I don’t know about others, but my reasons for not upgrading immediately to iPhone 8 or X are varied even though I am on the Apple buy program.
1. I find upgrading every other year works for me and I end up owning a fine iPhone after 2 years. Think of buying a car. Pay it off then worry about next car. 2. There is some prudence in not jumping on major hardware model change until kinks worked out e.g., screen burn in. 3. I have gotten iPhones every two years since original iPhone was released and have NOT been driven by new features with the exception of the first model to the next to get 3G. I like the new features, but they have NEVER been so compelling to make me change. 4. Cost is always a concern, but with installment plans with carriers or now Apple it is hidden so I tend to get the biggest and best to my wife and myself. This makes resale value higher or a happier hand me down owner.
So there is no one thing Apple could do to change my behavior over the last 10 years and makes these surveys pretty one dimensional and fails to provide any real insight into complex buying behavior by customers.
My bet is if you asked the same customers every 30-45 days you would get different answers 80% of the time.
I’d really like an X, but I think it’s too expensive and lacks a significant camera upgrade with better dynamic range. Lol... So I’m that precise guy that they’re profiling. My old iPhone 6+ works, but it is slow to change between apps with today’s iOS..
Apple's product lineup this past year was not interesting to me. The iPhone X was priced too high, particularly with a measly 64GB of unexpandable memory at a $1,000 entry point as the base and a quadrupling to 256GB for an additional $150 (15% of the entire phone) as the only option. The now four-generation old design of the 8 was uninspiring, if I'm going to pay $700+ for a new phone I expect it to look more modern. I've already got a 6 Plus and other than raw processing power there just weren't any compelling new features on the 8 series to get me to upgrade.
We'll see what this year's product mix looks like. Hopefully Ming's prediction of a $700 6.1" LCD device with the same overall design as the X is accurate.
Well, 44% are happy with their current phones, so this is a good thing, not a bad thing for X adoption.
My iPhone 7 is great. No urge to upgrade given current features and prices.
I am an Apple shareholder since about the time of the OS X Public Beta- well before the bandwagon- and would not shell out $1,000 for a cell phone if Steve Jobs arose from the grave and hand delivered it to me.
It is a phone, people. A nice phone, but not worth $1,000. Back when I was buying my first Apple stock that would buy you an iMac.
Not trying to be a troll, but I consider a $1,000 phone to be an IQ test. If you buy it, you lose.
I have to wonder how a supposed investor in the most successful tech firm in history can be so clueless about technology. The iPhone is clearly not "just a phone" and is clearly a pocket computer. As a technologist and developer it's one of my most needed and used computers. Making calls is only the most trivial of use cases.
And yes, if you claim anyone who sees value in their tools, even those tools priced at a $1000 (less than half my notebook cost, btw) is a moron, then you are indeed a troll. And everything I've read from you here supports that conclusion.
If carriers still subsidized I might upgrade every two years, but now that we're stuck with the full cost of the phone, it's just too difficult to justify the expense.
This makes no sense. Despite the carrier subsidy, you paid the full price for your previous phones -- because they charged you more every month. More since they didn't stop charging you after the phone was paid for. Since the subsidies ended that fee went down (ATT here). Now I just pay a monthly installment, but it ends the moment the phone is paid for. So it's in fact cheaper than the previous pricing model.
Apple's product lineup this past year was not interesting to me. The iPhone X was priced too high, particularly with a measly 64GB of unexpandable memory at a $1,000 entry point as the base and a quadrupling to 256GB for an additional $150 (15% of the entire phone) as the only option.
Yeah and still no removable battery! /rolleyes
Hilarious that now 64gb is claimed as measly, and that quadrupling it for $150 is high when its cheaper than it used to be for bump ups.
For me, I liked the idea of the X initially - particularly the idea of a bigger screen in a smaller phone as well as the promise of a much improved (OLED) screen... But, when I got to see it in person I found that screen was nice but not a huge improvement over the cheaper traditional screens used on the 7 & 8.
And, keeping in mind the high price of the X is mostly due to its OLED screen, with the rumor that Apple may be coming out with a similar design using a traditional screen in the fall, I think that might be worth waiting for -- because, hopefully, it will have the advantages of the X at a more affordable price.
(My personal impressions of the OLED screen was that it made a significant difference while watching video -- but for the rest, there wasn't a huge difference)
It only makes a diff if you are watching video in a darkish place, elsewhere the contrast advantage is lost. The. Main reason the switched is because it takes less space in their phone and they used that space for extra battery and more feature. The x is the size of the 8 with more screen to drive and a lot more features: they needed space.
This would be better without all the annoying fanboys in the comment section.
I used to get every new iPhone - I stopped with the current upgrade models (iPhone 8 and iPhone X)
iPhone X is a User Interface clusterfuck - because the lack of TouchID and reliance on FaceID made them temporarily abandon the Home Button, which was dumb. This resulted in the compromise solutions of bewildering and confusing gestures, and a completely inane Konami code of using the buttons on the side.
If they brought back TouchID in addition to FaceID, and reintegrated a virtual HomeButton on the display, I would buy the iPhone X without further consideration. Without, particularly without a Home Button, im not interested.
Lol. Of course people who didn’t upgrade have a reason: just like the tens of millions of us who DID upgrade have theirs. Simple enough.
And my iPhone X experience has validated all of mine. Going forward I’ll choose that series for sure. And price? The Apple finance route means the monthly difference is negligible.
Apple's product lineup this past year was not interesting to me. The iPhone X was priced too high, particularly with a measly 64GB of unexpandable memory at a $1,000 entry point as the base and a quadrupling to 256GB for an additional $150 (15% of the entire phone) as the only option. The now four-generation old design of the 8 was uninspiring, if I'm going to pay $700+ for a new phone I expect it to look more modern. I've already got a 6 Plus and other than raw processing power there just weren't any compelling new features on the 8 series to get me to upgrade.
We'll see what this year's product mix looks like. Hopefully Ming's prediction of a $700 6.1" LCD device with the same overall design as the X is accurate.
Yeh, that $150 jump from 64Gb to 245Gb was a stopper for me too. 64Gb was too small, but the extra $150 for the 256Gb (which was more than what I needed) made the phone "too expensive". It really shouldn't have been a big deal. Rather, more like the straw that broke the camel's back...
If carriers still subsidized I might upgrade every two years, but now that we're stuck with the full cost of the phone, it's just too difficult to justify the expense.
This makes no sense. Despite the carrier subsidy, you paid the full price for your previous phones -- because they charged you more every month. More since they didn't stop charging you after the phone was paid for. Since the subsidies ended that fee went down (ATT here). Now I just pay a monthly installment, but it ends the moment the phone is paid for. So it's in fact cheaper than the previous pricing model.
Don't be so critical.... The carriers went to extensive lengths to hide what they were doing -- and when I told my friends what was going on, not only did they not realize it, but several refused to believe me.
When my 2 year AT&T plan ran out and I was getting a new phone that I was buying outright, I went to AT&T (actually, multiple visits and phone calls) but always got the same answer: That I had never been charged for the phone, not even a penny. And, if I bought a new phone, my bill would not go down -- even though I bought the phone outright.
I changed carriers to Consumer Celllular: Same network but much lower prices.
This would be better without all the annoying fanboys in the comment section.
I used to get every new iPhone - I stopped with the current upgrade models (iPhone 8 and iPhone X)
iPhone X is a User Interface clusterfuck - because the lack of TouchID and reliance on FaceID made them temporarily abandon the Home Button, which was dumb. This resulted in the compromise solutions of bewildering and confusing gestures, and a completely inane Konami code of using the buttons on the side.
If they brought back TouchID in addition to FaceID, and reintegrated a virtual HomeButton on the display, I would buy the iPhone X without further consideration. Without, particularly without a Home Button, im not interested.
I think the X interface is pernt near perfect. As soon as I saw it, the 8 looked old and stupid. I mastered the very intuitive workings in a few minutes and would never go back. More Xs for the rest of us!
I would have bought an iPhone X on launch day if it had the Display Zoom feature. Sadly, it doesn't (yet).
In case you're not familiar, I'm not talking about zooming. I'm specifically referring to the option in settings at Settings > Display & Brightness > Display Zoom. Display Zoom makes an iPhone screen scale down to the next smaller model, which gives you less screen real estate but makes everything comfortably larger. Basically, it turns an 8 Plus into a jumbo 8, and it turns an 8 into a jumbo SE. For people with poor vision, that feature is phenomenal.
I expect the X line of iPhones to get the Display Zoom feature back once Apple releases a Plus (and SE?) model, at which point I'm buying one.
Perhaps a better survey would have been to ask people who bought an iPhone 6s or 7 or 8 why they chose that phone instead of an iPhone X, since that is what the analysts (and Apple) care about. To a certain extent, the question they did ask is relevant, though, since part of introducing a new phone is enticing users who have a functional phone to upgrade, even though they may not truly need to.
I just replaced my daughter's iPhone 5s and bought an iPhone 8 instead of an iPhone X. I told her that I would pay for a base iPhone 8, and if she wanted extra memory or an iPhone X she could pay the difference. She payed the extra $150 for the 256GB iPhone 8 but didn't even look at an iPhone X. There are precious few differences between the iPhone X and the iPhone 8 that matter for the vast majority of users, and $1000-1150 is pretty hard to swallow when you can pay $300 less for a phone that does everything except give you a laughing piece of poo.
The better camera, Face ID, and new multitasking UX/etc is all worth that extra $300 spread out over two years of interest free payments to me.
Face ID - If you were talking about going from a phone without any biometric ID to FaceID, the difference would be much more significant, but Touch ID works well and is plenty secure and convenient for most people. For me FaceID is more of a gimmick. If you give it to me for the same price, fine, but am I going to pay extra for it over TouchID? No.
Camera - Yes it's better, but for most people, the functional difference is minimal to none. The average user (like my daughter) uses the camera mostly to post on snapchat & instagram, and the iPhone 8's camera more than suffices for that.
New UI - I honestly can't say on this one, but I have no issues with the current UI. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but again it comes down to paying $300 extra for something I don't really need.
I'm not arguing that there are no differences between the phones, just their significance. There are definitely users for whom some of these features are worth the extra money. For some people, it's worth it just to have the newest version, but we're talking the average user here who doesn't have $300 burning a hole in their pocket.
Not me: I upgraded to the X from the 7 Plus and wouldn’t go back. I like the ease of Face ID, the shape, the extra speed and the screen is gorgeous. On the Apple finance plan the cost difference was negligible.
No reason NOT to upgrade.
This - & the size of the screen is in the Goldilocks range for me - whilst I found the large screen of the 7+ really useful, I eventually found with extended use the overall size of the handset too big - the X gives me the best of both worlds.
I am an Apple shareholder since about the time of the OS X Public Beta- well before the bandwagon- and would not shell out $1,000 for a cell phone if Steve Jobs arose from the grave and hand delivered it to me.
It is a phone, people. A nice phone, but not worth $1,000. Back when I was buying my first Apple stock that would buy you an iMac.
Not trying to be a troll, but I consider a $1,000 phone to be an IQ test. If you buy it, you lose.
Nice, I have held Apple stock since 2008, well technically now I have contracts but that neither here nor there. I think Steve would be please with FaceID, it is truly remarkable and very much in the spirit of Apple to take something that has been half-ass implemented in the industry and make it magical (just works). They did this previously with TouchID, and even though they were still the leader in the market on that technology they still pushed the envelope and developed FaceID.
Worth is in the eye of the beholder, I just authorized my small company purchasing 7 of these a few months ago, updating from our iPhone 7's. These really aren't phones anymore, they are life management devices and have largely supplanted computers for those applications at a much cheaper cost (both up front and in terms of support). Most people spend more time interacting with their iPhone than any other device, bar none.
Not trying to troll here, but I work with lots of individuals who's IQ likely exceeds 99% of the population, 90% of them have iPhones vs Android, and those most have the iPhone X.
I think to put this in perspective the first mobile cell phone cost $3995 that was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X and all it did was make phone calls. We now have a pocket computer that does way beyond what I could do on my Apple ll cx, which cost me $3000 in 1989. I didn’t get the chance to decide between the 8 plus and the X because my 5s got stolen before the X was released so I got the 8 plus. The 8 plus is the best cellphone I’ve ever owned and I look forward to getting an X or the next version of the X in the future.
Great comment, I have never actually thought of how expensive the first mobile phones were.
Always bought a new one whenever new model comes, dont care about the price....
Congratulations on your fortunate financial situation.
Most people can't spend money so casually. I hope you're donating your prematurely abandoned devices to people who can't afford new ones.
Hell, even if I had the money, I still wouldn't buy the X. I find the replacement of the home button with yet more awkward gestures to be a stupid design decision and I would never spend so much money on a pocket computing device. It's entirely unnecessary and wasteful.
Not me: I upgraded to the X from the 7 Plus and wouldn’t go back. I like the ease of Face ID, the shape, the extra speed and the screen is gorgeous. On the Apple finance plan the cost difference was negligible.
No reason NOT to upgrade.
This - & the size of the screen is in the Goldilocks range for me - whilst I found the large screen of the 7+ really useful, I eventually found with extended use the overall size of the handset too big - the X gives me the best of both worlds.
The screen size v the case size right? I realized this in considering the news of the larger “X” for this year and my reaction surprised me: nope, this size is just right. I’ll upgrade, but to the same size, for all the internal improvements they always pack into them.
RTA: Why Pine for a Home Button? A fast swipe up And You’re There! Far easier than messing with clicking a button. Imho So many of the negative comments seem to be from people who’ve not actually used the thing: so that maybe does highlight a challenge for Apple; better consumer education? (Or a better troll filter for AI, lol)
Comments
1. I find upgrading every other year works for me and I end up owning a fine iPhone after 2 years. Think of buying a car. Pay it off then worry about next car.
2. There is some prudence in not jumping on major hardware model change until kinks worked out e.g., screen burn in.
3. I have gotten iPhones every two years since original iPhone was released and have NOT been driven by new features with the exception of the first model to the next to get 3G. I like the new features, but they have NEVER been so compelling to make me change.
4. Cost is always a concern, but with installment plans with carriers or now Apple it is hidden so I tend to get the biggest and best to my wife and myself. This makes resale value higher or a happier hand me down owner.
So there is no one thing Apple could do to change my behavior over the last 10 years and makes these surveys pretty one dimensional and fails to provide any real insight into complex buying behavior by customers.
My bet is if you asked the same customers every 30-45 days you would get different answers 80% of the time.
We'll see what this year's product mix looks like. Hopefully Ming's prediction of a $700 6.1" LCD device with the same overall design as the X is accurate.
And yes, if you claim anyone who sees value in their tools, even those tools priced at a $1000 (less than half my notebook cost, btw) is a moron, then you are indeed a troll. And everything I've read from you here supports that conclusion.
This makes no sense. Despite the carrier subsidy, you paid the full price for your previous phones -- because they charged you more every month. More since they didn't stop charging you after the phone was paid for. Since the subsidies ended that fee went down (ATT here). Now I just pay a monthly installment, but it ends the moment the phone is paid for. So it's in fact cheaper than the previous pricing model.
Hilarious that now 64gb is claimed as measly, and that quadrupling it for $150 is high when its cheaper than it used to be for bump ups.
And my iPhone X experience has validated all of mine. Going forward I’ll choose that series for sure. And price? The Apple finance route means the monthly difference is negligible.
The carriers went to extensive lengths to hide what they were doing -- and when I told my friends what was going on, not only did they not realize it, but several refused to believe me.
When my 2 year AT&T plan ran out and I was getting a new phone that I was buying outright, I went to AT&T (actually, multiple visits and phone calls) but always got the same answer: That I had never been charged for the phone, not even a penny. And, if I bought a new phone, my bill would not go down -- even though I bought the phone outright.
I changed carriers to Consumer Celllular: Same network but much lower prices.
In case you're not familiar, I'm not talking about zooming. I'm specifically referring to the option in settings at
Settings > Display & Brightness > Display Zoom. Display Zoom makes an iPhone screen scale down to the next smaller model, which gives you less screen real estate but makes everything comfortably larger. Basically, it turns an 8 Plus into a jumbo 8, and it turns an 8 into a jumbo SE. For people with poor vision, that feature is phenomenal.
I expect the X line of iPhones to get the Display Zoom feature back once Apple releases a Plus (and SE?) model, at which point I'm buying one.
Camera - Yes it's better, but for most people, the functional difference is minimal to none. The average user (like my daughter) uses the camera mostly to post on snapchat & instagram, and the iPhone 8's camera more than suffices for that.
New UI - I honestly can't say on this one, but I have no issues with the current UI. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but again it comes down to paying $300 extra for something I don't really need.
I'm not arguing that there are no differences between the phones, just their significance. There are definitely users for whom some of these features are worth the extra money. For some people, it's worth it just to have the newest version, but we're talking the average user here who doesn't have $300 burning a hole in their pocket.
Worth is in the eye of the beholder, I just authorized my small company purchasing 7 of these a few months ago, updating from our iPhone 7's. These really aren't phones anymore, they are life management devices and have largely supplanted computers for those applications at a much cheaper cost (both up front and in terms of support). Most people spend more time interacting with their iPhone than any other device, bar none.
Not trying to troll here, but I work with lots of individuals who's IQ likely exceeds 99% of the population, 90% of them have iPhones vs Android, and those most have the iPhone X.
Most people can't spend money so casually. I hope you're donating your prematurely abandoned devices to people who can't afford new ones.
Hell, even if I had the money, I still wouldn't buy the X. I find the replacement of the home button with yet more awkward gestures to be a stupid design decision and I would never spend so much money on a pocket computing device. It's entirely unnecessary and wasteful.
RTA: Why Pine for a Home Button? A fast swipe up And You’re There! Far easier than messing with clicking a button. Imho So many of the negative comments seem to be from people who’ve not actually used the thing: so that maybe does highlight a challenge for Apple; better consumer education? (Or a better troll filter for AI, lol)