Ouch. This is a blow for Apple.
It seems Apple have an agreement with Samsung to purchase a certain quantity of OLED screens used in the X, XS and XS Max. Because the XS and XS Max aren’t selling well, they are now resuming production of the X, after first pulling it from the stores when the XS and XS Max came out.
XS, XS Max and… XR.
A report several weeks ago that demand for the XR is weak and they have scaled back production.
Yup. That won’t have impacted this decision directly though (in regards to the Samsung deal), since the XR uses LCD screens, not OLED. But it’s a part of a wider trend.
Having had the XR for a few weeks now it’s a great device, but it is clear that Apple are trying to pull a magic trick by positioning it as “affordable” when in reality it’s only affordable in comparison with the XS and XS Max. It does have compromises, and for the same price you’re still able to get flagship specs with no compromises from many Android OEMs.
This is fairly common. Though I would have thought they would have expected lower sales with their push for longevity of devices. they have four phones supported which are on sale ranging from £450 up to £1000+.
This will always be true. Since android devices are only supported for 2 years needing a much greater push to make existing customers upgrade often. It cant really be compared just on price and hardware features as they don’t compare in both directions.
What surprises me is apple don’t seem to have done a huge amount to attract new customers which is what they really need to continue to do. Its hard to see a reason to switch to apple if you’ve not used any apple stuff for any length of time, and there’s no good push from apple that shows this reason either, not unless you’re looking for it.
You say that it is common, but I genuinely cannot think of an example where Apple has dropped a phone from its lineup, only to do a U-turn and put it back into development.
The Iphone SE is possibly the only example you can offer, but the iPhone 6 and 6s had been existence for 2 years before it returned with the same processor as the 6s.
I should have clarified, I mean that changes in supplier demand by companies is common.
Apple haven’t made any official announcement about bringing back an old phone, at this point the source of info is a paragraph from the wsj who suggest that companies do and have done this in the past in regions where items are more popular to continue to produce.
Products have been brought back from the dead before though with demand for them.