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AFP
With new iPhones hitting the markets Friday, Apple is seeking to regain momentum and set new trends for the smartphone industry and tech sector. The newest versions of the California-based technology giant’s lifestyle-changing iPhone aim to win over users with sophisticated camera technology, water resistance, more power and other improvements.
But Apple has raised eyebrows by eliminating headphone jacks in what executives heralded as an embrace of a wireless future for its new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The devices with boosted memory capacity will be sold at roughly the same price as the models they replace, starting at $649 for
the iPhone 7 for US customers, with
deliveries in some 25 countries launching Friday. What remains unclear for Apple is whether it can generate the same kind of excitement that surrounded previous versions of the iPhone, amid stiff competition from Samsung and other rivals, and with many markets already saturated.
While at least one analyst has said buying smartphones will soon become as humdrum as buying a microwave, Apple is aiming to boost interest in its other products and services that make up its ecosystem, including an upgraded smartwatch, Apple Pay and streaming music.
Apple “provides users with an integrated, scalable, and seamless experience across multiple devices, which we believe will be difficult for competitors to replicate in scale,†RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said.
Apple’s launch may benefit from the woes of key rival Samsung, which has been struggling with a recall of some 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after faulty batteries caused some handsets to explode during charging.
Apple has said it will not provide figures for launch weekend sales as it has in the past. But there are indications of consumer interest. US telecom carriers Sprint and T-Mobile have announced that iPhone 7 pre-orders were up significantly from what they saw for the prior version.
“It is like four times bigger than the iPhone 6 for us at the pre-order stage,†T-Mobile chief executive John Legere said in a live-broadcast at Periscope. Analysts expected sales of iPhone 7 models to be constrained by supply, not demand. By eliminating the traditional headphone jack, Apple is looking to push more consumers to adopt wirelesstechnology.
The new phone will allow them to use Apple’s proprietary “lightning†connectors for headphones but will also connect to new wireless “AirPods†designed for the device.
The 3.5mm analog jack for wired headsets dates back more than a century, and it was time for someone to “break from the past and start pushing people into the future,†Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin said.