There’s so much spin and hedging in the article below that I’ll leave it to you to review it in bolded italics.
It feels to me like we’ve reached, and passed, the sick apogee of this phenomenon.
Once the populace grasps that hard use of these devices leads to ills well beyond those created by, say, hard drinking, or smoking too much - to name only two - I believe we will see a movement back to, call it, ‘shielded’ technologies, such as the land line, as it will be generally admitted that, while convenient, taking a call while walking from your car to your office is simply not worth contracting cancer, or being driven to suicide, et al.
Alcohol consumption dropped globally for the first time ever, just recently. Smoking rates are dropping, and dropping. We are, in actuality, capable of figuring things out as a species - despite the best, most assiduous efforts by the folks in charge to steer us to the worst places they can via social engineering.
May 3, 2017 - Tim Cook says iPhone 8 rumors led to a slow-down in iPhone 7 sales
Apple’s earnings report yesterday was something of a mixed bag . While Apple impressively managed to increase year-over-year revenue and profits, quarterly iPhone sales fell ever so slightly . During the recent March quarter, Apple sold 50.7 million iPhones, representing a rather modest drop from the 51.9 million units Apple sold in the same quarter a year ago. Nonetheless, because investors like to use iPhone sales data as a barometer to measure Apple’s financial health, shares of Apple dropped quickly in the wake of the company’s recent earnings report.
When asked about the drop in iPhone sales during Apple’s earnings conference call yesterday, Tim Cook articulated that the proliferation of rumors surrounding Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone 8 helped contribute to a “pause” in iPhone sales over the past three months.
When UBS analyst Steve Milunovich asked about a recent 451 research survey which found that iPhone purchase intent is at a nine-year low, Cook addressed the question head-on.
“I only glanced at it and so I haven’t had time to study it,” Cook said. “But in general, we’re seeing what we believe to be a pause in purchases on iPhone, which we believe are due to the earlier and much more frequent reports about future iPhones. And so that part is clearly going on, and it could be what’s behind the data. I don’t know, but we are seeing that in full transparency. ”
Ordinarily, it would be easy to dismiss Cook’s explanation as nothing more than a well-crafted excuse cobbled together by a PR rep . The reality, though, is that the hype and interest surrounding Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8 is immense. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that the excitement people have for the iPhone 8 is rivaled only by the excitement consumers had for the original iPhone in the months preceding its debut back in June of 2007.
