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I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.
by baroffoos 8y ago
I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.
- nkozyra 8y agoYou could apply the same question to pretty much every consumer product on Earth. The answer is a critical function of marketing.
- HenryBemis 8y agoI've been buying/using iPhones since 2009. The last iPhone I bought was a 7+. Right after that I had sensed that Apple is messing around with us on the CPU thing, and it finally came out that they did. I now have a Honor X8, I am super content about this, it cost me 229 pounds, takes 2 SIM cards and a 128GB SD card. I can also have a firewall NoRoot Firewall), more granular privacy controls, I can root and and replace my hosts file, and some other nifty security/privacy things for paranoids like me. Is it as polished as an iPhone? No Does it cover all my needs fully (and them some)? Yes Did I pay 1/6 of the price? Yes (trust me I can affort any smartphone) Do I think Apple is milking it and offers nothing new? HELL YES I am happy that their stock is getting slapped, Apple put themselves in that position. As for the Chinese economy, at some point many countries will reduce imports from China for a variety of reasons, and the slowing dowin is inevitable. Apple messed it up on many domains. Now they are paying for it.
- gwright 8y ago> Apple is messing around with us on the CPU thing Are you referring to modulating the power usage to avoid random shutdowns? If so, I don't understand why people have viewed that as a nefarious scheme. Seems completely reasonable to me. The newer user-visible stats on battery health and power usage are also a good idea, but don't change the physics involved, you still need to modulate power usage to match what is available or shut down.
- HenryBemis 8y agoThey lost me the moment they kept it a secret and they practically monetized on this. I would gladly pay for a new (£50-£70) battery every 2 years to keep my phone up and running. It is the lack of transparency that made me angry. I do have the technical skills/knowledge to understand the reasons. I also have the critical thinking to (imho) dismiss their BS answer that they force me to spend £1000 instead of £50. And this is where they killed my 'loyalty' to their products.
- dankoss 8y agoEvery other manufacturer of battery powered devices, including laptops, does CPU throttling based on battery degradation, and doesn't mention anything about it. It sounds like you were just looking for an excuse to jump ship.
- nkozyra 8y ago> Do I think Apple is milking it and offers nothing new? HELL YES But this really isn't the question. People "overpay" for luxury goods all the time in lieu of higher quality cheaper products. Selling expensive stuff doesn't necessarily mean you have to or should have the best stuff.
- HenryBemis 8y agoI don't buy the Marketing lingo. I like the touch & feel. I am one of those people who don't feel "special" or "good for myself" because I have a £1000 phone. I am happy/content because a 'machine' adds value to my life. My phone helps me listen to my podcasts, and helps me navigate when I travel. My Nutribullet helps me make great Paleo smoothies. I am sure that I am not 100% immune to marketing, but I like to prefer the function over the plush. Luxury is for other people. I prefer F.I.R.E instead :) I do understand that Marketing creates artificial needs, and I want to believe that I avoid it :)
- Markoff 8y agowhile 8X it's great deal it has extremely mediocre baskets compared to iPhone, heck even Xiaomi Mi A2 for like 160€ has better camera and no you can't root Huawei phones without unlocking bootloader, not unless you are willing to part with significant fee to shady third party for something which was provided for free by Huawei
- tlholaday 8y agoI don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a camera which doesn't make telephone calls.
- inscionent 8y agoI really don't understand why anyone is paying $300+ for a t-shirt when you can get really amazing t-shirts for $10.
- megaman8 8y agodespite all the advertising, it may surprise you to learn that it's actually quite rare for people to buy expensive clothes. i looked it up one time. i think it said less than 1% of the jeans sold in the US cost more than 50$
- max76 8y agoOff topic, but I think jeans are a great example of a product where more money leads to a better product, especially for a well informed consumer. Japanese Selvage Denim[0] (starting at ~$80)[1] uses higher quality denim, is woven tighter, comes unstretched/untreated so that the fabric better forms to the wearer's unique body shape, and often uses natural dyes which fade slower. In my experience they last longer, feel more comfortable, hold a better shape, keep a better color. [0]https://www.highsnobiety.com/2012/11/16/japanese-denim-a-history-of-the-worlds-best-denim/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/2012/11/16/japanese-denim-a-his... [1]https://www.amazon.com/Unbranded-Brand-UB401-Indigo-Selvedge/dp/B00YE2KNM0/ref=cts_ap_4_vtp https://www.amazon.com/Unbranded-Brand-UB401-Indigo-Selvedge...
- bubblethink 8y agoTrue, but like most things, there's the law of diminishing returns. You'll extract most value out at your $100 price point (or even lower), and yet there are fads for Japanese denim costing a few times that. Same deal with audio etc.
- longerthoughts 8y agoStatus symbols. That's why people are also eager to buy knock-off products of those with loud, visible branding (e.g. Supreme).
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
- gowld 8y agoIn China, or elsewhere? What in the US is as good as iPhone (including the screen size and storage size at that price point) for under $800? A lot of phone have roughly comparable specs, but the camera and overall software behavior is not comparable on lower-tier phones.
- baroffoos 8y agoI don't question that the super expensive phones are better than the cheap ones but they are better in ways that are so insignificant to the average person. I got a nexus 5x a few years ago for about $250 and it does everything modern phones do. Yes I have slightly less pixels in my selfie and my screen is still rectangle shaped but is that really worth the extra $800? I suspect its simply a fashion/trend thing pushed mostly by successful marketing telling people that what was amazing 2 years ago is now useless junk and you need to buy a new phone.
- threeseed 8y agoGive me a break. This idea that anyone who isn't buying some cheap Android phone is doing it for fashion/trend reasons is ridiculous, insulting and condescending. The fact is that I care about my privacy and security and only Apple seems to take it seriously. They also support their devices for years so I look at it like its an investment. That is easily worth the extra $10 or $20 a month I pay for my mobile phone plan.
- Apocryphon 8y agoThis isn't an iOS vs. Android thing. Plenty of people would be happy with an SE 2, or even a 8S (a proper iPhone 9) that retains the home button and/or brings back the earphone jack. This drive for more pixels, more cameras, less buttons, and thinner size- it's hitting diminishing returns unrelated to privacy or security.
- scarface74 8y agoAnd you can still buy an iPhone 7 for $449 and the iPhone 8/8 plus is still for sell...
- ikeboy 8y agoI don't understand why people are paying 50%+ marginal tax rates when there are plenty of countries with lower rates
- standardUser 8y agoThe price is often reduced by your carrier or obscured by no interest payments included in your cell bill. And those $300 phones don't have a mind-blowing camera, but the latest gen flagships phones finally do. That, plus the fact that phones become obsolete much more slowly now, makes those $1k phones a worthwhile investment to me.
- basejumping 8y agoThe s7 has a great camera
- tyfon 8y agoMaybe not $300 but I can get a sony xperia xz2 compact for 3000 NOK ($345ish). Sony makes the cameras in many other phones including iphone. I have the larger version, but my wife has this and it takes excellent photos.
- threeseed 8y agoSony makes the camera sensor. The lens comes from another supplier. And as the Pixel 3 has shown the software makes far more of a difference to the quality of the photo then the hardware.
- zapzupnz 8y agoAnd in the case of iPhone, the software takes advantage of custom-made, powerful, performant, and yet efficient chips that would make snapping photos take forever on older or non-specialised chips. Software and hardware dance together on iOS.
- izacus 8y agoNow you just need to persuade people that paying 500$+ more to get a tiny little less delay after capturing a photo is worth it to people. Since Apple seems to be failing at that.
- disishhsha 8y agoI use my phone a lot, and gladly spend a few $ a day for a marginal improvement in my quality of life. Another question - why do people spend $30k on a car when a $10k car is nearly as good? Seems like a much bigger waste of money than the phone.
- strict9 8y agoI use public transit unless leaving the city, almost never use uber/lyft, and yet have a new iPhone. Why? I hate driving and would rather be reading or goofing off on twitter than being angry behind the wheel as I get somewhere. Not for everyone but I'll never go back to driving.
- disishhsha 8y agoI’ve considered buying an expensive car with advanced stop-and-go traffic self-driving mode, but it’s more effective to live next to the train station.
- singingboyo 8y agoEh. Having the car self-stop is overrated in my experience. It's really hard to trust it, and not particularly difficult to drive stop-and-go yourself, so long as you accept that you can't rush it. Adaptive cruise control for fast but varying speeds is great, however - it makes the spacing much better, which makes things more relaxing. It also reduces the active brain load to 'what lane do I need, what's coming up in the next mile, and do I need to be preparing to stop/exit', rather than needing to worry about the car in front of you so much. For me at least, it also makes things like lane changes more deliberate, so instead of "need to change and keep speed" it's something more like "I'll get there when it's safe, and change lanes if it's really clear", which is a much better mindset.
- cosmie 8y ago+1 for the adaptive cruise control in fast but varying speed traffic. The variant that my Hyundai has is also really pleasant for stop-and-go traffic, too. As the space shrinks below the minimal set, it'll basically progressively slow down all the way to the point of coasting for quite a while before it finally comes to a full stop (if the traffic hasn't started going yet). A small thing, but since cruise control only disengages if it comes to a complete stop, it in effect makes for a really pleasant stop-and-go commute as it very rarely has to come to a complete stop and disengage along the way. Also has the secondary effect of drastically improving my gas mileage vs. when I manually drive the same commute. My previous experience with adaptive cruise control with another manufacturer wasn't nearly as polished, so I didn't think much of it when I bought the car. But it quickly became one of my favorite features!
- Spooky23 8y agoWhy do people buy mid size luxury sedans when a Honda Accord exists?
- izacus 8y agoMost people buy Honda Accords and similar class cars, so you're kinda proving his point :P
- vamos_davai 8y agoI don't really understand why 21 Savage got a 12 car garage when he's only got 6 cars.
- bepotts 8y agoGod I wish I could upvote this more than once. I almost fell out my chair laughing.
- debt 8y agoNobody. It's called a loan which Apple offers as part of the plan; they call it the Apple Upgrade Program.
- limeblack 8y agoThere is still an app gap for me. Amazon's owned Pillpack still does not have an Android app.
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- FridgeSeal 8y agoComponent quality, build quality, data security and privacy and length of support/updates. No matter how much money I pay for an Android phone, I have to fight with it to stop my data being harvested by everything from the very OS up. Sure, I can get decent quality cameras and build quality on Android phones but I’m either paying a stack of money for the likes of a Samsung or I’m paying for something from some sketchy Chinese brand. I don’t know if any android phone manufacturer has a hardware security implementation as high quality as Apple’s and even if there were, I’m not sure how many of the manufacturers I’d actually trust to build it properly, let alone have the OS use it properly. I’ve also got far more consistent battery life out of my iPhone X than I have out of my previous Android phones. Am I paying a premium? Yep. Is it a premium I’m happy to pay because I actually get what I want and my data is so far, more secure than on any Android device: yep.
- bigger_cheese 8y agoThe reason people want iPhones is the branding/marketing. Where I live iPhone is a status symbol. People buy them because they want to show off that they can afford it rather than because there is some special functionality they use. To me iPhone is like Rolex Watch most people who own them probably don't need them and could make do with something much cheaper. edit: Good example my coWorker told me about her 14 year old daughter begging her for an iPhone. It's the "cool" brand people want. When I was that age I remember Nokia 3210 was the phone everyone wanted. When you have that sort of luxury appeal you can charge more for the product and people will pay.
- scarface74 8y agoWell in most industrial nations, the iPhone has 30%+ market share, in the US it hovers around 50%. Nothing with that type of market share is a “status symbol”.
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- sjansen 8y agoAnecdata: I was going to upgrade my iPhone this year, until I saw the new prices and decided I could wait one more year. I should have been an easy sale. After a bad experience with Android, I have no desire to go back. Budget isn't an issue. But if Apple is going to price phones like laptops, I'm going to upgrade as slowly as I upgrade my laptop. (Which given how long it took them to get more than 16GB of RAM, I've gotten used to doing pretty slowly.)
- mstade 8y agoPrecisely the same here, minus android experience – been with Apple since the original iPhone. Money is really no object so I ordered the iPhone X the moment they became available, but the XS really doesn't seem to offer anything new at all. Even now, comparing the models I only see some minor camera changes and an A12 chip over A11. I don't even know what that means. All I know is this phone is crazy good, and it'll have to take some crazy innovation coming out of Apple to get me to upgrade. I fee the same about my MBP frankly. Crazy good hardware, I'll stick with them for sure, but I have no need for anything new because it's pretty much the same as the old.
- Arn_Thor 8y agoThat is indeed the trend. iPhones have in recent years been so good in every way that the need to upgrade year-on-year is reduced. With iOS 12 even a 6S feels snappy with a new battery. This trend of a slower replacement cycle has been going on a while, and that is precisely why Apple is raising prices. With slower sales that's the only way to keep revenue growing. And it's working too, iPhone sales met expectations everywhere in the last quarter except China. This isn't an "Apple is failing" story, it's a "Apple misjudged the China slowdown" story
- kemayo 8y agoSimilar boat for me. Got an X, didn't get an XS. The only thing that tempted me was the camera improvements. Which aren't so much camera hardware as them greatly improving their photo processing via specialized computing hardware, as I understand it. Still, I take a lot of photos, and everything about this change looks fantastic. Gruber's slideshow is good for demonstrating it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/sets/72157700003327111 https://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/sets/72157700003327111 Honestly, Apple's consistent approach of "new phone design with number-bump" one year then "same design with incremental improvements and an S" next year means that outside of unusual cases buying a new iPhone every year is silly. X to XS is underwhelming, but 7 to XS (or XR) is quite compelling. Given which... unless Apple does something outright worrying, I expect I'll buy whatever they put out this Autumn. Get the fancy new camera features, and more of a notable increase everywhere.
- scarface74 8y agoI paid $849 for an iPhone 6s 128GB in 2015. Not only is it still getting OS updates over 3 years later, according to benchmarks, it is faster than any Android Phone in single core performance that was released in 2018 - including the flagship Galaxy S9. Since the 2013 iPhone 5s is still getting updates, I suspect that the 6s will still get updates at least through 2020. But right now, you can get an iPhone 7 for $449. Again, if history is any guide, it should get OS updates through 2021.