File photo: Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, speaks during an announcement of new products at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Monday, June 5, 2017. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
A Wall Street firm believes Apple's next phone will ship on time this fall, so there's no need to wring your hands and pace the floor about rumored iPhone 8 delays.
And that's good, as you'll need those arms and legs in top shape, since it also sounds like you may have to sell one or both of them in order to afford an iPhone 8.
That's according to JPMorgan, which has published an analyst note about the iPhone 8's fortunes. News outlets, which reported on JPMorgan's research, says an analyst for the investment bank expects the phone to launch on time. As for the second half of that good news/bad news report, that same analyst lists the expected average selling price of the iPhone 8 at a fairly staggering $1,100.
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Talk of a delayed iPhone 8 launch had been heating up over the last couple weeks, amid reports that Apple was having a hard time finding a way to integrate a Touch ID fingerprint reader into the expanded display of the iPhone 8. Other reports suggest that Apple is struggling to get other features like face recognition and wireless charging to work flawlessly with the new phone. That's fueled speculation Apple could wait as late as December to finally release the iPhone 8.
JPMorgan's Rod Hall doesn't put too much stock in rumors of an iPhone 8 delay, describing most of those reports as "dated reverberations of decision Apple made back in the spring." Instead, Hall's report expects the phone to arrive in September as expected, though in limited numbers. Full production will ramp up throughout October, the analyst said.
iPhone obsessives may focus on another part of the JPMorgan report — the one that lists an astronomical selling price of $1,100. Just for context, an iPhone 7 currently starts at $649 while the more expensive iPhone 7 Plus starts at $769. The most specced-out iPhone 7 Plus — a 256GB model — costs $969.
It's worth emphasizing that $1,100 in the JPMorgan report is the forecasted average selling price, and not the expected starting price tag. Average selling price takes into account all models, including the more expensive high-capacity versions.
Still, that average selling price forecast suggests that the iPhone 8 will cost considerably more than the current iPhones, which JPMorgan attributes to higher production costs. It's not inconsistent with other rumors about the iPhone 8 price, which have the phone starting for around $999.
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