Apple is doomed in China. Even if Trump reverse his hostile altitude toward China, Apple has lost all the goodwill of Chinese people. If you don't believe this will happen, take a look of Samsung sales in China. Its market share is at low single digits. Chinese used to be fond of Apple due to Apple helping manufacturing jobs in China. Trump wants Apple to being those SLAVE jobs back to US. He says by avoiding tariffs he imposed on China, Apple can make up the high costs of labor in US. This idiot ignores Apple's market share in China. Apparently he doesn't care if Apple sell iPhones in China. This has never been the American way of doing business. Why the red states white Americans believe in him?
Speaking of which, this is an interesting take with respect to China
I am holding off on a new iPhone and am sticking with my 6S Plus for a while longer due to Apple's higher prices. I'm sure I am not the only one...
Why not? Still works?? But if you cannot afford a new iPhone theres a lot of android alternative. Nobody is twisting your arm to buy a latest and the greatest
Nobody even mentions that Apple is still selling the iPhone 7, 8 and now again the X. If you don’t need the latest model, there are plenty of less-expensive models to choose from. People are focusing on the most-expensive Xs Max instead of the whole lineup. Yes the Xs Max is expensive - one reason I’m keeping my 8 Plus. But it’s not all there is.
It's ridiculous isn't it?
People complain about price and then quote the most expensive iPhone as an example.
The latest iPhone is $750.
When do people complain that Ford is too expensive and then continue to quote the $70,000 Shelby Mustang? Like they say, people have special rules for Apple.
Ya that claim keeps being made. However the piddly insultingly low 64GB of storage make that phone useless many. If you're replacing an older phone that cost less but had not storage and you're using it, that low end entry phone isn't going to cut it. That send to be Apple's strategy. Put devices with very low storage (and RAM on MacBooks) to try and bring people in. Then when they spec the machine they need is hundreds or thousands more.
Well XR seems to be doing fine.
64GB is plenty for a lot of people. I'm thinking of buying a 64GB XR myself.
Would you prefer XR start at 128GB and $799?
Like I said Apple can't win with the haters. I think a better strategy would have been a smaller screen size and lower price. But Apple is only gonna be 4 billion from breaking a new record so maybe Tim Cook is a better CEO than the rest of us?
You seem to think the extra storage costs Apple. It doesn't. The 64GB chip is a couple of dollars, the 128GB one is a couple of dollars more. Apple makes the money in making suckers pay an extra $100 for $4 of storage. It's a ripoff and people don't like it. Apple could sell the base model for the same price with 128GB storage, making it much better value and the customers would be much more willing to pay the price. It would likely increase sales, though Apple would no longer make the extra $96 for an upgrade to the next tier. And unfortunately all Cook can see is the loss of that $96, not the fact that it would ultimately result in more sales and more revenue.
One has to believe there are people at Apple doing the math on optimal prices and what changing the price +/- X number of $$ does to sales & revenues. I don’t know who is ultimately responsible for setting prices (is it Schiller’s team that makes the final call) but IMo they misjudged the market. Aside from the iPad announced in March every other hardware product Apple released this year went up in price. People might finally be saying no thanks.
But people aren't saying "no thanks".
If you look at the revenue chart its a small dip compared to last quarter and higher than all quarters before then. So people are willing to buy these "expensive" iPhones more than previous models.
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
That could be, but I think it really comes down to how good these devices have become. We don’t upgrade our computers or any other piece of tech yearly. It’s crazy to buy a new phone every year, especially when there aren’t many new features. Truly new features, not just improved tech. At some point we reach “good enough” and I think that happened with the 7, maybe even the 6s. Upgrade cycles have been getting longer and longer ever since.
If Apple dropped the price of the XS by 20% tomorrow, I doubt it would impact overall sales very much. I think Apple could move more devices with promotions like a free year of Apple Music and/or increased iCloud storage amounts. After the first year, your customer is hooked and keeps paying. The “first world” (I hate that term) is saturated. Dropping prices alone won’t solve the problem. In the “developing” (I hate that term too) world, price is key. They need a cheap, break-even device that brings people into the ecosystem and gets them hooked on services. As much as I hate to think of Apple as a services company, that is the logical source of revenue growth. Recurring monthly charges.
You are right that regardless of price increases the upgrade cycle is lengthening. But I still think the price increases had an effect if for no other reason than the narrative around iPhone became about price. And maybe some people would have upgraded but balked when the flagship that used to start at $649 now started at $999. And then this year even the new cheaper model was $100 more than the flagship model was a couple years ago.
Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price. Have 3 new phones that are good value for the money with no confusion over which one to get. The only thing that complicates this idea is size as some people want really big phones and some want an SE sized phone. I would just like to see the line up be clean. And only keep older models around for very price sensitive markets like India.
"Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price."
Disagree. I think they should go back to Steve Jobs' idea of having only 2 lines => "Consumer" & "Pro"
And what would a Pro phone be?
By Pro, I mean high-end. Let me put this way => A mainstream line and a high-end line. I don't think it's necessary for Apple to have 3 lines. This is not the car business
Apple is doomed in China. Even if Trump reverse his hostile altitude toward China, Apple has lost all the goodwill of Chinese people. If you don't believe this will happen, take a look of Samsung sales in China. Its market share is at low single digits. Chinese used to be fond of Apple due to Apple helping manufacturing jobs in China. Trump wants Apple to being those SLAVE jobs back to US. He says by avoiding tariffs he imposed on China, Apple can make up the high costs of labor in US. This idiot ignores Apple's market share in China. Apparently he doesn't care if Apple sell iPhones in China. This has never been the American way of doing business. Why the red states white Americans believe in him?
Speaking of which, this is an interesting take with respect to China
Don't understand what he means. WeChat can be used in iPhones.
What he means is that because WeChat is so dominant in terms of use, that users in China care far more about using WeChat than iOS / Android. Because of that the smartphone is essentially a commodity and the iPhone becomes over-priced.
So are all the people who shit on anybody here who speculated iPhone sales might be soft going to apologize now? It was patently obvious once Apple started heavily pushing the trade-in program and displaying cheaper prices on apple.com homepage that there was an issue with sales.
Not for a minute.
Should someone who's wrong 24 quarters in a row (all the analysts and the idiots who believe them) that now finds their prediction come true one single time suddenly be praised for their insight? Or did they just get lucky after repeating the same tripe over and over to the point where one day they were finally correct?
We all know it's the latter.
Of course, you could have simply accepted a differing opinion and countered with your own reasoned input instead of jumping on posters and labelling them as trolls, shills, idiots and what not. There is no 'getting lucky' here. Price ceilings exist. You have one. I have one. Most of us do. If prices increase in a saturated market and Apple hasn't pushed the envelope on a tech level, something is likely to give. With iPhone, it just gave.
We're focusing on iPhone mainly here and rightly so.
If you don't call being right one time only a lucky guess, then what do you call it?
And what do you call being wrong 24+ times? Bad luck? Oh wait, you said luck isn't involved. So being wrong for years and years is what, incompetence?
You’re such a troll! Go stand in the corner and think about your actions.
Ahhhh, did I upset you with facts?
Not at all. There’s always people like you that root for the team they love no matter what. Apple could kill thousands of people and you’d still defend them no matter what. Just tired of you trying to bully people hear that have a different opinion than you do. You are an ass and I’m calling you out on that.
Liar. I simply tell the truth. If Apple does something wrong I'll say so.
Trolls just hate it when you call them on their lies over and over. Which probably explains why you're so upset.
Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) 1/2/19, 5:24 PM IMHO, complaints about pricing, price points, home buttons, headphone jacks, batteries, upgrade cycles, etc. are all valid but are also all besides the point, which remains: Can Apple transition iPhone from growth driver to platform that enables more growth drivers? That’s it.
This is pretty spot on. Apple has hundreds of millions of iPhone customers. How do you get those people to buy more things? And what are those things? Clearly they aren't Macs. They are AirPods, however. And Apple Music subscriptions. Video is the logical next step.
As someone who has bought Apple products (and stock) for almost 40 years, I remember many long years where Apple sold 1 device for every 1000 the other guys sold. They struck silver with the iPod and then gold with the iPhone. The iPod appealed to all sorts of people. You didn't have to be a techie. Apple built a better mousetrap and the public responded. And then came the iPhone. Everyone needs a phone. Apple built a better phone and, again, the public responded. So what else has incredibly broad appeal and needs a better use experience? And is Apple even the company to deliver these days? I personally wish they'd focus more on home automation and deliver some killer first party products in that area. I also think they should get serious about audio, maybe buy Sonos. HomePod was a huge miss. I would have bought at least 6 for my house if it wasn't such a gimped product.
I disagree that HomePod is a miss. People are comparing the $350 HomePod to FREE-$20 buck Echos which is just dumb. It's not a direct competitor to smart speakers. It's a high end bluetooth speaker with a Siri "musicologist". It's selling and it's doing its job.
Siri is as close to a musicologist as a potato. I asked it to play Christmas music the other day, what did it do, play Christmas Classics. Fine I thought, so I asked it to play Christmas Pop songs. Nope, Christmas Classics again. Modern Christmas songs? Nah, Christmas Classics. Asked it to Airplay to my AppleTV. "Can't do that". That's just off the top of my head, there's plenty more simple questions with the response "Sorry I can't do that on HomePod". The HomePod's audio is great, Siri is crap. You can ask Alexa plenty of things and she'll actually answer reasonably well, but Siri is embarrassingly bad.
Apple is doomed in China. Even if Trump reverse his hostile altitude toward China, Apple has lost all the goodwill of Chinese people. If you don't believe this will happen, take a look of Samsung sales in China. Its market share is at low single digits. Chinese used to be fond of Apple due to Apple helping manufacturing jobs in China. Trump wants Apple to being those SLAVE jobs back to US. He says by avoiding tariffs he imposed on China, Apple can make up the high costs of labor in US. This idiot ignores Apple's market share in China. Apparently he doesn't care if Apple sell iPhones in China. This has never been the American way of doing business. Why the red states white Americans believe in him?
Speaking of which, this is an interesting take with respect to China
Don't understand what he means. WeChat can be used in iPhones.
What he means is that because WeChat is so dominant in terms of use, that users in China care far more about using WeChat than iOS / Android. Because of that the smartphone is essentially a commodity and the iPhone becomes over-priced.
Android developing knockoff iPhones is what really messed up Apple. This is where the "android does the same thing" mentally comes from. Well no sh** Sherlock, it's a knockoff that runs a similar App Store.
Otherwise all these apps would be Apple exclusive. Which is why Apple meeds more exclusive services.
I am holding off on a new iPhone and am sticking with my 6S Plus for a while longer due to Apple's higher prices. I'm sure I am not the only one...
Why not? Still works?? But if you cannot afford a new iPhone theres a lot of android alternative. Nobody is twisting your arm to buy a latest and the greatest
Nobody even mentions that Apple is still selling the iPhone 7, 8 and now again the X. If you don’t need the latest model, there are plenty of less-expensive models to choose from. People are focusing on the most-expensive Xs Max instead of the whole lineup. Yes the Xs Max is expensive - one reason I’m keeping my 8 Plus. But it’s not all there is.
It's ridiculous isn't it?
People complain about price and then quote the most expensive iPhone as an example.
The latest iPhone is $750.
When do people complain that Ford is too expensive and then continue to quote the $70,000 Shelby Mustang? Like they say, people have special rules for Apple.
Ya that claim keeps being made. However the piddly insultingly low 64GB of storage make that phone useless many. If you're replacing an older phone that cost less but had not storage and you're using it, that low end entry phone isn't going to cut it. That send to be Apple's strategy. Put devices with very low storage (and RAM on MacBooks) to try and bring people in. Then when they spec the machine they need is hundreds or thousands more.
Well XR seems to be doing fine.
64GB is plenty for a lot of people. I'm thinking of buying a 64GB XR myself.
Would you prefer XR start at 128GB and $799?
Like I said Apple can't win with the haters. I think a better strategy would have been a smaller screen size and lower price. But Apple is only gonna be 4 billion from breaking a new record so maybe Tim Cook is a better CEO than the rest of us?
You seem to think the extra storage costs Apple. It doesn't. The 64GB chip is a couple of dollars, the 128GB one is a couple of dollars more. Apple makes the money in making suckers pay an extra $100 for $4 of storage. It's a ripoff and people don't like it. Apple could sell the base model for the same price with 128GB storage, making it much better value and the customers would be much more willing to pay the price. It would likely increase sales, though Apple would no longer make the extra $96 for an upgrade to the next tier. And unfortunately all Cook can see is the loss of that $96, not the fact that it would ultimately result in more sales and more revenue.
One has to believe there are people at Apple doing the math on optimal prices and what changing the price +/- X number of $$ does to sales & revenues. I don’t know who is ultimately responsible for setting prices (is it Schiller’s team that makes the final call) but IMo they misjudged the market. Aside from the iPad announced in March every other hardware product Apple released this year went up in price. People might finally be saying no thanks.
But people aren't saying "no thanks".
If you look at the revenue chart its a small dip compared to last quarter and higher than all quarters before then. So people are willing to buy these "expensive" iPhones more than previous models.
Apple adjusted revenue guidance down $5B - $7B. That’s roughly the amount of quarterly revenue for iPad/Mac.
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
That could be, but I think it really comes down to how good these devices have become. We don’t upgrade our computers or any other piece of tech yearly. It’s crazy to buy a new phone every year, especially when there aren’t many new features. Truly new features, not just improved tech. At some point we reach “good enough” and I think that happened with the 7, maybe even the 6s. Upgrade cycles have been getting longer and longer ever since.
If Apple dropped the price of the XS by 20% tomorrow, I doubt it would impact overall sales very much. I think Apple could move more devices with promotions like a free year of Apple Music and/or increased iCloud storage amounts. After the first year, your customer is hooked and keeps paying. The “first world” (I hate that term) is saturated. Dropping prices alone won’t solve the problem. In the “developing” (I hate that term too) world, price is key. They need a cheap, break-even device that brings people into the ecosystem and gets them hooked on services. As much as I hate to think of Apple as a services company, that is the logical source of revenue growth. Recurring monthly charges.
You are right that regardless of price increases the upgrade cycle is lengthening. But I still think the price increases had an effect if for no other reason than the narrative around iPhone became about price. And maybe some people would have upgraded but balked when the flagship that used to start at $649 now started at $999. And then this year even the new cheaper model was $100 more than the flagship model was a couple years ago.
Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price. Have 3 new phones that are good value for the money with no confusion over which one to get. The only thing that complicates this idea is size as some people want really big phones and some want an SE sized phone. I would just like to see the line up be clean. And only keep older models around for very price sensitive markets like India.
"Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price."
Disagree. I think they should go back to Steve Jobs' idea of having only 2 lines => "Consumer" & "Pro"
And what would a Pro phone be?
By Pro, I mean high-end. Let me put this way => A mainstream line and a high-end line. I don't think it's necessary for Apple to have 3 lines. This is not the car business
And would your mainstream and high end line have one phone each or multiple sizes like the XS/XS Max?
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
DEAD ON with the XR confusion. A lot of people went into the Apple store prepared to drop $1000+ on a XS and left with a cheaper XR with a larger screen....
Or went into the store and left with nothing. If the XR was doing well why would Apple be marketing it $300 cheaper (with trade-in) on the front page of their website? Why would carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile be offering it for free with new activations?
Because they're not giving it away for free? Maybe you misread but T-Mobile is giving away free 2-day shipping which isn't really the same thing, is it.
Well, that was pretty clear. At least in part, pricing really IS an issue and I think a DED article today was implying China was performing well for Apple.
And yet nothing in Cook’s letter that specifically talks about price. The biggest blunder in the last couple years is the 23% increase in iPhone prices. Apple raised prices to offset declining unit growth and its come back to bite the company.
The longer term problem is not having something to takeover for the iPhone as the smartphone market matures. This is because no one can replace Jobs. Not only the lack of vision but also lighting a fire under Jony's butt and the recent quality problems and design inconsistencies show that Cook can't get the parts of the company to work together like Jobs did.
Hate to say it but this tweet is spot on. Probably not a good idea for Cook to partially blame slow iPhone sales on cheaper battery replacements.
Josh Centers (@jcenters)
1/2/19, 5:20 PM
If a $29 battery slows down iPhone sales, then either people were only buying new iPhones because their old ones were getting slower or Apple isn’t producing interesting iPhones.
Bullshit. "only"? Not interesting? Give me a break. You're just excited because so many of these armchair analysts are feeding into your Chicken Little confirmation bias.
Hate on me all you want. The fact is many here were saying nothing to see here everything is fine when we now know that’s not the case.
That still doesn't support bullshit theories like people only bought iPhones because of throttling or weren't buying them because Apple doesn't make "interesting" phones.
iPhones have got insanely expansive. No smaller new spec phone. Mac mini no case re-design after 4 years of nothing, in addition to a pathetic GPU and again increase in price. Products line ups that are a mess. Etc etc. For as long as Tim Cook is in the chair I don't any of this changing.
I am holding off on a new iPhone and am sticking with my 6S Plus for a while longer due to Apple's higher prices. I'm sure I am not the only one...
Why not? Still works?? But if you cannot afford a new iPhone theres a lot of android alternative. Nobody is twisting your arm to buy a latest and the greatest
Nobody even mentions that Apple is still selling the iPhone 7, 8 and now again the X. If you don’t need the latest model, there are plenty of less-expensive models to choose from. People are focusing on the most-expensive Xs Max instead of the whole lineup. Yes the Xs Max is expensive - one reason I’m keeping my 8 Plus. But it’s not all there is.
It's ridiculous isn't it?
People complain about price and then quote the most expensive iPhone as an example.
The latest iPhone is $750.
When do people complain that Ford is too expensive and then continue to quote the $70,000 Shelby Mustang? Like they say, people have special rules for Apple.
Ya that claim keeps being made. However the piddly insultingly low 64GB of storage make that phone useless many. If you're replacing an older phone that cost less but had not storage and you're using it, that low end entry phone isn't going to cut it. That send to be Apple's strategy. Put devices with very low storage (and RAM on MacBooks) to try and bring people in. Then when they spec the machine they need is hundreds or thousands more.
Well XR seems to be doing fine.
64GB is plenty for a lot of people. I'm thinking of buying a 64GB XR myself.
Would you prefer XR start at 128GB and $799?
Like I said Apple can't win with the haters. I think a better strategy would have been a smaller screen size and lower price. But Apple is only gonna be 4 billion from breaking a new record so maybe Tim Cook is a better CEO than the rest of us?
You seem to think the extra storage costs Apple. It doesn't. The 64GB chip is a couple of dollars, the 128GB one is a couple of dollars more. Apple makes the money in making suckers pay an extra $100 for $4 of storage. It's a ripoff and people don't like it. Apple could sell the base model for the same price with 128GB storage, making it much better value and the customers would be much more willing to pay the price. It would likely increase sales, though Apple would no longer make the extra $96 for an upgrade to the next tier. And unfortunately all Cook can see is the loss of that $96, not the fact that it would ultimately result in more sales and more revenue.
One has to believe there are people at Apple doing the math on optimal prices and what changing the price +/- X number of $$ does to sales & revenues. I don’t know who is ultimately responsible for setting prices (is it Schiller’s team that makes the final call) but IMo they misjudged the market. Aside from the iPad announced in March every other hardware product Apple released this year went up in price. People might finally be saying no thanks.
That certainly would make sense from a maximum profitability point of view, but the issue with those types of calculations is it seeds resentment in customers, because they know it only really costs Apple a few dollars to double the storage size, and so they're seen to be nickel and dimeing people.
What pissed me off was in 2017 when the "new" Macbook Pro was released, Apple bumped the price of the old 2015 model by £400!
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
That could be, but I think it really comes down to how good these devices have become. We don’t upgrade our computers or any other piece of tech yearly. It’s crazy to buy a new phone every year, especially when there aren’t many new features. Truly new features, not just improved tech. At some point we reach “good enough” and I think that happened with the 7, maybe even the 6s. Upgrade cycles have been getting longer and longer ever since.
If Apple dropped the price of the XS by 20% tomorrow, I doubt it would impact overall sales very much. I think Apple could move more devices with promotions like a free year of Apple Music and/or increased iCloud storage amounts. After the first year, your customer is hooked and keeps paying. The “first world” (I hate that term) is saturated. Dropping prices alone won’t solve the problem. In the “developing” (I hate that term too) world, price is key. They need a cheap, break-even device that brings people into the ecosystem and gets them hooked on services. As much as I hate to think of Apple as a services company, that is the logical source of revenue growth. Recurring monthly charges.
You are right that regardless of price increases the upgrade cycle is lengthening. But I still think the price increases had an effect if for no other reason than the narrative around iPhone became about price. And maybe some people would have upgraded but balked when the flagship that used to start at $649 now started at $999. And then this year even the new cheaper model was $100 more than the flagship model was a couple years ago.
Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price. Have 3 new phones that are good value for the money with no confusion over which one to get. The only thing that complicates this idea is size as some people want really big phones and some want an SE sized phone. I would just like to see the line up be clean. And only keep older models around for very price sensitive markets like India.
"Personally I’d like to see Apple move to a good/better/best model for iPhones where good and better aren’t just the previous years phone at a cheaper price."
Disagree. I think they should go back to Steve Jobs' idea of having only 2 lines => "Consumer" & "Pro"
And what would a Pro phone be?
By Pro, I mean high-end. Let me put this way => A mainstream line and a high-end line. I don't think it's necessary for Apple to have 3 lines. This is not the car business
And would your mainstream and high end line have one phone each or multiple sizes like the XS/XS Max?
Hate to say it but this tweet is spot on. Probably not a good idea for Cook to partially blame slow iPhone sales on cheaper battery replacements.
Josh Centers (@jcenters)
1/2/19, 5:20 PM
If a $29 battery slows down iPhone sales, then either people were only buying new iPhones because their old ones were getting slower or Apple isn’t producing interesting iPhones.
Bullshit. "only"? Not interesting? Give me a break. You're just excited because so many of these armchair analysts are feeding into your Chicken Little confirmation bias.
Hate on me all you want. The fact is many here were saying nothing to see here everything is fine when we now know that’s not the case.
Wrong. What people have always been saying (and with very good reason) is that these analysts can't be trusted. They've never been right before, yet they still trot out their predictions of reduced sales over and over. So when an analyst makes yet ANOTHER prediction, why should anyone take their word?
What's funny (and rather pathetic) is people pretending they saw this coming. And then justifying their belief with all sorts of made-up theories. As if it's easy/simple to predict Apples future performance.
Apple needs to come up with the "next thing" - it's been over 7 years since Jobs died and the only "new" thing was a watch. Tim should bring a tech visionary into the company if there isn't one there already.
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
DEAD ON with the XR confusion. A lot of people went into the Apple store prepared to drop $1000+ on a XS and left with a cheaper XR with a larger screen....
Or went into the store and left with nothing. If the XR was doing well why would Apple be marketing it $300 cheaper (with trade-in) on the front page of their website? Why would carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile be offering it for free with new activations?
Oh of course. People went in with $1000+ and left with nothing. DOOMED!
The cheapest new 2018 iPhone you can get in Canada right now is $1228 with AppleCare ($1375 after tax). $1375... for the bottom of the barrel 2018 phone. The cheapest possible phone you can get is a 7 for $1100.
The iPhone most people would like to have is the Xs 256 - which costs $2058 with AppleCare after tax.
Nice phones? Sure. $2058 nice? lol
Throw in a case and your average data plan cost and you are looking at a 2 year $4500 investment.
$4500 for the new iPhone with the newest features.
Go ahead and try to defend that. Business's can't justify that - so forget about 20 somethings paying off student loans, paying that for dancing poo emoji's and Instagram scrolling. And before you attempt to point to other offerings - nobody wants to pay $1100 for a near obsolete 3 year old iPhone 7.
It's beyond absurd.
And again you quote the most expensive possible situation. You even threw in AppleCare, a case and a 3rd party data plan for 2 years! lol
Beyond absurd.
No, you skipped over the lowest cost iPhone of all, a 4 year old device that costs $1100. That's ridiculous IMO. That's part of the issue is Apple charging sorry high prices for years old tech. The old 13" MacBook Air was years old tech but the price stayed the same. At some point Apple's great products so being enough to justify the ever increasing price. The competitors have come ever closer so that doesn't help either.
Jobs said the iPhone have Apple a five year headstart when he announced the first version. We're well past five years and I don't think anyone can honestly say Apple is still anywhere near five years ahead. That means others catching up and Apple keeps going raising prices.
So are all the people who shit on anybody here who speculated iPhone sales might be soft going to apologize now? It was patently obvious once Apple started heavily pushing the trade-in program and displaying cheaper prices on apple.com homepage that there was an issue with sales.
Not for a minute.
Should someone who's wrong 24 quarters in a row (all the analysts and the idiots who believe them) that now finds their prediction come true one single time suddenly be praised for their insight? Or did they just get lucky after repeating the same tripe over and over to the point where one day they were finally correct?
We all know it's the latter.
Of course, you could have simply accepted a differing opinion and countered with your own reasoned input instead of jumping on posters and labelling them as trolls, shills, idiots and what not. There is no 'getting lucky' here. Price ceilings exist. You have one. I have one. Most of us do. If prices increase in a saturated market and Apple hasn't pushed the envelope on a tech level, something is likely to give. With iPhone, it just gave.
We're focusing on iPhone mainly here and rightly so.
If you don't call being right one time only a lucky guess, then what do you call it?
And what do you call being wrong 24+ times? Bad luck? Oh wait, you said luck isn't involved. So being wrong for years and years is what, incompetence?
You’re such a troll! Go stand in the corner and think about your actions.
Ahhhh, did I upset you with facts?
Not at all. There’s always people like you that root for the team they love no matter what. Apple could kill thousands of people and you’d still defend them no matter what. Just tired of you trying to bully people hear that have a different opinion than you do. You are an ass and I’m calling you out on that.
Liar. I simply tell the truth. If Apple does something wrong I'll say so.
Trolls just hate it when you call them on their lies over and over. Which probably explains why you're so upset.
You seem to think this doesn't vindicate people who said prices were too high. It does. But you're defending that by saying Apple's prices are right, despite sales being down. You're a troll.
Comments
If you look at the revenue chart its a small dip compared to last quarter and higher than all quarters before then. So people are willing to buy these "expensive" iPhones more than previous models.
Liar. I simply tell the truth. If Apple does something wrong I'll say so.
Trolls just hate it when you call them on their lies over and over. Which probably explains why you're so upset.
Well no sh** Sherlock, it's a knockoff that runs a similar App Store.
Otherwise all these apps would be Apple exclusive. Which is why Apple meeds more exclusive services.
And would your mainstream and high end line have one phone each or multiple sizes like the XS/XS Max?
That still doesn't support bullshit theories like people only bought iPhones because of throttling or weren't buying them because Apple doesn't make "interesting" phones.
What shape did you want the mini to be?
That certainly would make sense from a maximum profitability point of view, but the issue with those types of calculations is it seeds resentment in customers, because they know it only really costs Apple a few dollars to double the storage size, and so they're seen to be nickel and dimeing people.
What pissed me off was in 2017 when the "new" Macbook Pro was released, Apple bumped the price of the old 2015 model by £400!
Wrong. What people have always been saying (and with very good reason) is that these analysts can't be trusted. They've never been right before, yet they still trot out their predictions of reduced sales over and over. So when an analyst makes yet ANOTHER prediction, why should anyone take their word?
What's funny (and rather pathetic) is people pretending they saw this coming. And then justifying their belief with all sorts of made-up theories. As if it's easy/simple to predict Apples future performance.
Jobs said the iPhone have Apple a five year headstart when he announced the first version. We're well past five years and I don't think anyone can honestly say Apple is still anywhere near five years ahead. That means others catching up and Apple keeps going raising prices.