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iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

nytimes.com

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Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#351

Post by jeevand »

shawkinaw wrote: post #267
skywhopper wrote: post #105

It probably doesn't help that the subsidy model has completely changed. But personally, I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the need to upgrade right away. I was so ready to upgrade when the contract on my 4 expired. It was really a pain to use after a couple of years. But my 5S has now lasted me two and a half years and other than wishing I had more storage capacity, there's real…

Can anyone shed some light on why the subsidy model is going/has gone away? It seems to me cell providers would not want to stop essentially requiring 2-year contracts, so why have they? Fear of government action, or market competition? Or was the subsidy model actually bad for the networks somehow?

Carriers want diversity so that they can do better bargaining with the phone makers. ex: My HTC M7 phone came with lots of preloaded shitty apps made by AT&T which i can't delete, Apple will not allow AT&T to twist their arm like that. Similarly they want diversity in the chip makers as well. If the phones are subsidised most people will go with iPhone.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#352

Post by Camillo »

orbitur wrote: post #227
rqebmm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me its real problem is that it's almost indistinct from long-press. Combine that with Apple's poor UX discoverability (I'm looking at you, swipe-from-the-side-to-see-iMessage-timestamps!) and 3D Touch is basically useless.

3D Touch should've replaced long press. I hate that I have to wait, I don't care that it's 0.4 of a second. A long press is a concession to the fact that there's no physical button, and 3D Touch should've solved this problem. But instead I end up triggering a 3D Touch when I want to delete an app.

But you still have to wait with 3D touch. If I press hard on an icon on my home screen, it still takes 0.4s or so before the popup appears.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#353

Post by Camillo »

kenjackson wrote: post #239
ericabiz wrote: post #4

I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…

3D Force Touch has one really useful use, which is to go back to the previous app on the backstack. I use that constantly. But I use almost nothing each with 3D Touch.

Where do you press to do that?

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#354

Post by jobu »

tammer wrote: post #348
ericabiz wrote: post #4

I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…

Apple needs an app revolution that drives people to seek faster CPU's. Seems like the only way to obsolete such effective & robust devices.

The CPUs are already impressively fast, they just suck tons of power to do it. There are a few games I won't play on my phone anymore because they absolutely kill the battery. (Same with the Facebook app.)

If there was any way to dramatically increase power efficiency or battery capacity it would be a huge draw for consumers.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#355

Post by wvenable »

JoBrad wrote: post #215
wvenable wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an iPhone 5 (not S) and the performance is starting to get on the frustrating side. But it's only now getting to the point where that is an issue.

Maybe you should wipe it? I have a 5 that I bought the year the 5s came out, and it works great, still

I always do the OS installs through iTunes so it pretty much gets wiped every time.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#356

Post by TheCoreh »

Camillo wrote: post #353
kenjackson wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D Force Touch has one really useful use, which is to go back to the previous app on the backstack. I use that constantly. But I use almost nothing each with 3D Touch.

Where do you press to do that?

On the left edge of the screen. You can either force press there, or force drag it to the middle of the screen from there.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#357

Post by bogomipz »

ericabiz wrote: post #4

I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…

I would add this to this as well to the new "forever leasing a phone" model, you have to get insurance which makes sense. However the monthly insurance premium can go up at any time. This just just happened to me. I received a letter from the insurance company the carrier uses - not the carrier informing me that the insurance is going up $2.00 more a month(it was $8.00 its now $10.00.) Thats not an insignificant percentage. This is despite never having to have made a claim for any damages or replacement to the phone.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#358

Post by vasilipupkin »

mjfern wrote: post #108
bsirkia wrote: post #47

Incredible that this is the first time in 13 years that Apple hasn't posted quarterly growth. I'm sure there will be lots of "Apple has lost its ability to innovate" articles based on this, but growing for the last ~52 straight quarters is insane. And I don't think one quarter without growth is enough evidence to conclude "Apple may be reaching the saturation point among potential customers in some countries" or "oth…

There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.

Growth is simply part of the formula that lets you arrive at valuation. It's just math. If growth goes down, so does the valuation

Down voters: valuation = income / ( discount rate - growth rate )

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#359

Post by seanmcdirmid »

coldtea wrote: post #343
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has decided to keep inflating the bubbles with capital injections that wind up temporarily keeping stocks afloat and ultimately wind up feeding insane real estate bubbles. This has gone on more or less for the last few years, starting with stimulus in 2008. Retail is already taking a huge hit on the ground (not just iPhone sales have dropped off), and once those bubbles pop...well, the government will…

> The government has decided to keep inflating the bubbles with capital injections that wind up temporarily keeping stocks afloat and ultimately wind up feeding insane real estate bubbles So, just like the US in 2008?

Ya, just imagine if the US, instead of crashing in 2008, decided to feed their bubbles with way more debt-fueled stimulus than they did. That is basically where China is today.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#360

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

mgbmtl wrote: post #207
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia you always had to disclose the phone cost in a contract. People still keep upgrading phones.

Does it show as a line item on the monthly invoice, or in the fine print of the contract? Here in QC/Canada it's basically "90$/month for the 2 year upgrade" or "65$/month for BYOD".

The last time I had a contract, they had 2 line items. One for the service, one for the phone.

But prepaid is pretty good here. I haven't been on a contract for years now. I just buy my phones.

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