Apple will face hard times with iPhone4. Why?

Apple has launched a celebrated device which has sold millions in its first few days. That is an excellent achievement from Apple. But hard times are ahead.

Piper Jaffray reported that most of the units(77%) were upgrades to existing customers. It is a good achievement, too, because repeat purchase of same brand shows loyalty to the brand. However, repeated sales does not help Apple to increase its market share.

It was also reported that there are some design flaws regarding the antenna structure and some manufacturing failures related to screen and other components. This happens to every device that is sold in a massive scale. Bloggers strengthen the failed unit message by linking videos and photographs to everyone. Of course, every device should be perfect, but it is a statistical fact that some devices are not manufactures properly. There can be more that 10.000 failed devices and it can still be considered as "normal", because the number of sales is massive. But these things are not the hard times I mean. These are usual flaws for a new consumer electronics device, and can be corrected with redesign, improved quality control and more efficient production process.

The hard times come from the operators. They do not support Apple any more, because they know the costs after the previous models. John Strand from Strand consulting has been ranting this for a long time.  Apple does not bring money to operators, as it sells apps in its own App store. Operators do not have any reason to advertise iPhone beyond the point the device sales brings them. An example is that in the United Kingdom iPhone 4 is available unlocked and every operator is selling it. It is not a competitive advantage to any operator. And losing operator support is the game lost in the mobile space.