it in for an upgrade every two years for no additional charge.
Verizon, meanwhile, announced that it would give customers a new 16-gigabyte iPhone 6 for no money down if they traded in an old iPhone and signed a two-year contract. T-Mobile announced its own iPhone trade-in offer and is expected to announce new service plans later on Wednesday.
I’m not a huge fan of phablets, and I’ve long been resistant to bigger phones in general, because they can be difficult to hold and use in hand. But in recent years, manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have succeeded in making bigger-screened phones that are actually comfortable to hold. They’ve done so by making the devices thinner, by decreasing the border around the gadget’s screens and, in some cases, by giving them a rounded back that fits more naturally in a user’s palm.
I still think the devices with 5.5-inch and larger screens like the iPhone 6 Plus and the Galaxy Note series are comically — an uncomfortably — large. But I really liked the size of the iPhone 6 and how it felt in my hand. In fit and finish, it reminded me a lot of HTC’s One, which is my favorite recent Android device.
So I think Apple did announce a hit new product or two yesterday, even if they weren’t the ones everyone was waiting for.
Photo courtesy of Apple.
