Gruber made a case for an "edition" or "pro" model based on the fact that Apple could provide a set of "pro" features that the supply chain could not provide in typical volumes, some 200 million units for an iPhone manufacturing cycle.
Of course there would be buyers at a higher price point, though I would expect a heck of a lot of backlash from the usual suspects, because greed, blah, blah, blah.
Me, I'd pay more just for Pencil support, but I'd throw money at Apple to buy the first iPhone with a microLED!
Yes and I have long argued there will never be any hardware innovation that could fit in those 200M+ iPhone cycle unless you own most of the manufacturing.
The problem with the Pro / Edition Model is that i expect these spec to be priced in the 7s bracket next year.
The Current Line Up is and expected upgrade
7 Plus 32GB - > 7s Plus 64GB $769 7 Plus 128GB -> 7s Plus 256 GB. $869
Pricing stay the same. So the 7s will be an camera upgrade, SoC upgrade, Storage Capacity upgrade, faster Network. Basically the usual S cycle.
The Pro Model will be $969, taking over the original 256GB Price Point but with 64GB, and $1069 for 256GB version.
What happens next year? In the past before iPhone, Apple could do the unthinkable price adjustment. But now Apple is to fixed on margin. And it seems it is forcing them to corners.
Would be a very canny move on Apple's part to release the usual upgrade S models as usual, then have the special exclusively expensive but not too expensive, edition model that showcases the new technology. Then the next year everyone can get the previous years edition model at the normal price. This would be a pretty cute move.
Android phones are improving, and flagships with minimal bezels and other features that we hope/assume the next iPhone will ship with are already significantly cheaper. I am all in on Apple, but when the Honor 9 and OnePlus 5 are very well reviewed and less than half the price of current iPhones, it pains me to think Apple might increase prices further. I won't be able to afford to upgrade and may have to stick with my iPhone 6 for yet another year. The price differential between my beloved Apple products and the competition seems to be widening, especially here in the UK
This seems reasonable, we can't both simultaneously expect significant advancement and significant price decline, there should be a range of devices which let the consumer decide for themselves: less significant advancement in performance and features for an economically priced model and a higher priced device which has a significant technological advancement.
It's like letting the user choose if they want the slow lane or the fast lane to the future of personal computing. You can think of the slow lane as people who's lives are already wholly satisfied by the device and the fast lane being for users who are able to use new technologies to further enhance their lives or already have growing needs of their devices.
It's not a coincidence that this journey always starts with a single device and a homogeneous vision, that's the ignition point, to which the products are then tailored to fit a wider audience through divergent feature sets. Apple's skill here is providing divergence while keeping everyone on the same page. (Something other vendors are wary of doing.)
What is the significant advancement? Android OEMs already use OLED panels and come with near bezelless displays. Is there something else this phone will have that no other phone does?
Those prices are just crazy. Apple will be pricing themselves right out of the market if this rumor is true. If Apple is going to release a so called iPhone 7s and 7s Plus and a iPhone 8, well then the iPhone 7s and 7s Plus are already outdated!!! The 8 is over priced, and I'd stick with my iPhone 6 for a 4th year.
What's crazy is the demand. Based on the scarcity of the product it's much easier to argue that the price is too low for the market than the price is too high.
This is people not remembering that Macs used to cost $3000+ back in the 80's. Today's computers are 1000x more powerful for 1/10th the price.
This. This is in part what the chart of macs on the previous page had in common. very expensive computers not produced in any great quantity -- but if you've got the money, you'll buy one.
Macintosh IIfx -- $9900 Original Powerbook 3500 (G3) - $6900 Twentieth Anniversary Mac - $7499 PowerMac Cube - $1800 for single processor, when dual G4 towers were less iMac Pro - $4499 and likely way, way up.
Should the iPhone 8 be $1300, it's not atypical, nor even particularly crazy, given what Apple has done in the past for boutique Macs loaded with all the tech Apple could bring to bear.
And don't forget RED's phone will be $1300 and $1600, so it's not like Apple is the first to go to these kind of price points.
Frankly, i don't get that people don't get Gruber's argument about supply. It makes 100% sense.
If Apple priced based on supply then AirPods would be a lot more expensive.
Those prices are just crazy. Apple will be pricing themselves right out of the market if this rumor is true. If Apple is going to release a so called iPhone 7s and 7s Plus and a iPhone 8, well then the iPhone 7s and 7s Plus are already outdated!!! The 8 is over priced, and I'd stick with my iPhone 6 for a 4th year.
What's crazy is the demand. Based on the scarcity of the product it's much easier to argue that the price is too low for the market than the price is too high.
Scarcity of what product? iPhone 8 doesn’t exist.
What? You mean like any official wording on the price?
I've been buying Macs and iPhones since the first ones the first ones were released. They have always been more pricey than their windows or android counterparts. US$1200 however is considerablably more everywhere else in the world. Where I live for example a $1200 iPhone would be a $2000 iPhone. That is priced completely out of my range for a phone... no matter how amazing it is. Let's be honest here, the new screen and wireless charging are not exactly new and innovative. I think they need to be extremely careful not to price themselves so premium that no one but the 1% can buy their phones outside of the U.S. The rest of the world is Apple's biggest market.
This is people not remembering that Macs used to cost $3000+ back in the 80's. Today's computers are 1000x more powerful for 1/10th the price.
This. This is in part what the chart of macs on the previous page had in common. very expensive computers not produced in any great quantity -- but if you've got the money, you'll buy one.
Macintosh IIfx -- $9900 Original Powerbook 3500 (G3) - $6900 Twentieth Anniversary Mac - $7499 PowerMac Cube - $1800 for single processor, when dual G4 towers were less iMac Pro - $4499 and likely way, way up.
Should the iPhone 8 be $1300, it's not atypical, nor even particularly crazy, given what Apple has done in the past for boutique Macs loaded with all the tech Apple could bring to bear.
And don't forget RED's phone will be $1300 and $1600, so it's not like Apple is the first to go to these kind of price points.
Frankly, i don't get that people don't get Gruber's argument about supply. It makes 100% sense.
If Apple priced based on supply then AirPods would be a lot more expensive.
The difference between AirPods and this iPhone Edition/Pro/Deluxe/whatever is that Apple will want to constrain demand for the latter due to low supply by raising the price, in doing so not undercutting 7S sales significantly, whereas for the former Apple wants to increase demand by selling them at a relatively reasonable price (even if supply can't meet demand).
Read the article again, and tell me what the similarities are between these products, and how they relate to this conversation:
Macintosh IIfx Original Powerbook 3500 (G3) Twentieth Anniversary Mac PowerMac Cube iMac Pro
The only reason the iMac Pro will sell is that it's coming out before the first release of what will hopefully be an actual Mac Pro since 2012, and people need to get work done. [...]
And the iMac Pro is another inherently compromised design. There is no sane reason to put a top of the line computer in a super-thin case behind a screen. It's not portable, a 27 inch computer is not intended to be portable, put the guts in a box, give the box plenty of expansion capability and cooling.
Wrong. Loaded 5k iMacs are popular with pros because they’re fast enough and take up very little space. For us pros who work in our homes an iMac is a great choice because it’s a very clean system that takes me up very little space. My loaded iMac uses a VESA mount and floats above my desk, with no box on or under. I love this.
Craig said most of their pros are running Xcode and a great number are iMacs. So thank god you aren’t making the decisions over there.
Until Craig puts some absolute numbers on the table his claims are very much open to speculation which could swing wildly in either direction.
More of your pointless BS about needing absolute numbers that nobody provides. Most pros means anything over 50%. There is no direction to swing.
I doubt many Pros give much importance to boxes vs AIO but given the choice I bet many would prefer to separate the screen and the rest of the machine. Especially, as to expand on the AIO, it has to be external anyway which involves 'clutter' (which again, most pros are happy with as the clutter of today is not the clutter of yesteryear).
Why don't you provide some absolute numbers to back up your claims?
To support my point, I wonder how many Pros (not just developers) would opt for something to this over an iMac? https://www.tomsguide.com/us/dell-xps-tower,review-4499.html I'm not talking about the innards, just the styling, overall size and upgrade options. If Apple had taken that ball and ran with it, many people, not just pros, would have jumped on it for way under $2,000. That will never happen with this Apple because it would likely chop the legs off the iMac line but that has little to do with satisfying users' preferences and everything to do with Apple wanting to keep revenues up. I think Apple should be trying to reach both goals in every segment.
Not one developer picked that Dell where I work and we can pick whatever machines we want up to a certain price. Zero. There are a handful of dell workstations running linux and a few Alienwares. The rest were split between Dell laptops and Macs (mostly MBPs with some iMacs). Yes, we mostly have Dell and Apple because the corporate discount allows the budget to go further when spec'ing your machine. The video and media folks are running with iMacs or Mac Pros.
Amusingly, not one developer over 30 was running Windows...they all were running Linux or OS X. IT did a survey and published the results.
For all those complaining about the price, face it this phone is not for you. The 7 and 7s are the phones for you all, this product what every it ends be called will be supply constrained, and only those who have the money and do not care how much it cost will buy and own one. This is part of apple overall strategy, and sorry to tell you all, Apple has never cared if every person on the face of the earth had an Iphone let along can afford one.
The quality of discussion on this thread would be significantly better if people actually read the Gruber article where he clearly states "his" rationale around why Apple "could" charge up to $1200. But why let information get in the way of an uninformed personal opinion / grudge...
Android phones are improving, and flagships with minimal bezels and other features that we hope/assume the next iPhone will ship with are already significantly cheaper. I am all in on Apple, but when the Honor 9 and OnePlus 5 are very well reviewed and less than half the price of current iPhones, it pains me to think Apple might increase prices further. I won't be able to afford to upgrade and may have to stick with my iPhone 6 for yet another year. The price differential between my beloved Apple products and the competition seems to be widening, especially here in the UK
The OnePlus 5 is not waterproof and neither is the Honor 9. I think that for Android I'd still rather get the ZTE Axon 7 with a QHD screen and slightly slower processor for under $300 than the $500ish Honor 9 or One Plus 5 with a 1080p FHD screen. In that same $500ish price bracket you can get a S7 and be waterproof.
And why the heck is the Honor 9 shipping with 7.0 instead of 7.1.x?
My kids would rather have the iPhone 6 over any of the androids.
Informed guesses or not it doesn't help to give Apple ideas about raising prices even more! Maybe they have set a price of $(£)1000 then everyone on here says 'I'll be willing to pay 1200' there's no knowing what Apple will do considering there's a few more months before any rumoured phone is announced.
it is a bit funny we're discussing a rumoured price about an unannounced rumoured phone!
$1200?? I wont pay even half that for a smartphone. I have found that I only use a handful of apps, so I am no longer willing to pay more than $400 for a smart phone. If Apple can't beat or match that price, then I'll be looking elsewhere. The cheaper the phone, the less worry about theft or breakage.
Read the article again, and tell me what the similarities are between these products, and how they relate to this conversation:
Macintosh IIfx Original Powerbook 3500 (G3) Twentieth Anniversary Mac PowerMac Cube iMac Pro
The only reason the iMac Pro will sell is that it's coming out before the first release of what will hopefully be an actual Mac Pro since 2012, and people need to get work done. [...]
And the iMac Pro is another inherently compromised design. There is no sane reason to put a top of the line computer in a super-thin case behind a screen. It's not portable, a 27 inch computer is not intended to be portable, put the guts in a box, give the box plenty of expansion capability and cooling.
Wrong. Loaded 5k iMacs are popular with pros because they’re fast enough and take up very little space. For us pros who work in our homes an iMac is a great choice because it’s a very clean system that takes me up very little space. My loaded iMac uses a VESA mount and floats above my desk, with no box on or under. I love this.
Craig said most of their pros are running Xcode and a great number are iMacs. So thank god you aren’t making the decisions over there.
You are right there in our home the iMac has been a big bone of contention recently as in 'Why can't you just get an iMac?'. I refused to go the iMac route, always had the Mac Pros and tons of peripherals (I have about a dozen external RAIDS, scanners, keyboards and so on), I had a few cheese graters before that, Quadra 900, Quadra 840 av and so on back through time to Mac iifx etc.. We tried to down size at retirement but the need for a dedicated large room for my 'hobbies (photography, video, music and Macs in general) forced us to size up again to a much larger house, and people think Macs are expensive! It's 'all because I wouldn't use an iMac' I am told lol;)
Gruber made a case for an "edition" or "pro" model based on the fact that Apple could provide a set of "pro" features that the supply chain could not provide in typical volumes, some 200 million units for an iPhone manufacturing cycle.
Of course there would be buyers at a higher price point, though I would expect a heck of a lot of backlash from the usual suspects, because greed, blah, blah, blah.
Me, I'd pay more just for Pencil support, but I'd throw money at Apple to buy the first iPhone with a microLED!
Yes and I have long argued there will never be any hardware innovation that could fit in those 200M+ iPhone cycle unless you own most of the manufacturing.
The problem with the Pro / Edition Model is that i expect these spec to be priced in the 7s bracket next year.
The Current Line Up is and expected upgrade
7 Plus 32GB - > 7s Plus 64GB $769 7 Plus 128GB -> 7s Plus 256 GB. $869
Pricing stay the same. So the 7s will be an camera upgrade, SoC upgrade, Storage Capacity upgrade, faster Network. Basically the usual S cycle.
The Pro Model will be $969, taking over the original 256GB Price Point but with 64GB, and $1069 for 256GB version.
What happens next year? In the past before iPhone, Apple could do the unthinkable price adjustment. But now Apple is to fixed on margin. And it seems it is forcing them to corners.
The quality of discussion on this thread would be significantly better if people actually read the Gruber article where he clearly states "his" rationale around why Apple "could" charge up to $1200. But why let information get in the way of an uninformed personal opinion / grudge...
Agreed, as i mentioned earlier, surely that's just the high end model from a range of options if even true.
Comments
The problem with the Pro / Edition Model is that i expect these spec to be priced in the 7s bracket next year.
The Current Line Up is and expected upgrade
7 Plus 32GB - > 7s Plus 64GB $769
7 Plus 128GB -> 7s Plus 256 GB. $869
Pricing stay the same. So the 7s will be an camera upgrade, SoC upgrade, Storage Capacity upgrade, faster Network. Basically the usual S cycle.
The Pro Model will be $969, taking over the original 256GB Price Point but with 64GB, and $1069 for 256GB version.
What happens next year? In the past before iPhone, Apple could do the unthinkable price adjustment. But now Apple is to fixed on margin. And it seems it is forcing them to corners.
Why don't you provide some absolute numbers to back up your claims?
Not one developer picked that Dell where I work and we can pick whatever machines we want up to a certain price. Zero. There are a handful of dell workstations running linux and a few Alienwares. The rest were split between Dell laptops and Macs (mostly MBPs with some iMacs). Yes, we mostly have Dell and Apple because the corporate discount allows the budget to go further when spec'ing your machine. The video and media folks are running with iMacs or Mac Pros.
Amusingly, not one developer over 30 was running Windows...they all were running Linux or OS X. IT did a survey and published the results.
That is also a really ugly machine in my opinion.
And why the heck is the Honor 9 shipping with 7.0 instead of 7.1.x?
My kids would rather have the iPhone 6 over any of the androids.
it is a bit funny we're discussing a rumoured price about an unannounced rumoured phone!
Agreed, as i mentioned earlier, surely that's just the high end model from a range of options if even true.
iPhone 8 will be:
128 GB - $969
256 GB - $1069
Bookmark this post. These are models, and prices.