So, this week Apple will announce their new iPhone 6 and iOS 8 software. They’ll also announce an iWatch, and maybe some other odds and ends — but the world’s focus is on the new iPhone 6 — and anticipation is so great that Apple has ordered over 70 million units for shipment this fall (the biggest ever) and FedEx has cancelled other deliveries from China to focus on Apple for the next couple of months (the biggest launch in history).
Its the perfect storm for Apple, and will be a Samsung killer in the United States. There will always be Android fan boys, and Apple fan boys, and very rarely do the two meet. But the statistics don’t lie:
-The large majority of iPhone owners are due an upgrade, and they will…
-The vast majority of iPhone users who switched to Android phones did so for the larger screen, and in poll after poll indicate they will come back to Apple and abandon their Androids once they have larger screens available…
-Apple finally has found a way to capture the over-40 market — with its vision friendly larger screens, you can bet those Android phones will stagnate on the shelf at phone stores…just anecdotally, I haven’t heard a single college kid in Ann Arbor complain that the iPhone 5 is too small…while almost every single one of my over-40 (and many of us over-50) folks have complained about the small size for years. Internationally, 51% of the asian market is anticipating buying the larger 5.5″ screen, while abut 37% of the US market is leaning toward the larger of the two screens.
-iOS 8 will finally incorporate all those things that Samsung has had bragging rights to — widgets, etc — and will do them better, faster, and more reliably…
Current scuttlebutt has it that the iPhone 6 4.7 inch will be released on or about the 19th of September, while the iPhone 6 5.5 inch (plus) model will release a while down the road (though there is some indication it might also release on the 19th in limited quanitites). Expect the vast majority of under-40’s to upgrade to the iPhone 4.7 while the vast majority of over-40’s change to the iPhone 5.5. Its a sheer vision thing.
Speaking of the Vision Thing…there is another game changer afoot — expect iPad sales to stagnate, especially for the iPad Mini, as the 5.5″ iPhone screen arrives — finally a size comfortable enough to read a book, watch a video comfortably, look at photos at almost real-size (for those of us who grew up with 4×6 photos as “real size”), and enough real estate to take notes reasonably — I expect iPad sales will decrease exponentially as users realize that they no longer need them. But if you are going to cut into the market, you might as well make it your own.
Finally — the other complaint I’ve heard about the larger size is that “they don’t fit in a pocket” — well they sure do — at least for the vast majority of users who don’t wear skinny jeans. The iPhone 5.5 will be small enough to fit easily into a purse or men’s pants pocket. For all intents and purposes, I’ve been carrying around all my phones since the old mid-naughts HTC Tilts and Blackberries in my cargo pants pocket, and its never been an issue. In fact, Blackberries were always larger than their iPhone equivalents.
Apple knows that it currently holds all the cards in its hands. This weeks remarkably clumsy Samsung announcement for a variety of new phones and circumspect tech gear proved that much. How many people actually remember what they announced last week, and when its being released?…(the Note 4, a new watch, and some odd virtual reality helmet)…but there won’t be a single person in America, and most of the world for that matter, who won’t know what Apple announces this Tuesday afternoon — and much of that will covert to real sales a week later.
Personally, having become acclimated to the Samsung Galaxy 4 and now the Galaxy 5 with its 5.1 inch screen, (and falling firmly into that target market of Apple’s who switched to Android to get the larger screen for our aging eyes), I will be up at the crack of 2 or 3 am whatever morning they announce online sales will begin for the iPhone 5.5″ — and I know many others will be doing the same thing — I can’t imagine switching back to a tinier screen, but I can’t wait to get rid of my quirky and unreliable Samsung phone.
For the record, plenty of websites have already shown size comparisons…the iPhone 4.7″ is marginally larger than the current 4″ iPhone 5/5S, but only marginally so…including its larger bezel and frame it will be about the size of the current Galaxy S5 but with a smaller screen…the iPhone 5.5″ model will be about the size of the current Galaxy Note 3 (though thinner and taller).
No matter what people’s personal thoughts are on the affair, Apple will have the happiest Christmas of any corporation in America, and Samsung will find that despite some of its advances over the past couple years, they are again looking up at Apple as its sales set records internationally.
Mostly Musical Theatre 
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