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My family were not nearly millionaires when we bought a $1500 equivalent computer in 1982, but this phone costs less than that. And a iPhone X isn't a phone, it
by code_duck 9y ago
My family were not nearly millionaires when we bought a $1500 equivalent computer in 1982, but this phone costs less than that. And a iPhone X isn't a phone, it's a computer. I agree you do need to be in an upper tier economically to afford one, but only speaking globally. People bought plenty of laptops when they averaged well over $1000.
The way phones are financed makes them much more attainable, also. The way people will get that $1000 phone today is paying $2-400, and then $35 a month, folded into their phone bill, for 2 years. That's reasonable for anyone with decent enough credit to get standard wireless service. Not most of the US population, perhaps, but definitely the same demographic as the people already buying $800 Samsungs or previous iPhones, which is tens of millions of people.
- pasta 9y agoI like to note that a smartphone is indeed a computer with one huge difference: the phone does break more often. It's no fun dropping a $1000 phone in the toilet or down the stairs. A lot of people forget this.
- code_duck 9y agoI If I tried to carry a desktop computer and monitor around with me all day, it would probably get broken. Thankfully mobile device are... mobile. I'm glad it ever fits in my pocket! You can mitigate the issues you detail with a heavy duty case, waterproof phone, and/or insurance.
- dexterdog 9y agoAlso it is a hard thing to share so you're not just buying one for a family.
- ajdlinux 9y agoAlas, this is why "smartphone insurance" is now a market segment
- icantdrive55 9y agoYea, I bought an Atari St 1200 I believe in 1983 for college. It did seem like a big purchase initially. I used it for 6 years of college. I mainly used it for word processing. It never skipped a beat. Once every two years, I would need to re-ink the ribbon with ink myself. Just dipped the ribbon into the bottle, and rewind. I was too cheap to buy a new ribbon. Besides the initial outlay, I spent $2.00 days on ink in six years. If I had foresight, I never would have thrown away a great computer. I miss the word processor program. I definetly miss that dot matrix printer. (I never told anyone at school about my about my computer. I felt like I was cheating. Not one professor noticed the dot matrix print type. What people miss about old hardware from the days was everything was built like tanks. The thought of buying a new computer every two years was unthinkable. In my world, it's still unthinkable. I really believe we have been duped by the industry--on all levels.
- criddell 9y agoA big difference is that the Atari probably wasn't connected to the internet 24-7. Your ST wasn't being probed around the clock by hackers across the country and around the world. It likely wasn't tied into your banking and probably didn't hold a lot of your personal communications and health data. The Atari probably had a lot of security holes but it didn't matter that nobody was fixing things and sending a frequent stream of updates.
- gambiting 9y agoAlso people pay and have paid $1000 for iPhones for years now, there's absolutely nothing new here and people think this is some sort of a new era beginning. It's absolutely not.
- gnu8 9y agoAt the risk of getting into a completely different debate, the iPhone is not a computer. A computer allows the user to write and run any program of their choosing. An iPhone can only run programs approved by Apple, and the user cannot use the iPhone to generate new programs. So while technically the iPhone is a computer, with a microprocessor that executes instructions, primary and secondary storage, and so on, the device has more in common with the traditional telephone and television, because it can be used for communicating and consuming content, but not general purpose computing.
- code_duck 9y agoTrue that it is limited by software to less functionality than a traditional computing device. In the grand scheme of things, though, that definition is rather specific and is less meaningful to people outside our field. The iPhone performs functions far more similar to a computer than to television or phone. For instance, I am writing this on an iPhone. 12 years ago, I would have been writing this on a desktop computer and certainly not a television. The other things i use this phone for - photography and music creation - are similarly not exclusively content consumption activities. So while the device is geared towards that, it can also be used for creation. I'm not an iPhone developer, but from what i understand you can write apps to do about anything and run them yourself - just not distribute them on the app store.