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With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

nytimes.com

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Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#591

Post by hyperpallium »

osteele wrote: post #458

This reminds me of the arguments about whether popular bands should raise ticket prices on the one hand, or create the conditions for ticket scalpers on the other. Let's say Apple wants to be as innovative in hardware as a company like Essential – and therefore use components or manufacturing processes that aren't available at the scale of tens of millions per quarter. What should Apple do? * Not innovate. Leave this…

An interesting analysis in general; though just for this specific case, this phone is more a different niche, than purely better. It's larger and heavier.

There are technologies, like process nodes, that improve on several dimensions, and while I'm sure the military has access to "future" process nodea, the yields are just so dramatically low (and also therefore dramatically more expensive), that it's not really feasible for a mainstream product.

The adgances it will have will be much less profound: more CPU cores, more GPU cores, maybe higher clocking, and a heavier battery to power it all. So, it's simply an attempt to broaden the product line, like the "plus" and (unsuccessful) "C" models.

Also, given that Apple sold a $10,000+ watch, they probably don't mind charging more. Though, it'll be priced to sell (which that watch didn't).

However, given that phones have overshot most people's needs (e.g. 5s iPhones are still selling well), Apple will soon need a killer app that requires all that power... like AR. Unfortunately, there's no indication that AR is a killer app. Who knows, maybe Apple will change that.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#592

Post by Alterlife »

osteele wrote: post #458

This reminds me of the arguments about whether popular bands should raise ticket prices on the one hand, or create the conditions for ticket scalpers on the other. Let's say Apple wants to be as innovative in hardware as a company like Essential – and therefore use components or manufacturing processes that aren't available at the scale of tens of millions per quarter. What should Apple do? * Not innovate. Leave this…

* Sell previous years iPhones at competitive prices

In India, the SE was recently on sale for Rs. 18500 after discounts and cashbacks are accounted for... with budget alternatives.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#593

Post by ChemicalWarfare »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #476
mbroncano wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. In addition, the fact that's part of every discussion gives a hint of how much of an issue this is.

Well, you can buy partly subsidized or receive fully subsidized healthcare (ACA/Medicaid). That's on top of programs like COBRA and in worst case scenarios welfare from the state, county, or federal levels. We also have CHIP on the federal level which is a separate program just for children, where the parents may have insurance but for some reason cannot insure their kids. That's on top of what the states themselves…

upvoted. as far as the rural areas vs ACA are concerned - before ACA a lumberjack/construction/handyman/hunting-fishing guide etc type dude could by themselves cheap health insurance that wouldn't break the bank off-season. now it's an ordeal.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#594

Post by wil421 »

kobeya wrote: post #564
mbroncano wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it right, it's difficult to imagine for a European what it's like to deal with having no medical care if unemployed. In addition, the fact that's part of every discussion gives a hint of how much of an issue this is.

You walk into an emergency room and get treated without paying a cent.

Seriously, if I believe what everyone comments on HN I would think hospitals are turning sick or injured people away.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#595

Post by aeroevan »

matwood wrote: post #418
glogla wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of wanted to do that, for the hipster geek cred, but after retina screens, actually usable touchpads and operating system that just works and also is unix at the same time ... I just can't go back.

I have also looked at switching to Linux over OS X and the retina/hidpi alone stops any attempt. I actually had someone on here argue that no one needs retina, and that it didn’t make any difference visually!

GNOME works just fine on hidpi screens. I use it on my (2013) mbp and (2015) chromebook pixel and it looks great.

You do have to use wayland to get scaling across a low dpi external monitor to work, but that has been fairly painless these days (if your GPU is supported by the open source drivers).

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#596

Post by EddieRingle »

osteele wrote: post #458

This reminds me of the arguments about whether popular bands should raise ticket prices on the one hand, or create the conditions for ticket scalpers on the other. Let's say Apple wants to be as innovative in hardware as a company like Essential – and therefore use components or manufacturing processes that aren't available at the scale of tens of millions per quarter. What should Apple do? * Not innovate. Leave this…

Couldn't they also invest some of their massive cash reserves into production and R&D?

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#597

Post by Splines »

Retric wrote: post #286
alkonaut wrote: post #189

A lot of people just get the best iphone every 24 months (e.g. rich people, or people who have a generous smartphone policy at work). Having a model that gets another couple of hundred bucks from those people is pretty clever I think. This is basically the S-class phone (To make a car analogy, because that's what we do). The S-class Mercedes costs twice as much as the "Normal" E-class, and each time they launch a new…

Many people spend more time on their phone than their PC. So, 1,000$ is not an unreasonable price if it's noticeably better. It's like spending 200+$ on a pair of shoes, they don't need to be that much better fit to be worth it. I mean 1,000$ seems bad, but that can translate to under 30 cents an hour if you're spending 4 hours a day on your phone.

> So, 1,000$ is not an unreasonable price if it's noticeably better.

But if $500 gets you 90% of the way there, is that last $500 really worth it? Same with shoes - I regularly spend less than $100 on my shoes and find that they are perfectly comfortable, last a long time, and fit all my needs. 0 complaints. Spending another $100 might give me a better experience (at the very least it might make me feel happier when I put them on the first time), but the returns are so low that it isn't worth it.

These days, the money bar for a "good enough" smartphone is very very low.

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#598

Post by cableshaft »

dijit wrote: post #580
cableshaft wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dichotomy. I just bought an Android phone over the weekend for $35 (on sale from $50) -- the LG K3. It has an older Android OS (Marshmellow) a little slow, the screen resolution isn't great, and the keyboard input is a little more fiddly than my Nexus 5X (which bricked, which is why I needed to get a new temp phone), but otherwise it works just fine. Six years ago I paid $170 for an equivalent phone (older vers…

OK, but how long did you receive patches after the purchase? I'm talking mainly about phone support not whether it continues to function on a basic level or not.

I mean I just bought the new one last weekend so it's too soon to tell. Google Play Services got updated again this morning, though.

The previous phone I think it was most of the time I owned it, but I didn't get any major OS upgrades (nor did I expect to), just minor updates.

It got slower over time but it never bricked, unlike my fancy new Nexus 5X, which completely bricked after I owned it for a year and a few months. Who cares about security updates and software patches when your phone completely breaks in less than the average upgrade cycle (obviously I don't mean all of these phones do, but apparently it was a common problem with Nexus 5X, I found out after the fact. I have a coworker on his 3rd one in two years).

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#599

Post by [deleted] »

ashark wrote: post #520
dogruck wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how the US healthcare setup is largely unchanged over many years, yet the general perception is that it's suddenly total chaos. I'm not saying the status quo is best, but we didn't suddenly plunge into a crisis.

It's been incredibly bad for at least ~3 decades. A sick person with insurance without a dedicated advocate (relative or friend) watching out for them non-stop will likely end up having several care screw-ups occur to them, and with a bill ludicrously rather than just insanely large and probably a few things in collections (even if they can pay them) if said advocate doesn't spend a couple hundred hours fighting insu…

[deleted]

Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold

#600

Post by dep_b »

trimbo wrote: post #572
dep_b wrote: post #533

I think Apple hit a point where producing an exclusive phone with top features in every department wasn't really possible anymore at their scale. We've seen them stuck at 16GB for a really long time simply because upgrading all phones to 32GB would consume another whopping 15% of the SSD market. OLED screens in that quality and format aren't produced in enough quantities to put on every iPhone - yet. But people expec…

> OLED screens in that quality and format aren't produced in enough quantities to put on every iPhone Apple's scale is amazing but I don't really get this observation. Is this is because Samsung has been shipping OLED at Apple-level volumes for years, so they've already sucked up most of the supply?

Not every Samsung with an OLED screen gets the same OLED as the Note 8 and Edge 8 are getting of course. There are plenty of phones that have a much simpler construction similar to what Apple was doing with their LCD technology.

And basically Samsung is not going to cut their own production to sell to Apple. Samsung is Samsung's preferred customer I imagine, unless the phone department seriously lowballs their offer.

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