iPhone 9, also referred to as the iPhone SE 2, is no longer a certainty this March. Several sources inside and outside Apple have talked about the company’s decision to postpone the launch indefinitely, as their annual spring event will most likely be canceled.
Apple is just one of many tech companies that have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. We’ve witnessed Apple being forced to close their China stores and offices last month only to reopen them later, then having to deal with production issues only to now follow into the steps of many Android phone makers, ready to cancel their iPhone 9 and iPad Pro launch event.
Canceling an offline event would still be fine, if they could keep the products’ release date unchanged. But that won’t be the case, sources say. Samsung, Vivo and Oppo got away with it since their announcement events were scheduled for February, a time when the coronavirus hadn’t spread to Europe and US yet, at least not at the rate with which it has today.
But Apple’s launch event comes after WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic, in a climate of fear and uncertainty. Right now, there are 125048 confirmed cases (6729 new) and 4613 deaths (321 new) according to the latest report from the World Health Organization. Even if Apple didn’t have production issues with iPhone 9, would launching it at this moment bring them good publicity and sales?
In this context, June is the most likely launch window, but Apple isn’t commiting to anything. At the moment, the Santa Clara county (which Cupertino is part of) has banned gatherings of over 1,000 people until the end of the month and the ban could be extended. Apple hasn’t confirmed anything yet but stay tuned – we’ll come back with more information!
Could the coronavirus situation affect the iPhone 12 launch as well? Here are our thoughts on the topic:
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