Carrier Advertising Low-Key for 11 Series iPhones Ahead of Friday Preorders
Low expectations for the 11 series of iPhones, sans 5G (see report, Sept. 11), carried over to carrier and retailer advertising Wednesday. Apple launched new phones, smartwatches, an iPad and $5 monthly game and video services Tuesday. Preorders begin Friday for the three new iPhones, with Sept. 20 availability.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Verizon encouraged consumers to be first to know when preorders begin by giving an email address; the website indicates elsewhere that preorders start Friday. On its landing page, Verizon pushed the 11 series’ water resistant features “up to 4 meters for 30 minutes” rather than the new cameras that Apple executives touted.
Sprint was more sanguine about features and dates on its website Wednesday, highlighting the iPhone 11's dual-camera capability, not the three-camera design of the two Pro models. Sprint headlined the phones' earlier preorder time, pushed to 8 a.m. EDT, which Apple executives noted Tuesday. Sprint also mentioned the always-on Retina display of the new Apple Watch Series 5, available in a cellular-GPS version for $499 -- $399 for GPS only -- and the seventh-generation iPad.
Visitors to the AT&T Wireless website also saw the water-resistant feature receive top billing on the landing page before clicking through to Apple-supplied marketing materials promoting “Pro cameras, Pro display. Pro performance” and other camera-related ads from the Apple site.
AT&T pushed the “tougher glass” on the Super Retina XDR display used in the Pro iPhone 11 models; the 13mm, ultrawide, 26mm wide and 52mm telephoto cameras; 4K video recording with extended dynamic range at 60 frames per second; night mode for low-light photography; and extended battery life over the iPhone X generation: up to 4 hours more for the 11 Pro, 5 more for the Pro Max. AT&T's Apple-supplied chart showed battery life of up to 12 hours’ video streaming, 20 hours’ video playback for the 6.5-inch 11 Pro Max; 11 and 18 hours for the 5.8-inch Pro 11. The 6.1-inch 11, with a Liquid Retina HD display, has 10 hours video streaming capability, 17 hours’ video playback, it said.
T-Mobile encouraged customers to sign up for information for the new iPhones, plugging only the Pro series. The carrier’s clock is ticking down to preorder start time. It focused on its own “newest, most powerful signal.”
Apple retailer Best Buy, which touted its storewide status as an Apple authorized service provider (see report, Aug. 30), put Watch 5, now available, in the spotlight on its splash page Wednesday in a rotating ad that also featured the 11 series phones. Best Buy noted the latest Watch requires an iPhone 6 or later as a companion device. It gave Apple-supplied marketing information for shoppers who clicked for it but didn’t ask for an email and didn’t mention preorders.
Sam's Club pitched the three 11 series iPhones in an email blast Wednesday, saying customers who preorder, beginning at 8:01 a.m. EDT Friday, will receive a $200 gift card with purchase and activation of an installment plan Sept. 20-22. The promo applies to Verizon, Sprint and AT&T, it said. Preorders run through Sunday, it said.
Meanwhile, industry observers cited limited content as the reason behind Apple’s low $4.99 monthly subscription fee for its video streaming service, due to go online Nov. 1. Said CNET: “Because nobody’s gonna pay another $5 a month for eight shows and a documentary.” The Verge viewed Apple TV’s offering as “trying to replicate what made HBO special: fewer shows but a clear style that you can’t get anywhere else.”
Fifty-three percent of smartphone owners use their device to access video services each month, IHS Markit emailed Wednesday, reinforcing the smartphone’s evolution from a voice-centric device to a media-centric one. Video service usage varies widely among countries, from 42 percent in Germany to 73 percent in India, it said, citing an August report. Owners report using an average 3.5 video services monthly on smartphones, said IHS, with YouTube the most accessed at 80 percent. Despite high usage of smartphones as video consumption devices, only 14 percent of respondents gave their phone as their preferred device choice when looking for something to watch.