A yellow iPhone 14 could be just around the corner
Historically, Apple has tried to give its iPhones a sales boost with a fresh new color halfway through their first year — and right around the launch of Samsung's newest flagship. For the iPhone 13 last March, this was a green hue, while the iPhone 12 got a vibrant purple shade back in April 2021.
Now, Macotakara(opens in new tab) reports that Apple will be freshening up the iPhone 14 this week with a fresh new color.
So what will be joining the existing five iPhone 14 colors? It’s reportedly going yellow, the first time Apple has adopted the sunny shade since 2019’s iPhone 11.
While the green shade found its way onto both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro (the latter with the fancier sounding ‘Alpine Green’ moniker), the report suggests that this new shade is exclusively for the regular iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus.
We should find out soon enough: the site reports that a briefing will be held this week to introduce the new color. Given the iPhone 14 launched 170 days ago, we’re pretty close to the halfway point between the current model and the upcoming iPhone 15, so it does seem a sensible time to give it another sales push.
Plus, we're sure that Apple would be happy to try to steal at least a little thunder from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus.
What about the iPhone 14 Pro?
It’s true that few people will be suddenly motivated to buy an iPhone thanks to a new color — iPhone 14 cases will likely hide the design, after all. But sprucing up the lineup is still helpful in generating attention for a handset six months into its life, after the initial sheen has worn off a bit.
But if it’s true that the iPhone 14 Pro series won’t be getting a new shade to match, that’s perhaps an indication of the contrasting fortunes of Apple’s two handset tiers.
According to display analyst Ross Young, in November the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max handsets accounted for 64% of iPhone 14 units sold — up from 51% of the iPhone 13 era split. Or to put it another way, they only accounted for 36% of sales this time around, as opposed to 49% last time around.
Perhaps that’s unsurprising given how limited an upgrade the iPhone 14 is — as I’ve written before, it makes sense to just buy a discounted iPhone 13 Pro instead.
In short, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max handsets likely don’t need any extra sales help. But whether a yellow shade will give the iPhone 14 Plus a much-needed boost remains to be seen.
