Speak for yourself. My home, car and TV are all more important to me than my phone. Should anything happen to it, it is also the most easily and cheaply replaced.
Clean water, food, air, medical services, law & order, sanitation and temperature control. And I do live in the first world, but take nothing for granted
I never understood all the worry around this with respect to iPhone. Nobody was giving you anything. Included in the price of your monthly bill was paying off the phone. You're doing the same thing now except it's explicit.
Except that they didn't lower the monthly plan price once you fulfilled the two-year contract period so it didn't 'feel like' you were ever paying for the phone, aside from the upfront $200 or $300 charge. And the current plans without the phone are more expensive (or have less data) than the grandfathered unlimited data AT&T plan that I've been holding on to. So I feel like I was "getting something".
I don't mind a plan where the phone cost is explicit and you're paying it out over time (as long as it's not going to cost me more). But checking out the Verizon site, a 6GB plan with an iPhone 6 64GB with a $0 deposit on the phone would cost $116 a month for two years plus taxes and surcharges. On my current AT&T plan, the taxes and surcharges come to $12 to $15 a month. So that would probably be about $130 per month on Verizon with a phone over two years. And it wouldn't permit me to upgrade sooner unless the amount they're willing to give me for my used phone is equal or greater than what I still owe for the phone at the time I wish to upgrade. (So if I want to upgrade after a year, they'd have to give me $375 or more for the phone or I'd be paying for two phones at the same time).
My current grandfathered AT&T plan costs about $87 including all taxes and fees + $12.50 a month prorated for the phone ($300) over two years + $1.46 prorated over the two years for the $35 upgrade fee = $101. So the Verizon 6GB plan would cost me an extra $360 per year vs my unlimited AT&T grandfathered plan. Over two years, I'm saving the cost of a new phone, although I don't know if AT&T will still grandfather me in 2017, when my current contract is up, so I might not have a choice anyway.
Seems to me these companies are now charging without the phone what they used to charge with the phone. I know they have huge capital costs in infrastructure, but I think $1200-$1500 per year for phone service is ridiculous.
One thing to consider in terms of sales projections is that there's a lot of people who have to fulfill their current contracts before they can move to such a plan. So I don't think these new plans are going to jump iPhone sales much until 18-24 months from now.
how many hours a day do people use their smartphones? 5 hours? 8 hours? Your comparrison to toilet paper is flawed.
You are probably old person anyway. I was talking about younger people. They will skimp on cars and housing but not smartphones.
And hundreds of milliions of people own smartphones but not cars.
Hundreds of millions don't own a home but own smartphones.
Bottom line is smartphones is the most important optional purchase on the planet. Things like transportation, housing, food are not optional.
5 to 8 hours a day??? Do you spend most of your time traveling away from home, or are you a teenager?
And why are you suddenly dismissing transportation, housing and food as optional when they were an integral part of your opening argument?
I absolutely, 100% disagree that smartphones are the most "important" optional purchase on the planet. In fact, it sounds exactly like something an entitled and oblivious 15-year-old would say.
Apple makes premium products people want and are willing to pay for. This change to installment plans isn't going to impact Apple's bottom line meaningfully in the US at least.
Android may suffer however. A lot of people I know buy Android for price. I wonder if phone companies will still be giving away free Galaxies? If not... could spell t r o u b l e for Sammy (or rather, even more trouble).
I just checked out Verizon's site. LG G4 is $23/mo. Galaxy S6 is $24/mo. Nexus 6 is $27/mo. iPhone 6 is $27/mo. AT&T prices are similar. I think this is actually beneficial to Apple. People will look at prices and see that iPhone is only a couple dollars more each month or in some cases the exact same monthly price. I think it will put to bed this notion that iPhones are so much more expensive than the competition.
I agree iPhone will be very competitive, probably dominant on premium to premium sales.
What about phones going for $10/mo? This will be the critical choice for Apple buyers. I believe many buyers will choose to upgrade to a premium $25+ a month and Apple needs to win the $25+ game on merit. I'm optimistic that for the short and intermediate term Apple will win on best security, privacy, UX, service, support, and 'just works' reputation.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
And by your definition, people above 25 years of age are considered old?
I don't think anybody here is arguing the importance of smart phones, but to claim they are the single most important thing ever is a bit absurd. And to say that one is in the stone age for owning an iPhone that is 2 years old is simply childish!
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
I use my iPhone for all of those things today but is it the most important thing I own? Absolutely not! I can do all of those things without it, it simply adds convenience.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
Those are "wants" not "needs". We are a long way off from it becoming the standard to starting our cars and open our doors. When I was a teen we were suppose to be driving around flying cars by now. Technology and the adoption of technology moves slow. People aren't going to run our and replace all their equipment so an iPhone can control them. Over time when they want to upgrade they may buy a smartphone controlled device but people just don't replace everything at once.
We have generations are are still scared to shop online let alone have smartphones control their homes. Everytime we hear about a major cyber attack like Target it makes those generations even more hesitant to change.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
These are not indispensable functions - they're "nice to haves", not "musts".
1. Cars: There are already security issues with keyless ignitions and key fobs. So not everyone is going to want to unlock their car with their phone and take the chance that they'll run out of power and won't be able to unlock it. So even if they use their phone for this, they'll still take their car keys.
2. Home and Work Doors: a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Most companies are still going to issue their own IDs that open doors.
3. Home AC, Lights, Sound: For people with large living spaces, maybe. For everyone else, it would actually be quite expensive to add all the extra equipment that you'd need to do this. Plus, it turns us into that character in "Wall-E" - someone who never gets up out of the chair.
4. Replace Credit Cards, IDs: Until it can replace every single ID and Credit Card and until every single merchant accepts Apple Pay, one still has to carry a wallet. And merchants will still accept credit cards for decades to come.
5. Watch functions: Again, nice to have for some people, but not a "must". I do a lot of biking and I had an iPhone app that tracked it all, but I stopped using it after the first few times because it wasn't providing me with any info I didn't already know and it ran down the battery in the phone.
Spend one night without your phone and one night homeless and then tell me which is more important. As much as people now depend upon their phones, I think we're going to come to a point where we're going to see some backlash and niches of people start giving up their phones or using them far less.
I just posted a link that showed the phone is more important than a car for milenials.
So you spend 3 hours a day driving in traffic. Big deal. You spend more time watching TV then on your phone. Sounds like you are part of the old generation.
You are making assumptions based on todays technology.
I'm talking about the future. My whole argument is the smartphone will be more and more important as time goes by.
My whole argument is people won't be satisfied with a 4 year old phone when it becomes such an integral part of life.
Second point: Don't confuse NECESSITY with WANTS.
Of course you need a home, transportation, food, water, ect.
My point is the young generation is willing to sacrifice a quality car or lodging for a nice phone.
They are willing to drive a beater car.
They are willing to share a bedroom with a roommate.
But they are not willing to skimp on a smartphone.
Speaking of assumptions based on today's technology... I'm betting that your almighty smartphone will be displaced by a much, much, much smaller device that will always be attached to your body and provide all of the conveniences that you deem so important.
I respectfully disagree with a few of your opinions and assumptions.
In my opinion Apple sells best in class hardware. They have pretty good in-house software but it is often bested by the competition. The ecosystem is pretty good but there is a reason why people choose to use third party apps that do the same thing as what Apple offers. I bet you will find plenty of people here who have a folder on their iOS device where they keep the Apple apps they can't delete that have been replaced by third party offerings.
There are a lot of people like myself who both want and need cross platform functionality for example. Google and Microsoft both have great cross platform applications and cloud services. Being locked in to any one ecosystem is not where I live personally.
And that brings up another point about maturation. As more and more software and services become cloud based the hardware needed to run them becomes less and less relevant no matter what you are using. As long as it works well it could come from anybody.
I think you make some decent points but I don't think we will agree with each other on this.
But you are still making my point for me.
Apple's ecosystem includes all those cross platform apps and services. That is what makes the Apple ecosystem great. You get the best from Apple and the best from Google/Microsoft. You can't say the same for Android or Windows phone.
The ecosystem also includes things like customer service, retail stores, and resale value. Owning an iPhone is a frictionless experience. Want to upgrade? Easy. Need to fix something? easy. World class customer service is something the competition cannot offer.
I don't want to go around and around with you on this but I have owned a ton of devices over the years and have overall gotten both equally great and poor customer service from many manufacturers including Apple. I have had plenty of "Genius's" deny many legitimate issues over the years. I have also had them go above and beyond. The last thing I would say is that it is "frictionless", rather I would say it's inconsistent at best. Same goes for other manufacturers. Sometimes they will overnight you a new device with a return label to send back the faulty one, and sometimes you get nothing. To be fair some companies are better than others, and Apple is pretty decent . But they are not frictionless and will fight you even on known issues sometimes. Other times they will replace your stuff no questions asked. Other companies can be equally great or frustrating.
And while Apple products hold their resale value better than most, if the thing you bought in the first place was far cheaper and worked just as well over the life of the device for what was needed then it is a wash. Depending on what you need and what you are doing, believe it or not low end and mid grade stuff works great for a lot of use cases and users.
I just posted a link that showed the phone is more important than a car for milenials.
So you spend 3 hours a day driving in traffic. Big deal. You spend more time watching TV then on your phone. Sounds like you are part of the old generation.
NEXT.
Codswallop and way off base assumptions.
It seems funny (odd) to me that in all the discussions of nice-to-have vs need-to-have -- I don't recall any mention of a job :???:
Dropped calls. Missing text messages. Bad wifi connections. Constant app crashes.
You just perfectly described my last couple of iPhones and my current iPad Air (minus the dropped calls of course). Upgrading to 8.4 on the Air to get the Music app introduced a new screen rotation bug that is really annoying. I looked at the Apple support forums and I am far from the only one.
I have never had more app crashes and soft reboots on any device on any platform than iOS after 8 came out.
You know there is a problem when even Safari on iOS constantly crashes.
Apple makes great stuff but its not perfect. And I like using other stuff too.
I am not sure. If what you say is true, then why people choose Android in the first place? So price does play a role for some. Question is how big that percentage is. OTOH I agree that someone who can afford $57 probably will also be able to pay $70. And yes, people never think of total cost of ownership, just about monthly installments, even if from a 0% interest POV this might actually make sense to go through installments instead of paying upfront.
On a sidenote; I wonder how Apple will announce the pricing of the next models during the introduction. Jut full price? Or still 0$, 99$ etc based on subsidized contracts?
There are still those who still prefer to buy their phones upfront and 650 dollars is a little hard to swallow, especially for the prepaid crowd. Forgetting the bias people have for Android here, a phone like the new Motorola G is actually a very good phone for it's price. In fact I haven't seen a single bad review. Not everyone needs an iPhone, one of my best friends still uses a Nokia PureView 808 and refuses to use anything else. She just bought two more from ricardo.ch new, in the box, one to replace her current one which had a busted HDMI in which she misses greatly as she used her phone to watch movies with and the other as a backup. I guess when you like something that much, it's hard to let go. In her defense though, she is a photographer and swears that the 808 is still the king of the hill when it comes to camera phones, especially the Pureview camera app. I kind of agree with her as I still use mine when I don't want to bring along my Canon. With it's dedicated imaging co-processor, fantastic Leica optics, image stability and 41MP, nothing else compares. She is still able to access, Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter and the rest so why not.
I said the 4s would be stoneage. That phone will be 4 generations old next month.
That's pretty funny: I own a 4S and it works perfectly fine for my needs. I get the "hand-me-down" from my wife, which currently is a 5S, and we'll be buying a 6S this fall. Additionally, we're on a group plan with 9 of the 10 slots filled, and for those who are not paying off a financed phone, the price is only $29 per month. So there is actually a lot of incentive to keep an old phone and use that vs. buying a new one. For me, I get along just fine with a 4S; arguably the only "indispensable" function it serves is that we don't have a land line to our house, so our cell phones are the only way to talk. Everything else my iPhone can do is merely a convenience.
While a smart phone may be the highest "want" item for young folks (using your definition of 25 and under), it'll probably stay restricted to that age group. Because when you get older and actually get married, start a family, buy a house, etc., your shiny new smart phone is not much of a priority anymore.
Forgetting the bias people have for Android here, a phone like the new Motorola G is actually a very good phone for it's price. In fact I haven't seen a single bad review.
I forgot about the Moto G. I have not played with one yet but it seems like a great piece of kit for about $220.
As the hardware gets matured and hardware innovation dies out, it will not be a grim situation for Apple.
It will certainly be grim for Android OEMS banking on high priced handsets (comparable to iPhone prices).
In fact it has already started to happen.
LG - marginal profits ,
Samsung - declining sales and more rapidly declining profits for ongoing seven quarters.
HTC - rapidly declining profits, already in red, going the way of BB and Nokia.
Chinese and Indian brands making tiniest of profits.
Apple's differentiation does not arise from hardware alone but from hardware + ecosystem + ios + cohesive user experience stemming from hardware & software integration + after sales services + timely OS upgrades and patches +timely security patches
My grouse against Apple is that they do not push hardware fast enough. They don't need to do that to make 92% of global smartphone profits. But the faster they push in commoditizing hardware the faster will iPhone competitors like S series , G series , M series, etc die off.
It takes away the bragging right of Samsung and LG - 3 GB RAM vs iPhone's 1 GB. Quad HD display vs Retina and so on.
There are 1000+ Android vendors making 10K or 20k models or something like that.
Their bills are coming due. Just wait and watch how they start falling off one by one.
Comments
Clean water, food, air, medical services, law & order, sanitation and temperature control. And I do live in the first world, but take nothing for granted
I never understood all the worry around this with respect to iPhone. Nobody was giving you anything. Included in the price of your monthly bill was paying off the phone. You're doing the same thing now except it's explicit.
Except that they didn't lower the monthly plan price once you fulfilled the two-year contract period so it didn't 'feel like' you were ever paying for the phone, aside from the upfront $200 or $300 charge. And the current plans without the phone are more expensive (or have less data) than the grandfathered unlimited data AT&T plan that I've been holding on to. So I feel like I was "getting something".
I don't mind a plan where the phone cost is explicit and you're paying it out over time (as long as it's not going to cost me more). But checking out the Verizon site, a 6GB plan with an iPhone 6 64GB with a $0 deposit on the phone would cost $116 a month for two years plus taxes and surcharges. On my current AT&T plan, the taxes and surcharges come to $12 to $15 a month. So that would probably be about $130 per month on Verizon with a phone over two years. And it wouldn't permit me to upgrade sooner unless the amount they're willing to give me for my used phone is equal or greater than what I still owe for the phone at the time I wish to upgrade. (So if I want to upgrade after a year, they'd have to give me $375 or more for the phone or I'd be paying for two phones at the same time).
My current grandfathered AT&T plan costs about $87 including all taxes and fees + $12.50 a month prorated for the phone ($300) over two years + $1.46 prorated over the two years for the $35 upgrade fee = $101. So the Verizon 6GB plan would cost me an extra $360 per year vs my unlimited AT&T grandfathered plan. Over two years, I'm saving the cost of a new phone, although I don't know if AT&T will still grandfather me in 2017, when my current contract is up, so I might not have a choice anyway.
Seems to me these companies are now charging without the phone what they used to charge with the phone. I know they have huge capital costs in infrastructure, but I think $1200-$1500 per year for phone service is ridiculous.
One thing to consider in terms of sales projections is that there's a lot of people who have to fulfill their current contracts before they can move to such a plan. So I don't think these new plans are going to jump iPhone sales much until 18-24 months from now.
how many hours a day do people use their smartphones? 5 hours? 8 hours? Your comparrison to toilet paper is flawed.
You are probably old person anyway. I was talking about younger people. They will skimp on cars and housing but not smartphones.
And hundreds of milliions of people own smartphones but not cars.
Hundreds of millions don't own a home but own smartphones.
Bottom line is smartphones is the most important optional purchase on the planet. Things like transportation, housing, food are not optional.
5 to 8 hours a day??? Do you spend most of your time traveling away from home, or are you a teenager?
And why are you suddenly dismissing transportation, housing and food as optional when they were an integral part of your opening argument?
I absolutely, 100% disagree that smartphones are the most "important" optional purchase on the planet. In fact, it sounds exactly like something an entitled and oblivious 15-year-old would say.
I was talking about young people.
For older people like us the smartphone will never be more important than a home. But for young people it is.
What is your definition of young?
Apple makes premium products people want and are willing to pay for. This change to installment plans isn't going to impact Apple's bottom line meaningfully in the US at least.
Android may suffer however. A lot of people I know buy Android for price. I wonder if phone companies will still be giving away free Galaxies? If not... could spell t r o u b l e for Sammy (or rather, even more trouble).
I just checked out Verizon's site. LG G4 is $23/mo. Galaxy S6 is $24/mo. Nexus 6 is $27/mo. iPhone 6 is $27/mo. AT&T prices are similar. I think this is actually beneficial to Apple. People will look at prices and see that iPhone is only a couple dollars more each month or in some cases the exact same monthly price. I think it will put to bed this notion that iPhones are so much more expensive than the competition.
I agree iPhone will be very competitive, probably dominant on premium to premium sales.
What about phones going for $10/mo? This will be the critical choice for Apple buyers. I believe many buyers will choose to upgrade to a premium $25+ a month and Apple needs to win the $25+ game on merit. I'm optimistic that for the short and intermediate term Apple will win on best security, privacy, UX, service, support, and 'just works' reputation.
I'd say under 25.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
And by your definition, people above 25 years of age are considered old?
I don't think anybody here is arguing the importance of smart phones, but to claim they are the single most important thing ever is a bit absurd. And to say that one is in the stone age for owning an iPhone that is 2 years old is simply childish!
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
I use my iPhone for all of those things today but is it the most important thing I own? Absolutely not! I can do all of those things without it, it simply adds convenience.
I'd say under 25.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
Those are "wants" not "needs". We are a long way off from it becoming the standard to starting our cars and open our doors. When I was a teen we were suppose to be driving around flying cars by now. Technology and the adoption of technology moves slow. People aren't going to run our and replace all their equipment so an iPhone can control them. Over time when they want to upgrade they may buy a smartphone controlled device but people just don't replace everything at once.
We have generations are are still scared to shop online let alone have smartphones control their homes. Everytime we hear about a major cyber attack like Target it makes those generations even more hesitant to change.
I'd say under 25.
The smartphone will become even more indespensible in the future:
1. Soon will become the standard to unlock your car/start your car.
2. Standard for opening up your home doors and work doors
3. Use to regulate home AC, lights, sound, ect
4. Replace creditcards, ID's, ect
5. With Watch to tract health and wellness
This is only the beginning.
How important was the smartphone in 2008? Pretty important. Each successive year the phone is getting more and more part of our life. Sure you can choose to keep carrying a dozen keys, 10 creditcards, a flip phone, a digital camera, a walkman, ect, ect, ect. But in the future the smartphone will replace more and more stuff.
These are not indispensable functions - they're "nice to haves", not "musts".
1. Cars: There are already security issues with keyless ignitions and key fobs. So not everyone is going to want to unlock their car with their phone and take the chance that they'll run out of power and won't be able to unlock it. So even if they use their phone for this, they'll still take their car keys.
2. Home and Work Doors: a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Most companies are still going to issue their own IDs that open doors.
3. Home AC, Lights, Sound: For people with large living spaces, maybe. For everyone else, it would actually be quite expensive to add all the extra equipment that you'd need to do this. Plus, it turns us into that character in "Wall-E" - someone who never gets up out of the chair.
4. Replace Credit Cards, IDs: Until it can replace every single ID and Credit Card and until every single merchant accepts Apple Pay, one still has to carry a wallet. And merchants will still accept credit cards for decades to come.
5. Watch functions: Again, nice to have for some people, but not a "must". I do a lot of biking and I had an iPhone app that tracked it all, but I stopped using it after the first few times because it wasn't providing me with any info I didn't already know and it ran down the battery in the phone.
Spend one night without your phone and one night homeless and then tell me which is more important. As much as people now depend upon their phones, I think we're going to come to a point where we're going to see some backlash and niches of people start giving up their phones or using them far less.
are you a milenial?
I just posted a link that showed the phone is more important than a car for milenials.
So you spend 3 hours a day driving in traffic. Big deal. You spend more time watching TV then on your phone. Sounds like you are part of the old generation.
NEXT.
Codswallop and way off base assumptions.
You are making assumptions based on todays technology.
I'm talking about the future. My whole argument is the smartphone will be more and more important as time goes by.
My whole argument is people won't be satisfied with a 4 year old phone when it becomes such an integral part of life.
Second point: Don't confuse NECESSITY with WANTS.
Of course you need a home, transportation, food, water, ect.
My point is the young generation is willing to sacrifice a quality car or lodging for a nice phone.
They are willing to drive a beater car.
They are willing to share a bedroom with a roommate.
But they are not willing to skimp on a smartphone.
Speaking of assumptions based on today's technology... I'm betting that your almighty smartphone will be displaced by a much, much, much smaller device that will always be attached to your body and provide all of the conveniences that you deem so important.
I respectfully disagree with a few of your opinions and assumptions.
In my opinion Apple sells best in class hardware. They have pretty good in-house software but it is often bested by the competition. The ecosystem is pretty good but there is a reason why people choose to use third party apps that do the same thing as what Apple offers. I bet you will find plenty of people here who have a folder on their iOS device where they keep the Apple apps they can't delete that have been replaced by third party offerings.
There are a lot of people like myself who both want and need cross platform functionality for example. Google and Microsoft both have great cross platform applications and cloud services. Being locked in to any one ecosystem is not where I live personally.
And that brings up another point about maturation. As more and more software and services become cloud based the hardware needed to run them becomes less and less relevant no matter what you are using. As long as it works well it could come from anybody.
I think you make some decent points but I don't think we will agree with each other on this.
But you are still making my point for me.
Apple's ecosystem includes all those cross platform apps and services. That is what makes the Apple ecosystem great. You get the best from Apple and the best from Google/Microsoft. You can't say the same for Android or Windows phone.
The ecosystem also includes things like customer service, retail stores, and resale value. Owning an iPhone is a frictionless experience. Want to upgrade? Easy. Need to fix something? easy. World class customer service is something the competition cannot offer.
I don't want to go around and around with you on this but I have owned a ton of devices over the years and have overall gotten both equally great and poor customer service from many manufacturers including Apple. I have had plenty of "Genius's" deny many legitimate issues over the years. I have also had them go above and beyond. The last thing I would say is that it is "frictionless", rather I would say it's inconsistent at best. Same goes for other manufacturers. Sometimes they will overnight you a new device with a return label to send back the faulty one, and sometimes you get nothing. To be fair some companies are better than others, and Apple is pretty decent . But they are not frictionless and will fight you even on known issues sometimes. Other times they will replace your stuff no questions asked. Other companies can be equally great or frustrating.
And while Apple products hold their resale value better than most, if the thing you bought in the first place was far cheaper and worked just as well over the life of the device for what was needed then it is a wash. Depending on what you need and what you are doing, believe it or not low end and mid grade stuff works great for a lot of use cases and users.
It seems funny (odd) to me that in all the discussions of nice-to-have vs need-to-have -- I don't recall any mention of a job :???:
[IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/61689/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
Dropped calls. Missing text messages. Bad wifi connections. Constant app crashes.
You just perfectly described my last couple of iPhones and my current iPad Air (minus the dropped calls of course). Upgrading to 8.4 on the Air to get the Music app introduced a new screen rotation bug that is really annoying. I looked at the Apple support forums and I am far from the only one.
I have never had more app crashes and soft reboots on any device on any platform than iOS after 8 came out.
You know there is a problem when even Safari on iOS constantly crashes.
Apple makes great stuff but its not perfect. And I like using other stuff too.
There are still those who still prefer to buy their phones upfront and 650 dollars is a little hard to swallow, especially for the prepaid crowd. Forgetting the bias people have for Android here, a phone like the new Motorola G is actually a very good phone for it's price. In fact I haven't seen a single bad review. Not everyone needs an iPhone, one of my best friends still uses a Nokia PureView 808 and refuses to use anything else. She just bought two more from ricardo.ch new, in the box, one to replace her current one which had a busted HDMI in which she misses greatly as she used her phone to watch movies with and the other as a backup. I guess when you like something that much, it's hard to let go. In her defense though, she is a photographer and swears that the 808 is still the king of the hill when it comes to camera phones, especially the Pureview camera app. I kind of agree with her as I still use mine when I don't want to bring along my Canon. With it's dedicated imaging co-processor, fantastic Leica optics, image stability and 41MP, nothing else compares. She is still able to access, Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter and the rest so why not.
I said the 4s would be stoneage. That phone will be 4 generations old next month.
That's pretty funny: I own a 4S and it works perfectly fine for my needs. I get the "hand-me-down" from my wife, which currently is a 5S, and we'll be buying a 6S this fall. Additionally, we're on a group plan with 9 of the 10 slots filled, and for those who are not paying off a financed phone, the price is only $29 per month. So there is actually a lot of incentive to keep an old phone and use that vs. buying a new one. For me, I get along just fine with a 4S; arguably the only "indispensable" function it serves is that we don't have a land line to our house, so our cell phones are the only way to talk. Everything else my iPhone can do is merely a convenience.
While a smart phone may be the highest "want" item for young folks (using your definition of 25 and under), it'll probably stay restricted to that age group. Because when you get older and actually get married, start a family, buy a house, etc., your shiny new smart phone is not much of a priority anymore.
I forgot about the Moto G. I have not played with one yet but it seems like a great piece of kit for about $220.
I have yet to see a poor review of it either.
As the hardware gets matured and hardware innovation dies out, it will not be a grim situation for Apple.
It will certainly be grim for Android OEMS banking on high priced handsets (comparable to iPhone prices).
In fact it has already started to happen.
LG - marginal profits ,
Samsung - declining sales and more rapidly declining profits for ongoing seven quarters.
HTC - rapidly declining profits, already in red, going the way of BB and Nokia.
Chinese and Indian brands making tiniest of profits.
Apple's differentiation does not arise from hardware alone but from hardware + ecosystem + ios + cohesive user experience stemming from hardware & software integration + after sales services + timely OS upgrades and patches +timely security patches
My grouse against Apple is that they do not push hardware fast enough. They don't need to do that to make 92% of global smartphone profits. But the faster they push in commoditizing hardware the faster will iPhone competitors like S series , G series , M series, etc die off.
It takes away the bragging right of Samsung and LG - 3 GB RAM vs iPhone's 1 GB. Quad HD display vs Retina and so on.
There are 1000+ Android vendors making 10K or 20k models or something like that.
Their bills are coming due. Just wait and watch how they start falling off one by one.