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> There’s a general rule about consumer electronics: The older a device becomes, the more competitors appear and prices fall. This was true for televisions, per

> There’s a general rule about consumer electronics: The older a device becomes, the more competitors appear and prices fall. This was true for televisions, personal computers and portable music players. > It was supposed to happen with smartphones. But the iPhone has defied gravity. The lock-in effect is real. The Sony and RCA of yesteryear would have killed for this sort of walled garden. … > The new flagship iPhones that Apple is set to unveil this week will feature speedier processors, more sophisticated cameras and titanium rather than stainless steel cases, according to supply chain analysts. The changes are expected to come with a $100 to $200 price increase, bringing the cost of an iPhone Pro to $1,100 and the Pro Max to $1,200. Such paper-thin excuses to raise the price. By all rights, the genuine tech in an iPhone has become so pedestrian that prices should have plummeted, yet they continue to increase as long as the market will bear it.

Kirby64 3y ago
What exactly is this "genuine tech" that should plummet pricing? Switching to 3nm chips, titanium casing, and more complicated camera setups all seem like they would cost more money, not less. You can argue the degree, but it sure seems like it's costing Apple more money to make them. The BoM cost estimates by teardown companies continue to climb on iPhones year over year.
- hooverd 3y ago
  What do people need so much phone for? I remember getting an iPhone 3GS, and the upgrades from that were big leaps, but the difference between my OnePlus and current Pixel weren't.
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    That's a different argument though, no? That's for the consumer to decide. And the consumer is free to purchase an older generation phone (at a much lower price, mind you) if the performance specs of those are just fine. iPhones tend to have an extremely long lifespan for their hardware, so running an old iPhone SE or something is perfectly acceptable. I was asking the GP specifically what they thought they were getting actual scaling in cost from. It seems to me that the actual expensive stuff in their phones is getting more expensive every generation, which would lead to a need to raise prices. Again, the degree is questionable, but I don't think anyone here is under the impression a titanium case is the same cost to manufacture as a stainless steel one.
  - P_I_Staker 3y ago
    Even since the iPhone 6, and I would argue, all the way back to the S4 Examples picked, because that's what I used.

Kirby64 3y ago

What exactly is this "genuine tech" that should plummet pricing? Switching to 3nm chips, titanium casing, and more complicated camera setups all seem like they would cost more money, not less. You can argue the degree, but it sure seems like it's costing Apple more money to make them. The BoM cost estimates by teardown companies continue to climb on iPhones year over year.

hooverd 3y ago
What do people need so much phone for? I remember getting an iPhone 3GS, and the upgrades from that were big leaps, but the difference between my OnePlus and current Pixel weren't.
- Kirby64 3y ago
  That's a different argument though, no? That's for the consumer to decide. And the consumer is free to purchase an older generation phone (at a much lower price, mind you) if the performance specs of those are just fine. iPhones tend to have an extremely long lifespan for their hardware, so running an old iPhone SE or something is perfectly acceptable. I was asking the GP specifically what they thought they were getting actual scaling in cost from. It seems to me that the actual expensive stuff in their phones is getting more expensive every generation, which would lead to a need to raise prices. Again, the degree is questionable, but I don't think anyone here is under the impression a titanium case is the same cost to manufacture as a stainless steel one.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  Even since the iPhone 6, and I would argue, all the way back to the S4 Examples picked, because that's what I used.