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Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

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Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#91

Post by bigger_cheese »

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 old daughter begging her for an iPhone. It's the "cool" brand people want. When I was that age I remember Nokia 3210 was the phone everyone wanted. When you have that sort of luxury appeal you can charge more for the product and people will pay.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#92

Post by HenryBemis »

nkozyra wrote: post #52
HenryBemis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been buying/using iPhones since 2009. The last iPhone I bought was a 7+. Right after that I had sensed that Apple is messing around with us on the CPU thing, and it finally came out that they did. I now have a Honor X8, I am super content about this, it cost me 229 pounds, takes 2 SIM cards and a 128GB SD card. I can also have a firewall NoRoot Firewall), more granular privacy controls, I can root and and replac…

> Do I think Apple is milking it and offers nothing new? HELL YES But this really isn't the question. People "overpay" for luxury goods all the time in lieu of higher quality cheaper products. Selling expensive stuff doesn't necessarily mean you have to or should have the best stuff.

I don't buy the Marketing lingo. I like the touch & feel. I am one of those people who don't feel "special" or "good for myself" because I have a £1000 phone. I am happy/content because a 'machine' adds value to my life. My phone helps me listen to my podcasts, and helps me navigate when I travel. My Nutribullet helps me make great Paleo smoothies.

I am sure that I am not 100% immune to marketing, but I like to prefer the function over the plush.

Luxury is for other people. I prefer F.I.R.E instead :) I do understand that Marketing creates artificial needs, and I want to believe that I avoid it :)

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#93

Post by pnw_hazor »

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.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#94

Post by disishhsha »

strict9 wrote: post #63
disishhsha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use my phone a lot, and gladly spend a few $ a day for a marginal improvement in my quality of life. Another question - why do people spend $30k on a car when a $10k car is nearly as good? Seems like a much bigger waste of money than the phone.

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.

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.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#96

Post by zapzupnz »

threeseed wrote: post #69
tyfon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not $300 but I can get a sony xperia xz2 compact for 3000 NOK ($345ish). Sony makes the cameras in many other phones including iphone. I have the larger version, but my wife has this and it takes excellent photos.

Sony makes the camera sensor. The lens comes from another supplier. And as the Pixel 3 has shown the software makes far more of a difference to the quality of the photo then the hardware.

And in the case of iPhone, the software takes advantage of custom-made, powerful, performant, and yet efficient chips that would make snapping photos take forever on older or non-specialised chips.

Software and hardware dance together on iOS.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#97

Post by sjansen »

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 gotten used to doing pretty slowly.)

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#98

Post by singingboyo »

strict9 wrote: post #63
disishhsha wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use my phone a lot, and gladly spend a few $ a day for a marginal improvement in my quality of life. Another question - why do people spend $30k on a car when a $10k car is nearly as good? Seems like a much bigger waste of money than the phone.

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 disengagement are very nice breaks to have.

That said, I do choose 10 minutes of walking over 2 minutes of driving in anything but a torrential downpour, or 2 minutes of walking over an extra 30 seconds hunting a closer parking spot. Maybe it just all comes down to not wanting to deal with (potentially unpleasant) people.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#99

Post by izacus »

xenadu02 wrote: post #58
baroffoos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't question that the super expensive phones are better than the cheap ones but they are better in ways that are so insignificant to the average person. I got a nexus 5x a few years ago for about $250 and it does everything modern phones do. Yes I have slightly less pixels in my selfie and my screen is still rectangle shaped but is that really worth the extra $800? I suspect its simply a fashion/trend thing pushe…

Do you feel the same way about a current-gen mid-tier GPU vs a 4 year old GPU? Why or why not? What about cars? Are you proclaiming that everyone should drive a Corolla? Or that everyone should drive whatever it is that you personally drive? Who are you to decide what is significant to the "average" person, if there is such a thing?

Well most people do drive Corollas and use mid-tier GPUs and buy cheap clothes and all those similar things.

And we're seeing this on the mobile market as well, especially in lower income places like China and India - the 300$ phones these days can do pretty much everything what an iPhone does. With a bit less pixels, slightly worse camera and less words like "Magical!" in the marketing pitch.

So it's getting really hard for people to throw away several months of their savings to get a marginally better product with an Apple logo on it. And you can see this in sales - people go for Huaweis and Xiaomis in Chinese market in droves. Even in Europe, Huawei is gaining a massive piece of market due to their cheap and good offerings.

Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market

#100

Post by izacus »

Spooky23 wrote: post #48
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.

Why do people buy mid size luxury sedans when a Honda Accord exists?

Most people buy Honda Accords and similar class cars, so you're kinda proving his point :P
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