It sounds like the worst nightmare of Apple fanboys might be coming true. There’s another report about production problems making the iPhone 8 release date delayed (or iPhone X or whatever the tenth anniversary model ends up being called). Apple stock marched steadily downward during regular trading hours Friday as investors started to worry that the special edition iPhone analysts have been bragging about all year long might let them down.
iPhone 8 release date delayed… again
Perhaps what makes this latest headline so much worse is that we’re only days away from the expected reveal of the tenth anniversary iPhone, so things are coming right down to the wire. It was probably easier to write off reports that the iPhone 8 release date is delayed when the phone was still a long way off.
After all, when someone writes an article and slaps the headline “iPhone 8 release date delayed” on it in March, it’s easy to see how much could change between then and September. But now here we are in September, and we have not just one, but three reports that the special edition model has been delayed, citing different sources, presumably.
And the fact is that two of the three reports are a bit different, with the biggest difference being the reason they give as causing the production problems making the iPhone 8 release date delayed.
Similarities and differences between the two reports
The most recent of this week’s two reports that has the iPhone 8 release date delayed, until after the 7s and 7s Plus are released, came from analysts at Rosenblatt. They said that all three new iPhone models will be revealed on Tuesday, but the tenth anniversary model might not actually start landing on store shelves until sometime in October. They cited production issues related to the stainless steel frame of the special edition model.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal also reported that Apple’s iPhone manufacturers were having production issues over the summer. The newspaper also said that they had fallen a month behind their usual production schedule for the high-end model that’s expected to have a 5.8-inch OLED display. According to the Journal, the manufacturers were having trouble squeezing the Touch ID sensor in behind the OLED display. Apple finally abandoned the idea of a fingerprint sensor in the OLED model, they said, but because of that delay, supply of that model was expected to be severely constrained.
TechCrunch also released its most recent report that has the iPhone 8 release date delayed on Thursday. Although the Journal didn’t actually say that the handset’s release would be pushed back, TechCrunch did. Interestingly, TechCrunch said that only two iPhone models are prepped for reveal on Tuesday, and its sources said that the more expensive, fancier version will ship at a later time.” The blog also said that it was unclear how late the other model would be. Perhaps Apple decided to push back the release rather than launch it with a severely constrained supply.
A history of the headline: iPhone 8 release date delayed
For those who’ve been following the story of Apple’s tenth anniversary handset, headlines that have the iPhone 8 release date delayed are nothing new. They’ve been lingering for much of the year. In fact, there have been so many reports about delays that when another one popped up on Thursday, one would be forgiven for yawning. Apple stock fell, but not very much, and not until later in the day. The stock fell further on Friday when the shares closed down 1.63% at $158.63.
One of the earliest reports that had the iPhone 8 release date delayed was in March, back when there were reports that the word “Edition” was in the name. At that time, Apple stock wobbled a bit as investors’ confidence was shaken. Then we heard another report about a delay about a month later, and then another about a month after that, in early May. See a pattern here?
Then in late May, Rosenblatt analysts said they thought not only that the iPhone 8 would be delayed, but that it would be significantly later than expected, maybe even as late as next year. Then the headlines blaring “iPhone 8 release date delayed” picked up in frequency, appearing multiple times in June and then again in July. But by late July, the production problems had supposedly been fixed, the handset had entered trial production and would not be late. A month later, we were back to the story about the phone being late.
And here we are in September, again writing yet another article about how the iPhone 8 or iPhone X or whatever it will be called is going to be late. Yawn…
