Apple prides itself on being able to whip up the excitement as it puts each new handset on sale but the iPhone fever was rather muted this time around.
One explanation is a switch to online ordering cutting down the traditional queues outside shops And Apple was a bit of a victim of its own success with shortages of the more popular models.
In Australia – the first place in the world selling it – the very first customer complained he could not get the larger size jet-black one he wanted.
Marcus Barsoum, who had spent two nights camped outside the Sydney store, said: “I’m still very sad that I’m not going to get a jet-black of any phone. I thought Apple being Apple they would have some, they wouldn’t sell out through pre-orders, they would have some aside for loyal fans like me that line up.”
It was the same story in New York for Andreas Francis who said: “I’ve been here for a week and a half. I was trying to get the 7 Plus and the new jet-black, but they don’t have the 7 Plus or the jet-black, so I ended up getting the regular black, then the 7.”
China syndrome
In the key market of China the system was also changed so that the only people at the shops were those coming to collect pre-ordered phones.
In China online interest was reportedly muted compared with previous releases. Chatter about the iPhone 7 launch on Chinese microblog Weibo has been far more muted than when the iPhone 6 debuted in 2014.
Apple’s Greater China sales dropped by a third in April-June, albeit after more than doubling a year earlier, while its market share has fallen to around 7.8 percent, placing it fifth behind local rivals Huawei, OPPO and Vivo.
But Beijing customer Chen Xinyu pointed out Apple is still popular and may have gained an advantage from Samsung’s issues with exploding batteries on its flagship handset: “I still think it has a strong appeal, plus because of the Samsung Note 7’s safety problems perhaps a lot of users who wanted to buy Samsung will now buy the iPhone 7.”
Source: Euronews
