What happened to iPhone 9?
Why did Apple skip the iPhone 9, and what were the possible reasons Apple decided to skip a number in its most profitable product lineup.
To understand why Apple seemingly skipped over a number in its iconic and most lucrative product line up, we have to understand what Apple values and what’s its marketing strategies revolve around. With the release of iPhone SE and strong leaks of iPhone 12 line-up its highly unlikely that we will ever get the missing iPhone 9. The closest thing to iPhone 9 was iPhone SE but it wasn’t called iPhone 9 and here is why
Is it iPhone 10 or iPhone X ??
In the year 2017 apple released iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus, and surprised the world by calling their flagship phone iPhone X, where X stands for roman number 10. Why would apple not only skip a number and also change up the naming scheme for their phone? We have to realize that Apple doesn’t really care if they have an iPhone which perfectly follows the naming sequences from the previous generation.
It was the 10th year anniversary of the iPhone and it was imperative that Apple does something that the customers remember the iPhone of that generation and they gladly did that. A bombastic new design with a centerpiece notch removal of Touch ID, smaller bezels was a total design overhaul of the previous phones. Accompanying this change was the name Apple could have just called it iPhone 10 but settled on X as it was just “Different”. It didn’t matter if we called it iPhone X or iPhone 10 apple wanted us to know that this year the iPhone was a gadget that you don’t want to miss out on.
Why wasn’t the 2020 iPhone SE called the iPhone 9?
From the end of 2019 and early 2020, we knew that Apple was releasing a new budget iPhone and many of us expected it to the missing iPhone 9 and oops we were wrong again Apple pretended like there was nothing that they missed and called it the iPhone SE. Apple is smart with its marketing and brand image.
If they would have called the new iPhone the iPhone 9 the name suggests that the phone is in between the iPhone 8 and iPhone X which makes it 3 years old though the phone is brand new. Apple doesn’t restrict itself to logical reasoning they go for a much effective and appealing marketing as it sells products.
9 isn’t the only number Apple has skipped !!
Yes, this isn't the first time Apple has skipped a number and did something that fits well with their marketing strategy. there was the original iPhone and following that was iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Apple told us that their new iPhone runs on the new carrier 3G. Apple skipped iPhone 2 because it wouldn’t have appealed the same way as iPhone 3G. Apple only began its numerical naming sequence from iPhone 4. It was a mere coincidence that the 3rd generation iPhone was called the iPhone 3GS. Apple didn’t backtrack and filled up the gap of iPhone 2, they just moved along.
So, in conclusion we will probably never get an iPhone 9 ever and it will be one of those quirky things that we will just have to accept and look forward to the evolution of the product we all have loved to use for over a decade now.
