Do Malaysians Still Care About Apple's New iPhones? Here's The Answer!

Image: Apple

Here's the moment of truth: are local Apple fanbois still Apple fanbois?

The recent new iPhone launch has kinda divided the fanbois. Some are calling the new iPhones the best on the market, while some are put off by the lack of new features and the price (oh, did you hear that the 256GB iPhone X would cost RM5,882?).

So, what do Malaysians really think about the new iPhone 8 and the iPhone X? Do they still care, especially when they now need to sell TWO livers in order to be able to afford an iPhone?

According to a recent study by meta-search website iPrice, Malaysians are, unsurprisingly, still interested in the new iPhones.

Searches for the terms "iPhone 8" and "iPhone X" on Google appeared as early as 3am on 13 September - the day the new iPhones were announced at Apple's new HQ in California.

The second surge of search interest came at around 7am (when Malaysians wake up and get ready for work), but according to iPrice, the 3am search interest was much higher than the 7am one, suggesting that Malaysians stayed up late to watch the annoucement live.

So if you noticed that a lot of your colleagues had luggage bags under their eyes, this was probably the reason why.

Reason why Malaysians don't sleep. The study also revealed that Malaysians were far more interested in the new iPhones compared to other countries in the region.

People from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia were more interested in prices of Apple’s previous smartphone models, such as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.

Seven > Eight
Speaking of iPhone models, the research also pointed out that Malaysians were far more interested in the prices of the iPhone 7 Plus compared to the iPhone 8 Plus.

In fact, Malaysians would rather buy the iPhone 7 Plus as it would come at a cheaper price and a bigger storage space.

The price of the iPhone 8 Plus starts from RM4,149, while the most expensive variant of the iPhone 7 Plus (128GB) is priced at RM3,849.

Well, to be honest, they are not missing out that much because the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 7 are technically the same phone. Sorry, Apple fanbois!

Selfie comes first
The iPhone 8 and iPhone X's new features -- namely Face ID, Animoji and wireless charging -- were also not really well-received by Malaysians.

Between 12 and 18 September, the terms 'screen' and 'camera' were the most popular searches in Malaysia, while the new features got only lukewarm response.

So, what do you think? Do you care about the new iPhones?