7 ms·

I wonder at what price people will consider switching from iOS to Android. Seems like they sold an incredible number of iPhones at ASPs higher than analyst pred

I wonder at what price people will consider switching from iOS to Android. Seems like they sold an incredible number of iPhones at ASPs higher than analyst predictions.

Synaesthesia 8y ago
What Apple has realised is there is an entire class of people who simply don’t mind paying $70 a month or whatever it costs to have a new iPhone, even though they’re not competitive in price, it doesn’t matter, and so Apple gets to make these huge profits.
- anthonybsd 8y ago
  >even though they’re not competitive in price Explain to me how having the fastest silicone in the business is not "competitive" in price? I mean if you are the top dog, you kinda get to set the stage, no?
  - DerekL 8y ago
    You mean “silicon”, not “silicone”. (Or maybe you do mean “silicone”?)
    - anthonybsd 8y ago
      Right you are, silicon. Thank you. Not caulking material :)
  - Synaesthesia 8y ago
    They do have the best silicone, and I was trying to explain why they get to set the price they do and get away with it. It’s just that, for example in South Africa the new iPhone XS costs R22000-24000 which is $1500 - the Samsungs and especially the Huawei’s are much cheaper. You can get a P20 lite for like R5000 which is an outstanding phone. But again many South Africans can afford the iPhone.
    - anthonybsd 8y ago
      Well of course! Not everyone needs the best CPU. I recently got Huawei Mate for my mother in law for let's see 1/7th of what I paid for my IPhone XS Max. Some people do (I play a lot of 3D games and what not), but vast majority of the people do not. It's just that Huawei and Samsung have offerings that span the whole range of prices whereas Apple only covers ultra-premium segment. And if you venture into Apple prices are comparable to others (and command much better resale).
- rconti 8y ago
  What HN commenters have realised is there is an entire class of commenters who simply don't mind inventing figures or whatever it takes to create a straw man, even though they're not congruent with reality, it doesn't matter, and so the poster gets to declare victory.
- docker_up 8y ago
  I'm one of those people. I was getting iPhones every 2 years, but my phones were laying around wasted. I would rather "rent" my iphone and switch it out every year for essentially the same cost, and not have to deal with the phones laying around. Plus getting Apple Care every year makes sense now with the screens being so expensive to fix.
- Steko 8y ago
  > not competitive in price Yeah those rubes paying Apple's $793 ASP could gotten a Galaxy S9+ for only $840. Or a Pixel 3 starting at $799,a Pixel 3XL for $899, a Note 9 starting at $1000 or a Huawei P20 Pro for €899 instead.
joshstrange 8y ago
You've got to remember that cost of phone is far from the only cost. There are non-monetary costs such as loss of iMessage, Game Center (JK JK no one care about that), Apple Pay, etc. And then there are the actual costs, I've spent just shy of $3K since 2008 on Apple digital "stuff" (so iOS apps, Mac Apps, Subscriptions, IAP, etc) and while I'd estimate there is about $1k or so of actual residual value in those purchases (as in apps/subscriptions I still use daily and would buy again tomorrow if they went away) it's still not anything to sneeze at. While not all of that is iOS (Most of it is, my iOS apps/IAP/Subscriptions total alone is $2.4K) it is all part of locking me into the system. Here is my breakdown (I pulled these number out of my Apple Data Export): iOS and tvOS Apps: $1087 In-App Subscriptions: $380 iCloud Storage Subscriptions: $251 In-App Purchases: $520 Mac Apps: $560 iTunes Match Subscriptions: $150 Apple Music Subscriptions: $0 Books: $6 Movie Rentals: $9 Songs: $5
- setr 8y ago
  What are you buying for iOS and In-App? I've only spent maybe $100 in total on iOS apps, across a good five years I think my only MacOS app expenditure was parallel and daisy disk. My Apple costs is almost purely hardware
  - joshstrange 8y ago
    I'm not going to lie, I'm not proud of my IAP total. I am perfectly fine with purchasing level packs in games or full unlocks in apps but about half of that IAP was shit like gems/coins/etc that I spent on various games before I got that under control. As for iOS apps I have a couple of $20-$30 apps that really ratcheted up the total but I test out a lot of apps/games and while that number is large we are talking about ~$100/yr on apps which I am personally OK with. If you would like I could get more specific on which apps/games.
    - setr 8y ago
      Sure; I’m mostly fine with ponying up... my biggest issue is I don’t see much out there even worth paying (especially with my macbook; most things seem to have an equivalent or better OSS alternative, especially if you’re not constrained to the gui [where OSS is usually ugly as sin]). Even in games, the only mobile game I’ve ever thought to pick up was King of Dragon Pass, and that was just because I already knew it’d work well on a phone As long as that budget isn’t comprised of a single photoshop license, I’m interested to know what you’ve thought was worth grabbing.
toddmorey 8y ago
I think that the cost of the phone is financed really helps here, too. It hides (mostly) that you are purchasing ~$1k worth of equipment.
8ytecoder 8y ago
I doubt cost would ever be a primary concern that drives people to Android. If cost is a concern for me, I could still get the iPhone 7 ($449 - new from Apple).
rbaud 8y ago
Apple's attitude towards, and stewardship of, my privacy is worth a very serious markup to me personally. Doesn't hurt that the products are so good too.
threeseed 8y ago
People are also factoring in TCO with iOS/Android. Apple supports their devices for 5 years. Android it's more like 2 or 3 and often much less. And with Apple's retail presence it's easy to get 1-1 support which is non-existent for anyone other than Samsung. And with the extraordinary performance of their A CPUs often their devices are holding up longer as well.
- samfisher83 8y ago
  Who keeps their phone for 5 years. The battery will be bad in 2 years. Replacing it requires disassembling a phone.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    Not sure about US but in Australia you can go to any shopping mall and there will be a shop where you can get your battery replaced. Or even in most cities there are phone repair places that will get you a new battery pretty cheaply.
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      This is also true in the US (not sure of prices though I can’t imagine why it’d be mich different from Australia). One big problem is that you don’t know whether you’re getting genuine parts, and aftermarket stuff can be quite crappy.
  - setr 8y ago
    I usually just keep my old phones in storage when I switch, and hand 'em off to visitors and such (or when I break my phone); comes in handy often enough. Battery holds sufficiently in a drawer.
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    Replacing the battery is $29, parts and labor (for this year).
    - 8y ago
endorphone 8y ago
I recently moved from a GS8 to an iPhone 8. Just yesterday I took delivery of an iPhone XR. I used Android from its inception with the HTC Magic and Dream. Nexus One, Nexus 4, 5, 6p, GS2, GS3, GS8, Motorola Glide somewhere in there. Lots of devices, over every Android version. From a full financial cost perspective (e.g. lifetime cost and then value when retired if I were selling them) virtually all of them cost me more than the iPhone of the days. It was never about cost. Various platform benefits drew me, from a development perspective it enticed me, and it seemed right for the industry. Almost morally right. With recent iOS versions, however, Apple has stolen many of the best features of Android (the notification system, how multitasking operates, intents, etc), while at the same time improving on the benefits they already have (a higher quality platform, better security, a better app ecosystem). As Google started moving to their Pixel platform, continued to abandon 2 year old devices with disregard (my devices are always new, but from a utility perspective I like being able to safely give older devices to my children), Android lost me. Not to mention that it became the Samsung platform with a fringe of Google devices. I also seriously question Google's motives in providing a quality API for developers for things like computer learning and computational photography. So there's a counterpoint. These devices are so important for our lives now than $1000 a year seems entirely reasonable.
- gwright 8y ago
  Purchasing a new iPhone every year is not a necessity by almost any definition of "necessary". So you are more like $500/year or $333/year or even $250/year depending on how often you refresh. That isn't true with many Android devices because of the poor track record of OS upgrades and support.
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    Even if you do upgrade every year, iPhones hold their value very well, so you can sell your old phone for a substantial proportion of what you paid for it and only pay a fraction of the cost of the new one.
- pasta 8y ago
  It totaly depends on how important you think a device is. I bought a $100 Motorola and plan to keep it until the battery isn't charging anymore. So if I can keep it for 5 years I think $20 per year is reasonable. Comparing this to the iPhone it will save me $980 a year. That's a nice holiday with my family...
PopsiclePete 8y ago
I have a Dell XPS dev edition that I tinker with, installing various linux distros and trying stuff and breaking it and fixing it. I do it because it's fun. My phone has to be 100% rock-solid. I do lots of actual important stuff on it. I'm never switching to Android, because it's a gamble. Which model? How long will it be supported? Is it vanilla Android, or did they break it with custom shit-ware? Will they ever fix security holes? The "wall of sheep" at Blackhat is mostly Android phones too.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. Lots of tech-oriented people seem to have this compulsion to tinker with everything which is why they can’t understand why someone would prefer an iPhone. I simply do not care about being able to root my phone, side-load random crap, or use third party browsers. I barely even change the wallpaper. That stuff is what my real computer (running FreeBSD) is for. What I care about on my phone is having a huge, pretty screen, good performance (i.e., no frame drops and jank when interacting with the UI), reliability, and security.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

I wonder at what price people will consider switching from iOS to Android. Seems like they sold an incredible number of iPhones at ASPs higher than analyst predictions.

Synaesthesia 8y ago

What Apple has realised is there is an entire class of people who simply don’t mind paying $70 a month or whatever it costs to have a new iPhone, even though they’re not competitive in price, it doesn’t matter, and so Apple gets to make these huge profits.

anthonybsd 8y ago
>even though they’re not competitive in price Explain to me how having the fastest silicone in the business is not "competitive" in price? I mean if you are the top dog, you kinda get to set the stage, no?
- DerekL 8y ago
  You mean “silicon”, not “silicone”. (Or maybe you do mean “silicone”?)
  - anthonybsd 8y ago
    Right you are, silicon. Thank you. Not caulking material :)
- Synaesthesia 8y ago
  They do have the best silicone, and I was trying to explain why they get to set the price they do and get away with it. It’s just that, for example in South Africa the new iPhone XS costs R22000-24000 which is $1500 - the Samsungs and especially the Huawei’s are much cheaper. You can get a P20 lite for like R5000 which is an outstanding phone. But again many South Africans can afford the iPhone.
  - anthonybsd 8y ago
    Well of course! Not everyone needs the best CPU. I recently got Huawei Mate for my mother in law for let's see 1/7th of what I paid for my IPhone XS Max. Some people do (I play a lot of 3D games and what not), but vast majority of the people do not. It's just that Huawei and Samsung have offerings that span the whole range of prices whereas Apple only covers ultra-premium segment. And if you venture into Apple prices are comparable to others (and command much better resale).
rconti 8y ago
What HN commenters have realised is there is an entire class of commenters who simply don't mind inventing figures or whatever it takes to create a straw man, even though they're not congruent with reality, it doesn't matter, and so the poster gets to declare victory.
docker_up 8y ago
I'm one of those people. I was getting iPhones every 2 years, but my phones were laying around wasted. I would rather "rent" my iphone and switch it out every year for essentially the same cost, and not have to deal with the phones laying around. Plus getting Apple Care every year makes sense now with the screens being so expensive to fix.
Steko 8y ago
> not competitive in price Yeah those rubes paying Apple's $793 ASP could gotten a Galaxy S9+ for only $840. Or a Pixel 3 starting at $799,a Pixel 3XL for $899, a Note 9 starting at $1000 or a Huawei P20 Pro for €899 instead.

joshstrange 8y ago

You've got to remember that cost of phone is far from the only cost. There are non-monetary costs such as loss of iMessage, Game Center (JK JK no one care about that), Apple Pay, etc. And then there are the actual costs, I've spent just shy of $3K since 2008 on Apple digital "stuff" (so iOS apps, Mac Apps, Subscriptions, IAP, etc) and while I'd estimate there is about $1k or so of actual residual value in those purchases (as in apps/subscriptions I still use daily and would buy again tomorrow if they went away) it's still not anything to sneeze at. While not all of that is iOS (Most of it is, my iOS apps/IAP/Subscriptions total alone is $2.4K) it is all part of locking me into the system. Here is my breakdown (I pulled these number out of my Apple Data Export): iOS and tvOS Apps: $1087 In-App Subscriptions: $380 iCloud Storage Subscriptions: $251 In-App Purchases: $520 Mac Apps: $560 iTunes Match Subscriptions: $150 Apple Music Subscriptions: $0 Books: $6 Movie Rentals: $9 Songs: $5

setr 8y ago
What are you buying for iOS and In-App? I've only spent maybe $100 in total on iOS apps, across a good five years I think my only MacOS app expenditure was parallel and daisy disk. My Apple costs is almost purely hardware
- joshstrange 8y ago
  I'm not going to lie, I'm not proud of my IAP total. I am perfectly fine with purchasing level packs in games or full unlocks in apps but about half of that IAP was shit like gems/coins/etc that I spent on various games before I got that under control. As for iOS apps I have a couple of $20-$30 apps that really ratcheted up the total but I test out a lot of apps/games and while that number is large we are talking about ~$100/yr on apps which I am personally OK with. If you would like I could get more specific on which apps/games.
  - setr 8y ago
    Sure; I’m mostly fine with ponying up... my biggest issue is I don’t see much out there even worth paying (especially with my macbook; most things seem to have an equivalent or better OSS alternative, especially if you’re not constrained to the gui [where OSS is usually ugly as sin]). Even in games, the only mobile game I’ve ever thought to pick up was King of Dragon Pass, and that was just because I already knew it’d work well on a phone As long as that budget isn’t comprised of a single photoshop license, I’m interested to know what you’ve thought was worth grabbing.

toddmorey 8y ago

I think that the cost of the phone is financed really helps here, too. It hides (mostly) that you are purchasing ~$1k worth of equipment.

8ytecoder 8y ago

I doubt cost would ever be a primary concern that drives people to Android. If cost is a concern for me, I could still get the iPhone 7 ($449 - new from Apple).

rbaud 8y ago

Apple's attitude towards, and stewardship of, my privacy is worth a very serious markup to me personally. Doesn't hurt that the products are so good too.

threeseed 8y ago

People are also factoring in TCO with iOS/Android. Apple supports their devices for 5 years. Android it's more like 2 or 3 and often much less. And with Apple's retail presence it's easy to get 1-1 support which is non-existent for anyone other than Samsung. And with the extraordinary performance of their A CPUs often their devices are holding up longer as well.

samfisher83 8y ago
Who keeps their phone for 5 years. The battery will be bad in 2 years. Replacing it requires disassembling a phone.
- threeseed 8y ago
  Not sure about US but in Australia you can go to any shopping mall and there will be a shop where you can get your battery replaced. Or even in most cities there are phone repair places that will get you a new battery pretty cheaply.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    This is also true in the US (not sure of prices though I can’t imagine why it’d be mich different from Australia). One big problem is that you don’t know whether you’re getting genuine parts, and aftermarket stuff can be quite crappy.
- setr 8y ago
  I usually just keep my old phones in storage when I switch, and hand 'em off to visitors and such (or when I break my phone); comes in handy often enough. Battery holds sufficiently in a drawer.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Replacing the battery is $29, parts and labor (for this year).
  - 8y ago

endorphone 8y ago

I recently moved from a GS8 to an iPhone 8. Just yesterday I took delivery of an iPhone XR. I used Android from its inception with the HTC Magic and Dream. Nexus One, Nexus 4, 5, 6p, GS2, GS3, GS8, Motorola Glide somewhere in there. Lots of devices, over every Android version. From a full financial cost perspective (e.g. lifetime cost and then value when retired if I were selling them) virtually all of them cost me more than the iPhone of the days. It was never about cost. Various platform benefits drew me, from a development perspective it enticed me, and it seemed right for the industry. Almost morally right. With recent iOS versions, however, Apple has stolen many of the best features of Android (the notification system, how multitasking operates, intents, etc), while at the same time improving on the benefits they already have (a higher quality platform, better security, a better app ecosystem). As Google started moving to their Pixel platform, continued to abandon 2 year old devices with disregard (my devices are always new, but from a utility perspective I like being able to safely give older devices to my children), Android lost me. Not to mention that it became the Samsung platform with a fringe of Google devices. I also seriously question Google's motives in providing a quality API for developers for things like computer learning and computational photography. So there's a counterpoint. These devices are so important for our lives now than $1000 a year seems entirely reasonable.

gwright 8y ago
Purchasing a new iPhone every year is not a necessity by almost any definition of "necessary". So you are more like $500/year or $333/year or even $250/year depending on how often you refresh. That isn't true with many Android devices because of the poor track record of OS upgrades and support.
- JimDabell 8y ago
  Even if you do upgrade every year, iPhones hold their value very well, so you can sell your old phone for a substantial proportion of what you paid for it and only pay a fraction of the cost of the new one.
pasta 8y ago
It totaly depends on how important you think a device is. I bought a $100 Motorola and plan to keep it until the battery isn't charging anymore. So if I can keep it for 5 years I think $20 per year is reasonable. Comparing this to the iPhone it will save me $980 a year. That's a nice holiday with my family...

PopsiclePete 8y ago

I have a Dell XPS dev edition that I tinker with, installing various linux distros and trying stuff and breaking it and fixing it. I do it because it's fun. My phone has to be 100% rock-solid. I do lots of actual important stuff on it. I'm never switching to Android, because it's a gamble. Which model? How long will it be supported? Is it vanilla Android, or did they break it with custom shit-ware? Will they ever fix security holes? The "wall of sheep" at Blackhat is mostly Android phones too.

umanwizard 8y ago
You hit the nail on the head. Lots of tech-oriented people seem to have this compulsion to tinker with everything which is why they can’t understand why someone would prefer an iPhone. I simply do not care about being able to root my phone, side-load random crap, or use third party browsers. I barely even change the wallpaper. That stuff is what my real computer (running FreeBSD) is for. What I care about on my phone is having a huge, pretty screen, good performance (i.e., no frame drops and jank when interacting with the UI), reliability, and security.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]