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People aren't idiots. But if you swapped Apple's high-level design choices with, say, the LG V20's high-level design choices, people would still buy the Apple p

People aren't idiots. But if you swapped Apple's high-level design choices with, say, the LG V20's high-level design choices, people would still buy the Apple phone over the LG V20. They're buying the brand, and they're making the call that having something that has Apple-level quality is better than buying a design they would prefer with inferior quality. But that doesn't preclude Apple's high-level design choices leading to objectively inferior quality (even if the objective inferiority is only to a hypothetical Apple that made better high-level design decisions.)

mschuster91 9y ago
> They're buying the brand They're more buying the vendor lock-in. When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android. Yes, I can port DRM-free music over, but no such luck with movies and games - there are games like Real Racing where you can sync progress across platforms but they're rare. Add in that Apple will (as evidenced in the article!) artificially slow down phones to the point of being unusable, and you have the explanation why people keep throwing money at Apple. It's like gamblers throwing more and more money into the slot machine - it's the sunk cost fallacy.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >They're more buying the vendor lock-in. When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android You very easily can, the lock-in argument is tired. For one, Apple Music exists for Android: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205365 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205365 And even if it didn't, it's a subscription service. Nobody invests much in it, except your monthly subscription. One can cancel at anytime and go to Google Play, Amazon, Spotify, etc. As for the music download (paid songs), from the major vendors it was Apple who famously spearheaded the "kill music DRM" thing, and has been offering DRM-free music for a decade or so. Which, one can easily play on Android, etc. No lock-in there either. Games? As if mobile games or even computer games are not casual and replaced by new ones every so often? Plus, with Steam et al, aren't those transferable as well? Same with movies. Who even buys those? It's the era of Netflix, subscriptions and at least renting. >there are games like Real Racing where you can sync progress across platforms but they're rare. As if that's what's holding people from moving away the Mac...
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > Plus, with Steam et al, aren't those transferable as well? No, they are not. The only thing to buy anything on iOS is the App Store, and it is not transferable - the only things transferable on the iOS Stores are, as both you and I mentioned, music (of course, excluding music bought prior to the no-DRM switch!) and stuff like newspaper subscriptions bought on iOS stores but bound to an account on the newspaper's platform. Steam is for OS X only (not iOS) and there are no major games on OS X that are not available on Windows (but a huge number of games not available on OS X, thus creating a lock-in to Windows). > Same with movies. Who even buys those? It's about the collection you have. I personally have no stakes in that game as all I have is physical media, but I know people with four-digit-sums investments in digital movies and other purchases. For them, the vendor lock in is real (and it's not just Apple - I, for example, got my Amazon account blocked for unpaid bills back from a time where I was financially ... unstable, to say the least, and I literally have no way of ever getting that account reinstated and thus access to my three-digit-worth ebook collection!).
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >No, they are not. The only thing to buy anything on iOS is the App Store, and it is not transferable - the only things transferable on the iOS Stores are, as both you and I mentioned, music (of course, excluding music bought prior to the no-DRM switch!) I was speaking of the Mac. Who "invests" in iOS games, and would care to play them for years on end? For the huge majority, it's a casual thing. Same with movies. Anybody who invested "four-digit-sums" in digital movies should just move on, like people did with VHS, DVD, and other early formats (and people had even more substantial collections there -- they had been burned enough times not to invest in digital movies). Besides, their "digital movies" already would look archaic in today's 4K screens (unless the service updates them). >and it's not just Apple - I, for example, got my Amazon account blocked for unpaid bills back from a time where I was financially ... unstable, to say the least, and I literally have no way of ever getting that account reinstated and thus access to my three-digit-worth ebook collection! That's a separate issue -- not being able to reinstate a rental account is crazy, especially if one doesn't only think of US, Japan, Western Europe and co, but the huge 70% of the world, where temporary issues with stability (in jobs, economy, etc) can often lead people to unpaid bills.
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  >Add in that Apple will (as evidenced in the article!) artificially slow down phones to the point of being unusable, and you have the explanation why people keep throwing money at Apple. You can slow down an iPhone quite a lot until it gets as slow as a brand new flagship Android phone at top speed: http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-8-iphone-x-vs-android-flagships-speed-tests-say-its-not-even-close/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-8-iphone-x-vs-android-fl... Also, the slowdown only occurs if and when the battery is at the end of its useful life. My iPhone 6 from 2014 still runs as fast as ever, and considering the OS update policy of Android phone makers, my iPhone is also a lot cheaper per year than any comparable Android phone. That said, I find it completely idiotic on Apple's part to slow down the phone instead of letting users know when the battery is at its end of life.
- scarface74 9y ago
  When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android. Yes, I can port DRM-free music over, but no such luck with movies and games Yes you can port most movies over. Download Movies Anywhere (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movies-anywhere/id1245330908?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movies-anywhere/id1245330908...), link your iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and/or Vudu account and any movies you bought from one service from a participating studio automatically shows up as a purchase in any of the other stores. I've tried it and it works.

mschuster91 9y ago

> They're buying the brand They're more buying the vendor lock-in. When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android. Yes, I can port DRM-free music over, but no such luck with movies and games - there are games like Real Racing where you can sync progress across platforms but they're rare. Add in that Apple will (as evidenced in the article!) artificially slow down phones to the point of being unusable, and you have the explanation why people keep throwing money at Apple. It's like gamblers throwing more and more money into the slot machine - it's the sunk cost fallacy.

coldtea 9y ago
>They're more buying the vendor lock-in. When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android You very easily can, the lock-in argument is tired. For one, Apple Music exists for Android: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205365 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205365 And even if it didn't, it's a subscription service. Nobody invests much in it, except your monthly subscription. One can cancel at anytime and go to Google Play, Amazon, Spotify, etc. As for the music download (paid songs), from the major vendors it was Apple who famously spearheaded the "kill music DRM" thing, and has been offering DRM-free music for a decade or so. Which, one can easily play on Android, etc. No lock-in there either. Games? As if mobile games or even computer games are not casual and replaced by new ones every so often? Plus, with Steam et al, aren't those transferable as well? Same with movies. Who even buys those? It's the era of Netflix, subscriptions and at least renting. >there are games like Real Racing where you can sync progress across platforms but they're rare. As if that's what's holding people from moving away the Mac...
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Plus, with Steam et al, aren't those transferable as well? No, they are not. The only thing to buy anything on iOS is the App Store, and it is not transferable - the only things transferable on the iOS Stores are, as both you and I mentioned, music (of course, excluding music bought prior to the no-DRM switch!) and stuff like newspaper subscriptions bought on iOS stores but bound to an account on the newspaper's platform. Steam is for OS X only (not iOS) and there are no major games on OS X that are not available on Windows (but a huge number of games not available on OS X, thus creating a lock-in to Windows). > Same with movies. Who even buys those? It's about the collection you have. I personally have no stakes in that game as all I have is physical media, but I know people with four-digit-sums investments in digital movies and other purchases. For them, the vendor lock in is real (and it's not just Apple - I, for example, got my Amazon account blocked for unpaid bills back from a time where I was financially ... unstable, to say the least, and I literally have no way of ever getting that account reinstated and thus access to my three-digit-worth ebook collection!).
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >No, they are not. The only thing to buy anything on iOS is the App Store, and it is not transferable - the only things transferable on the iOS Stores are, as both you and I mentioned, music (of course, excluding music bought prior to the no-DRM switch!) I was speaking of the Mac. Who "invests" in iOS games, and would care to play them for years on end? For the huge majority, it's a casual thing. Same with movies. Anybody who invested "four-digit-sums" in digital movies should just move on, like people did with VHS, DVD, and other early formats (and people had even more substantial collections there -- they had been burned enough times not to invest in digital movies). Besides, their "digital movies" already would look archaic in today's 4K screens (unless the service updates them). >and it's not just Apple - I, for example, got my Amazon account blocked for unpaid bills back from a time where I was financially ... unstable, to say the least, and I literally have no way of ever getting that account reinstated and thus access to my three-digit-worth ebook collection! That's a separate issue -- not being able to reinstate a rental account is crazy, especially if one doesn't only think of US, Japan, Western Europe and co, but the huge 70% of the world, where temporary issues with stability (in jobs, economy, etc) can often lead people to unpaid bills.
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
>Add in that Apple will (as evidenced in the article!) artificially slow down phones to the point of being unusable, and you have the explanation why people keep throwing money at Apple. You can slow down an iPhone quite a lot until it gets as slow as a brand new flagship Android phone at top speed: http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-8-iphone-x-vs-android-flagships-speed-tests-say-its-not-even-close/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-8-iphone-x-vs-android-fl... Also, the slowdown only occurs if and when the battery is at the end of its useful life. My iPhone 6 from 2014 still runs as fast as ever, and considering the OS update policy of Android phone makers, my iPhone is also a lot cheaper per year than any comparable Android phone. That said, I find it completely idiotic on Apple's part to slow down the phone instead of letting users know when the battery is at its end of life.
scarface74 9y ago
When I have invested 4-digit sums into Apple Music, Apple Movies and games, I can't port that all over to Android. Yes, I can port DRM-free music over, but no such luck with movies and games Yes you can port most movies over. Download Movies Anywhere (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movies-anywhere/id1245330908?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/movies-anywhere/id1245330908...), link your iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and/or Vudu account and any movies you bought from one service from a participating studio automatically shows up as a purchase in any of the other stores. I've tried it and it works.