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You're someone who is comfortable in a terminal desktop environment on Linux. What you or I do for storage is irrelevant to the wider consumer market. Apple's

You're someone who is comfortable in a terminal desktop environment on Linux. What you or I do for storage is irrelevant to the wider consumer market. Apple's hardware prices mean that millions of people buy the smallest on offer and pay Apple monthly instead. It's a deliberate play for recurring services revenue. My point is this: would they buy a phone that had virtually-zero free storage and rely solely on iCloud? Probably. Some of them had 64GB models, in my view they are already doing that!

vladvasiliu 10mo ago
I don't know, do these small-storage-size models actually have that big a market share compared to the others? They also sell 1 TB iPhones and I think on the latest generation the minimum storage has been increased. If nobody bought them they wouldn't sell them (see the lack of newer "mini" models). I always thought that these models with tiny storage and tiny ram (for laptops) where just so that they could hook you with a low "starting from" price. My point wasn't that "nobody falls into apple's trap", I'm sure plenty do. Rather, unless you're sure your audience is representative of the "wider consumer market", just asking them if they pay for icloud and they say yes, it doesn't prove much.
- walthamstow 10mo ago
  Approx 2/3rds of Americans pay Apple monthly for storage, according to consumer research. Original source is paywalled but lifted quotes here: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/08/21/cirp-survey-apple-icloud-storage-most-popular-apple-service/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/08/21/cirp-survey-apple-i... The smallest one is the cheapest, it's basic economics to assume that it sells the best. I would guess 60%+ buy the smallest, and I don't even need to look at data. You're welcome to disprove me. The popularity of the storage subscription is basically why Apple is a $4tn company.
  - vladvasiliu 10mo ago
    I don't know that I buy your basic economics theory. Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. According to [0], the iphone 17 pro has a larger share than the regular 17, although it's more expensive. And, again, paying for cloud storage doesn't automatically mean that they do it because their local storage is too small for their needs. Apple pushed iCloud as a solution to safely back up your stuff, and I doubt nobody bought into this angle. [0] https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/ https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/
    - walthamstow 10mo ago
      > Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. Yes, with services such as storage.
      - vladvasiliu 10mo ago
        I very much doubt that. I just checked the apple store page for an iphone 17. They try to sell me the larger storage model, they try to sell me apple care, but I don't see anything related to icloud. If I look at the pro, they try to sell me the max. The difference between a 512 GB and a 256 GB non-pro model is 250 Euros. The 200 GB icloud subscription (which, again, they don't talk about when buying an iphone) costs 2.99 Euros a month. Break even is in seven years. I bet many phones don't actually last that long. If you look at a 2TB plan (which doesn't have an equivalent phone) the break-even is 2 years. It makes no sense to try to sell the cheaper iPhone in the hope that I'll buy some icloud storage, since they actually leave money on the table. Looking at pro models, the difference between the base 256 + 2TB icloud and 2 TB model has an even longer break-even period! So, basically, it looks actually cheaper to get a smaller phone + icloud than a bigger one.
        walthamstow 10mo ago
        Apple is a consumer services company, it contributes the half of their profits, and storage is their most popular service. https://www.ft.com/content/3687fab7-3aea-4f81-9616-ed3d1f7be5b8 https://www.ft.com/content/3687fab7-3aea-4f81-9616-ed3d1f7be... > Services are on track to make up a quarter of Apple’s revenue but as much as 50 per cent of its profit, said JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, reflecting the “stickiness” of products such as recurring payments for iCloud storage. Your rational take makes sense but the market disagrees. Apple cloud storage is very, very poplar.

vladvasiliu 10mo ago

I don't know, do these small-storage-size models actually have that big a market share compared to the others? They also sell 1 TB iPhones and I think on the latest generation the minimum storage has been increased. If nobody bought them they wouldn't sell them (see the lack of newer "mini" models). I always thought that these models with tiny storage and tiny ram (for laptops) where just so that they could hook you with a low "starting from" price. My point wasn't that "nobody falls into apple's trap", I'm sure plenty do. Rather, unless you're sure your audience is representative of the "wider consumer market", just asking them if they pay for icloud and they say yes, it doesn't prove much.

walthamstow 10mo ago
Approx 2/3rds of Americans pay Apple monthly for storage, according to consumer research. Original source is paywalled but lifted quotes here: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/08/21/cirp-survey-apple-icloud-storage-most-popular-apple-service/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/08/21/cirp-survey-apple-i... The smallest one is the cheapest, it's basic economics to assume that it sells the best. I would guess 60%+ buy the smallest, and I don't even need to look at data. You're welcome to disprove me. The popularity of the storage subscription is basically why Apple is a $4tn company.
- vladvasiliu 10mo ago
  I don't know that I buy your basic economics theory. Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. According to [0], the iphone 17 pro has a larger share than the regular 17, although it's more expensive. And, again, paying for cloud storage doesn't automatically mean that they do it because their local storage is too small for their needs. Apple pushed iCloud as a solution to safely back up your stuff, and I doubt nobody bought into this angle. [0] https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/ https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/
  - walthamstow 10mo ago
    > Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. Yes, with services such as storage.
    - vladvasiliu 10mo ago
      I very much doubt that. I just checked the apple store page for an iphone 17. They try to sell me the larger storage model, they try to sell me apple care, but I don't see anything related to icloud. If I look at the pro, they try to sell me the max. The difference between a 512 GB and a 256 GB non-pro model is 250 Euros. The 200 GB icloud subscription (which, again, they don't talk about when buying an iphone) costs 2.99 Euros a month. Break even is in seven years. I bet many phones don't actually last that long. If you look at a 2TB plan (which doesn't have an equivalent phone) the break-even is 2 years. It makes no sense to try to sell the cheaper iPhone in the hope that I'll buy some icloud storage, since they actually leave money on the table. Looking at pro models, the difference between the base 256 + 2TB icloud and 2 TB model has an even longer break-even period! So, basically, it looks actually cheaper to get a smaller phone + icloud than a bigger one.
      - walthamstow 10mo ago
        Apple is a consumer services company, it contributes the half of their profits, and storage is their most popular service. https://www.ft.com/content/3687fab7-3aea-4f81-9616-ed3d1f7be5b8 https://www.ft.com/content/3687fab7-3aea-4f81-9616-ed3d1f7be... > Services are on track to make up a quarter of Apple’s revenue but as much as 50 per cent of its profit, said JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, reflecting the “stickiness” of products such as recurring payments for iCloud storage. Your rational take makes sense but the market disagrees. Apple cloud storage is very, very poplar.