iPhone SE's Hidden Profit

Apple Loop: iPhone SE's Hidden Profit, PlayStation Arrives On Apple, FBI's Hacking Limits

Taking a look back at another week of news from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop includes the iPhone SE selling out, why the SE is really the 5S with a new marketing spin, the latest bugs in iOS 9.3.1., the FBI’s hacking limits, Apple Pay’s increased reach, the Sony PlayStation 4 client for Mac OS, Apple’s Autism awareness video, and Reddit officially arrives on the iPhone.

Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days .

The First Weekend

The first weekend of sales of the iPhone SE was not as successful as previous launches. Mobile engagement firm Localytics took a look at its data to place the SE sales in context with the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 family, and iPhone 6S family. I don’t think Apple will be too worried about these numbers, as the iPhone SE is geared towards the upgrade market than the ‘must have it now’ geekerati:

At the very least Localytics’ methodology allows a direct comparison of the SE’s first weekend to that of the iPhone 5S, 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus. All of those models saw opening weekend performances that were better than the iPhone SE’s weekend.

The SE’s 0.1 percent market share of iOS devices compares to the launch weekends of the iPhone 6S family (1.3 percent combined) and the iPhone 6 family (2.3 percent). It’s also nine times lower than the opening weekend of the iPhone 5S.

More thought on the iPhone SE’s retail performance here on Forbes.

iPhone SE, The SE Stands For Sold Out Everywhere

Market share numbers aside, the iPhone SE has ‘sold out’ signs both online and in Apple stores around the world. Whatever stocks there are of the four-inch handset have been grabbed by the geekerati, and waiting times are between five and twelve days. AppleInsider’s Neil Hughes:

Virtually all models with all carriers out of stock at Apple’s retail stores as well. AppleInsider conducted a check of a number of major markets in the U.S. and found in-store pickup was unavailable for virtually every model, though there was some sporadic availability of certain carrier, capacity and color combinations.

In general, the $399 16-gigabyte iPhone SE models seem to have greater availability than the $499 64-gigabyte versions. For example, a rose gold 16-gigabyte model is advertised to arrive April 12, but switching to the 64-gigabyte model delays arrival to April 20-27 depending on shipping method with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and SIM-free.

The situation is similar for international buyers looking for the SE, but interestingly there are no such delays for the 9.7 inch iPad Pro.

The 5S Wolf In SE Sheep’s Clothing

One of the curious features about the iPhone SE is how much it looks like this iPhone 5S. The similarity is more than skin deep, with many of the internals also matching up. That’s great for users looking for an upgrade to an aging iPhone 5S, but also has many benefits for Apple:

iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone SE reveals a huge amount of commonality in the parts, including the screen connectors that match up with the existing iPhone 5S screen. The speakers, SIM card tray, and vibration alert motor are all swappable. New to the form factor are the camera, lightning connector board, and the logic board.

Curiously the increased battery capacity comes from changes in the technology, not the physical size. Although there are some waterproof seals in the handset, they are not comprehensive and the iPhone SE is not going to survive any appreciable amount of water immersion

Apple’s newest phone carries many of its oldest components. And the lower the build cost, the greater the margin.