Supplies of the iPhone X might be quite constrained initially so it is once again time to sound any and all alarm horns you may have lying around because this has never happened ever before for sure, don’t bother looking that up.
Writing for Bloomberg, Tim Culpan says “Apple Swallowed a Fly.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Dillan Cabel Mills and a reader in Dallas.)
Ohhh, man, the Macalope’s done that. Were they riding bikes with Oracle? Gotta keep your mouths closed, you crazy kids!
Apple Inc. has lost its supply chain mojo.
That would be terrible if mojo were actually a real thing. It’s not, though, because magic charms are not real (take it from a mythical beast). And it seems unlikely Culpan is talking about the other meaning: “a Cuban sauce or marinade containing garlic, olive oil, and sour oranges”.
Well…
No, probably not.
While consumers remember the iPhone for its cool design, closed-wall operating system and hefty price tag…
No judgements there! Let’s proceed!
By now, everyone has heard about delays in the supply chain.
Everyone has heard about them. Gus at the corner store? Check. That woman in your office who organizes all the office parties but no one really knows what her actual job is? Yeppers. Damian? (No, not that Damian, the other one.) Absolutely. Damian? (Yes, that Damian.) Totes. Mysterious Wanda? Indubitably. Angry Pete? Sure. The nightmare creature that lives at that moment between dreaming and waking? All over it.
Every. One.
But, if you haven’t, these are reported supply chain problems for the OLED screen on the iPhone X.
But you have. I don’t know why you make the Macalope jump through these hoops. It’s something we need to talk about.
If there’s one company on the planet that understands the electronics supply chain in minute detail, it’s Apple.
The company that’s lost its supply chain mojo and must now eat its chicken with supply chain mole.
Softening
Apple shares have dipped below recent highs
Oh, no, AAPL is down 5 percent from its high in late August but up 35 percent for the year, clearly the stock is as soft as boiled monkey brains left out in a warm summer rain.
Apple does mess up from time to time, scratchgate being a good example, but this mistake was huge.
Ah, yes, we all remember scratchgate. (Do we? Was that when Bob Mansfield was videotaped scratching his back against a tree on the One Infinite Loop campus for three hours? AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE BUILDING A CAR, BOB?)
The instance the Macalope remembers the most is when he failed to secure an iPhone 4 early on and then had to wait two months to get one. So, 7 years ago when everything was reportedly perfect at Apple and it literally rained mojo from the skies, supplies on a major update to the iPhone form factor were heavily constrained… just like right now!
But this was only the start of what may become Apple’s manufacturing annus horribilis.
Hey, you can’t say “annus” on the internet!
If this truly is a single-cycle mistake, then it’s possible Apple will return to its former glory.
And not this crapshow we’re watching now.
Oh, wait, this is Marvel’s Inhumans the Macalope has on. Hang on, he’ll turn it off.
Phew. That’s better.
If the problems are a result of hubris then it indicates to me that Apple has lost its mojo.
There is a direct correlation between use of words like “hubris” and “mojo” in an article about Apple and the article being based on almost nothing at all.
It simply can’t afford to make such a mistake again.
I mean, it’s practically going out of business.