Despite the strength of its brand, Apple Inc. occasionally releases a product to mediocre reviews \u2013 remember the original Apple TV or Apple Watch? But\u00a0reviewers have rarely been as\u00a0grumpy as this month, when Apple unveiled its collection of new gadgets for the holidays.<\/p>\n
Each product was docked by reviewers for specific functional flaws, ranging from the iPhone 8\u2019s middling design to Apple Watch Series 3 issues with wireless connectivity, and quality problems with the Apple TV 4K’s video output.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Apple’s new products often generate plenty of nit-picks, the lack of enthusiasm by reviewers across the portfolio seems unique this year,\u201d Walter Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG, said.<\/p>\n
To be sure, Apple products have gotten bad reviews in the past, only to sell like hotcakes later. And reviewers haven’t yet tested the iPhone X, which is expected to be the main object of desire when it\u00a0becomes available in November. Early sales in Asia may indicate that first-adopters are holding out for the iPhone X, and that pre-orders for the iPhone 8 may be lagging behind its predecessor.<\/p>\n
As the only models likely to be readily available in stores ahead of\u00a0the holidays, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are great phones, but their $699 to $949 prices make them competitors for rivals’ top-end models, like\u00a0Samsung Electronics Co.\u2019s Galaxy S8. The problem is that\u00a0these iPhones look dated compared with Samsung\u2019s top-end offerings, and Apple\u2019s own forthcoming iPhone X. Perceptually, the 8-series handsets\u00a0don’t offer significant upgrades over last year\u2019s models — or even the ones before — which are still being sold by Apple\u00a0at lower prices. The main additions are new camera features, a wireless charging mechanism\u00a0already present on competing phones, and faster chips.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t think of a single compelling reason to upgrade from an iPhone 7,\u201d wrote\u00a0Nilay Patel of The Verge. Other reviews are more positive. \u201cThe iPhone 8 and 8 Plus will be the best phones on the market when they go on sale Friday,\u201d said\u00a0Business Insider\u2019s Steve Kovach. \u201cAnd they’ll most likely remain the best phones available until November, when the iPhone X arrives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another potential sign of trouble: the iPhone 8 models didn\u2019t sell out during pre-orders, another rare occurrence for Apple\u00a0phones. Though each iPhone\u00a0sells in the tens of millions, the 8 and 8 Plus are overshadowed by the latest designs, especially in the iPhone X. Yet Apple fans waiting for the iPhone X in November\u00a0are expected to face shortages due to reported production delays and component-supply issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-orders for the\u00a0iPhone 8 so far are less than iPhone 7, which was the most pre-ordered iPhone at Docomo,\u201d said Hiroko Shimoyama, spokeswoman at NTT Docomo Inc. \u201cThis may be due to iPhone X not being released until November.\u201d Yusuke Abe, a spokesman at SoftBank Group Corp., said that while iPhone 8 pre-orders weren\u2019t \u201cthat much, we expect adding iPhone X may exceed last year\u2019s pre-orders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Apple Watch, originally released in 2015, was supposed to become the Next Big Thing at Apple, but has so far mostly languished as a pricey accessory to the iPhone. That dependence was supposed to change this year with the ability to connect to cellular networks, un-tethering it from the handset. Yet after\u00a0testing the Apple Watch Series 3, reviewers panned its one-hour talk time, and others spotted\u00a0connectivity problems,\u00a0suggesting the new model isn’t as free as initially\u00a0appeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the AT&T-connected models, the cellular connection dropped, calls were often choppy and Siri sometimes failed to connect,\u201d The Wall Street Journal\u2019s Joanna Stern wrote. \u201cOn the one that ran on T-Mobile, I experienced several dropped connections.\u201d The Verge\u2019s Lauren Goode noticed a serious connection issue as well, saying the device \u201cwould appear to pick up a single bar of some random Wi-Fi signal, and hang on that, rather than switching to LTE.\u201dApple blamed the issue\u00a0on a bug, and said it\u2019s working on a future software update to\u00a0fix it. And other reviewers were suitably wowed, with Wired praising the Watch\u2019s speed and microphones. The device\u00a0goes on sale Friday.<\/p>\n
The latest Apple TV also has hit snags with its eponymous upgrade: 4K video streaming. Reviewing the $179 model, Apple’s most expensive Apple TV in years, BuzzFeed said it wasn\u2019t a significant step forward given it\u2019s the first\u00a0major upgrade since 2015. Instead, the news site described it as\u00a0essentially the previous model with a faster chip to enable 4K video support\u00a0\u2013 a feature that more affordable competitors have had for more than a year.<\/p>\n
The Verge\u2019s Patel noted the device\u2019s high price, a lack of 4K support in major apps including YouTube, and a lack of support for the Dolby Atmos audio standard. Apple subsequently hinted that Atmos support will come in a future software update, without giving a specific timeline. Yet Patel\u2019s biggest issue with the device was its main feature: 4K video rendering, specifically outside of iTunes, where he said the new Apple TV over-sharpens and adjusts the frame rates of certain videos to the point of visual distraction.<\/p>\n
Despite the strength of its brand, Apple occasionally releases a product to mediocre reviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":222383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[605,691,45607],"class_list":["post-230225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-apple","tag-ios","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}