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Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

fortune.com

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Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#211

Post by rahimnathwani »

Certhas wrote: post #197
rahimnathwani wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine your annual income is $200k, and you expect your iPhone X to last 2 years. Imagine you're very busy with work and parenting, and it's very valuable to you to be able to take high quality pictures of your baby and share them with family and friends. A smartphone is the most convenient way to do that. A smartphone that costs ~$1000 takes much better pictures, and faster shutter response, than a smartphone that…

What's the marginal utility over a 500$ Galaxy S8?

Let's assume the cameras (hardware and software) are equally good. If the person I described already uses iOS (and has done for the last few years), then I expect they'd find switching to Samsung-flavoured Android would cause at least a few hours of inconvenience up-front to get most things they need set up, and then little annoyances here and there for a long period afterwards.

At least that was my experience switching my primary mobile device from iOS to Android. And I'd have the same amount of inconvenience if I were to switch from Android to iOS.

Some people value their time highly, and don't find it enjoyable to find solutions to technical or usability problems. So switching to/from iOS has significant disutility.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#212

Post by Certhas »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #211
Certhas wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the marginal utility over a 500$ Galaxy S8?

Let's assume the cameras (hardware and software) are equally good. If the person I described already uses iOS (and has done for the last few years), then I expect they'd find switching to Samsung-flavoured Android would cause at least a few hours of inconvenience up-front to get most things they need set up, and then little annoyances here and there for a long period afterwards. At least that was my experience switch…

Sure, so you pay for having locked yourself into a particular ecosystem. Even then, the relative utility of an X over an 8 is not utility.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#213

Post by tobbyb »

Joeri wrote: post #87

The iphone X is very overpriced when viewed as a utility object, because it doesn’t provide 4x the utility of a $250 phone. But it is very reasonable when viewed as a fashion accessory. A $1000 phone to go inside a $2000 purse is not crazy at all. People keep looking at apple as a tech company and struggling to understand them, but if you view them as a luxury/fashion company who happens to specialize in technology t…

This is not limited to Apple. Top phone prices including Galaxy, Pixel etc have been steadily creeping upwards yearly starting from $500 and are now at $800-1000. Next year it could well be $1200 and in 3 years $1500.

Has the fundamental tech in the phones dramatically increased to justify this, not really.

The same applies to ultrabooks with low performance heavily throttled dual core chips, going from $700-800 to now $1500 plus. This applies to macbooks, dell xps, surface, hp and even lower cost alternatives like Asus.

There is a trend of sorts and it may well be rising income disparities means those at the top are not price sensitive and will pay $500 or $1500 with little qualms, and marketers are responding to the market.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#214

Post by patrickaljord »

user5994461 wrote: post #185
patrickaljord wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A purse can last a lifetime, People who spend more than $2k on a purse rarely use it for more than a season, sometimes just for a night.

My last tinder dates would disagree with that, but they're just normal middle class women. The amount of people renewing luxury bags as fast as you say is very tiny.

Ok, it depends where you live I guess. In some countries only the super rich can afford $2k bags and in this case they don't use them for long. I very much doubt your tinder date will keep using it for a lifetime though.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#215

Post by hrktb »

user5994461 wrote: post #190
hrktb wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motorola G Plus[0] is 184$ with a 12Mp back camera. You won’t catch a cat jumping in pixel perfect beauty, but that’s plenty enough to scan a text document. Same for your mail, maps, browsing, messaging, light gaming. It won’t be blazingly fast under the latest OS, but will do any important task with decent performance. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N6NTIRH/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=...

The number of pixels has zero relevance to the quality of a photo. The world is filled with cheap phones that will make a blurry picture if there isn't perfect lighting or if you move by a single millimeter when you press the button.

Of course. I found it interesting that scanning a document is the exact best case scenario: exposure can be adjusted with the flash, and the document hopefully doesn’t move (I had the previous Motorola G, hand shaking would need to be pretty bad to make it blur when using the flash)

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#216

Post by bsaul »

jrs95 wrote: post #209
user5994461 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A purse can last a lifetime, if not lost or stolen. An iPhone will be unusable within 5 years no matter what.

And a paperweight will last hundreds if not thousands of years! This isn’t really relevant. An iPhone is a computer. It does a lot of things, and the technology is improving rapidly. A purse is basically just a type of bag. They don’t store more and more stuff every year.

On the contrary, luxury items are very often associated with « lifetime » usage. A pair of luxury shoes will last 20 years if taken care of properly, a swiss mechanical watch can be repaired 50 years after it’s been bought and transmitted from generation to generation. A jewelry is transmitted from mother to daughter, etc etc.

You can’t pretend something to be a luxury item if it’s completely obsolete after a few years. Luxury isn’t purely marketing or aesthetic.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#217

Post by rahimnathwani »

Certhas wrote: post #212
rahimnathwani wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume the cameras (hardware and software) are equally good. If the person I described already uses iOS (and has done for the last few years), then I expect they'd find switching to Samsung-flavoured Android would cause at least a few hours of inconvenience up-front to get most things they need set up, and then little annoyances here and there for a long period afterwards. At least that was my experience switch…

Sure, so you pay for having locked yourself into a particular ecosystem. Even then, the relative utility of an X over an 8 is not utility.

An iPhone X doesn't provide a better user experience to my hypothetical user than an iPhone 8?

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#218

Post by grepthisab »

jakebasile wrote: post #186
grepthisab wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because $1000 is a lot of money to most people.

That's true, but why should that color someone's decision on what they buy?

Because people who budget responsibly live within the constraints of that budget.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#219

Post by user5994461 »

patrickaljord wrote: post #214
user5994461 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last tinder dates would disagree with that, but they're just normal middle class women. The amount of people renewing luxury bags as fast as you say is very tiny.

Ok, it depends where you live I guess. In some countries only the super rich can afford $2k bags and in this case they don't use them for long. I very much doubt your tinder date will keep using it for a lifetime though.

The bag already outlasted her last iPhone. It will surely last a few more.

I come from a small city in France, it's not uncommon to see poor children [of struggling parents receiving social benefits] having iPhones or $500 shoes. That's in the order of a month rent.

I am in London now. Women could live in a dumpster with flatmates and save enough to buy a new bag every month.

People have different priorities I guess. Note that $2k is on the high side. You can get luxury brands for much less than that.

Re: Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say

#220

Post by voidmain »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #193
Joeri wrote: post #87

The iphone X is very overpriced when viewed as a utility object, because it doesn’t provide 4x the utility of a $250 phone. But it is very reasonable when viewed as a fashion accessory. A $1000 phone to go inside a $2000 purse is not crazy at all. People keep looking at apple as a tech company and struggling to understand them, but if you view them as a luxury/fashion company who happens to specialize in technology t…

Imagine your annual income is $200k, and you expect your iPhone X to last 2 years. Imagine you're very busy with work and parenting, and it's very valuable to you to be able to take high quality pictures of your baby and share them with family and friends. A smartphone is the most convenient way to do that. A smartphone that costs ~$1000 takes much better pictures, and faster shutter response, than a smartphone that…

"Does it need to provide 4x the utility to be worth 4x the price? No."

Exactly! This fallacy of comparing ratios rather than differences in price is extremely common, totally unjustified, and causes people lots of harm from bad spending decisions in both directions. $100 extra is $100 extra whether attached to a small purchase or a big one.

The correct comparison is (as you say) between the benefit/cost of the extra spending and the benefit/cost of other marginal purchases you would consider. Comparing to the benefit/cost of the "base" purchase (the basic smartphone in this case), which may be very high because that purchase is not marginal for you, is just wrong.

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