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I cannot help but think that an iPhone XR mini would have been a great seller if it hit the $450 range. I just don't understand Apple these days, its like they

I cannot help but think that an iPhone XR mini would have been a great seller if it hit the $450 range. I just don't understand Apple these days, its like they have reverted to the early 90's where they kept jacking the price until even the loyal customers had to exit the ship. I had so believed they would repeat the iPod strategy and start at the top end and slowly squeeze the market by introducing models that filled in the lower price bands.

threeseed 8y ago
I don't understand why people are so confused on this. Apple ships models that fill the lower price brands. It is the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 which are still supported and being sold.
- milkytron 8y ago
  I think it's the more recent models that people want, and a new budget option would hit that market perfectly. Few people want a phone they know is old, even if only a year or two.
- throw0u1t 8y ago
  But I don't want an iPhone 7 or an 8. And it makes no sense that Apple sell both the 7 and the 8. Apple should make a phone like the SE which is made for the low-mid market, not just discount its old models.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    I’d take a high spec small phone. This is apparently an unusual thing to want.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - princeb 8y ago
      i'd happily pay up to $1200 for a high spec 4" phone. i'm on an SE. i got this phone fairly late into its life cycle and it was a deliberate choice. my biggest regret is probably not getting a second one before they discontinued it because when my current SE fails i have no idea where to get a replacement.
      - ltc5505 8y ago
        Look on eBay; there are a lot of SE's available for a good price. It's a great time to buy one and save it for when you need it. At some point the supply will get low enough that the price for a new one will noticeably increase, but we aren't at that point yet.
      - jlmorton 8y ago
        I'm shocked Apple doesn't fill this market. Many of my friends prefer SE-sized phones. I have friends who aren't upgrading from the SE specifically because they can't get a comparably-sized phone. I bought my wife the XS, not because it has a fancier display, but purely because it was the smallest model available - and it's still too big for her.
    - addicted 8y ago
      I haven’t understood why Apple doesn’t simply do this. They know from the laptop market that people are more than willing to pay different prices for different t sizes. Instead of differentiating their phones based on features, they should simply differentiate them based on screen size. That would allow them to meet several price points without making their customers feel like they’re cheap.
      - raydev 8y ago
        I think it's highly likely we'll see the SE return (or it's spritual successor). Remember, the SE was released outside of the usual iPhone release cycle in March 2016, so I think intent for a longer cycle was clear. Lots of people predicted between 2 and 3 years before the SE got an update, so if March 2019 passes without an announcement, then who knows what's next. Also, I think there's a high probability they're trying to work out the kinks in an SE-sized phone that is all screen. I'd be surprised if they released the SE2 and it has a home button.
    - Xcelerate 8y ago
      Same. Refusing to upgrade my SE because it's the perfect size. I had a coworker ask, "What is that thing?" which is humorous to say the least.
    - Animats 8y ago
      Phone screens had to get bigger to accommodate ads. With small screens, the content takes up all the space and there's no extra room for ads.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    I think The Rolling Stones put it best...
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Why? What’s wrong with an iPhone 7 or 8? Why would you prefer an SE-like model?
    - throw0u1t 8y ago
      I don't want a 7 because it comes in either 32GB or 256GB, no 64GB or 128GB. I don't want an 8 because I don't want a phone with a glass back. iPhone SE was perfect. Metal all round, small, affordable, powerful.
      - hopler 8y ago
        That's not a problem with the 7 per se, that's a problem with Apple's exploitative pricing strategy blocking a trivial engineering/marketing option. The glass back thing is a matter of taste, sure, but caring what material is inside the case is a bit silly.
        throw0u1t 8y ago
        That may be so, but the fact is that I can't buy a new 64GB iPhone 7. The trouble with a glass back is that it can still shatter when dropped even if it has a case on it.
        donarb 8y ago
        Don’t drop it then. I’m not being funny. I treat every phone I’ve ever owned as the expensive devices they are. I buy a protective case, don’t put it in my back pocket where it can be bent or broken. I don’t use it while standing over the toilet so it can’t be dropped in. When I drink with friends, I don’t lay my phone on the bar where some drunk can spill beer on it. It’s more than being able to have the use of a fully functioning device, at trade-in time my phone is worth more because I take of it.
        throw0u1t 8y ago
        I treat my phones the same, and I thought "I'll never drop this", until you do. Both times I've dropped the phone getting in or out of the car. First time it landed face first on the garage floor and shattered the screen and the second time it landed on its side and just scratched the case a little. Hard to know what will happen when you drop your phone.
  - mrweasel 8y ago
    I would argue that the iPhone 8 should not exist, but neither should the most recent iPhones. Apple seems to be locked in a system of releasing a new phone(s) every year, but they can't actually deliver something that justifies a new model. This isn't a problem exclusive to Apple, it's just very clear with their product line up. With the solve down in new features and design Apple could have skipped the iPhone 8, XS and XR. Except of cause "the market" and their stockholders expects new phones, regardless of the need.
  - systoll 8y ago
    The SE wasn’t made for the low-mid market. It was a miniaturised iPhone 6s released while the 6s was ‘current’, and got to ‘low-mid market’ pricing by being discounted as it got older.
    - woodson 8y ago
      That’s not quite true. When it came out, a 6s was about $649 and an SE was $399.
- untog 8y ago
  A lot of people are locked into two year upgrade plans. When their upgrade is available they want the latest device, not one that's three years old. There are people who already have an iPhone 7 they got at their last contract renewal two years ago! It's pretty simple psychology, "I don't understand why people are confused by this". What reason is there for the XR to exist other than to be a more affordable, new option compared to the XS? If it's failing at being a more affordable alternative, it's failing.
- 0x0 8y ago
  Buying iPhone 7 or 8, ie a one or two year old phone, practically guarantees that you'll hit the end of the road with iOS major version update availability one or two years earlier, which means you'll have to buy a new phone one or two years earlier. Not sure if the $100 or so that you save is worth losing a year of updates. In other words - adding $100 or so buys you a whole 'nother year or two of usage on your current purchase. If they offered new phones for a lower price but with the software update support lifetime that matches the flagship phones, then they might have a killer product!
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Apple doesn’t phase out their old hardware that quickly. I’m currently using an iPhone 6 with the latest iOS and no complaints.
    - 0x0 8y ago
      But if you had bought the 5 when the 6 was new, you'd be stuck at iOS 10, which is missing several security updates, two iterations of new emojis, and many apps refusing to install or update by now.
      - hopler 8y ago
        That's still 2+ years longer than a non-iOS phone would stay current.
        Yetanfou 8y ago
        Only when you solely rely on the vendor for updates. While this is the only option on iOS devices this is not the case for Android where several third-party distributions can be used to keep older devices up to date. Some of these offer OTA updates which makes them usable for 'normal' users, i.e. those who want to use the device but are not that keen (or knowledgeable enough) to tinker with them.
        8y ago
- pazimzadeh 8y ago
  "mini" meaning smaller form factor. I'm not upgrading from my SE until they release a mini.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > still supported How long, though? An Apple device is supported for a mere 5 years after release. The iPhone 7 came out in late 2016, so it has 3 years remaining. And unlike Android, once an iOS device goes out of support it stops being able to update apps or install up-to-date versions thereof, because these always require the latest release of iOS... With Android, even if you don't get that OTA update, the apps will still work and you can often install a modded version of the OS that's kept up to date. It's just so much better.
- protomyth 8y ago
  I'm not confused, I just don't consider iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 anything other than clearance models. This is electronics, buying old models is just insane particularity since they aren't discounted enough over their original prices.
  - hopler 8y ago
    7 is discounted 15% and 8 is discounted 25%, and they aren't so old.
    - protomyth 8y ago
      A two model year old phone is only discounted at 15%. I think that about sums up my problem with buying any of them. Even 25% for last years phone is too low a discount.
      - wonthegame 8y ago
        Who wants a 32gb iphone too, 16gb is barely usable nowadays. The typical app is 500+mb plus the extras it downloads afterwards. Which is a whole other story.
        Humdeee 8y ago
        What common apps are over half a gig? Other than heavier mobile games, I don't know of any apps that touch the 0.5gb mark. Even the bloated social network apps are normally in the 100-300mb range...
- bonaldi 8y ago
  Consider the iPod: the differentiation was about things people would care about, like size, capacity, portability, style, etc. You weren't made to feel cheap just because you entered at the lower price points. You wanted an iPod Mini, and it made sense that it cost less than the Classic: you were still getting "the best" version of the thing you desired. Same story with the Mac: buying the iBook didn't make you feel like you were cheaping out, you were making a conscious choice for what you wanted, not buying "last year's PowerBook". With the phones it's very different. Buying an old phone doesn't make you feel good, it just makes you think "I know this isn't the best, but it's all I could afford", and that's very un-Apple feeling -- especially when you still have to pay quite a lot. Apple has apparently boxed itself into a corner, though: this is its second attempt to segment the line (the 5c being the first) and both have failed because they didn't feel like different things, they just felt like cheaper ones: the 5c was just a plastic 5S, and the XR is basically an XS with cheaper camera and screen. So how else can they differentiate? Making a small phone won't really fly - while I'd love an SE-sized XS, the Chinese market they need to win back wants its phones big. That only leaves the margin to cut, and that's a shibboleth. You can see why they'd much rather focus on services to escape this fix.
  - jinushaun 8y ago
    Yes! You hit the nail on the head! The iPhone needs to be split between iPhone Mini, iPhone and iPhone Pro, instead of current model of “last year”, “this year medium” and “this year large”. As much as I wanted to love the iPhone SE, it always felt like last year’s model. It wasn’t a differentiated product that had a proper update cycle. A lot of people in the community were hoping for a proper update to the SE. I also wanted to love the 5C because I actually preferred the design over the metal iPhone, but they hindered it with last year’s specs. I was always hoping they would break out a proper model line from the 5C, but it died with the 6.
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
      > As much as I wanted to love the iPhone SE, it always felt like last year’s model. It wasn’t a differentiated product that had a proper update cycle. A lot of people in the community were hoping for a proper update to the SE. I have an SE and appearance aside I disagree. It had the guts of the current model including touch id and performs quite well for me. Now, sure, it feels a little bit left behind. Maybe. It's still fast enough to run the apps I want. But, let's face it, all of the updates that the 7/8/Xfoo have had are updates I don't want. The problem I've got with Apple is that they don't have any new products I want. I just had them replace the battery on the SE (which was a clusterfuck in its own right) and I just bought a refurb 2015 MBP. Granted Apple probably made more money off the sale of a refurb than they would've off of a new unit... but if the lineup hasn't improved in another six years I'm off to Linux on the desktop.
- x0x0 8y ago
  I advise all relatives + family to never buy a generation back: you're one year closer to being out of support (either de jure or de facto because of speed) for the os, security updates, etc.
- wonthegame 8y ago
  Because they're still the same price as they were at launch. It feels really bad paying 90% of the cost of current gen. In some cases Apple increased the price years later on the same product - MacBook Air 2013/2015. Combined with hitting a trillion dollar market cap it really makes the customer wonder.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  …unless you’re in Germany.
- youngtaff 8y ago
  iPhone 7 is a 2 1/2 year old phone and Apple still want to charge a premium price for it!
mruniverse 8y ago
The early 90's is right. They had that great GUI and plug-n-play to themselves for years, but still managed to almost go under.
georgespencer 8y ago
> Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of product marketing, told CNET in an interview Wednesday that the device has “been our most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available.” https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-xr-has-been-its-top-selling-iphone-since-launch-and-it-will-give-money-to-product-red/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-xr-has-been-its-top-...
- frankchn 8y ago
  Keep in mind that the iPhone XR launched on 10/26, a month after the iPhone XS on 9/21. What Greg Joswiak says is likely true, but you have to account for the fact that peak demand for the XS has already passed by the time the XR is launched, so total XS sales to date could still be more.
  - georgespencer 8y ago
    Good point! I (perhaps baselessly) think the XR has been the most popular phone, but there's an iPhone-wide softening in demand.
    - ksec 8y ago
      And nearly 40% of XS in total were sold during the period where XR were not available. So XR being the most popular phone doesn't paint an accurate whole picture.
- telltruth 8y ago
  I'm wary of these type of claims by Apple. They seem carefully craft such claims to be factual in some twisted sense but not reflective of actual state of things. For example, at every announcement they have claimed that their customer satisfaction is 96%. This is very hard to believe despite of battery gate, headphone jack removal etc. Almost every release they say they broke record which is technically true but they don't mention that this was usual fanboy rush that quiets down within a week, sometime in just couple of days.
rahoulb 8y ago
Someone made the point that Apples margins are quite consistent and have been for years. But a larger proportion of their revenue comes from services which are normally very high margin. Which implies that they are actually cutting their margins on hardware - in other words the phones are expensive because they cost more to build, not because Apple are getting greedy.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- have_faith 8y ago
  > because they cost more to build Then they should offer models that are cheaper to manufacture, like the 5c. I'm surprised not to see a successor to the 5c. Maybe they are worried it would be too popular and gouge sales of flagship models negating some of their premium branding. I'm currently on a 6s and see no update path for myself, I would happily sacrifice faceID and some of the higher-end phone materials for a modern paired down iPhone. I have about as much confidence in this appearing though as them fixing the state of the keyboards on the MBP's.
  - benzoate 8y ago
    The 5c was essentially an iPhone 5 (the previous years iPhone) in a plastic shell, with some other minor differences. Given that Apple are continuing to sell the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 you could say that the spirit of the 5c lives on (iPhone 7 is $450, vaguely the same price as the 5C).
  - SyneRyder 8y ago
    > I'm surprised not to see a successor to the 5c. Maybe they are worried it would be too popular... The 5C was a sales flop. In Australia, the 5S was outselling the 5C by eleven times [1]. Even in China, people were buying the more expensive iPhone rather than the plastic 5C one [2]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-telcos-struggle-to-sell-iphone-5c-20130924-2ubc5.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-telcos-struggle... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/apples-iphone-5c-sales-story-is-a-complex-one/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/apples-iphone-5c-sales-sto...
sytelus 8y ago
Competing on price is not in Apple's DNA and that's a good thing for a company that obsesses on providing top end user experience. But eventually all products and innovations become commoditized and providing differentiation becomes harder every day. A primary thing that has kept Apple alive 'n kicking is establishing new product categories and exploit first mover advantage to the fullest. Mac > iPhone > iPad > Watch are things in right direction but they desperately need more arrows. I'm hopping Smart Home, VR and car would be the next product lines where they can change the game. To keep growth rate going they need one iPhone like major product every 15-20 years and new minor product every 3-5 years. Ability to continue creating new product lines seems to be the precondition for sustained growth rate for Apple's business model given the inevitable commoditization cycles and subsequent race to the bottom for margins.
- whywhywhywhy 8y ago
  > and that's a good thing for a company that obsesses on providing top end user experience Do they actually do that though? Feels like BOM reduction exercises like removing the short power cable from their $3000 laptops and headphone dongles from their $1000 phone, laptops still shipping with painfully low space that triggers space warnings on their OS after you add just a few files to them (complete nightmare if you work at a company that cheaps out on laptops). Feels like the user experience is actually secondary to maximizing ASP and minimizing BOM.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Agreed, GF has an iphone 8. I have a Nokia 6.1 (the black copper one). Side by side if I knew nothing about either I'd be hard pressed to tell which was the 800 quid phone and which was the 200 quid phone. Throw in AndroidOne and recent Android and the experience is largely similar, I mean sure the processor in hers would murder mine in a benchmark but in real world use do I ever care about it, they feel equally fast on a human time scale (and I have a better adblocker). There was a time that putting an iphone next to a 200 quid phone would have been a laughable comparison not so much anymore.
allenleein 8y ago
Summary of the tweets of Steven Sinofsky(1): 1- Pricing not only says who can afford your product but also establishes a brand, determines channel, & more. 2- The first key to having low priced offerings is that you have to have a set of partners who are willing to compete on thin margins in order to bring the product to market. 3- When people say Apple needs a cheaper phone there are many questions to answer beyond the get over yourself luxury brand issue. 4- What is distribution constraint? What partner absorbs some cost to leave margin? What is the branding? 5-Easy question — would a cheap phone be sold and supported in Apple stores side by side? How would the rest of the customers feel about more crowds and tougher appointments competing with people who paid half as much? Sell one phone against another—how? 6- Anyone that thinks Apple is unaware of the challenge and has not sketched out ideas, tested them, and thought about them immensely is crazy. 7- What does all this mean? Apple may or may not have a “pricing” or “price point” or “structural” / secular challenge. For sure just releasing a cheap phone doesn’t make all better. All takes place in context of lots of cheap/bad competitive phones. (1): https://mobile.twitter.com/stevesi/status/1081174886901473280 https://mobile.twitter.com/stevesi/status/108117488690147328...
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Considering Sinofsky's record, I wouldn't necessarily consider him a credible authority on this. There's an obvious difference between "a cheaper phone" and making the range as affordable as it was five years ago - instead of relying on so-called luxury branding while offering very little extra and annoying customers with product issues (missing headphone jack, BatteryGate, etc) and mediocre software updates. Apple doesn't have an iPhone problem. Apple has an Apple problem. It's at least possible (who knows for sure...?) that if Jobs were still alive Apple would have opened up at least a couple of innovative new product lines by now - not just gimmicks like Watch, but new "I didn't know I wanted that, but now I see it I obviously do" products, with supporting services and industry partners, all pitched at the affordable-at-a-push level that Apple products originally lived in. This is where Cook has failed. There's nothing new on the table. Putting up prices is a short-term tactic. So is "a cheap phone". What Apple needs is a coherent and impressive long-term strategy, and investors aren't seeing that.
michaelt 8y ago
Apple will sell you a new iPhone 7 32GB for $449 [1] So they already have an offering in that price band. Sure, it's bigger than the iPhone SE, and naturally it doesn't have the prestige of something that costs twice as much, but if you want a new iPhone today and you've got $450, Apple has a product for you. [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7 https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7
- zamadatix 8y ago
  It's also burned through roughly half it's support lifecycle already meaning it's about the same as buying an actually "new" $900 phone over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone
  - beerlord 8y ago
    Still a hell of a lot better than an Android device!
  - michaelt 8y ago
    Sure, unless you drop it and have to replace it before the support lifecycle ends.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  But you’d only make that choice if you really, really want to be in the Apple ecosystem. Especially in China, there just doesn’t seem to be the same drive from consumers, even if it’s likely affected by Chinese government policies regarding cloud services.

threeseed 8y ago

I don't understand why people are so confused on this. Apple ships models that fill the lower price brands. It is the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 which are still supported and being sold.

milkytron 8y ago
I think it's the more recent models that people want, and a new budget option would hit that market perfectly. Few people want a phone they know is old, even if only a year or two.
throw0u1t 8y ago
But I don't want an iPhone 7 or an 8. And it makes no sense that Apple sell both the 7 and the 8. Apple should make a phone like the SE which is made for the low-mid market, not just discount its old models.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  I’d take a high spec small phone. This is apparently an unusual thing to want.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - princeb 8y ago
    i'd happily pay up to $1200 for a high spec 4" phone. i'm on an SE. i got this phone fairly late into its life cycle and it was a deliberate choice. my biggest regret is probably not getting a second one before they discontinued it because when my current SE fails i have no idea where to get a replacement.
    - ltc5505 8y ago
      Look on eBay; there are a lot of SE's available for a good price. It's a great time to buy one and save it for when you need it. At some point the supply will get low enough that the price for a new one will noticeably increase, but we aren't at that point yet.
    - jlmorton 8y ago
      I'm shocked Apple doesn't fill this market. Many of my friends prefer SE-sized phones. I have friends who aren't upgrading from the SE specifically because they can't get a comparably-sized phone. I bought my wife the XS, not because it has a fancier display, but purely because it was the smallest model available - and it's still too big for her.
  - addicted 8y ago
    I haven’t understood why Apple doesn’t simply do this. They know from the laptop market that people are more than willing to pay different prices for different t sizes. Instead of differentiating their phones based on features, they should simply differentiate them based on screen size. That would allow them to meet several price points without making their customers feel like they’re cheap.
    - raydev 8y ago
      I think it's highly likely we'll see the SE return (or it's spritual successor). Remember, the SE was released outside of the usual iPhone release cycle in March 2016, so I think intent for a longer cycle was clear. Lots of people predicted between 2 and 3 years before the SE got an update, so if March 2019 passes without an announcement, then who knows what's next. Also, I think there's a high probability they're trying to work out the kinks in an SE-sized phone that is all screen. I'd be surprised if they released the SE2 and it has a home button.
  - Xcelerate 8y ago
    Same. Refusing to upgrade my SE because it's the perfect size. I had a coworker ask, "What is that thing?" which is humorous to say the least.
  - Animats 8y ago
    Phone screens had to get bigger to accommodate ads. With small screens, the content takes up all the space and there's no extra room for ads.
- paulcole 8y ago
  I think The Rolling Stones put it best...
- code_duck 8y ago
  Why? What’s wrong with an iPhone 7 or 8? Why would you prefer an SE-like model?
  - throw0u1t 8y ago
    I don't want a 7 because it comes in either 32GB or 256GB, no 64GB or 128GB. I don't want an 8 because I don't want a phone with a glass back. iPhone SE was perfect. Metal all round, small, affordable, powerful.
    - hopler 8y ago
      That's not a problem with the 7 per se, that's a problem with Apple's exploitative pricing strategy blocking a trivial engineering/marketing option. The glass back thing is a matter of taste, sure, but caring what material is inside the case is a bit silly.
      - throw0u1t 8y ago
        That may be so, but the fact is that I can't buy a new 64GB iPhone 7. The trouble with a glass back is that it can still shatter when dropped even if it has a case on it.
        donarb 8y ago
        Don’t drop it then. I’m not being funny. I treat every phone I’ve ever owned as the expensive devices they are. I buy a protective case, don’t put it in my back pocket where it can be bent or broken. I don’t use it while standing over the toilet so it can’t be dropped in. When I drink with friends, I don’t lay my phone on the bar where some drunk can spill beer on it. It’s more than being able to have the use of a fully functioning device, at trade-in time my phone is worth more because I take of it.
        throw0u1t 8y ago
        I treat my phones the same, and I thought "I'll never drop this", until you do. Both times I've dropped the phone getting in or out of the car. First time it landed face first on the garage floor and shattered the screen and the second time it landed on its side and just scratched the case a little. Hard to know what will happen when you drop your phone.
- mrweasel 8y ago
  I would argue that the iPhone 8 should not exist, but neither should the most recent iPhones. Apple seems to be locked in a system of releasing a new phone(s) every year, but they can't actually deliver something that justifies a new model. This isn't a problem exclusive to Apple, it's just very clear with their product line up. With the solve down in new features and design Apple could have skipped the iPhone 8, XS and XR. Except of cause "the market" and their stockholders expects new phones, regardless of the need.
- systoll 8y ago
  The SE wasn’t made for the low-mid market. It was a miniaturised iPhone 6s released while the 6s was ‘current’, and got to ‘low-mid market’ pricing by being discounted as it got older.
  - woodson 8y ago
    That’s not quite true. When it came out, a 6s was about $649 and an SE was $399.
untog 8y ago
A lot of people are locked into two year upgrade plans. When their upgrade is available they want the latest device, not one that's three years old. There are people who already have an iPhone 7 they got at their last contract renewal two years ago! It's pretty simple psychology, "I don't understand why people are confused by this". What reason is there for the XR to exist other than to be a more affordable, new option compared to the XS? If it's failing at being a more affordable alternative, it's failing.
0x0 8y ago
Buying iPhone 7 or 8, ie a one or two year old phone, practically guarantees that you'll hit the end of the road with iOS major version update availability one or two years earlier, which means you'll have to buy a new phone one or two years earlier. Not sure if the $100 or so that you save is worth losing a year of updates. In other words - adding $100 or so buys you a whole 'nother year or two of usage on your current purchase. If they offered new phones for a lower price but with the software update support lifetime that matches the flagship phones, then they might have a killer product!
- code_duck 8y ago
  Apple doesn’t phase out their old hardware that quickly. I’m currently using an iPhone 6 with the latest iOS and no complaints.
  - 0x0 8y ago
    But if you had bought the 5 when the 6 was new, you'd be stuck at iOS 10, which is missing several security updates, two iterations of new emojis, and many apps refusing to install or update by now.
    - hopler 8y ago
      That's still 2+ years longer than a non-iOS phone would stay current.
      - Yetanfou 8y ago
        Only when you solely rely on the vendor for updates. While this is the only option on iOS devices this is not the case for Android where several third-party distributions can be used to keep older devices up to date. Some of these offer OTA updates which makes them usable for 'normal' users, i.e. those who want to use the device but are not that keen (or knowledgeable enough) to tinker with them.
        8y ago
pazimzadeh 8y ago
"mini" meaning smaller form factor. I'm not upgrading from my SE until they release a mini.
zozbot123 8y ago
> still supported How long, though? An Apple device is supported for a mere 5 years after release. The iPhone 7 came out in late 2016, so it has 3 years remaining. And unlike Android, once an iOS device goes out of support it stops being able to update apps or install up-to-date versions thereof, because these always require the latest release of iOS... With Android, even if you don't get that OTA update, the apps will still work and you can often install a modded version of the OS that's kept up to date. It's just so much better.
protomyth 8y ago
I'm not confused, I just don't consider iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 anything other than clearance models. This is electronics, buying old models is just insane particularity since they aren't discounted enough over their original prices.
- hopler 8y ago
  7 is discounted 15% and 8 is discounted 25%, and they aren't so old.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    A two model year old phone is only discounted at 15%. I think that about sums up my problem with buying any of them. Even 25% for last years phone is too low a discount.
    - wonthegame 8y ago
      Who wants a 32gb iphone too, 16gb is barely usable nowadays. The typical app is 500+mb plus the extras it downloads afterwards. Which is a whole other story.
      - Humdeee 8y ago
        What common apps are over half a gig? Other than heavier mobile games, I don't know of any apps that touch the 0.5gb mark. Even the bloated social network apps are normally in the 100-300mb range...
bonaldi 8y ago
Consider the iPod: the differentiation was about things people would care about, like size, capacity, portability, style, etc. You weren't made to feel cheap just because you entered at the lower price points. You wanted an iPod Mini, and it made sense that it cost less than the Classic: you were still getting "the best" version of the thing you desired. Same story with the Mac: buying the iBook didn't make you feel like you were cheaping out, you were making a conscious choice for what you wanted, not buying "last year's PowerBook". With the phones it's very different. Buying an old phone doesn't make you feel good, it just makes you think "I know this isn't the best, but it's all I could afford", and that's very un-Apple feeling -- especially when you still have to pay quite a lot. Apple has apparently boxed itself into a corner, though: this is its second attempt to segment the line (the 5c being the first) and both have failed because they didn't feel like different things, they just felt like cheaper ones: the 5c was just a plastic 5S, and the XR is basically an XS with cheaper camera and screen. So how else can they differentiate? Making a small phone won't really fly - while I'd love an SE-sized XS, the Chinese market they need to win back wants its phones big. That only leaves the margin to cut, and that's a shibboleth. You can see why they'd much rather focus on services to escape this fix.
- jinushaun 8y ago
  Yes! You hit the nail on the head! The iPhone needs to be split between iPhone Mini, iPhone and iPhone Pro, instead of current model of “last year”, “this year medium” and “this year large”. As much as I wanted to love the iPhone SE, it always felt like last year’s model. It wasn’t a differentiated product that had a proper update cycle. A lot of people in the community were hoping for a proper update to the SE. I also wanted to love the 5C because I actually preferred the design over the metal iPhone, but they hindered it with last year’s specs. I was always hoping they would break out a proper model line from the 5C, but it died with the 6.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    > As much as I wanted to love the iPhone SE, it always felt like last year’s model. It wasn’t a differentiated product that had a proper update cycle. A lot of people in the community were hoping for a proper update to the SE. I have an SE and appearance aside I disagree. It had the guts of the current model including touch id and performs quite well for me. Now, sure, it feels a little bit left behind. Maybe. It's still fast enough to run the apps I want. But, let's face it, all of the updates that the 7/8/Xfoo have had are updates I don't want. The problem I've got with Apple is that they don't have any new products I want. I just had them replace the battery on the SE (which was a clusterfuck in its own right) and I just bought a refurb 2015 MBP. Granted Apple probably made more money off the sale of a refurb than they would've off of a new unit... but if the lineup hasn't improved in another six years I'm off to Linux on the desktop.
x0x0 8y ago
I advise all relatives + family to never buy a generation back: you're one year closer to being out of support (either de jure or de facto because of speed) for the os, security updates, etc.
wonthegame 8y ago
Because they're still the same price as they were at launch. It feels really bad paying 90% of the cost of current gen. In some cases Apple increased the price years later on the same product - MacBook Air 2013/2015. Combined with hitting a trillion dollar market cap it really makes the customer wonder.
robin_reala 8y ago
…unless you’re in Germany.
youngtaff 8y ago
iPhone 7 is a 2 1/2 year old phone and Apple still want to charge a premium price for it!

mruniverse 8y ago

The early 90's is right. They had that great GUI and plug-n-play to themselves for years, but still managed to almost go under.

georgespencer 8y ago

> Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of product marketing, told CNET in an interview Wednesday that the device has “been our most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available.” https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-xr-has-been-its-top-selling-iphone-since-launch-and-it-will-give-money-to-product-red/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apples-iphone-xr-has-been-its-top-...

frankchn 8y ago
Keep in mind that the iPhone XR launched on 10/26, a month after the iPhone XS on 9/21. What Greg Joswiak says is likely true, but you have to account for the fact that peak demand for the XS has already passed by the time the XR is launched, so total XS sales to date could still be more.
- georgespencer 8y ago
  Good point! I (perhaps baselessly) think the XR has been the most popular phone, but there's an iPhone-wide softening in demand.
  - ksec 8y ago
    And nearly 40% of XS in total were sold during the period where XR were not available. So XR being the most popular phone doesn't paint an accurate whole picture.
telltruth 8y ago
I'm wary of these type of claims by Apple. They seem carefully craft such claims to be factual in some twisted sense but not reflective of actual state of things. For example, at every announcement they have claimed that their customer satisfaction is 96%. This is very hard to believe despite of battery gate, headphone jack removal etc. Almost every release they say they broke record which is technically true but they don't mention that this was usual fanboy rush that quiets down within a week, sometime in just couple of days.

rahoulb 8y ago

Someone made the point that Apples margins are quite consistent and have been for years. But a larger proportion of their revenue comes from services which are normally very high margin. Which implies that they are actually cutting their margins on hardware - in other words the phones are expensive because they cost more to build, not because Apple are getting greedy.

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have_faith 8y ago
> because they cost more to build Then they should offer models that are cheaper to manufacture, like the 5c. I'm surprised not to see a successor to the 5c. Maybe they are worried it would be too popular and gouge sales of flagship models negating some of their premium branding. I'm currently on a 6s and see no update path for myself, I would happily sacrifice faceID and some of the higher-end phone materials for a modern paired down iPhone. I have about as much confidence in this appearing though as them fixing the state of the keyboards on the MBP's.
- benzoate 8y ago
  The 5c was essentially an iPhone 5 (the previous years iPhone) in a plastic shell, with some other minor differences. Given that Apple are continuing to sell the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 you could say that the spirit of the 5c lives on (iPhone 7 is $450, vaguely the same price as the 5C).
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  > I'm surprised not to see a successor to the 5c. Maybe they are worried it would be too popular... The 5C was a sales flop. In Australia, the 5S was outselling the 5C by eleven times [1]. Even in China, people were buying the more expensive iPhone rather than the plastic 5C one [2]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-telcos-struggle-to-sell-iphone-5c-20130924-2ubc5.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/australian-telcos-struggle... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/apples-iphone-5c-sales-story-is-a-complex-one/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/apples-iphone-5c-sales-sto...

sytelus 8y ago

Competing on price is not in Apple's DNA and that's a good thing for a company that obsesses on providing top end user experience. But eventually all products and innovations become commoditized and providing differentiation becomes harder every day. A primary thing that has kept Apple alive 'n kicking is establishing new product categories and exploit first mover advantage to the fullest. Mac > iPhone > iPad > Watch are things in right direction but they desperately need more arrows. I'm hopping Smart Home, VR and car would be the next product lines where they can change the game. To keep growth rate going they need one iPhone like major product every 15-20 years and new minor product every 3-5 years. Ability to continue creating new product lines seems to be the precondition for sustained growth rate for Apple's business model given the inevitable commoditization cycles and subsequent race to the bottom for margins.

whywhywhywhy 8y ago
> and that's a good thing for a company that obsesses on providing top end user experience Do they actually do that though? Feels like BOM reduction exercises like removing the short power cable from their $3000 laptops and headphone dongles from their $1000 phone, laptops still shipping with painfully low space that triggers space warnings on their OS after you add just a few files to them (complete nightmare if you work at a company that cheaps out on laptops). Feels like the user experience is actually secondary to maximizing ASP and minimizing BOM.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Agreed, GF has an iphone 8. I have a Nokia 6.1 (the black copper one). Side by side if I knew nothing about either I'd be hard pressed to tell which was the 800 quid phone and which was the 200 quid phone. Throw in AndroidOne and recent Android and the experience is largely similar, I mean sure the processor in hers would murder mine in a benchmark but in real world use do I ever care about it, they feel equally fast on a human time scale (and I have a better adblocker). There was a time that putting an iphone next to a 200 quid phone would have been a laughable comparison not so much anymore.

allenleein 8y ago

Summary of the tweets of Steven Sinofsky(1): 1- Pricing not only says who can afford your product but also establishes a brand, determines channel, & more. 2- The first key to having low priced offerings is that you have to have a set of partners who are willing to compete on thin margins in order to bring the product to market. 3- When people say Apple needs a cheaper phone there are many questions to answer beyond the get over yourself luxury brand issue. 4- What is distribution constraint? What partner absorbs some cost to leave margin? What is the branding? 5-Easy question — would a cheap phone be sold and supported in Apple stores side by side? How would the rest of the customers feel about more crowds and tougher appointments competing with people who paid half as much? Sell one phone against another—how? 6- Anyone that thinks Apple is unaware of the challenge and has not sketched out ideas, tested them, and thought about them immensely is crazy. 7- What does all this mean? Apple may or may not have a “pricing” or “price point” or “structural” / secular challenge. For sure just releasing a cheap phone doesn’t make all better. All takes place in context of lots of cheap/bad competitive phones. (1): https://mobile.twitter.com/stevesi/status/1081174886901473280 https://mobile.twitter.com/stevesi/status/108117488690147328...

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Considering Sinofsky's record, I wouldn't necessarily consider him a credible authority on this. There's an obvious difference between "a cheaper phone" and making the range as affordable as it was five years ago - instead of relying on so-called luxury branding while offering very little extra and annoying customers with product issues (missing headphone jack, BatteryGate, etc) and mediocre software updates. Apple doesn't have an iPhone problem. Apple has an Apple problem. It's at least possible (who knows for sure...?) that if Jobs were still alive Apple would have opened up at least a couple of innovative new product lines by now - not just gimmicks like Watch, but new "I didn't know I wanted that, but now I see it I obviously do" products, with supporting services and industry partners, all pitched at the affordable-at-a-push level that Apple products originally lived in. This is where Cook has failed. There's nothing new on the table. Putting up prices is a short-term tactic. So is "a cheap phone". What Apple needs is a coherent and impressive long-term strategy, and investors aren't seeing that.

michaelt 8y ago

Apple will sell you a new iPhone 7 32GB for $449 [1] So they already have an offering in that price band. Sure, it's bigger than the iPhone SE, and naturally it doesn't have the prestige of something that costs twice as much, but if you want a new iPhone today and you've got $450, Apple has a product for you. [1] https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7 https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-7

zamadatix 8y ago
It's also burned through roughly half it's support lifecycle already meaning it's about the same as buying an actually "new" $900 phone over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone
- beerlord 8y ago
  Still a hell of a lot better than an Android device!
- michaelt 8y ago
  Sure, unless you drop it and have to replace it before the support lifecycle ends.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
But you’d only make that choice if you really, really want to be in the Apple ecosystem. Especially in China, there just doesn’t seem to be the same drive from consumers, even if it’s likely affected by Chinese government policies regarding cloud services.