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People say they expect more, but what, exactly? Do people still expect more from a laptop? They're laptops - they've not changed in 15 years. They just get fa

People say they expect more, but what, exactly? Do people still expect more from a laptop? They're laptops - they've not changed in 15 years. They just get faster, smaller and more easy to break. Phones have caught up. Nothings happening except more megapixels, plus slightly faster CPUs so..i dunno...snapchat loads faster or whatever, or more lenses or whatever, plus the sort of twilight zone $999 = £1049 pricing in the UK. Expect less, from now on, or you'll be disappointed.

deergomoo 7y ago
> plus the sort of twilight zone $999 = £1049 pricing in the UK I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Usually the lack of VAT in US prices explains weird conversions, but even factoring that in it comes to £970. Keeping it at £999 would be fine; to put it up by 50 quid is some serious bullshit.
- danw1979 7y ago
  > I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Hedging their bets against the pound tanking in 7 weeks time ?
  - mostvexing 7y ago
    I'd think they could buy currency futures or something to hedge against that risk.
    - Someone 7y ago
      Hedging risks costs money, too, statistically.
- stordoff 7y ago
  Pound hit a low of 1.1959 a week ago, and The Telegraph noted "there is a risk of sterling falling further"[1]. Taking that price gives £1002.42 ((999/1.1959)*1.2), and pricing in a potential drop doesn't seem totally unreasonable. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/03/markets-live-latest-news-pound-euro-ftse-1001/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/03/markets-live...
- jl6 7y ago
  It’s not just about exchange rate. The cost of doing business in Europe is generally higher than in the USA. Higher taxes, more consumer protections, more employee rights, cost of localization, smaller economies of scale, countless other differences... these all add up to Apple having higher costs in the UK. It’s not just Apple. Take a look at how AWS prices vary by region for another tech example.
matwood 7y ago
> People say they expect more, but what, exactly? Agreed. At this point the iPhone is basically a slab of glass. The are not many form factor changes to be made except the further shrinking of bezels and the notch. They could swap the back materials or flatten the sides like the iPhone 4, but that's just change to change. IMO, +4 hours of batter life on the new Pro is a huge deal. Every person I know carries around portable battery packs and is always stressing over battery life. Adding 4 hours (even if it ends up only being 2 in real world) is a bigger deal than probably even the cameras.
- derefr 7y ago
  > At this point the iPhone is basically a slab of glass. The are not many form factor changes to be made except the further shrinking of bezels and the notch. You're thinking of that backwards, I think. You don't change the hardware first. You come up with some new software (an OS feature; a library) that requires hardware that isn't already in the phone, and then redesign the phone to fit that new hardware in there. Like with the face sensors, or the ML-model-running cores. The hardware is designed, certainly, but it's designed as an answer to a constraint-satisfaction problem (i.e. a checklist of everything the new model needs to have/do), and big changes in the offered solution only happen when there are big changes in the constraints. That being said, Apple seems to be lacking, lately, in inventing (or acquiring!) the kind of software features that necessitate new hardware. They're not even first to the Night Mode thing, which would totally have been one of their type of differentiators just a few years ago. Have they lost some critical software-R&D talent or something?
  - jayflux 7y ago
    I agree with the OP, there’s only so much you can do with a phone, camera and battery life are one of the remaining things left with scope to improve. Apple are broadening as a company and the iPhone alone doesn’t define them anymore, that coupled with people holding on to phones for longer means innovation will die down.
rhizome 7y ago
People say they expect more, but what, exactly? I don't know about "people," but for one thing they only mentioned privacy in passing. Or how about IOS improvements? The world is probably waiting for ways not to have to touch the screen so much, and in a finger-mouse style. Let's see some cutting edge HCI.
- wvenable 7y ago
  Well it's a hardware event. The software doesn't really have to change in lock-step with the hardware.

deergomoo 7y ago

> plus the sort of twilight zone $999 = £1049 pricing in the UK I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Usually the lack of VAT in US prices explains weird conversions, but even factoring that in it comes to £970. Keeping it at £999 would be fine; to put it up by 50 quid is some serious bullshit.

danw1979 7y ago
> I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Hedging their bets against the pound tanking in 7 weeks time ?
- mostvexing 7y ago
  I'd think they could buy currency futures or something to hedge against that risk.
  - Someone 7y ago
    Hedging risks costs money, too, statistically.
stordoff 7y ago
Pound hit a low of 1.1959 a week ago, and The Telegraph noted "there is a risk of sterling falling further"[1]. Taking that price gives £1002.42 ((999/1.1959)*1.2), and pricing in a potential drop doesn't seem totally unreasonable. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/03/markets-live-latest-news-pound-euro-ftse-1001/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/03/markets-live...
jl6 7y ago
It’s not just about exchange rate. The cost of doing business in Europe is generally higher than in the USA. Higher taxes, more consumer protections, more employee rights, cost of localization, smaller economies of scale, countless other differences... these all add up to Apple having higher costs in the UK. It’s not just Apple. Take a look at how AWS prices vary by region for another tech example.

matwood 7y ago

> People say they expect more, but what, exactly? Agreed. At this point the iPhone is basically a slab of glass. The are not many form factor changes to be made except the further shrinking of bezels and the notch. They could swap the back materials or flatten the sides like the iPhone 4, but that's just change to change. IMO, +4 hours of batter life on the new Pro is a huge deal. Every person I know carries around portable battery packs and is always stressing over battery life. Adding 4 hours (even if it ends up only being 2 in real world) is a bigger deal than probably even the cameras.

derefr 7y ago
> At this point the iPhone is basically a slab of glass. The are not many form factor changes to be made except the further shrinking of bezels and the notch. You're thinking of that backwards, I think. You don't change the hardware first. You come up with some new software (an OS feature; a library) that requires hardware that isn't already in the phone, and then redesign the phone to fit that new hardware in there. Like with the face sensors, or the ML-model-running cores. The hardware is designed, certainly, but it's designed as an answer to a constraint-satisfaction problem (i.e. a checklist of everything the new model needs to have/do), and big changes in the offered solution only happen when there are big changes in the constraints. That being said, Apple seems to be lacking, lately, in inventing (or acquiring!) the kind of software features that necessitate new hardware. They're not even first to the Night Mode thing, which would totally have been one of their type of differentiators just a few years ago. Have they lost some critical software-R&D talent or something?
- jayflux 7y ago
  I agree with the OP, there’s only so much you can do with a phone, camera and battery life are one of the remaining things left with scope to improve. Apple are broadening as a company and the iPhone alone doesn’t define them anymore, that coupled with people holding on to phones for longer means innovation will die down.

rhizome 7y ago

People say they expect more, but what, exactly? I don't know about "people," but for one thing they only mentioned privacy in passing. Or how about IOS improvements? The world is probably waiting for ways not to have to touch the screen so much, and in a finger-mouse style. Let's see some cutting edge HCI.

wvenable 7y ago
Well it's a hardware event. The software doesn't really have to change in lock-step with the hardware.