Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If anything there is a regression with the absence of TouchID. FaceID fulfills that role.
Will it be as reliable and fast as TouchID?
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With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
611–620 of 730 posts
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#612Earlier 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 a lot more expensive than it used to be. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.PCAP?locations=U...
Ok, the price increased. And, let's ignore related factors such as the increased cost of medical education and advances in medical care (my aunt got a new heart a year ago!)
My view of the mainstream story is that things went from ok to chaos within the past, say, 3 years.
Instead, the costs have been steadily rising while voters have repeatedly opted not to make changes.
Thought experiment: what if gas or milk prices had increased at the same rate? Education cost has increased a lot, but that's mostly inflated by student loans that I predict will implode like subprime mortgages.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#613Earlier 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.
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.
People are getting relatively poorer in comparison to their health care costs. So yes, we have been getting worse, and at some point the character of a problem changes into a crisis, which can seem "sudden".
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a point below which you can't afford any kind of even subsidized insurance. Not if you want to keep paying rent, buy food, car insurance to keep going to work, phone bill, electric bill and so on. Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you. EDIT: The less it costs for the same quality.
Before that point you qualify for free insurance through one of many government welfare programs. Learn about the system before you criticize it.
That's actually not true in any of the states that didn't sign on to the ACA Medicaid expansion, which, yes, was designed so that between exchange subsidies and Medicaid eligibility there would be affordable subsidized or government provided coverage across the whole spectrum where people didn't have employer coverage or the ability to afford unsubsidized coverage.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can completely understand the reasoning, and it is very clever indeed. This goes in line with the first Apple Watch Edition, which sold for $10k+ but wasn't very successful at all, not even for a luxury product. So they quietly removed it from sale and instead pushed the ceramic model which is still a luxury product both in looks and in price, but not at that gold tier. However, the price of the lowest-tier of the…
> However, the price of the lowest-tier of the latest model has been going up steadily over time, The base model iPhone has been $649 for as long as I can remember, which means it's technically gone down in price when you account for a decade of inflation...
Maybe in the US, but not in Europe or in South America.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#616A 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…
> 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).
You don't need to be rich to afford a new iPhone every 24 months. $1000 over 24 months is a little under $42 per month. After the first time, you won't spend that much anyway, because you can sell your current 24-month-old iPhone for a few hundred dollars when you buy the next one.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#617Earlier 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…
Good points. Which leads to the question, when everybody has "free" healthcare, who gets the top docs, and who gets the bottom and average docs?
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#618This 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?
Yes but I don't see how that would affect their pricing strategy?
Cash reserves make it easier for them to make a riskier play into the luxury market. But in the long-run the reserve is only a temporary fallback not a sustainable model.
Pushing the price up makes it easier to play with the price margins and add more expensive parts.
It could also be fueled by the output of their R&D but they could also see the value proposition they offer as justifying a higher price from entirely non-functional aspects (ie non-software/hardware innovation), just merely the emotional draw of the product via design and branding. The measure is whether people still want the product as much rather than whether it does x & y better than the competitors.
People tend to discount the utility of emotional appeal and the connection people have to the products they use daily. Instead focusing on CPU speeds or raw feature comparisons.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#619Earlier 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.
Emergency rooms only have to stabilize you, they don't have to treat you. It's a big difference.
Re: With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before that point you qualify for free insurance through one of many government welfare programs. Learn about the system before you criticize it.
That's actually not true in any of the states that didn't sign on to the ACA Medicaid expansion, which, yes, was designed so that between exchange subsidies and Medicaid eligibility there would be affordable subsidized or government provided coverage across the whole spectrum where people didn't have employer coverage or the ability to afford unsubsidized coverage.
It's also not true of extremely high cost of living areas such as NYC or the bay area where you're living beyond your means long before you qualify for government programs based on poverty levels that are calculated averaged across the nation.
The system has warts. There are good reasons to criticize it. But saying we leave the poor dying in the streets because, well, fuck 'em they're poor, is both untrue and insulting.