Earlier this month, Apple unveiled its new iPhone 14 plus models “Plus,” “Pro,” and “Max.” Consumers were quick to react on social media, with memes suggesting most were not impressed by the announced changes. Let’s take a closer look at the meme reactions to see how people around the world feel about iPhone 14, as the new models hit store shelves this week.
As always, Apple made a big splash with its live streamed Far Out event on September 7th, which launched its iPhone 14 series, consisting of iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The Cupertino-based company also unveiled Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and next-gen AirPods Pro at the event.
Apple positioned iPhone 14 as containing “ground-breaking safety features designed to save lives” and an innovative 48MP camera for “mind-blowing detail.” Despite high expectations, Apple’s 14 Plus is now trailing the iPhone 13 Mini when it comes to early analysis of forecasted sales. While Digital Trends suggested that the pricing policy for iPhone 14 might be to blame, memes circulating on social media reveal some other issues at play.
Approximately 54% of Gen-Zs, 41% of Millennials, and 21% of Gen-Xers look for new memes every day, according to GlobalWebIndex data, while 75% of users aged 13-36 regularly share memes. What’s more, while millennials generally eschew commercial and sponsored content, 84% of them are influenced by user-generated content such as memes, recent research has shown.
That’s why memes are a useful gauge of consumer sentiment, and some popular posts about iPhone 14 have been very telling in this regard. An overwhelming majority of feedback – as reflected both in image-based and video-based memes – has been poking fun at the newest model being too similar to previous models, including iPhone 13.
One meme circulating on iFunny, a popular meme community with more than 70 million downloads in the U.S. alone, shows one man opening a new box with a light shining from it and the tagline message – ‘The same phone, but for a larger price’. The bottom half of the meme shows a man, covering his mouth in amazement with a tagline that reads ‘Apple Fans’.
Another meme circulating on iFunny, one of FunCorp’s entertainment tech products, says ‘Me upgrading from iPhone 13 to iPhone 14 after today’s announcement’, on top of a photo of a man in a button-down shirt opening a present of an identical shirt. This meme has made headlines after Eve Jobs, the daughter of late Apple founder Steve Jobs, posted it to her Instagram account for her 344,000 followers to enjoy.
Other meme users went further than comparisons to previous models, taking aim instead at Apple’s lack of innovation versus industry peers. One such meme featured a quote from the model’s release presentation – ‘with the iPhone pro, your screen can always be on’ – besides an image of SpongeBob SquarePants in hysterics under the title ‘Android companies and users since 2012’.
A similar meme featured Bill Gates asking Steve Jobs what the latest updates were, only for him to receive the response, ‘[The] last one ends with 3. This one ends in 4 and has features released by Android in 2010’.
Time will tell how these initial lukewarm reactions will translate into ongoing sales, but in the meantime, we will continue to enjoy the reactive content from the court of public opinion.
