Apple’s launch of a new iPhone was supposed to send its shares through the roof and pack the press with feel good press, but for some reason that has not happened this time.
Apple and those of its suppliers have taken a bit of a nose dive. Apple’s stock dropped from around $163 each to $159. The share price recovered slightly to $160.31, but it was lower than the day’s opening price of $162.61 and lower still than the 2pm EST peak of $163.54 when Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage.
Apples suppliers also took a hit especially Apple’s chipmakers AMS down 3.2 percent, while Dialog Semiconductor slipped 1.7 percent and STMicro fell 1.1 percent.
The Tame Apple Press was out for blood and initially blamed Apple’s suppliers because the product would be delayed. However, that idea did not work because the supply delays were due to the yields on the screen displays.
The next person to be blamed was Apple exec Craig Federighi who made an arse of himself in the demonstration of the iPhone X’s facial recognition technology, Face ID, which replaces the fingerprint scanner as a security mechanism.
“Unlocking it is as easy as looking at it and swiping up…” he said, instead unlocking an awkward wait as the device refused to open. He tried and failed a second time, before switching to a backup phone.
While this is not the sort of thing which should have caused huge problems, Cook had a tough sell on his hands anyway and it probably did not help. Cook’s main problem is that phone did not feature any technology which could not be found elsewhere much cheaper. Even the headline edge-to-edge screen had been done before.
All this and Apple wanted to jack the price up to over $1000 because… you know it’s Apple. Basically he is flogging a more expensive phone that does nothing new and certainly nothing Apple’s rivals cannot do for $200 cheaper.
This is probably the real reason Apple’s share price went into reverse, falling one percent after the event ended. But expectations were so high, disappointment was really the only available reaction.
