The Cupertino company told one of its producers in China to stop production altogether, while two others lowered it by 70 percent and 90 percent.  We earlier reported how Apple halted manufacturing of its iPhone 14 for the same reason.

Apple has not announced the moves publicly, and the Tame Apple Press has been quick to blame worldwide inflation meaning that people are choosing to eat or stay warm rather than waste money on an over priced and under speced phone.

Those who are a little more sane, think that the iPhone 14 family was a lemon which means that Apple's iPhone development will be flat until next autumn when the iPhone 15 is out

Apple debuted its iPhone 14 family on September 7 during its 'Far Out' event and although the exterior did not change, it included several new features that can detect when you are in a car crash, track ovulation and connect to satellite internet. None of which are immediately useful, and have caused a few problems such as calling emergency services when a fanboy is on a roller coaster.

Then there is the price which is high even for Apple. The iPhone 14 Plus, which starts at $899, is a cheaper alternative to the company’s iPhone 14 Pro Max model, which starts at $1,099.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a famous Apple analyst with a good track record of predicting the tech firm's launches and new features, examined some early indicators of pre-orders to determine what demand is looking like so far among the four new models released earlier this month.

Kuo looked at availability and shipping estimates to observe that the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max are showing 'good' or 'neutral' results thus far. But the pre-orders for the standard models, iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, are 'bad.'

'This new product's pre-order result is significantly lower than expected, meaning Apple's product segmentation strategy for standard models fails this year,' Kuo said about the larger iPhone 14 Plus, which is a 6.7-inch phone, in a blog post.

Kuo explained that the company would likely have to cut shipment forecasts for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus in November if the numbers don't improve. That in turn could negatively impact Apple's revenue growth for this year.