You feel it, too, right? That sense that things have changed. Our long-held traditions are about to be upended. Where it will lead, no one can say. All we know is that it is happening and there is no going back.

No, the Macalope isn’t talking about John Ternus taking over as Apple CEO, although that’s also looming large over the Apple world currently. No, he’s talking about the company flipping the table on the iPhone release schedule.

It’s not the first time Apple’s mixed it up, of course. If you’re old enough to remember when people still thought the last season of “Lost” was going to tie up all the loose ends, you will recall that the new iPhones used to be released in the summer. “Don’t wear linen and don’t use last year’s iPhone after Labor Day,” people used to say. (No one said that.) But with the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple switched to a fall schedule in order to ruin the summer plans of its engineers and product marketing employees.

Now, after 15 years of relative stability, Apple has completely bifurcated its iPhone release, moving the release of the base iPhone models and the iPhone Air to the spring along with the iPhone e-line. Further, for those who weren’t happy just paying in the $1,000 range for iPhones, the company added the iPhone Duo, creating an exciting new range of $2,000 options. Just what everyone was begging for in our current era of $6 per gallon gas and $26 salad entrees.

Nothing against the iPhone Duo; it looks like a fantastic phone, but the Macalope could really go for an iPhone 5c right now.

After years of a reliable cycle of iPhone releases and then inevitable rumors of drastic production cuts that supposedly mean this year’s line of iPhones is a huge failure instead of them being absolutely normal decreases after the fall surge, the horny one isn’t sure what to expect. First of all, the overall number of units sold will be down drastically since there’s no base model this quarter, plus the five people who bought the iPhone Air. Additionally, the introduction of the iPhone Duo means many who would have bought the iPhone 18 Pro will not.

Indeed, the headlines are already rolling in: “iPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders Off to a Muted Start, Analyst Says”

Of course, Apple wants the iPhone Duo to be a hit, and it knew that would come at the cost of iPhone Pro sales. In fact, in order to grease the skids for the Touch ID-only iPhone Duo even further, Apple even put a bug in Face ID on the iPhone 18 Pro to even the playing field.

Foundry

Verrry clever, Apple. Well done. But the Macalope sees you.

The horny one has made great hay over the years by sinking his antlers into the annual pearl-clutching over iPhone production cuts, so he’s eager to see what analysts will have to say this year. Added to the fact that the iPhone Duo is likely not to sell in high numbers anyway because of its relatively high price, you can expect Apple reporting to look like a back alley in Gotham City after a showing of “The Mark of Zorro”. Just pearls everywhere.

Production cut fever hit its deafening crescendo with the release of the iPhone X in 2017. The iPhone X was rumored to have had massive production cuts that never made any sense, and the phone was ultimately revealed to have been a big success. Will we get Product Cut Fever 2.0 this year?! Very exciting!

Then we have the spring, when a young person’s fancy turns to… uh, cheap phones, hopefully, because that’s what we’re getting, and a new iPhone Air. One of Tim Cook’s major legacies as CEO was smoothing revenue until it became an almost completely frictionless surface. A rollout of the expensive phones in the fall and the cheaper phones in the spring will certainly aid in that effort. Only Apple really knows how much iPhone buying in the latter part of the year is for the holidays, but moving a large chunk of the product rollout to the spring may reduce the urgency and FOMO of the purchasing decision. People will still buy the same number of phones most likely, but they may not buy them on launch day in the numbers they do in the fall.

Apple easily navigated the previous change in iPhone release, and the Macalope expects it will do so again. The only question is how well analysts handle it.