Weekly poll results: it’s a bad start for the iPhone 16 series as people look for alternatives | Infinium-tech

Things aren’t going as Apple hoped. Prior to September, analysts predicted Apple would make more iPhone 16 phones, with the majority of production being the Pro models. Now that the first week of pre-orders is over, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has compiled data that shows pre-orders are down and it’s mostly the fault of the two Pro models (iPhone 16 and 16 Plus numbers are actually up!).

Let’s look at the results of last week’s survey and try to figure out what went wrong. Apple didn’t raise prices, which was great to see. Higher charge rates over USB-C and MagSafe are also great, plus all the new models have enough RAM and NPU performance for Apple intelligence. The two vanilla models are said to still be using 60Hz displays. It doesn’t need to be an LTPO panel, Apple, but even cheaper phones have 120Hz displays these days.

Anyway, at 6.9” the iPhone 16 Pro Max is too big for 15% of voters. 13% are looking at an older generation iPhone for this or other reasons. The 15 Pro Max is a more manageable size and has mostly the same cameras except for the 48MP ultra wide.

The 6.3” screen on the iPhone 16 Pro was a better idea, hardly anyone thinks the size of the phone is an issue. But almost half of the voters are saying they are switching to Android. The older generation of iPhone Pro is not that attractive either, maybe Apple has been resting on its laurels for too long. Whatever the case, with 17.7%, the Pro model has received the most positive votes.

iPhone 16 Plus pre-orders saw a massive 48% increase over the 15 Plus, but the overall numbers are still much lower than the others. People don’t know what to think about this. Many are planning to buy the Pro instead or buy the older model – with no increase in size, the only solid upgrade in this generation is the new side buttons – some are moving to Android and many don’t care about the Plus.

The iPhone 16 got 15.1% positive votes, second only to the 16 Pro, and the highest percentage of people (8.9%) who might decide to buy it after reading the reviews. Some people are tempted to get the Pro model this time around, but some (okay, relatively few) are thinking of getting Android instead.

It seems Apple misjudged what consumers wanted – it had high expectations for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but the model is struggling instead. However, it will likely become the best-selling model of the four. Kuo speculated that Apple Intelligence’s delay kept pre-orders low for the two iPhone Pro models and that sales would improve once it arrived (and the upcoming holiday season will help, too). One way or another, Apple’s Q1 2025 report is going to be interesting.