RUSH: So sometimes I get intriguing emails during the program on Open Line Friday. I say, “If you’ve got a question, send it,” and I found one. “Rush, you haven’t talked about all of the problems in the Apple iPhone universe. Are they true? Is Apple really having trouble selling phones? Is it over for them? Have they reached peak iPhone?” Well, let me just tell you this, folks. The tech media is doing everything it can to make as many people as possible believe that nobody — but nobody — likes the three new iPhones. The new iPhones are the XR, the XS, and the XS Max.
The stories today on this, by the way, are that, “Oh, Apple is still selling lots of phones. It’s just they’re selling old ones. They’re selling iPhone 7s and 7 Pluses and iPhone 8s and 8 Pluses. I don’t think… The bottom line is this: I think that what’s happening with Apple is not systemic. I don’t think people are tired of iPhones in any way, shape, manner or form. You know what I think it is? I think people are scared to let go of the “home” button. I think that’s why people are buying iPhone 7s, 7 Pluses and 8s and 8 Pluses.
The iPhone X last year that introduced Face ID genuinely is cutting edge tech. It may be way ahead of where the public wants to be right now, and it may take another year or two before people… I think Face ID scares people. “What do you mean there’s no ‘home’ button? I don’t know how to get around.” It turns out to be that Face ID and gesturing your way around the iPhone, it’s magic. It brings back the actual fun just of using the thing. But I can understand people. You get locked into muscle memory.
You got locked into where your hands are on the phone to make it work. Plus, some people, folks… Not everybody. Look, I hate to go here, but not everybody likes the way they look, and the idea that the phone knows what they look like and that that determines what opens the phone, it just… Blech! It makes too many people nervous. I think. I don’t think Apple’s having trouble selling iPhones at all, and I think they’re probably selling a heck of a lot of the XR and the 10S and the 10S Max. But they may not be selling as many as they thought they were going to do and it’s strictly, I think, “home” button related.
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RUSH: No, look, I’ve just got 30 seconds. I’m just gonna tell you: The iPhone XS, the XS Max are state of the art. I don’t think there’s a better phone ever than the XS Max, the 6-1/2-inch screen. It’s not as big as the 7 Plus or 8 Plus but it’s all screen. The XR is a good phone, but if somebody’s offering you one, take the XS or the XS Max. There’s nothing like them, in terms of anything. Cameras, speed, there’s nothing even close to them, and you can learn Face ID inside of 10 minutes, and it’s more fun you’ve had using your phone in I don’t know how long.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know how on a cell phone you’ll get a notification. On a Face ID iPhone, the notification does not read out. So people looking at your phone cannot tell what it is unless you look at it. When you look at the phone, the notification spells out, it just does it. Websites and app passwords are entered just by looking at the phone. You don’t have to touch anything for this to work. But it still unnerves people. My face? Are you kidding? No way! No way!
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