Apple raised iPhone prices overall, but one new model could entice those who sat out last year's X

发布时间:2018-09-14 00:00
作者:Ameya360
来源:CNBC
阅读量:1017

On Wednesday, Apple did something clever with pricing on its new iPhones. It made the cutting-edge technology it introduced in last year's iPhone X available at a much lower price, which could help it sell more iPhones to people who sat out last year's high-end.

But it did this while increasing prices at almost every level of its lineup, which will help it keep its average selling price — and profits — high.

Apple announced three new iPhone models: the iPhone XR, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. All three models include large displays with minimal borders, no home button and the FaceID camera system for unlocking the device using facial recognition. Here's how the pricing strategy breaks down.

The entry-level model

The entry-level iPhone XR, which starts at $749, will likely be a big seller. It has many of the key features found in the high-end X line, including FaceID and a high-powered processor that should make certain tasks faster and more efficient.

But costs a lot less than last year's X thanks to features like its cheaper LCD display, aluminum body and single-lens camera. To those who were put off by the $1,000 price tag on last year's iPhone X, this year's iPhone XR will look like a steal. That could help overall unit sales pick up.

At the same time, the iPhone XR is more expensive than last year's entry-level iPhone 8, which started at $699. And two years ago, it cost only $649 to get the newest base iPhone model. In other words, the cost of entry to get in on the latest iPhone has increased by $100 over the last two years.

Apple raised iPhone prices overall, but one new model could entice those who sat out last year's X

The high-end

The mid-range iPhone XS starts at the same $999 price as last year's iPhone X and is functionally similar.

But last year, the X was the top of the line, the luxury model.

This year, Apple is selling the iPhone XS Max with a 6.5-inch screen, which starts at $1,099 and goes all the way up to $1,449 if you get the model with 512GB of storage. It's the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever produced.

Last year, if you wanted a big new iPhone, Apple offered the iPhone 8 Plus, which started at $799. It didn't have the newest iPhone X features like the high-resolution screen or Face ID, but it was also cheaper.

As a side note, none of Apple's new phones will include the adapter you need to plug a traditional pair of headphones into the Lightning port on the phones — a necessity ever since Apple eliminated the headphone jack in 2016. That adapter, which used to come included, will now cost buyers an extra $9. Or, you can buy wireless headphones, which Apple also sells.

The low-end

Apple is eliminating its lowest-price option, the iPhone SE, which started at $349. Price-conscious buyers will still be able to get old iPhones at steep discounts from their debut prices — the iPhone 7 will start at $449 (it debuted in 2016 at $649), and the iPhone 8 will start at $599 (down from last year's introductory price of $699).

But overall, the price of entry to the Apple ecosystem has gone up.

It's the perfect setup for Apple. After proving it could charge more for new iPhones, the company has quietly increased the price to buy into the newest models. We won't know for sure if the strategy will work until Apple reports its December quarter earnings, but based on how successful the pricey iPhone X has been, Apple should be able to keep iPhone sales and profits growing.

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TrendForce's Comments on New iPhone Models
As Apple unveils its new iPhone models, TrendForce has provided the following comments for your reference.Apple unveiled new versions of its iPhone on Wednesday and the specs are consistent with earlier expectations of the new models, says TrendForce. While last year’s premium-priced iPhone X sparked discussion in the market, Apple again moved towards a higher price range, passing the US$1,000 threshold. TrendForce believes that the aggressive pricing point Apple has chosen seems to be challenging the upper limit of prices that consumers are willing to pay for a premium smartphone. New iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max feature optimized photo quality, AR experiences, and dual-SIM, but they are less likely to boost the demand significantly due to the higher-than-expected prices, because consumers still need time to adjust to the price set for the premium models.As for iPhone XR, the more budget-friendly model, its pricing point is much lower than its OLED partners, iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max. Positioned as Apple’s main product this year to revive its sluggish smartphone sales, the iPhone XR with an LCD display will account for nearly 50% in the production capacity of the new iPhone series. However, this LCD model is also faced with uncertainties related to trade issues, the stronger US dollar, as well as even higher pricing outside the U.S. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether or not this LCD model could help Apple boost iPhone sales growth and profits.Meanwhile, the prices of older versions of iPhone, including iPhone7 and iPhone 8, are adjusted downwards to US$449 and US$599 respectively, which may create higher-than-expected demand for the older models.
2018-09-14 00:00 阅读量:878
The Stealth Winners in iPhone X
  MADISON, Wis. — You might think the world has already seen enough Apple iPhone X teardowns. But there are grunts in the trenches who just can’t seem to get enough.  Certainly, iPhone X teardowns focused on logic ICs have been there, done that. But the untrodden ground Apple has really broken is in areas such as optical modules, components, MEMS, packaging and PCB technologies, according to Romain Fraux, chief technology officer at System Plus Consulting, Yole Développement’s reverse-engineering partner.  Last week, EE Times sat down with analysts at both Yole (Lyon, France) and System Plus Consulting (Nante, France).  Asked about Apple’s most significant advancement in its iPhone X, Jean-Christophe Eloy, Yole’s CEO and president, nominated “the optical system Apple has brought to mobile devices.” He said Apple’s big milestone is that 3D sensing — an ability to recognize faces much more accurately than any existing Android phone — is now “poised to spread to everything from tablets to cars and door bells.”  EE Times asked both Eloy and Fraux to lay out highlights of their discoveries from in-depth teardowns. We also asked them to identify lesser known players who got iPhone X design wins.  AT&S, Austria-based PCB manufacturer, wins big  The analysts named, among others, AT&S (Leoben, Austria), a European PCB manufacturer, as a significant contributor to the highly integrated iPhone X.  While teardown experts such as TechInsights and iFixit alsomarveled at the PCB sandwich they saw in iPhone X, Fraux noted that AT&S, so far, “has been the only one capable of offering such an unprecedented level of high-density interconnect” on PCB boards.  By stacking two PCB boards together, Fraux estimates that Apple saved 15 percent of the iPhone X’s floor space. That gave Apple room for extra batteries, he added.  There’s no question that modified semi-additive processes (mSAP) and advanced manufacturing techniques are enabling high-density interconnects in smartphones at lower cost and faster production speeds.  Yole’s Eloy pointed out the substantial contribution that AT&S’ mSAP technology made to the company’s recent financial results. AT&S last week reported a revenue jump of 24.5 percent to 765.9 million euros in the first three quarters (April 1 to Dec. 31, 2017) compared to the same three quarters in 2016.  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Bosch reduced IMU thickness from “0.9mm to 0.6mm,” he noted. “This is the market’s thinnest 6-axis IMU.”  This led to Bosch replacing InvenSense inside the newest iPhone 8 and iPhone X, and supplanting STMicroelectronics (Geneva, Switzerland) for the Apple Watch Series 3.  These three design wins will give Bosch “hundreds of millions of units in sales per year,” estimated Fraux. This makes Bosch practically “the undisputed leader in MEMS IMU for consumer applications.”  In a recent report from System Plus Consulting, Fraux observed, “Bosch Sensortec made significant changes — particularly for the accelerometer, where the old single-mass structure was abandoned for a new structure achieving better sensing properties. 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Noting that 5G communication technology portends “a new order to the market,” System Plus Consulting explained in its own report that packaging could be “a major domain where performance, integration and cost efficiency will be optimized… as all high-quality competitors are looking for a better way to make high-density front-end communication devices.”  Fraux highlighted Broadcom/Avago’s advanced RF SiP for the iPhone X. Broadcom developed an unprecedented level of integration — 18 filters close to 30 dies — in its SiP, he explained. Broadcom designed it to accommodate mid and high band in Japan (Band 42, 3.6GHz).  This Broadcom module is essential for SIM-free phones. Fraux noted that in iPhone X A1865 & A1902, Broadcom & Skyworks supply the front-end modules (FEM). In iPhone X A1901, Broadcom, Skyworks & Epcos are the FEM suppliers.  Breakthrough optical system in mobile  When all is said and done, Yole’s Eloy sees iPhone X’s optical system as its genuine advancement. 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As Pierre Cambou, activity leader for imaging and sensors at Yole Développement, previously explained to EE Times, to have a 3D camera on the front of the iPhone X to identify its owner’s face and unlock the phone, Apple combined a ToF proximity detector with an infrared “structured light” camera that uses either uniform “flood” or “dot-pattern” illumination.  The way the 3D system works is very different from a regular CMOS imager taking a photo, he noted. First, the iPhone X combines an infrared camera with a flood illuminator that projects uniform infrared light. It then takes images, which, in turn, trigger a face-detection algorithm.  This face-recognition function, however, isn’t meant to run all the time. The infrared camera linked to the ToF proximity sensor tells the camera to take a picture when it detects a face. The iPhone X then activates its dot-pattern projector to take an image. 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2018-02-08 00:00 阅读量:1117
Uncovering the iPhone Battery Slowdown
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Apple does more with new OSes, and older phone can’t necessarily keep up…it’s not nefarious, and we are used to a certain level of these complaints…[but] this year we saw more of those complaints coupled with decreases in Geekbench,” Poole said in an interview.  When a user posted on Reddit that his iPhone’s performance returned to normal after he replaced its battery, “I started digging into the results and that’s when I realized there was something going on,” Poole said.  He tapped into his database of 6 million Geekbench scores, plotting performance of different versions of the iPhone using different versions of iOS. Handsets using iOS version 10.2.1 and later revealed an anomaly. Rather than a single distribution around an average peak performance, they also showed the highest peak followed by multiple lower peaks.  “The conclusion we drew was 10.2.1 introduced some change that effected performance in a systematic way in a significant number of phones,” Poole said.  After he published his results, Apple publicly responded to growing questions with a statement posted by National Public Radio and other a Web sites:  “Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.  "Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future," Apple said  The battery problem was a flip side of the iPhone’s lead in overall smartphone performance, Poole explained.  “Apple chased single-core performance to an insane degree. 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The crew at iFixit performed their own tests on four iPhone 6 and 6S models used by staff. The phones had inconsistent performance levels that varied from ten to 60 percent less than a new phone.  “We swapped the batteries, re-ran the benchmarks and it was a night-and-day difference,” said Jeff Suovanen, a teardown analyst at iFixit who helped perform the tests and posted a blog on the results.  “We’re used to seeing old phones with a new battery benefit from extended battery life, but having it increase performance is not something we traditionally see--but it’s a factor now,” he said.  “I think Apple is doing all they can to manage the situation the best they can, but they flubbed the communications so bad it got people wondering what was wrong with their phones…A lot of people thought they needed to replace their phones prior to uncovering this issue,” Suovanen added.  Meanwhile, Poole is investigating other Apple and Android products. So far he hasn’t seen other examples of the battery problem.  Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy 6 he tested generally have “less aggressive single-core performance so they draw less power and tolerate an older battery,” he said.  The issue came to light after the iPhone 8 and X designs were largely complete, “so will be interesting to see if this affects future phones. We will watch the performance distributions and may start publishing these charts routinely,” he added.  Meanwhile, some users may aim for a windfall legal settlement from Apple. “Rather than curing the battery defect by providing a free battery replacement for all affected iPhones, Apple sought to mask the battery defect,” according to one complaint that Reuters quoted.
2017-12-28 00:00 阅读量:1061
iPhone X’s TrueDepth Module Dissected
  Although experts in the imaging industry are aware of a complex “TrueDepth” module that Apple has devised for its iPhone X, most other details inside the device’s 3D system — chips, components, and all the way down to substrates — remain a deep, dark secret.  EE Times talked to Yole Développement, which completed this week a teardown of Apple iPhone X TrueDepth module in collaboration with its partner, System Plus Consulting. They deduced that silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers are being used in near-infrared (NIR) imaging sensors. They noted that SOI has played a key role in improving the sensitivity of NIR sensors — developed by STMicroelectronics — to meet Apple’s stringent demands.  Pierre Cambou, activity leader for imaging and sensors at Yole Développement, called the SOI-based NIR image sensors “a very interesting milestone for SOI.”  Many companies located in France’s so-called Imaging Valley, near Grenoble, have used SOI wafers, developed by Soitec — initially for backside illumination (BSI) sensors. Meanwhile, research on SOI for NIR sensors dates back to 2005, according to Cambou.  But Apple’s adoption of ST’s NIR sensors marks the debut of SOI in mass production for image sensors, noted Cambou. “Image sensors are characterized by large surface due to the physical size of light. Therefore, this is a great market to be in for a substrate supplier” like Soitec, he added.  Meanwhile, Jean-Christophe Eloy, Yole's president and CEO, told EE Times that, in designing its TrueDepth module, “Apple took the best of both worlds — STMicroelectronics and Ams.” Apple adopted leading-edge NIR imagers from STMicroelectronics, while it deployed dot illuminators from Ams (Premstaetten, Austria). Eloy noted that Ams is “extremely good at its complex optical module.” Earlier this year, Ams acquired Heptagon, known for its Time-of-Flight (ToF) technology stack.  Recap on how it works  Apple put a 3D camera on the front of the iPhone X to identify its owner’s face and unlock the phone.  As Yole previously explained, to make this possible, Apple combined a ToF proximity detector with an infrared “structured light” camera that can either use a uniform “flood” or “dot-pattern” illumination.  The way that the 3D system works is very different from a regular CMOS imager taking a photo. First, the iPhone X combines an infrared camera with a flood illuminator that projects uniform infrared light in front of the phone. It then takes images, which, in turn, trigger a face-detection algorithm.  This face-recognition function, however, isn’t meant to run all the time. The infrared camera linked to the ToF proximity sensor signals the camera to take a picture when it detects a face. The iPhone X then activates its dot pattern projector to take an image.  Both the regular and dot-pattern images are then sent to the application processing unit (APU), which puts them through a neural network trained to recognize the owner and unlock the phone.  Yole’s Cambou noted that no 3D image is computed at this point. The 3D information is contained in the dot-pattern image. “To run 3D applications, the same APU can use another algorithm [that] computes the depth map of the image.” He added, “The iPhone X takes advantage of the massive processing power available in the A11 chip, as structured light approaches are known to be computationally intensive. The use of a neural network is the key technology that made it possible.”  Five sub-modules  The teardown by Yole and System Plus Consulting has found a “complex assembly of five sub-modules” in Apple’s optical hub. They are: near-infrared camera, proximity detector (Time-of-Flight) + IR flood illuminator, RGB camera, dot-pattern illuminator, and color/ambient light sensor.  As shown below, the IR camera, RGB camera, and dot projector are all aligned.  NIR image sensors  At the heart of Apple’s iPhone X’s optical hub, there is STMicroelectronics’ NIR sensor. Yole and System Plus Consulting found inside ST’s NIR sensor “the use of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) on top of deep-trench isolation (DTI).”  The idea of DTI technology is well-known. In general, the issue with the high sensor resolutions required in today’s cameras is that pixels are forced inside the same space, creating noise, discoloration, or pixelization of neighboring sensors when capturing a photo. DTI is deployed to prevent leakage between photodiodes. Apple reportedly etched literal trenches between each one, then filled the trenches with insulating material that stops electric current.  So, on top of DTI, why did Apple want to use SOI wafers for NIR image sensors?  Optically speaking, Cambou explained that SOI wafers are advantageous because the insulator layer functions like a mirror. “Infrared light penetrates deeper, and it reflects back to the active layer,” he noted.  Electrically speaking, Cambou noted, SOI improves NIR’s sensitivity largely because it’s good at minimizing leakage within the pixel. The improved sensitivity provides good image contrast.  Contrast is important because “the structured light operation is disturbed by sunlight,” explained Cambou.  Of course, regular CMOS image sensors or NIR sensors are “happy to have extra light if the goal is to have a better image,” said Cambou. However, light is a problem when a user tries to unlock an iPhone X under the bright sun.  “The problem is the contrast of the projected dots of NIR light versus ambient light from the sun or any other light source,” said Cambou. “But the sun is usually the biggest problem.” Hence, it was paramount for Apple to improve NIR’s contrast by using SOI wafers.  Asked if ST’s NIR sensors are using FD-SOI or SOI wafers, Cambou said that the research firms couldn’t tell.  As for NIR sensors, do we know if Apple is using 850-nm or 940-nm wavelength NIR? Cambou noted, “We couldn’t determine which.” However, he speculated, “Apple most likely used 850 nm like everyone else (i.e., Intel’s RealSense, Facebook, HTC, and others), but STMicroelectronics is known for developing 940-nm SPAD proximity ranger, so it is a possibility that they intend to move to this wavelength in the future.”  Asked about surprises unearthed by the teardown, Cambou cited the size of ST’s NIR sensor chip. It measures 25mm2, and has only 1.4 megapixels due to the large 2.8-μm pixel size. Cambou noted, “Nevertheless, in this category, this pixel is considered as ‘a small one’ compared to competitions [that] typically use 3.0 μm to 5 μm.”  Beginning of the new era  Yole positions the iPhone X as the beginning of a new era for 3D imaging.  Cambou also believes that Apple is forging the future for NIR sensors. Pointing out last week’s announced acquisition of InVisage Technologies, he noted, “In my point of view, Apple wanted InVisage for NIR sensor capabilities, although there may be several ways to interpret this acquisition.”  Cambou doesn’t believe that InVisage could match STMicroelectronics’ product in terms of performance, but it could provide a solution for miniaturization, he noted. “Face ID technology could, therefore, be scaled down for other products such as AR headsets.”  Business implications  On one hand, Apple’s iPhone X is creating big opportunities for SOI wafer makers like Soitec. Equally significant is that it has already triggered a meaningful comeback for STMicroelectronics. Cambou is confident that ST will be a player in the emerging ToF camera market.  Of course, the semiconductor business is often affected by a short cycle of boom-and-bust. But ST, whose business was decimated after it lost Nokia in the mobile phone market, has “made a very elegant transition,” observed Cambou.  ST has created different types of image sensor applications — moving from CMOS image sensors to NIR and SPAD sensors in the future — all the while leveraging its assets and home-grown underlying technologies.
2017-11-20 00:00 阅读量:1024
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