In yesterday’s column, I wrote about the contradictory information being posted about iPhone X sales. Some reports, claiming to be based on supply chain data, delivered a dire picture, that sales are way below expectations, and component orders have been cut for the March quarter. Others suggested that Apple’s high-end smartphone is doing better than expected, with a surprisingly large number of people favoring the more expensive spread, the 256GB model, listing for $1,149 in the U.S.

Indeed, analyst Jun Zhang, of Rosenblatt Securities, an investment firm, recently stated that Apple sold as many as six million iPhone X units during the Black Friday weekend alone. That’s just one weekend, and you wouldn’t think sales would fall off the cliff after that.

Now I grant that estimates do not necessarily present an accurate picture of actual sales. That information won’t be known until Apple releases its December 2017 quarter numbers a few weeks from now. I suppose they could drop hints, but that doesn’t happen very often. But it’s also true that alleged tech pundits and industry analysts seeking bad news about Apple might try to make hay of any negative data, even if it’s not put into proper perspective.

After all, it stands to reason that March quarter sales will generally be lower than a holiday quarter. So those supply chain metrics, even if they are close to the mark, should not be cause for alarm. Besides it’s not that the people who bought an iPhone X did so because of expectations of total sales.

Well, here comes yet another set of data indicating some really positive news for Apple. According to Flurry, a mobile analytics firm owned by Yahoo. the iPhone and iPad, together, led the pack in device activations during the week leading up to Christmas.

So according to this survey, 44% of those activations were for Apple gear. Second place went to Samsung for 26% of device activations. The rest of the pack were consigned to single digits. The numbers for the iPhone were almost identical to last year, whereas Samsung’s share went up a few points, no doubt at the expense of other contenders.

During that week, activations for the iPhone X was third among the new models, with 14.7% of the total. Surprisingly, the iPhone 7, released in 2016, was first with 15.1%, and the iPhone 6, from 2014, was 14.9%. Now I don’t need to remind you that Apple no longer sells the iPhone 6, but third party resellers do, and people around the world who want something more affordable might flock to older gear.

It’s also interesting to note that 53% of those activations involved larger smartphones, or phablets, with display size of five inches or more. Obviously, the only iPad activations recorded were the cellular models, accounting for 8% of activations.

According to published reports about Flurry’s results, the survey was based on the more the one million mobile apps that use their analytics service.

Now this isn’t the only new survey getting attention as the year ends. There’s another claiming high sales for the Pixel 2 from Google, even though it’s available from very few dealers. You’d expect total sales to be a fraction of those of the iPhone or any Samsung device. Indeed, it is already being discounted by up to $300, which doesn’t auger well for terrific sales.

Indeed, one online blogger wrote about a curious experience he encountered upon trying to buy a Pixel 2 from a Verizon Wireless store when it was first released in late October. Evidently the salesperson kept trying to push him to buying a Samsung Galaxy S8 instead, clear evidence of who was paying the biggest spiffs.

In any case, the growing amount of positive data about iPhone sales surely flies in the face of those supply chain reports. If you consider how it played out in 2012 and 2013 with the iPhone 5, and false claims of low demand, you might think that history is about to repeat itself. But this time, it doesn’t seem as if Apple’s stock price has been seriously hurt by the news. Perhaps Wall Street analysts, having been burned the last time, have opted to treat such news skeptically.

Again, what really counts is what Apple has to say about December quarter sales. In the meantime, what difference does it even make? Should you buy the gadget that’s the most popular, simply because it’s the most popular? If that were the case, Samsung’s sales would grow even further because it is, after all, the number one smartphone maker on the planet.

You’d say the same about such companies as Dell and HP, which lead worldwide PC sales. Indeed, other than Apple, most PCs are cookie-cutter products, usually differing very little from each other.

What’s more, even if the iPhone X sold fewer units than some might have hoped, or expected, so long as Apple is making a good profit does it really matter? Apple would no doubt learn from the experience and make proper adjustments. On the other hand, if the iPhone X is as successful as it seems to be, Apple might move more of its features to other iPhones and also iPads in 2018.

To put this all in perspective, consider the time when published reports indicated that demand for the iPhone 5 had collapsed towards the end of 2012. It was all based on claims of reduced component orders from Apple’s complicated supply chain, and the stock price fell appropriately.

Except, when actual sales for the December 2012 quarter were announced, sales had increased by a decent margin, not decreased. It was only with the iPhone 6s, released in 2015, where sales flattened and fell. Tim Cook’s responses to the misleading reports about the iPhone 5 were to educate industry analysts about the fact that you can’t make assumptions about product demand based on a few supply chain metrics.

Maybe the media and some industry analysts haven’t learned this lesson.

So you’ve probably read the recent stories. Reports from the supply chain, sourced in Taiwan, claim that orders for iPhone X have been sharply reduced for the March quarter. This has led some tech and industry pundits to claim that demand may be low because it’s too expensive.

While it would represent the first full quarter on sale for the iPhone X, don’t forget that March quarter sales do tend to be lower than a holiday quarter.

Still, there’s a disconnect here. Other other reports claim that iPhone X sales have been better than expected, and the reason that Apple has pretty much caught up with demand is the result of efficient production. The early problems have been overcome, and everything’s coming up roses.

This brings to mind the erroneous sales reports about Mac sales for the September quarter from Gartner and IDC. They concluded that they were relatively flat or falling. In the real world, Apple announced that sales had increased by over 10%. But that wasn’t the first time such surveys had undercounted the Mac. I just wonder how their paying clients must feel receiving incorrect information.

So what about the iPhone X? What reports should you believe?

Well, according to analyst Jun Zhang of Rosenblatt Securities, an investment firm, the supply chain reports of reduced iPhone X orders are incorrect. Zhang says that the cuts actually refer to the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, consistent with the ramping up of iPhone X production. What’s more, the company claims to have seen evidence that sales are increasing in China, which has been a difficult market for Apple.

That conclusion is consistent with earlier reports of expanding production and high iPhone X sales. Remember, this comes from a firm that has tended to be bearish on Apple’s stock, so the positive news gains even more credibility.

So what are we to make about these dueling iPhone X sales trends? Is it as successful as some hoped, more successful, or are customers being turned off by the high price and perhaps the need to learn some new gestures due to the loss of the Home button? Don’t forget that the $1,000 price point was telegraphed for months, so it couldn’t have come as a surprise.

What did come as a surprise were the reports of high demand for the 256GB model, which lists for $1,149.  Not mentioned is whether there has been any customer resistance to paying prices in the $950 range for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. If Apple’s prices are generating resistance, wouldn’t the same hold true for a Samsung, even if it costs a little less?

What appears to be true is that most Apple Stores have them in stock, and you can order one online and have it in a couple of days at most. Independent retailers also appear to have decent supplies, so if you want to buy an iPhone X, and missed the Christmas rush, you should have no problem finding one.

The real question, I suppose, is how many units of the iPhone X must Apple sell to demonstrate success? Remember that the mainstream models are the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus. They are only slightly more expensive than last year’s models, and the improvements are decent enough, especially if you have a much older model. Introducing two separate iPhone product lines at the same event clearly changes the picture.

In the end, two factors will count most for industry analysts and Wall Street. The first is total iPhone sales; Apple doesn’t do model breakdowns. The other is the ASP, the average sale price, and if it is higher, that would mean more iPhone X sales. Some suggest it’ll exceed $700 for the first time.

Regardless, there is no prior experience for this sort of model breakdown from Apple. You can’t compare sales numbers from Samsung and other smartphone makers, simply because no individual flagship model from those companies comes close to the iPhone. A new paradigm exists here, and Apple will no doubt use the results to determine how to set up the product lineups going forward.

You can certainly believe whatever estimates you want, but remember that the real results won’t be released by Apple for a few more weeks. Then we’ll see whether the stories playing down iPhone X sales have any basis in fact, or whether the more positive estimates are closer to the mark.

But don’t forget all the iPhone 5 sales fear-mongering in late 2012 and 2013, and how that turned out.

Sometimes saying too little is a bad idea, and Apple may come to realize that with its latest so-called scandal. It all started when some people discovered that their somewhat older iPhones were running much slower, something readily confirmed with benchmark tests.

Over the years, Apple has been accused of unjustly making older gear obsolete, particularly with OS updates that worked with limited features or not at all. The theory had it that you’d become disgusted with your gadget and order the newer model from Apple. Since customer retention scores are high, this presents a convenient if sneaky way to keep the money flowing in.

Or at least that’s the theory.

On a practical level, it doesn’t hold up so well. With macOS High Sierra, Macs that are seven or eight years old can still run it with decent performance; there’s no evidence of a sudden reduction in benchmarks. True those older models are no longer otherwise supported, but that’s long in the tooth for personal computers. iOS gear is supported for up to four years. So if you still have an iPhone 5s on hand, released in 2013, you can install iOS 11 on it, but not on my wife’s iPhone 5c, which is essentially an iPhone 5 in a plastic case. No, she hasn’t complained.

But that doesn’t mean all features will be supported. Apple continues to add hardware-dependant capabilities, such as Metal 2, which doesn’t work on older gear. The new OS may challenge vintage hardware in other ways too, so it’s not uncommon for users to complain about reduced performance. The situation, though, is far better than with Android, where even owners of new gear can’t be assured they bought it with the latest OS, or that it’ll ever be eligible for an update; well, except if you choose a Google Pixel or Nexus smartphone.

In short, I don’t believe Apple is engaged in a planned obsolescence conspiracy. They just don’t hold back on improvements.

But what about those iPhones that were suddenly running slower? What’s going on here?

Well, after some benchmarks were posted, Apple finally got around to explaining what was really going on, and it evidently was a direct response to problems with some iPhones suddenly shutting down even before the battery was spent.

Says Apple:

Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.

Unfortunately, this admission came too late for some people who had already relented and bought new iPhones. So should Apple just give them their money back?

Worse, the action triggered class action lawsuits making various claims related to the performance throttling move. One filing points to a recent limited repair program, in which Apple replaced the batteries of some iPhones because of sudden shutdowns. It alleges that Apple deliberately chose to reduce performance to avoid spending the time and effort to fix the core problem. But if the battery is defective, Apple will always replace it free if the unit is under warranty. Otherwise, it’s $79, which is cheap compared to the cost of a new device.

I suppose the complainant’s charge seems reasonable enough, but it would require proof, and that would mean that the lawyers would have to bring in hardware experts to demonstrate that an unfixed defect is involved; well, other than the defect that Apple admitted to and fixed.

Even with Apple’s admission, though, I still think they deserve to lose these cases for one reason, and that’s corporate silence. Once the decision was made to cripple performance, Apple should have put up a warning to customers about what was happening, that the battery may be in need of replacement.

After all, you can already dig up such information on any Mac notebook. Just hold down Option when you choose the battery life display from the menu bar, and you’ll see a message as to whether the battery is healthy. For a fairly complete report, including the number of charge cycles the battery has undergone, you can consult Power settings under System Information from the Apple menu.

Since Apple is monitoring battery life of your iPhone behind the scenes to determine if throttling is necessary, there’s no reason why it can’t display that data in a user friendly form, no reason at all. After all, when battery capacity hits 20%, you are already offered the opportunity to place it in Low Power Mode.

Apple’s best approach would be to introduce a battery health feature, pronto, in the next iOS revision, and move to make fast settlements to dispatch existing lawsuits.

And, perhaps, pledge not to keep customers in the dark in the future about making critical alterations to a unit’s performance without due notice to the user.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a Battery Health app for iOS that displays battery health. I think Apple owes it to their customers to refund the $1.99 they have to pay to buy this app, and provide this information themselves.

I’ve been previewing this column for a while, ever since I worked out a deal where VIZIO provided the set in exchange for my agreeing to review it. But they put no restrictions on how I should rate the product, so I’m free to do what I’ve done for the past 25 years, which is to give my unvarnished opinion about a tech gadget.

This time I ran into a couple of obstacles. Since it was just months after I sustained some back injuries in an accident that took out my car, I asked a neighbor to help me do the heavy lifting, removing my 2012 55-inch VIZIO E-Series and replacing it with the comparably sized 2017 SmartCast M-Series Display.

Not that these sets are heavy. The new VIZIO weighs around 36 pounds with the metal feet installed. The other set weighs maybe 10 pounds more. Carrying either wouldn’t normally present a problem, but lifting it onto the stand required some help.

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