Over 5%.

When everybody thought they’d go down.

I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Has a single person commented about it to me? NOT ONE! Because you can’t tell the difference physically, not unless you’re a super-student with excellent vision and you can zero in on the camera slide/button on the side.

So in a world where the exterior is more important than the interior, where it’s what shows is what counts, shouldn’t iPhone sales be DOWN?

Absolutely. That’s what all the Wall Street analysts said.

Now we can go deep into the details. Mention that the iPhone 16 was only on sale for a few days of the quarter, talk about mix of product, but… Absolutely everybody thought sales would go down. Another me-too product. Wait until 2025 for the great leap forward, with a new form factor.

But…

Actually, I expect the buzz on the iPhone 16 to increase. Because of AI. Which was just introduced to the public this Monday, with iOS 18.1.

Now if you read the reviews, each and every one of them said a day late and a dollar short. The AI introduction lagged the physical product by a month and right now it only does a fraction of what Apple says it will do eventually. Much ado about nothing, in fact.

Only that is untrue.

How much do I care about AI on my phone? Can’t say I really thought about it. I don’t need no summarization. However, I was stunned what I was delivered by the upgrade. Summarization of my most important emails at the top of the thread (which I turned off, because I’ve filtered out the junk and I live on e-mail and the content is just that important to me). All over the phone there are cool effects that remind me of…

Siri.

You remember the iPhone 4s, don’t you? It was a party trick, everybody who had one demonstrated it. YOU COULD TALK TO YOUR PHONE!

Not that it worked that well. But the iPhone 4s set sales records.

But the reason I’m mentioning all this, even referencing the iPhone in a world where the battle between Android and iOS is like red vs. blue, where the so-called elites don’t stop telling us to put our smartphones down is… If they can’t get it right on this, WHAT ELSE ARE THEY GETTING WRONG??

I’m sure you’ve been whipsawed by the election like me.

These Wall Street analysts live in the trenches, they get it right much more than they get it wrong. How could they miss consumer sentiment so completely?

In other words, has the momentum truly switched to Trump?

That’s what every Democrat has been afraid of for the last ten days. It’s what everybody is writing about. Nate Silver said he believed Trump had a better chance of winning than Harris.

My inbox has been freaking out.

And then there are those dyed-in-the-wool, this is where the right and the left are similar. Go against the orthodoxy and you’re excommunicated. If you say one negative thing about Harris you’re a hater who doesn’t understand the facts and must be silenced. It’s like no one went to college and learned how to hold two opposing thoughts in their brains at the same time. Or maybe they don’t teach that in college anymore, where the main goal is just to get a job, forget becoming a three-dimensional citizen.

So, let’s be clear, Harris has lost the mo. She peaked weeks ago, if not before that.

Then again, an incredible number of people have already voted.

Elon Musk is in the news 24/7 re Trump and Harris has no second on the left. It’s just Kamala and…

We just don’t know what people think.

On one hand, some say Harris has to win, because of abortion.

And then there are those who point to the Trump bros.

And one thing is for sure, Trump’s side has been trying to control the narrative with additional polls and endless pronouncements, setting up to challenge the results if he loses.

However…

What if the media has it wrong?

One thing the media has wrong is it thinks we still care. Hell, so many have already voted. There’s really nothing new being said. Enough already.

But every day there’s story after story, are the publications just playing to themselves? Let’s not forget, the media missed 2016, and to a great degree missed 2022 too, the Red Wave never arrived.

So…

We’re going to have to wait until Tuesday to find out, or maybe a while after that.

But if you’ve been pessimistic, thinking it’s over, know that you’re a victim of a disinformation campaign that has nothing to do with people voting.

And if people knew what they were doing would Jeff Bezos have refused to let the “Washington Post” endorse Kamala Harris?

Bezos was and still is out of touch. He had no idea who his customer was, I mean who’s paying for the “Post” to begin with? And now there is endless backlash, in excess of 200,000 have canceled their subscriptions.

All I am saying is it’s not over yet.

Furthermore, Trump has been losing momentum every day.

Then again, Taylor Lorenz pointed out that Harris is losing the war online because she’s gone short form instead of long:

https://www.usermag.co/p/trump-vs-kamala-whos-winning-online

Then again, Lorenz lives online and neither campaign team truly does.

No one has a lock on public sentiment, no one will know what people think until the election results are in.

AND THAT’S A GOOD THING!