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Who else got that “please remember iPhone” email from Apple?

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I got this email yesterday from Apple. The subject was: How will you love it? Let us count the ways.

The email then proceeded to go through a list of increasingly desperate reminders about why I was right to buy an iPhone 5.

Yah-huh?

I would have expected this in September 2012, when I actually bought the device. Perhaps maybe a month afterwards.

But toward the end of the first quarter of 2013? Straight after the week Samsung launched their most anticipated handset ever? The one that’s been killing (or depressing) iPhone sales the world over?

Curious.

I scrolled down the email and the immediate thought I had was, “desperate!”

Then I wondered how many other people got this email.

I’d love to know if this email was a planned broadcast by Apple or whether it was specifically scheduled to arrive on the first weekend day after Samsung’s launch?

If it’s the latter, geez.

I find it difficult to think that Apple would have allowed a scheduled broadcast such as this to be sent to clearly conflict with the Samsung launch. Indeed to avoid anyone picking up on it, why not stick the send date back a few weeks?

I can’t help but assume that this was a planned, panicked enterprise by Apple.

Did a senior Apple executive, holding on to the desk for dear life as the world spins around him, suddenly convene a meeting of the company’s best and brightest marketeers? Did they then hatch a plan that included (or majored?) on trying to remind the legions of iPhone 5 customers not to look elsewhere?

Run with me. Assume that I’m right for a moment and let’s take a journey into total speculation. If this is one of Apple’s principle public responses to the likes of Samsung (along with HTC/LG/Sony), then dear me, things are worse than I would have ever thought for Apple.

If your best response — if your only discernible response (beyond senior executive Phil bleating about Samsung last week) — is to whack out an email like this, I think we should all set our expectations for the next iPhone.

Should we be preparing ourselves for the iPhone 5.01? 😉

6 COMMENTS

  1. I agree. Tim Cook was widely praised as a safe pair of hands when he took charge. But I am not sure a company like Apple needs a safe pair oh hands. The lustre is beginning to wear a bit thin.

  2. Sadly I had my i5 for 3 days before returning it unhappy with the lack of innovation. An i5s will only further exacerbate the FUD surrounding apple and depress stock prices. We know apple has been living on the tail end of SJ innovation’s and or pig headedness. Now we are lacking in new designs, (exception new imac) is there any focus? I am using an LG optimus G, Note 2, and soon HTC ONE.. all brilliant mobiles by technical standards. Ah well wait and see….

  3. You are correct, safe is NOT what apple needs to be at this time. They either have to recapture the hearts and minds of the general user base via technical innovation or just be happy being bypassed by other companies… cough cough NOKIA.. ha

  4. Although the next iPhone being a relatively minor update again is most likely, another possible explanation for this email could be that they’re going to release another iPhone next month and they want everyone who already bought an iPhone 5 to remember why they did and not be too annoyed that they only had the newest shiny toy for 6 months rather than a year. Frankly I thought the Galaxy S4 was the least impressive improvement by Samsung since the Galaxy line started so I can’t see why Apple would respond to Samsung’s marketing now, unless iPhone 5 sales have fallen off a cliff. Even then, how would a mailshot to the people who very recently upgraded help much?

    If they are switching to twice a year updates they might also drop their pricing slightly ahead of the new product launch (to avoid issues with having to switch out products bought immediately beforehand) along with the event invite. Of course a price cut could also be seen as desperation ahead of any big reveal. 🙂

  5. I got that email too – bit surprised as an existing owner of an iPhone 5 direct from Apple.

    That aside, I think this is the beginning of the slow demise of the dominance of the iPhone unless Apple pull a rabbit out the hat with iOS 7 / the next iPhone. Take a look at the amount of self-confessed iPhone ‘fanbois’ that are moving to Android due to (amongst other things) a lack of innovation and evolution in the OS and mediocre iterations in hardware design.

    What about the rest of us? I’m fed up with the increasingly terrible battery life, lacklustre performance of the radio chipset, and the increasing number of bugs that each iOS revision seems to bring. I’ve paid an awful lot of money over the years for something that I’m increasingly relying on for the majority of my day to day communication.

    So, what happens when we raise these issues with Apple, either as consumers or industry types? We’re met with a wall of silence – or, on occasions, our comments get deleted from Apple’s discussion boards. That arrogance is all very well and good when you’re the only player in the market, or are miles ahead of your competitors, but Apple are no longer either.

    I appreciate that fashion is a fickle thing – but when your biggest fans start jumping ship it’s only a matter of time before the trickle becomes a flood.

  6. “Should we be preparing ourselves for the iPhone 5.01?”

    I wonder if it will come with a stylus.

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