It’s not the first time Apple’s mixed it up, of course. If you’re old enough to remember when people still thought the last season of “Lost” was going to tie up all the loose ends, you will recall that the new iPhones used to be released in the summer. “Don’t wear linen and don’t use last year’s iPhone after Labor Day,” people used to say. (No one said that.) But with the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple switched to a fall schedule in order to ruin the summer plans of its engineers and product marketing employees.
Now, after 15 years of relative stability, Apple has completely bifurcated its iPhone release, moving the release of the base iPhone models and the iPhone Air to the spring along with the iPhone e-line. Further, for those who weren’t happy just paying in the $1,000 range for iPhones, the company added the iPhone Duo, creating an exciting new range of $2,000 options. Just what everyone was begging for in our current era of $6 per gallon gas and $26 salad entrees.
Nothing against the iPhone Duo; it looks like a fantastic phone, but the Macalope could really go for an iPhone 5c right now.
After years of a reliable cycle of iPhone releases and then inevitable rumors of drastic production cuts that supposedly mean this year’s line of iPhones is a huge failure instead of them being absolutely normal decreases after the fall surge, the horny one isn’t sure what to expect. First of all, the overall number of units sold will be down drastically since there’s no base model this quarter, plus the five people who bought the iPhone Air. Additionally, the introduction of the iPhone Duo means many who would have bought the iPhone 18 Pro will not.
Indeed, the headlines are already rolling in: “iPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders Off to a Muted Start, Analyst Says”
Of course, Apple wants the iPhone Duo to be a hit, and it knew that would come at the cost of iPhone Pro sales. In fact, in order to grease the skids for the Touch ID-only iPhone Duo even further, Apple even put a bug in Face ID on the iPhone 18 Pro to even the playing field.
