glad to see the SE wasn't dropped, I enquired with Vodafone UK about the SE a few days before the Apple event and they were all out of 128GB stock and "didn't expect any more due to new iphones coming". almost panic bought one there n then. Still banking on a Spring 2018 SE refresh and I'm all over it.
The SE is just an incredible bargain: 1/3 the price of the flagship X but with all the power & functionality needed to meet today's technical demands -- plus it receives the full benefit of the Apple ecosystem...
That is: the major difference between the X and SE is not WHAT they do, but HOW they do them. For instance, the screen of the X is better in every way from that of the SE, but yet functionally, they do pretty much the same things.
For those on a limited budget, the SE is an incredible bargain.
I look forward to Apple eventually phasing out their handsets that don't meet IP-67 or better. Once you factor in a water resistant case (ever iPhone I've owned, since the original 4, was kept, full time, in a water-tight case as I spend a lot of time around water), the supposedly smaller phones, like the SE are bulkier than the 7, even if you put a minimalist elastomer case on the 7.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Too many products. This is what happens when marketing has more power than engineering at a tech company. Apple is repeating the same mistakes that they made in the early-mid 1990s when they almost went belly up. Steve came in the late 90s and reduced the product lines to core products in order to remove market confusion that too many products caused.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Too many products. This is what happens when marketing has more power than engineering at a tech company. Apple is repeating the same mistakes that they made in the early-mid 1990s when they almost went belly up. Steve came in the late 90s and reduced the product lines to core products in order to remove market confusion that too many products caused.
Not saying I agree but it appears Apple’s way of having products at all these different price points is to keeep around last year (or the year before) model and reduce the price. My question is does Apple really needs to hit all these different price points? I don’t think they do.
melgross said: From what we read, Samsung is sucking Apple for about double the price for the OLED screens, at about $120-$130 each, where numbers normally run about $70-$80 for Galaxy S8 size parts. I don’t know who is paying for that cutout, which is responsible for a 40% reject rate, or who is eating that reject rate. But, it’s likely responsible for the higher cost of the phone, mostly. So what about next year? Will there even be three phones again? John Gruber thinks that there will be three, but I’m not so sure. It could simply be that Apple knew there wouldn’t be any way to supply 75 -100 million of these in a year, this year, but maybe next year they will. So maybe that high price is a one time thing.
Yeah, but according to what was said at Apple today, the screens Apple is paying for is both brighter than those in Samsung phones, and have a wider color. Apple is paying for those specs...
That doesn’t mean that the difference in price should be that much.
I was wondering this as well. Another hypothesis is around the stereo jack. If the 6S was dropped then folks insisting they still need a stereo port would be out of luck with the exception of the SE. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the 6S go when the SE gets a refresh.
Apple needs to have cheaper phones. Samsung does the same thing with their S Series. They keep them for years, lowering the price every year. It’s a lot less expensive than designing and making entirely new phones at those price points every year.
Cheaper than $349? I don't think so - not for USD pricing. Reducing the pricing in local currency in other markets perhaps (Apple always sets the exchange rate at the conservative level assuming worst case, thus prices can still be a deterrent - and I am not talking about VAT).
Better IMO to have a redesigned SE next year that keeps interest and maintains within 1-2 years the specs, at this new price level.
Ok, I can see that some people didn’t understand what I was saying. I was saying that Apple needed cheaper phones when compared to their flagship phones. I thought that was clear when I said that before they started selling their phones more cheaply by reusing the models for several years, the way Samsung does with their Galaxy models, their sales were less robust.
I really hope they don't axe the SE. I loathe the giant phones. SE is perfect. Even if the form factor remains the same, just update the internals please to the A11!
Never going to happen
Why not? When the iPhone SE came out in 2016, it had the same CPU and camera as the then-flagship iPhone 6s. The only major concession was lack of 3D Touch.
In fact, despite being cheaper than the (still available at the time) iPhone 6, the SE was better in basically every way, including Retina Flash.
Why did Apple do this? So it didn’t have to make any changes to the SE for two years. If it wants to keep the phone relevant for 2 years with a fresh update next year, the A11 is absolutely on the table, because the same thing already happened in 2016.
Exactly. A major selling point for this phone was that Apple had a flagship small phone, so they weren’t forgetting these customers who wanted a flagship phone, but in a smaller size.
if they just leave it, then the justification for buying it goes away, and it just becomes another cheap, small phone.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Too many products. This is what happens when marketing has more power than engineering at a tech company. Apple is repeating the same mistakes that they made in the early-mid 1990s when they almost went belly up. Steve came in the late 90s and reduced the product lines to core products in order to remove market confusion that too many products caused.
I don’t agree. I didn’t agree then either. Apple didn’t almost go belly up because of that. They almost went belly up because of a couple of stupid decisions of the then ceo, Michael Spindler. While Apple was transitioning to the PPC, he came out with two new 68040 models during Apple’s busiest season, the holiday season. People didn’t want machines that were considered to be on the way to obsolescence, so after that fiasco, he had them dumped, though schools and libraries were begging Apple for them.
that’s what almost killed Apple. After that, Apple needed to slim down. Amelio began the process, and Jobs finished it.
the handset market is divided into narrow pricing categories. It’s surprising on how narrow they are. Even on a USA based site such as arstechnica, there are discussions on whether a particular phone for $349 is worth getting over a different model selling for $329. They discuss incredibly minor feature differences as though they are world changing.
Apple’s phones are mostly different by $100 at each level. That’s not a big deal at all.
I really hope they don't axe the SE. I loathe the giant phones. SE is perfect. Even if the form factor remains the same, just update the internals please to the A11!
Never going to happen
They will go to the A11 when they refresh the SE in the spring.
I was wondering this as well. Another hypothesis is around the stereo jack. If the 6S was dropped then folks insisting they still need a stereo port [....]
This, but more from a legal sense.
When Apple (any major manufacturer ) sells into corp/gov't accounts [think DoD, or IBM, or carriers/resellers who provide their own warranty] , they have to maintain a 'form and function compatible' SKU for purchase for a number of years, and support for X years after that after the final FFC SKU disappears. It used to be 4 years for SKU life (and like 6 years for parts/repair... at least back in the 90s when I did gov't work... it was a 10 year minimum 'usable life' contracts for contractors building systems for DoD... some longer [think warships... and why WindowsXP is still deployed to new ships is because of the 10,000 new GED level 19-45 year olds that need to be trained on the interface every year, and 40,000 'veteran' would need to be cross trained on a new system, with loss of readiness [change cost money, AND increases uncertainty of our defense posture])
This was why the Form factors between iPhone N and Ns (can't use 'X' any more for a iPhone version variable ;-) ) models changed so minimally.
Now, it could increase (or decrease in the case of memory) in internal capacity/performance, but they had to maintain dimensions and exact same form factor (because there maybe custom componentry (sleds, docks) built for those devices. Remember all those custom sleds Apple Stores used for swiping cards?
This is also the reason for why they support newer OSes on older devices for such a long time. This is because the buyers and Apple know that these devices can't be hidden behind Firewalls and are alway on the network (minimally wifi), and a 4 year old device running a 3 year old OS with no upgrade path in today's world would be a marketing nightmare.
this is another reason Tic/Toc upgrade cycle is valuable. With reductions the Supply Chain and manufacturing componentry comet's tail, while at the same time, able to strike long term and profitable agreements with large customer/vendors, the cost of supporting legacy is much less.
These sizing issues This is also a reason why the iPad 2 lasted such a long time as a SKU... and why I suspect they killed the iPad 3 so quickly, and got to the iPad 4 form factor and stuck with that for so long as well.
I just checked the Apple site and for iPhone 5s they mention a 12 megapixel camera with 4K capability. Looks like the refresh is now.
I guess you're referring to iPhone SE, and not 5s. That being said, the SE has been capable of filming at 4K resolution since its launch during the spring of 2016. It has always had a 12 MP camera, the same as on the 6s.
And that is why I love it so... And it's *damn near indestructible* (at least compared to my 4s and my 6s).
[* famous last words... I'm sure I'll have a shattered screen by the end of the month now;-)]
Ok, so this is good, but they should update it every two years. It’s still an expensive smartphone for many people.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Flash storage costs went up, so the iPad cost went up to reflect that.
iPhone 7 is still going to be popular, especially with the price drop.
6s meets a lot of needs for the more affordable, larger screen phone, that the SE can't fill.
Apple would rather cannibalize their own sales than let someone else do it for them. I agree, it's not a nice quadrant, but they're trying to meet needs worldwide for markets with very different buying abilities.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Too many products. This is what happens when marketing has more power than engineering at a tech company. Apple is repeating the same mistakes that they made in the early-mid 1990s when they almost went belly up. Steve came in the late 90s and reduced the product lines to core products in order to remove market confusion that too many products caused.
Steve also reduced the product lines because Apple in 1997 had only enough money to meet payroll for 3 months. You can't produce a ton of unprofitable stuff for very long. Slash the product lines to only the things that make money.
A different way of saying 'market confusion' is paralysis of choice. If I go see jam in jars, and I have three choices, I can choose one. If I see 24 choices, and they all look pretty good, I'll be paralysed (so the concept goes) and not choose any.
But here, all of these iPhones are making money. It doesn't make sense to slash them, especially when consumers don't seem very confused about which one they want.
I was wondering this as well. Another hypothesis is around the stereo jack. If the 6S was dropped then folks insisting they still need a stereo port [....]
This, but more from a legal sense.
When Apple (any major manufacturer ) sells into corp/gov't accounts [think DoD, or IBM, or carriers/resellers who provide their own warranty] , they have to maintain a 'form and function compatible' SKU for purchase for a number of years, and support for X years after that after the final FFC SKU disappears. It used to be 4 years for SKU life (and like 6 years for parts/repair... at least back in the 90s when I did gov't work... it was a 10 year minimum 'usable life' contracts for contractors building systems for DoD... some longer [think warships... and why WindowsXP is still deployed to new ships is because of the 10,000 new GED level 19-45 year olds that need to be trained on the interface every year, and 40,000 'veteran' would need to be cross trained on a new system, with loss of readiness [change cost money, AND increases uncertainty of our defense posture])
This was why the Form factors between iPhone N and Ns (can't use 'X' any more for a iPhone version variable ;-) ) models changed so minimally.
Now, it could increase (or decrease in the case of memory) in internal capacity/performance, but they had to maintain dimensions and exact same form factor (because there maybe custom componentry (sleds, docks) built for those devices. Remember all those custom sleds Apple Stores used for swiping cards?
This is also the reason for why they support newer OSes on older devices for such a long time. This is because the buyers and Apple know that these devices can't be hidden behind Firewalls and are alway on the network (minimally wifi), and a 4 year old device running a 3 year old OS with no upgrade path in today's world would be a marketing nightmare.
this is another reason Tic/Toc upgrade cycle is valuable. With reductions the Supply Chain and manufacturing componentry comet's tail, while at the same time, able to strike long term and profitable agreements with large customer/vendors, the cost of supporting legacy is much less.
These sizing issues This is also a reason why the iPad 2 lasted such a long time as a SKU... and why I suspect they killed the iPad 3 so quickly, and got to the iPad 4 form factor and stuck with that for so long as well.
iPad 2 absolutely lived as long as it did due to educational sales.
The other reason why WinXP is deployed is to prevent those trained from jumping to private industry - if they deployed UNIX instead, the attrition would be greater.
iPad 4 was also about moving the whole product line away from 30-pin as quickly as could be accomplished.
Why did they keep around the 6S and the 7? Because they couldn’t reduce the price of the 7 enough and there would have been too big of a gap between the SE and the 7? It just seems like Apple’s product lines get messy as they’re trying to meet all these price points and are loathed to reduce prices before the absolutely have to. Heck iPad Pro prices went up $50. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 8 went up. $100 so it would be closer in price to the X and more people would opt to wait for the X as it’s only $200 more. If they would’ve kept the 8 at the same price as the 7 more people might have opted for it thinking it was better value for the money.
Too many products. This is what happens when marketing has more power than engineering at a tech company. Apple is repeating the same mistakes that they made in the early-mid 1990s when they almost went belly up. Steve came in the late 90s and reduced the product lines to core products in order to remove market confusion that too many products caused.
Steve also reduced the product lines because Apple in 1997 had only enough money to meet payroll for 3 months. You can't produce a ton of unprofitable stuff for very long. Slash the product lines to only the things that make money.
A different way of saying 'market confusion' is paralysis of choice. If I go see jam in jars, and I have three choices, I can choose one. If I see 24 choices, and they all look pretty good, I'll be paralysed (so the concept goes) and not choose any.
But here, all of these iPhones are making money. It doesn't make sense to slash them, especially when consumers don't seem very confused about which one they want.
I was sorry that Apple dumped their very successful, and money making monitor and scanner lines. Jobs felt that it was too much to keep track of with their diminished funds. In the photo/graphics industry, we wrote a petition for Apple to keep the monitors, but it fell on deaf ears.
I have a iPhone 6 and a MacBook Pro 13 2016 I want to upgrade with some new products I am retired and do not do heavy computer work anymore but do play games, what would you recommend for me.
When Apple (any major manufacturer ) sells into corp/gov't accounts [think DoD, or IBM, or carriers/resellers who provide their own warranty] , they have to maintain a 'form and function compatible' SKU for purchase for a number of years, and support for X years after that after the final FFC SKU disappears. It used to be 4 years for SKU life (and like 6 years for parts/repair... at least back in the 90s when I did gov't work... it was a 10 year minimum 'usable life' contracts for contractors building systems for DoD... some longer [think warships... and why WindowsXP is still deployed to new ships is because of the 10,000 new GED level 19-45 year olds that need to be trained on the interface every year, and 40,000 'veteran' would need to be cross trained on a new system, with loss of readiness [change cost money, AND increases uncertainty of our defense posture])
This was why the Form factors between iPhone N and Ns (can't use 'X' any more for a iPhone version variable ;-) ) models changed so minimally.
Now, it could increase (or decrease in the case of memory) in internal capacity/performance, but they had to maintain dimensions and exact same form factor (because there maybe custom componentry (sleds, docks) built for those devices. Remember all those custom sleds Apple Stores used for swiping cards?
This is also the reason for why they support newer OSes on older devices for such a long time. This is because the buyers and Apple know that these devices can't be hidden behind Firewalls and are alway on the network (minimally wifi), and a 4 year old device running a 3 year old OS with no upgrade path in today's world would be a marketing nightmare.
this is another reason Tic/Toc upgrade cycle is valuable. With reductions the Supply Chain and manufacturing componentry comet's tail, while at the same time, able to strike long term and profitable agreements with large customer/vendors, the cost of supporting legacy is much less.
These sizing issues This is also a reason why the iPad 2 lasted such a long time as a SKU... and why I suspect they killed the iPad 3 so quickly, and got to the iPad 4 form factor and stuck with that for so long as well.
I think apple could just make security updates for a couple of older OS-versions instead on IOS like all the other manufacturers do. I dont think pushing new functionality as brute force is the way to go in the industry. Choise is a good thing. if you dont see any new features worth in the upgrade just do a security update. The platform has become so big that I think it would be a good thing to support 2-3 major versions on security updates. This has bit apple-ios users a couple of times in the past when there are big changes under the hood. That means of course that Apple would need to serve also older App-versions for older OS:s
Comments
That is: the major difference between the X and SE is not WHAT they do, but HOW they do them. For instance, the screen of the X is better in every way from that of the SE, but yet functionally, they do pretty much the same things.
For those on a limited budget, the SE is an incredible bargain.
Ok, I can see that some people didn’t understand what I was saying. I was saying that Apple needed cheaper phones when compared to their flagship phones. I thought that was clear when I said that before they started selling their phones more cheaply by reusing the models for several years, the way Samsung does with their Galaxy models, their sales were less robust.
i wasn’t talking about a $200 Phone.
Exactly. A major selling point for this phone was that Apple had a flagship small phone, so they weren’t forgetting these customers who wanted a flagship phone, but in a smaller size.
if they just leave it, then the justification for buying it goes away, and it just becomes another cheap, small phone.
that’s what almost killed Apple. After that, Apple needed to slim down. Amelio began the process, and Jobs finished it.
the handset market is divided into narrow pricing categories. It’s surprising on how narrow they are. Even on a USA based site such as arstechnica, there are discussions on whether a particular phone for $349 is worth getting over a different model selling for $329. They discuss incredibly minor feature differences as though they are world changing.
Apple’s phones are mostly different by $100 at each level. That’s not a big deal at all.
When Apple (any major manufacturer ) sells into corp/gov't accounts [think DoD, or IBM, or carriers/resellers who provide their own warranty] , they have to maintain a 'form and function compatible' SKU for purchase for a number of years, and support for X years after that after the final FFC SKU disappears. It used to be 4 years for SKU life (and like 6 years for parts/repair... at least back in the 90s when I did gov't work... it was a 10 year minimum 'usable life' contracts for contractors building systems for DoD... some longer [think warships... and why WindowsXP is still deployed to new ships is because of the 10,000 new GED level 19-45 year olds that need to be trained on the interface every year, and 40,000 'veteran' would need to be cross trained on a new system, with loss of readiness [change cost money, AND increases uncertainty of our defense posture])
This was why the Form factors between iPhone N and Ns (can't use 'X' any more for a iPhone version variable ;-) ) models changed so minimally.
Now, it could increase (or decrease in the case of memory) in internal capacity/performance, but they had to maintain dimensions and exact same form factor (because there maybe custom componentry (sleds, docks) built for those devices. Remember all those custom sleds Apple Stores used for swiping cards?
This is also the reason for why they support newer OSes on older devices for such a long time. This is because the buyers and Apple know that these devices can't be hidden behind Firewalls and are alway on the network (minimally wifi), and a 4 year old device running a 3 year old OS with no upgrade path in today's world would be a marketing nightmare.
this is another reason Tic/Toc upgrade cycle is valuable. With reductions the Supply Chain and manufacturing componentry comet's tail, while at the same time, able to strike long term and profitable agreements with large customer/vendors, the cost of supporting legacy is much less.
These sizing issues This is also a reason why the iPad 2 lasted such a long time as a SKU... and why I suspect they killed the iPad 3 so quickly, and got to the iPad 4 form factor and stuck with that for so long as well.
And that is why I love it so... And it's *damn near indestructible* (at least compared to my 4s and my 6s).
[* famous last words... I'm sure I'll have a shattered screen by the end of the month now;-)]
iPhone 7 is still going to be popular, especially with the price drop.
6s meets a lot of needs for the more affordable, larger screen phone, that the SE can't fill.
Apple would rather cannibalize their own sales than let someone else do it for them. I agree, it's not a nice quadrant, but they're trying to meet needs worldwide for markets with very different buying abilities.
A different way of saying 'market confusion' is paralysis of choice. If I go see jam in jars, and I have three choices, I can choose one. If I see 24 choices, and they all look pretty good, I'll be paralysed (so the concept goes) and not choose any.
But here, all of these iPhones are making money. It doesn't make sense to slash them, especially when consumers don't seem very confused about which one they want.
The other reason why WinXP is deployed is to prevent those trained from jumping to private industry - if they deployed UNIX instead, the attrition would be greater.
iPad 4 was also about moving the whole product line away from 30-pin as quickly as could be accomplished.