Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#131

Post by pnw_hazor » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 1:58 AM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #112

pnw_hazor wrote: post #93

They certainly priced themselves out my value zone. When my 6s died recently (power connector issues) I picked up a moto g6 it works fine for me. My personal age of Apple is now completely over. Over about 3 years or so, I went from all Apple (powerbooks/macbook pros, apple tv, iphones, ipad) to no Apple. It was fun while it lasted.

Do you still use a tablet? What laptops do you like?

I don't have a tablet anymore. Hardly used the ipad I had.

Current laptop is a ASUS 15.6" TUF Gaming FX504GE Laptop. Generally, I just buy a $600-$900 laptop each time the hinges short out (~24 months)

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#132

Post by PKop » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 2:20 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #8

That's part of it, but the bigger issue is China is rapidly slowing down. Otherwise Apple would be seeing shrinking sales in other regions, which according to Cook has not been the case. WSJ today posted this alarming chart of Chinese consumption-tax revenue: https://i.imgur.com/2LzUKrz.png https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-economic-downturn-takes-...

Why is Huawei doing well then? [0]

"Huawei posted 33% global gains y/y, versus flat for Apple, and for Q3 in China, where Apple is reporting struggles, Huawei sales rose 13%. Have rising trade tensions created anti-American Sentiment???"

[0] https://twitter.com/quantbond/status/1080863553454780416

I think it's all about Apple losing share and being overpriced compared to competition, along with Chinese support for Chinese company.

A slow down will exacerbate this but as of now huge disparity compared to Huawei.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#133

Post by dankoss » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 2:45 AM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #89

gwright wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is messing around with us on the CPU thing Are you referring to modulating the power usage to avoid random shutdowns? If so, I don't understand why people have viewed that as a nefarious scheme. Seems completely reasonable to me. The newer user-visible stats on battery health and power usage are also a good idea, but don't change the physics involved, you still need to modulate power usage to match what is av…

They lost me the moment they kept it a secret and they practically monetized on this. I would gladly pay for a new (£50-£70) battery every 2 years to keep my phone up and running. It is the lack of transparency that made me angry. I do have the technical skills/knowledge to understand the reasons. I also have the critical thinking to (imho) dismiss their BS answer that they force me to spend £1000 instead of £50. And…

Every other manufacturer of battery powered devices, including laptops, does CPU throttling based on battery degradation, and doesn't mention anything about it. It sounds like you were just looking for an excuse to jump ship.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#134

Post by kemayo » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 2:48 AM UTC

mstade wrote: post #121

sjansen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata: I was going to upgrade my iPhone this year, until I saw the new prices and decided I could wait one more year. I should have been an easy sale. After a bad experience with Android, I have no desire to go back. Budget isn't an issue. But if Apple is going to price phones like laptops, I'm going to upgrade as slowly as I upgrade my laptop. (Which given how long it took them to get more than 16GB of RAM, I've…

Precisely the same here, minus android experience – been with Apple since the original iPhone. Money is really no object so I ordered the iPhone X the moment they became available, but the XS really doesn't seem to offer anything new at all. Even now, comparing the models I only see some minor camera changes and an A12 chip over A11. I don't even know what that means. All I know is this phone is crazy good, and it'll…

Similar boat for me. Got an X, didn't get an XS.

The only thing that tempted me was the camera improvements. Which aren't so much camera hardware as them greatly improving their photo processing via specialized computing hardware, as I understand it. Still, I take a lot of photos, and everything about this change looks fantastic.

Gruber's slideshow is good for demonstrating it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/sets/72157700003327111

Honestly, Apple's consistent approach of "new phone design with number-bump" one year then "same design with incremental improvements and an S" next year means that outside of unusual cases buying a new iPhone every year is silly. X to XS is underwhelming, but 7 to XS (or XR) is quite compelling.

Given which... unless Apple does something outright worrying, I expect I'll buy whatever they put out this Autumn. Get the fancy new camera features, and more of a notable increase everywhere.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#135

Post by baroffoos » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

singingboyo wrote: post #98

strict9 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use public transit unless leaving the city, almost never use uber/lyft, and yet have a new iPhone. Why? I hate driving and would rather be reading or goofing off on twitter than being angry behind the wheel as I get somewhere. Not for everyone but I'll never go back to driving.

Hah, I'm the opposite. Despite having pretty great transit here, my needs don't quite line up with the transit network, and so some times are far longer than they are by car, to the point of 20min drive vs 1.5-2hr transit. Given that, I got a car... and now prefer it whenever possible. If I want to engage my brain at all I'll listen to a podcast or something, but often those half hour periods of relative disengagemen…

If it takes 1.5 hours longer by public transport than by car that means you do not have good public transport. Maybe good compared to surrounding areas but still bad.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#136

Post by cosmie » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

singingboyo wrote: post #108

disishhsha wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve considered buying an expensive car with advanced stop-and-go traffic self-driving mode, but it’s more effective to live next to the train station.

Eh. Having the car self-stop is overrated in my experience. It's really hard to trust it, and not particularly difficult to drive stop-and-go yourself, so long as you accept that you can't rush it. Adaptive cruise control for fast but varying speeds is great, however - it makes the spacing much better, which makes things more relaxing. It also reduces the active brain load to 'what lane do I need, what's coming up in…

+1 for the adaptive cruise control in fast but varying speed traffic. The variant that my Hyundai has is also really pleasant for stop-and-go traffic, too. As the space shrinks below the minimal set, it'll basically progressively slow down all the way to the point of coasting for quite a while before it finally comes to a full stop (if the traffic hasn't started going yet). A small thing, but since cruise control only disengages if it comes to a complete stop, it in effect makes for a really pleasant stop-and-go commute as it very rarely has to come to a complete stop and disengage along the way. Also has the secondary effect of drastically improving my gas mileage vs. when I manually drive the same commute.

My previous experience with adaptive cruise control with another manufacturer wasn't nearly as polished, so I didn't think much of it when I bought the car. But it quickly became one of my favorite features!

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#137

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

baroffoos wrote: post #7

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.

I paid $849 for an iPhone 6s 128GB in 2015. Not only is it still getting OS updates over 3 years later, according to benchmarks, it is faster than any Android Phone in single core performance that was released in 2018 - including the flagship Galaxy S9.

Since the 2013 iPhone 5s is still getting updates, I suspect that the 6s will still get updates at least through 2020.

But right now, you can get an iPhone 7 for $449. Again, if history is any guide, it should get OS updates through 2021.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#138

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

sjansen wrote: post #97

baroffoos wrote: post #7

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.

Anecdata: I was going to upgrade my iPhone this year, until I saw the new prices and decided I could wait one more year. I should have been an easy sale. After a bad experience with Android, I have no desire to go back. Budget isn't an issue. But if Apple is going to price phones like laptops, I'm going to upgrade as slowly as I upgrade my laptop. (Which given how long it took them to get more than 16GB of RAM, I've…

You know Apple does sell other phones besides the 10s Max....

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#139

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #83

threeseed wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break. This idea that anyone who isn't buying some cheap Android phone is doing it for fashion/trend reasons is ridiculous, insulting and condescending. The fact is that I care about my privacy and security and only Apple seems to take it seriously. They also support their devices for years so I look at it like its an investment. That is easily worth the extra $10 or $20 a month I pay for my mobile phone pl…

This isn't an iOS vs. Android thing. Plenty of people would be happy with an SE 2, or even a 8S (a proper iPhone 9) that retains the home button and/or brings back the earphone jack. This drive for more pixels, more cameras, less buttons, and thinner size- it's hitting diminishing returns unrelated to privacy or security.

And you can still buy an iPhone 7 for $449 and the iPhone 8/8 plus is still for sell...

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#140

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

bigger_cheese wrote: post #91

baroffoos wrote: post #7

I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.

The reason people want iPhones is the branding/marketing. Where I live iPhone is a status symbol. People buy them because they want to show off that they can afford it rather than because there is some special functionality they use. To me iPhone is like Rolex Watch most people who own them probably don't need them and could make do with something much cheaper. edit: Good example my coWorker told me about her 14 year…

Well in most industrial nations, the iPhone has 30%+ market share, in the US it hovers around 50%. Nothing with that type of market share is a “status symbol”.