iPhone 8 has been tipped to come with radical design changes, and these changes are now causing hurdles in its production. A fresh report has cropped up claiming that Apple may delay the launch of the iPhone 8 to October or November due to “issues related to the lamination process of curved OLED panels”. Furthermore, a separate report refutes all reports of iPhone 8 costing more than $1,000, and states that it could cost less than that.
Economic Daily News (via Digitimes) reports that the iPhone 8 may be delayed due to “technical issues related to the lamination process of curved OLED panels, and the adoption of a 3D sensing system.” This is slightly different from an early report that said that the iPhone 8 may come in limited quantities when launched in September, and full-fledged availability could be delayed until the end of the fourth quarter.
The iPhone 8 is also expected to be called the ‘iPhone Edition’ – taking cue from the Apple Watch series calling its most premium line Apple Watch Edition. If you remember, the Apple Watch supply was also delayed till much later even though it was unveiled in September, and Apple may be forced to do the same this time around.
Apple has reportedly ordered 70 million OLED display panels from Samsung, its exclusive dealer for OLED this year, and Samsung is said to be preparing for 90 million just in case. Thus, supply of components is not really the problem, and ‘technical issues’ are really to be blamed.
In any case, because of all these radical changes, the iPhone 8 is reported to cost north of $1,000. This is mainly because the cost of production for the iPhone 8 will go up, and Apple looks to keep its profit margin intact. The high cost can be attributed to the OLED displays as they are much more expensive than the LCD displays.
However, a fresh investor note from UBS analyst Steven Milunovich published by CNBC suggests that the iPhone 8 could be priced starting $850 to $900 (roughly Rs. 55,100 to Rs. 58,400). Milunovich claims that the factory cost of the 64GB iPhone 8 will be $70 to $80 (roughly Rs. 4,500 to Rs. 5,100) higher than the iPhone 7s Plus model, which brings him to the above mentioned prices. Furthermore, the analyst believes that the iPhone 8 will account for 45 percent of shipments during the fiscal 2018, which is significant in number. Milunovich also says that while the Galaxy S8+ will be much larger in display size, Apple’s iPhone 8 will come with exclusive features like a ‘3D front camera, embedded fingerprint sensor and higher quality facial recognition’ to improve its weightage in the market.
The iPhone 8 is expected to introduce wireless charging, waterproofing, a front 3-D sensor camera, and no Home Button.
[“source-ndtv”]
