Ming-Chi Kuo: Blame the economy for the iPhone 14's purported earlier announcement
"It’s the economy, stupid," says the popular catchphrase, coined by James Carville, Bill Clinton's former lead strategist, as a key message in the election campaign against George H. W. Bush back in 1992, when the US was suffering a recession.
Well, that same economy could be the very likely culprit behind the iPhone 14's rumored announcement in early September, a week ahead of our expectations and Apple's established patterns. In case you've missed the news that have been hitting us from all directions, Apple is now widely rumored to be hosting the iPhone 14 announcement on September 7, a Wednesday, and a possible break from its traditional Tuesday iPhone reveals.
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— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) August 18, 2022
The iPhone 14 announcement/shipping date may be earlier than iPhone 13/12, which could be one of the reasons why Apple offered a positive outlook for 3Q22 from the last earnings call. https://t.co/lyg4dFf4Lv
According to venerable Apple insider Ming-Chi Kuo, the still unpredictable risk of a global recession is still looming above our heads, Apple's included, which is the reason that the next iPhone is reportedly coming in slightly earlier than usual.
Normally, Apple announces its iPhones on the second Tuesday of September and releases the devices roughly ten days later, on a Friday. Normally, this led us to expect a September 13 announcement with a probable September 23 market release for the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max, as well as all the upcoming versions of the Apple Watch 8.
As a refresher, multiple sources agree that Apple has been mulling a $100 price increase for the iPhone 14 family across the board, in a bid to combat the high inflation and looming recession. While some suggested that this price increase might arrive with doubling the base storage of all devices up to 256GB, the majority still reckon that 128GB will remain the default base storage even with a $100 price hike.
There's light in the tunnel, still — some think that Apple won't charge more for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max models, but only increase the pricing of the Pro and Pro Max models, which will come with a slight redesign, better hardware, and newer cameras.
Ming-Chi Kuo also chimes in that Apple has put a positive outlook on its Q3 2022 earnings call. This indicates that Cupertino expects healthy demand for its upcoming devices, not only iPhones and Apple Watches, but iPads and MacBooks as well, with the latter having a separate event later this fall, possibly in October.
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