There are so many products that Apple has launched and there are so many eyes on the futures, that it is logical that sometimes we forget some. The iPhone 5c is proof of this and in a way it may be because it was a phone worth forgetting. But why was it so controversial? We analyze it
4 reasons for the iPhone 5c fiasco
Today we can see this smartphone among the list of vintage Apple devices. It was introduced and released in 2013 . In fact, it coincides in time with the iPhone 5s, which was the groundbreaking phone of that year by Californians and which received both the functional improvements and the highest price (from 699 euros). However, it was a sales fiasco and there are 4 key aspects that totally worked against what should be a best-selling iPhone (or at least Apple should have thought that):
- Materials used: an attractive range of colors was the most striking feature of this device, something which in turn was a handicap, since the fact that it was made with plastic materials did not please the public at all. In fact, it subtracted part of the value of the device and took it away from that “premium” brand that Apple already represented at the time. And that’s not to mention the grotesque colored holed covers that they launched, although for color tastes and never better said.
- Storage capacity: 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB was the memory offered by this terminal. Obviously it is not comparable with what we have today, but at the time it was quite scarce and more especially the 8 GB, which had already been eliminated in the iPhone 5 the previous year in favor of the 16 GB base.
- News of the iPhone 5s: that the ‘5c’ and the ‘5s’ came out at the same time, it hurt the first one a lot, since everyone saw great news in the other as a performance improvement thanks to the first 64-bit chip of an iPhone or the introduction of the fingerprint reader. But it is that even the iPhone 5, predecessor of the ‘5c’, had better specifications in many cases and that made it even more worthwhile to buy this second hand.
- Price: the comparisons were odious and it is not that the difference in price between the ‘5c’ and the ‘5s’ played very in their favor. 100 euros of difference was a lot at the time and in fact it may continue to be so, but the truth is that few considered this difference as fair. If instead of costing 599 euros as a base, it had cost 500 (for example), perhaps the iPhone 5c would have made more sense.
The heir that did reach the top: iPhone XR
It was clear that it was what Apple was looking for with the iPhone 5c: to burst the market with a colorful phone focused on a target they had never focused on and allow it for a price below the top of the range of the time. This did not even manage to be among the best sellers of that 2013 or 2014. However, Apple learned from its mistakes and improved the formula to reach success in 2018.
The iPhone XR once again filled Apple’s smartphone with color and at a tremendously attractive price compared to the iPhone XS and XS Max of that year. And yes, it had reduced benefits compared to these, however they were not that great. Basic 64 GB memory, materials that despite being inferior gave a high-end feeling, a latest generation processor, a camera that had little to envy the double lens of the ‘XS’ and even a better battery than those top of the range .
The iPhone XR was made to succeed and it was: the best-selling mobile phone of 2019 and the sixth of 2020 despite the arrival of phones like the iPhone 11 or iPhone 12. Competing even with excellent mid-ranges from other manufacturers. In fact, it continues to be sold and its formula has continued to be squeezed with the iPhone 11, its more than worthy successor. In fact we could say that, unlike the iPhone 5c, this one has marked Apple to the point of becoming the standard models of its smartphones.