macplusplus said: Apple’s big expertise is in hardware production in scale. Services are just an extra bonus of that expertise. And I’m also sure that with their newly announced services like TV+ and Apple Arcade, Apple will deliver also in scale because their hardware are so successful.
First, I think there is a difference between services like email, contact/calendar storage, or things like that, and then fairly independent services like music, movies, etc. It's more the latter I'm worried about in outcomes/impact on the rest, but you're correct that Apple has done a good job with some services like iTunes.
But, I think I disagree that they are really all that good at it. Look how long it took them to get the basics of MobileMe (now iCloud) working reasonably stable. It was total %$#-show for quite some time. I just don't want them to get distracted by a bunch of me-too services that they are just kind of OK at. I guess they are add-on sales so long as the hardware/software remain strong, so long as they don't distract.
dedgecko said: It’s about user base. It has been since day one.
If that is true they should be more careful about gaining or losing market share. Platforms are about a broad and sustainable user base. Apple has a great start on that but risks blowing it at the alter of "premium" branding (i.e., high prices).
They probably meant from the viewpoint of 'investors' (a.k.a. day-traders, a.k.a. gamblers) or WallStreet, or 'business growth experts' or that kind of silly stuff. It's completely stupid in terms of making the best stuff and actual success, but most people aren't about those things in the business world. It's often more about chasing the mythical unicorn of doubling growth each year or some such vanity metric.
StrangeDays said: Says a guy who’s never had a phone with a notch. Complaining about it is about as stupid as complaining that a real-view mirror takes away from your windshield.
Um, OK. I assume you mean rear-view mirror, but no, they actually serve a good purpose and work pretty well. I'm sure FaceID works well and serves its purpose OK too, but I'd rather have TouchID. And, as for the notch, I'm not saying one can't get by with it or things like that, but I'd rather just have a small band at the top, etc. instead of the notch.
StrangeDays said:Yuuup. Apple doesn't worship at the Church of Market Share. they are all about profitability, and they've dominated that metric. What does Apple care if all the other knockoffs together sell more than one company selling just a few variations does?
Except, when you're trying to get people to buy into subscription services, like all computer/media companies are trying to, then it does come down to market share. If those services are tied to your devices, and the devices are losing market share, then you have an problem with your subscription services having a smaller market available to them.
Yeah, once you start making your money from things other than having the best stuff, you end up with all kinds of dependencies that can easily evaporate. Market share used to not matter with Apple, beyond having enough to attract software development. But, if more of their success is tied to services that are tied to the platform, then yeah, it becomes more about marketshare, or at least numbers.
If Apple produced world-class services that brought people to the platform, or brought people from any platform (assuming the services are cross-platform), then I'd be more onboard. Generally, they just don't though. Maybe they'll pull it off, but we'll have to wait and see.
elijahg said: I fear Cook is leading Apple down same the path as Jean-Louis Gassée. Mac sales were initially record breaking, but gradually tailed off as prices rose, until Apple nearly went bust in the mid-90's. But this time, there's no Jobs to save it.
It isn't just Cook, though. It's really anyone who tries to apply 'business wisdom' to Apple w/o Steve's key to success... making the best stuff and then marketing it well so success follows. Most 'business wisdom' tends to put all the other stuff first, and then 'best products' end up if they get around to it.
elijahg said: Err no they haven't. They were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy 25 years ago.
I think they had like $1B in cash when they were 'on the edge of bankruptcy' but as the tale goes, apparently things weren't good and M$ saved them (with a minute investment).
I suppose maybe we (on the outside) didn't realize how things really were internally, but I don't recall any of we Mac users being overly concerned about them back then. One of my good friends was buying stock and I sure wish I would have (I was recommending others do so).
elijahg said: Just because you don't think the price is a problem because you can afford it, doesn't mean everyone else can too. Indians for example can't afford iPhones which is why Apple's sales over there are pretty much zero. They're just too expensive.
Yeah, I think they do have to be careful. There seems to be this idea among some of the Apple community that Apple is a premium brand, so it doesn't much matter what they cost... they are for the elite who can afford them. But, I don't think that's really what Jobs ever meant (and certainly not with his 'computer for the rest of us' stuff way back. He meant they build good stuff, not junk, and there is a certain cost to good stuff.
Or, in way of analogy.... Apple has to be careful to be the BMW not Lamborghini or Ferrari. They just don't care to be the Pontiac Sunbird or whatever. Apple shouldn't be trying to 'race to the bottom' or even care about that. But, they don't want to price themselves into some elite luxury category. That, IMO, would be a huge mistake.
mr.jonathan.gregory said: Apple doesnt make a god damn thing. Those processor? Samsung or taiwanese semiconductor company. That screen? Samsung or LG. That flash storage? Samsung or Toshiba. Guess what you can be an Apple fanboi but you're walking around with an Apple phone when the cpu screen and memoery are all made by Samsumg!
That's just a silly statement. Then neither do most of the rest of the companies in the world. Have you not ever watched Milton Friedman's 'Lesson of the Pencil'?
... Smartphones are now a comodity like other mature products ...
I always hear people say this, but I'm not sure what follows from that. Aren't cars commodities? Computers (traditionally)? That doesn't matter to Apple Macs or BMW, etc. There is always plenty of room in any mature market for quality and/or specialized variants, and people will pay more for them.
StrangeDays said: Says a guy who’s never had a phone with a notch. Complaining about it is about as stupid as complaining that a real-view mirror takes away from your windshield.
Um, OK. I assume you mean rear-view mirror, but no, they actually serve a good purpose and work pretty well. I'm sure FaceID works well and serves its purpose OK too, but I'd rather have TouchID. And, as for the notch, I'm not saying one can't get by with it or things like that, but I'd rather just have a small band at the top, etc. instead of the notch.
StrangeDays said:Yuuup. Apple doesn't worship at the Church of Market Share. they are all about profitability, and they've dominated that metric. What does Apple care if all the other knockoffs together sell more than one company selling just a few variations does?
Except, when you're trying to get people to buy into subscription services, like all computer/media companies are trying to, then it does come down to market share. If those services are tied to your devices, and the devices are losing market share, then you have an problem with your subscription services having a smaller market available to them.
Yeah, once you start making your money from things other than having the best stuff, you end up with all kinds of dependencies that can easily evaporate. Market share used to not matter with Apple, beyond having enough to attract software development. But, if more of their success is tied to services that are tied to the platform, then yeah, it becomes more about marketshare, or at least numbers.
If Apple produced world-class services that brought people to the platform, or brought people from any platform (assuming the services are cross-platform), then I'd be more onboard. Generally, they just don't though. Maybe they'll pull it off, but we'll have to wait and see.
Um, yes, based on the context I used it in you can obviously tell auto-correct on my mobile changed rear- to real-. Obviousness aside, you've still managed to miss the point -- like a rear-view mirror, the notch actually serves a good purpose and works well, and like the mirror it takes away from maximum visibility on the windshield to do so. Such is a life where compromises exist. In this case a bigger screen in the same space is worth it.
Your theory on Apple is cracked. They still sell the best stuff, the stuff everybody else copies, and they sell services on top of that. Unlike the silly narratives some paint, Apple hasn't abandoned or pivoted hardware for services. The services sales are auxiliary, to their existing hardware customers. And that's completely fine. They still don't need to worship at the Church of Market Share as SeanJ claims.
... Smartphones are now a comodity like other mature products ...
I always hear people say this, but I'm not sure what follows from that. Aren't cars commodities? Computers (traditionally)? That doesn't matter to Apple Macs or BMW, etc. There is always plenty of room in any mature market for quality and/or specialized variants, and people will pay more for them.
Which is why people pay more for high-end brands like Apple, despite PCs being a commodity now (and smartphones soon if not now). The category is mature, but the room for a higher-quality brand exists, just as you noted with autos. The demand for the high-quality brand will always be the case in the foreseeable future. This is why Apple doesn't cater to the Church of Market Share, and prefers the Church of Profitability.
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
I think they reported it longer than that. And yes it does matter because it means price wasn’t the main factor to Apple consumers. Maybe to you knockoffs, but not to people wanting the best.
Nice fantasy narrative about “But maybe it was just barely the best seller!” Funny, since you were just making a fuss on another thread about people making conclusions without evidence. And here you are. Not surprised.
Price has been the main factor preventing upgrades for pretty much everyone I know who currently has an older iPhone (me included). Over the past 5 or 6 years I have had quite a number of friends switch to Android because "iPhones are too expensive." Just because you don't think the price is a problem because you can afford it, doesn't mean everyone else can too. Indians for example can't afford iPhones which is why Apple's sales over there are pretty much zero. They're just too expensive.
As happened with the mid 90's Mac, eventually, it will become less profitable for developers to write apps for iOS as the marketshare is so small. And at that point, much like the 90's Mac, the iOS ecosystem would collapse. And this is all down to Cook's crazy pricing. I really want a new iPhone - but I refuse to pay £1000 for the flagship when the flagship a few years ago was £650.
You've just switched topics -- we weren't talking about why your friends switched platforms, we were talking about the fact (fact) that the more-expensive X outsold the less-expensive 8 for every quarter it existed. Apple demonstrated that price was not the leading concern when selecting an iPhone. Oops.
The rest of your post is 100% absolute nonsense -- there is nothing in common between iOS/Apple today with '90s Mac/Apple, other than the name. This topic has been so well covered I don't feel the need to explain what should be obvious by now. It's not the same market or company or product position. You analogy is fatally flawed.
Sorry you can't afford the monthly payment on an interest-free loan for the flagship iPhone, but who said you're entitled to the top-tier offering? There are several other tier models across the price spectrum.
BMWs are more expensive than Toyotas. Today's BMWs are more expensive than ones from decades prior. They do more and have more tech inside them. Such is life. Get what you can afford.
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
That ties in with some analysts reporting at the time that iPhone X sales had dropped off faster than any other new release before it.
It was retired in the 2018 refresh and the first quarter of that cycle Apple issued a profit warning.
While we will probably never know all of what happened, it is very reasonable to speculate that the iPhone pool of purchasers simply ran out of 'financial steam' and sales dropped as a result.
Tim Cook said it sold well.
Your theories are irrelevant.
Sadly "well" is not an objective measure we can use to compare to say, "good" or "okay" or "great".
Someone didn't hear the quarterly financial statement...
"Well" is MY term that I used. It sold "very good" if that makes any difference.
Apple had raised their expectations beyond the sky hoping it would outsell iPhone 6 but it was short of that expectation but still sold "very good". Tim Cook compared it to your favorite team winning the SuperBowl but not by a lot of points. I believe it was the 2nd highest selling iPhone ever.
"well" "very good" "not by a lot of points"
Nice.
OK we get it. Tim Cook was lying as usual....
I didn't say he was lying. I'm saying those phrases are vague, non-objective, non-measurable.
As is claiming his statements of very good isn't very good. You've contributed zero contradictory or useful data for analysis, therefore Cook's report is more useful and a better indicator.
StrangeDays said: Um, yes, based on the context I used it in you can obviously tell auto-correct on my mobile changed rear- to real-. Obviousness aside, you've still managed to miss the point -- like a rear-view mirror, the notch actually serves a good purpose and works well, and like the mirror it takes away from maximum visibility on the windshield to do so. Such is a life where compromises exist. In this case a bigger screen in the same space is worth it.
That's where we disagree. It works, it serves a purpose... it's just that there are better solutions/designs. I'm not sure there are on cars.
StrangeDays said: Your theory on Apple is cracked. They still sell the best stuff, the stuff everybody else copies, and they sell services on top of that. Unlike the silly narratives some paint, Apple hasn't abandoned or pivoted hardware for services. The services sales are auxiliary, to their existing hardware customers. And that's completely fine. They still don't need to worship at the Church of Market Share as SeanJ claims.
Some of the best stuff, yes. Some of us have just been worried that it has been slipping and their priorities have changed. I think that was true to some extent, but there seems to be a swing back again on some fronts. Probably a mixture of both.
The fashion aspects and services are most worrisome to me, though, as they most easily become distractions, or actual potential to conflict with Apple's traditional values.
StrangeDays said: ... we were talking about the fact (fact) that the more-expensive X outsold the less-expensive 8 for every quarter it existed. Apple demonstrated that price was not the leading concern when selecting an iPhone. Oops.
I'm not sure that necessarily follows. What does one outselling another have to do with price not being a factor? It just means that more people bought one model, that yes, cost more than the other. But, it might also have had to do with feature-set. And, it doesn't mean that a different lineup at different price-points wouldn't have sold even much better.
designr said: As someone once said history doesn't always repeat, but it often rhymes.
Time will tell of course. Apple is in a much better position than they were in the Sculley era. But the winners can disappear faster than one might imagine (*cough* Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry *cough*).
Yeah, the circumstances were much different. Bottom line for me, is that it depends on whether Apple is now operating more like the rest of the tech industry, or with 'business wisdom' often too driven by Wall Street, or if they are operating more on Jobs principals. It sure seems more like the former at times.
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
I think they reported it longer than that. And yes it does matter because it means price wasn’t the main factor to Apple consumers. Maybe to you knockoffs, but not to people wanting the best.
Nice fantasy narrative about “But maybe it was just barely the best seller!” Funny, since you were just making a fuss on another thread about people making conclusions without evidence. And here you are. Not surprised.
Price has been the main factor preventing upgrades for pretty much everyone I know who currently has an older iPhone (me included). Over the past 5 or 6 years I have had quite a number of friends switch to Android because "iPhones are too expensive." Just because you don't think the price is a problem because you can afford it, doesn't mean everyone else can too. Indians for example can't afford iPhones which is why Apple's sales over there are pretty much zero. They're just too expensive.
As happened with the mid 90's Mac, eventually, it will become less profitable for developers to write apps for iOS as the marketshare is so small. And at that point, much like the 90's Mac, the iOS ecosystem would collapse. And this is all down to Cook's crazy pricing. I really want a new iPhone - but I refuse to pay £1000 for the flagship when the flagship a few years ago was £650.
I think you are spot on with regards to pricing.
$1,000 is a huge amount of money for the vast majority of users. To that, people counter with 'the Xr doesn't cost $1,000', which is wilful denial in my book.
If the Xr were so 'affordable' the offer sitting on Apple's front page right now wouldn't be there. This is the first thing you see on visiting Apple.com:
"iPhone XR from$19.99/mo. or $479"
Price is very much an issue and that (now seemingly permanent offer) is just Apple's way of acknowledging it (the offer only appeared when sales tanked) and partially reacting (although I imagine many will be reluctant to trade-in their existing phones, preferring instead to pass them on to family and friends).
There is also the question of value and how it is perceived and many people perceive all iPhones as lacking value for the asking price and I think sales up to now have reflected that. People argue that Apple's most expensive phone was its 'most popular' which, IMO, doesn't stand up to scrutiny either and Q1-19 sales were testament to that.
In summary, I think price is a major issue whichever way you choose to look at it. Something that is exacerbated by value (features) and the fact that the cheaper options look very dated by today's standards (huge chins and foreheads).
*FACEPALM*
But the XR IS actually cheaper. That's not an argument or theory or assumption, that's a FACT. Just like iPhone X outselling the cheaper iPhone 8 is a FACT.
When will idiot analysts realize Apple isn’t chasing volume.Or else apple could easily cut prices like Samsung & Huawei. Profitability & revenue matters more.
Apple doesnt make a god damn thing. Those processor? Samsung or taiwanese semiconductor company. That screen? Samsung or LG. That flash storage? Samsung or Toshiba. Guess what you can be an Apple fanboi but you're walking around with an Apple phone when the cpu screen and memoery are all made by Samsumg!
This is how you can spot the outsiders. They're so brain-dead. Back to Youtube comments you go!! Idiot!
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
That ties in with some analysts reporting at the time that iPhone X sales had dropped off faster than any other new release before it.
It was retired in the 2018 refresh and the first quarter of that cycle Apple issued a profit warning.
While we will probably never know all of what happened, it is very reasonable to speculate that the iPhone pool of purchasers simply ran out of 'financial steam' and sales dropped as a result.
Tim Cook said it sold well.
Your theories are irrelevant.
Sadly "well" is not an objective measure we can use to compare to say, "good" or "okay" or "great".
Someone didn't hear the quarterly financial statement...
"Well" is MY term that I used. It sold "very good" if that makes any difference.
Apple had raised their expectations beyond the sky hoping it would outsell iPhone 6 but it was short of that expectation but still sold "very good". Tim Cook compared it to your favorite team winning the SuperBowl but not by a lot of points. I believe it was the 2nd highest selling iPhone ever.
"well" "very good" "not by a lot of points"
Nice.
OK we get it. Tim Cook was lying as usual....
I didn't say he was lying. I'm saying those phrases are vague, non-objective, non-measurable.
The argument was that the X was "too expensive" for consumers but the X sold "well" or "very good".
Factually it outsold the iPhone 8 which was much cheaper.
The point is, anyone who said price was a factor was disproven.
Of course if Tim Cook had said it sold "terribly" you wouldn't have questioned it.
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
I think they reported it longer than that. And yes it does matter because it means price wasn’t the main factor to Apple consumers. Maybe to you knockoffs, but not to people wanting the best.
Nice fantasy narrative about “But maybe it was just barely the best seller!” Funny, since you were just making a fuss on another thread about people making conclusions without evidence. And here you are. Not surprised.
Price has been the main factor preventing upgrades for pretty much everyone I know who currently has an older iPhone (me included). Over the past 5 or 6 years I have had quite a number of friends switch to Android because "iPhones are too expensive." Just because you don't think the price is a problem because you can afford it, doesn't mean everyone else can too. Indians for example can't afford iPhones which is why Apple's sales over there are pretty much zero. They're just too expensive.
As happened with the mid 90's Mac, eventually, it will become less profitable for developers to write apps for iOS as the marketshare is so small. And at that point, much like the 90's Mac, the iOS ecosystem would collapse. And this is all down to Cook's crazy pricing. I really want a new iPhone - but I refuse to pay £1000 for the flagship when the flagship a few years ago was £650.
I think you are spot on with regards to pricing.
$1,000 is a huge amount of money for the vast majority of users. To that, people counter with 'the Xr doesn't cost $1,000', which is wilful denial in my book.
If the Xr were so 'affordable' the offer sitting on Apple's front page right now wouldn't be there. This is the first thing you see on visiting Apple.com:
"iPhone XR from$19.99/mo. or $479"
Price is very much an issue and that (now seemingly permanent offer) is just Apple's way of acknowledging it (the offer only appeared when sales tanked) and partially reacting (although I imagine many will be reluctant to trade-in their existing phones, preferring instead to pass them on to family and friends).
There is also the question of value and how it is perceived and many people perceive all iPhones as lacking value for the asking price and I think sales up to now have reflected that. People argue that Apple's most expensive phone was its 'most popular' which, IMO, doesn't stand up to scrutiny either and Q1-19 sales were testament to that.
In summary, I think price is a major issue whichever way you choose to look at it. Something that is exacerbated by value (features) and the fact that the cheaper options look very dated by today's standards (huge chins and foreheads).
*FACEPALM*
But the XR IS actually cheaper. That's not an argument or theory or assumption, that's a FACT. Just like iPhone X outselling the cheaper iPhone 8 is a FACT.
When will idiot analysts realize Apple isn’t chasing volume.Or else apple could easily cut prices like Samsung & Huawei. Profitability & revenue matters more.
Apple doesnt make a god damn thing. Those processor? Samsung or taiwanese semiconductor company. That screen? Samsung or LG. That flash storage? Samsung or Toshiba. Guess what you can be an Apple fanboi but you're walking around with an Apple phone when the cpu screen and memoery are all made by Samsumg!
This is how you can spot the outsiders. They're so brain-dead. Back to Youtube comments you go!! Idiot!
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
That ties in with some analysts reporting at the time that iPhone X sales had dropped off faster than any other new release before it.
It was retired in the 2018 refresh and the first quarter of that cycle Apple issued a profit warning.
While we will probably never know all of what happened, it is very reasonable to speculate that the iPhone pool of purchasers simply ran out of 'financial steam' and sales dropped as a result.
Tim Cook said it sold well.
Your theories are irrelevant.
Sadly "well" is not an objective measure we can use to compare to say, "good" or "okay" or "great".
Someone didn't hear the quarterly financial statement...
"Well" is MY term that I used. It sold "very good" if that makes any difference.
Apple had raised their expectations beyond the sky hoping it would outsell iPhone 6 but it was short of that expectation but still sold "very good". Tim Cook compared it to your favorite team winning the SuperBowl but not by a lot of points. I believe it was the 2nd highest selling iPhone ever.
"well" "very good" "not by a lot of points"
Nice.
OK we get it. Tim Cook was lying as usual....
I didn't say he was lying. I'm saying those phrases are vague, non-objective, non-measurable.
The argument was that the X was "too expensive" for consumers but the X sold "well" or "very good".
Factually it outsold the iPhone 8 which was much cheaper.
The point is, anyone who said price was a factor was disproven.
Of course if Tim Cook had said it sold "terribly" you wouldn't have questioned it.
There you have a perfect example of wilful denial.
My whole point was that the Xr is less than $1,000. Yes, of course it is factual but, and here is where you have to pay maximum attention, it is still far to expensive for the entry level iPhone of a refresh.
However, if you increase the storage you can hit $899 on an Xr and in Europe you fly past the 1,000€ mark easily. In fact, the base Xr is 850€ when you include sales tax.
So expensive that sales tanked and that's why the price reduction (the claim of 'from $479') appeared from out of nowhere before Christmas.
If things were rosy that promotion would never have materialised and much less on Apple's front page, where, eight months later, it still sits.
Your wilful denial extends to the iPhone X which of course did top $1,000 and far higher in Europe.
I have already broken this down but here it is again:
1. What does most popular mean? You have no numbers. If it sold just one more unit than the others it would still qualify for 'most popular'.
2. Run through the 2018 earnings calls and tell me if the iPhone X was the most popular in all of them.
3. Check out the analysts estimates that suggested a dramatic fall in iPhone X sales in Q4. Supposedly far more marked than for any other new generation iPhone before it.
4. Move one step further into the fifth quarter of $1,000+ phones (Q1-19, the biggest quarter for Apple and with entirely revamped phones) and now we see more than a drop off. We see a massive promotion from Apple before Christmas day followed by a profit warning and a YoY drop in sales but Apple had previously declared it would no longer detail iPhone unit sales which obviously came in very handy, right?
5. Time to draw conclusions. When you have revised the earnings calls you might find that the 'most popular' label (undefined as it is) didn't actually have much stamina to it and after three years of flat sales, the higher prices were but just one of the reasons that Apple saw a YoY decline and issued a profit warning for its historical blowout quarter. It is not unreasonable that there simply aren't enough users in the Apple ecosystem with the resources to keep iPhone chugging along on flat sales at current prices and no one in their right mind would switch to a current iPhone because they offer far less value on the hardware. Yes, your $1,000 phone still gets you an ultra slow 5W charger out of the box!
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
The problem is price, plain and simple. In 2016 the flagship iPhone started at $649. One year later the flagship model was $999. Even the Xr which is supposed to be the more affordable model starts at $749, $100 more than the flagship from 2 years prior. It doesn’t matter if the tech inside the phone or the materials it’s made with are more advanced/expensive to manufacture. At the end of the day the average selling price of the iPhone has steadily been going up. And consumers are starting to say no thanks, I’ll keep what I’ve got it’s good enough.
With the X I think Apple was testing how much of a price increase the market would bear (and the higher ASP would allow them to show revenue growth even when sales were flat to down). I think they got their answer. I’d be surprised if there are any price cuts this year and I’ll bet the XS gets removed from the lineup. But I don’t think we’ll see any price increases or storage configurations that push up the price. And I’ll bet we see Apple aggressively pushing trade-ins again.
The problem with this statement is that the iPhone X sold really well.
This affirmation is actually questionable for various reasons.
Apple never revealed any numbers beyond saying it was the most popular iPhone. It's all relative if the less popular iPhones weren't far behind iPhone X but didn't of course reach 'most popular' status. So, I think Apple made that claim for two or maybe three quarters and for the last quarter they said nothing.
That ties in with some analysts reporting at the time that iPhone X sales had dropped off faster than any other new release before it.
It was retired in the 2018 refresh and the first quarter of that cycle Apple issued a profit warning.
While we will probably never know all of what happened, it is very reasonable to speculate that the iPhone pool of purchasers simply ran out of 'financial steam' and sales dropped as a result.
Tim Cook said it sold well.
Your theories are irrelevant.
Sadly "well" is not an objective measure we can use to compare to say, "good" or "okay" or "great".
Someone didn't hear the quarterly financial statement...
"Well" is MY term that I used. It sold "very good" if that makes any difference.
Apple had raised their expectations beyond the sky hoping it would outsell iPhone 6 but it was short of that expectation but still sold "very good". Tim Cook compared it to your favorite team winning the SuperBowl but not by a lot of points. I believe it was the 2nd highest selling iPhone ever.
I think you were right, that proper grammar would call for the word “well” and “good” is not appropriate in this context.
What do they expect? The iPhone X is a super breakable, uber expensive and boring device. A single drop crashed the backplate of my iPhone X and Apple wants more than 600$ for a replacement phone cause this damage cannot be fixed.
Tim Cook doesn‘t focus on the product - but this has been the secret Ingredient of Apple products when Steve was still alive.
designr said: This is my concern. I sometimes feel Tom Cook pays lip service to the Jobs way but he's ultimately an operations guy not a product guy. Granted he deserved tremendous credit for the operational efficiency and success of Apple. No debating that. But you need both. It's not clear to me that Apple currently has the product person/people that measures up to Jobs. At some point your operational excellence doesn't have stuff useful and valuable enough to run through that operational engine.
I think the talent is there. The problem comes in more in terms of vision for the future, and the wisdom to say yes/no to the right things, as well as put support/funding/people on the right projects.
Some of the recent moves from Apple give me hope, while others worry me. It is now a massive company that is probably quite fragmented department by department (like most big companies). But, that even scares me a bit more if there isn't proper communication going on between them, with the proper work-together attitudes, and the right leadership structure in place.
AppleExposed said: Factually it outsold the iPhone 8 which was much cheaper.
The point is, anyone who said price was a factor was disproven.
No, you can't draw that conclusion from that fact. It's a valid possibility, but A doesn't lead to B.
Let me give you an example to illustrate. Let's say BMW made two models... the B1 and B2. B1 only costs $20k but doesn't include air conditioning. B2 costs $50k and is a pretty great car. B2 outsells B1 despite the price difference. Can we conclude that price wasn't a factor because more bought the B2? Of course not. There was a legitimate reason people bought B2 more often, and a legitimate reason people bypassed B1. If the price were lowered, would they have sold a lot more? (Possibly creating more overall profit from a volume increase.) It also doesn't mean people don't really desire a B1 priced product (because the missing feature is too crucial for most). And, a zillion other possibilities.
This is a bit of the same problem with the SE experiment. Apple has equated small size with budget product. So, we have no idea why people don't buy more SEs than they do. For all we know, they could make an SE with full features and price it the same as the full-featured model and it might outsell it. We also don't know how many more SEs would be sold if they had more features, and how many really wanted one but decided, say, a better camera outweighed the form-factor.
Apple must not talk itself into believing that it cannot gain more market share. It must act aggressively, speed up the cycle, and push more variety of devices, i.e., do what they have done to the iPad line up to the iPhone line up.
Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. The Macintosh has never had more than a 10% share of the worldwide market and it has been a success for Apple all these years. Discerning customers see the value and TCO of Apple products and are very willing to pay the mythical Apple Tax. When has Apple EVER had a dominating share of ANY market? They have literally created or boosted markets out of thin air (personal computers, portable music players, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc) only to see them dominated by cheap knock-offs and lookalikes. Through it all Apple has remained true to its mission statement to provide well designed, reliable, usable products that customers like to use. Again, tech blog forums like AI are filled with comments from a market segment that doesn’t value design, only cares about specs, and wants everything cheap.
It’s as if you have zero knowledge of Apple’s history. Apple had the exact same business model issues with desktops and their hubris had the company go bankrupt - then Bill Gates had to step in and infuse them with cash to keep them afloat. The only thing that saved them was SJ coming back and designing a revolutionary product in the iPod. Then the new iMac and G3 line... OSX, Pro Tools...
So now we seem to have history repeating itself with yet again the same hubris and results... and who is going to revolutionize a new industry for Apple? Tim? He’s Scully 2.0
The only question is - how fast can Apple blow through half a Trillion in cash and will they wise up before they do?
... Smartphones are now a comodity like other mature products ...
I always hear people say this, but I'm not sure what follows from that. Aren't cars commodities? Computers (traditionally)? That doesn't matter to Apple Macs or BMW, etc. There is always plenty of room in any mature market for quality and/or specialized variants, and people will pay more for them.
Yes those are good points...I do think there is plenty of room in the market for differentiation, despite it being mature these days. The iOS ecosystem is definitely sticky and has some very strong advantages for purchasers of the devices. I think the high price point of the iPhone may stand in the way, but if Apple gets aggressive, especially with trade-ins, they can keep chugging along.
rain22 said: ... then Bill Gates had to step in and infuse them with cash to keep them afloat. ...
Why in the world does this myth keep getting propagated? Do you realize how much a 'drop in the bucket' Microsoft's measly investment (yes, the bought stock) was in the grand scheme? How much cash Apple had on hand? etc.
As Designr explained, it was a symbolic gesture. Yes, I'm sure Apple would have eventually been in trouble had they not turned things around, and the whole deal with Microsoft was crucial (and Microsoft gained as much or more than Apple in the deal!), but it had little to do with that investment in terms of $.
Jeff_in_TX said: Yes those are good points...I do think there is plenty of room in the market for differentiation, despite it being mature these days. The iOS ecosystem is definitely sticky and has some very strong advantages for purchasers of the devices. I think the high price point of the iPhone may stand in the way, but if Apple gets aggressive, especially with trade-ins, they can keep chugging along.
I think they are just testing to see how far they can push it. Most businesses do that with their pricing. However, it is also a bit risky at some point. They can always drop them again, but that becomes difficult because of the Wall Street idiocy and impact on their brand image. (And, I don't think Tim's whole 'they cost more because we're putting more tech into them' is fooling too many people.)
It's interesting, with all of the talk of chasing after profitability vs. market share and comparisons to the automobile market (likening Apple to BMW or Mercedes), that the most consistently profitable (and one of the largest) automobile company in the world is Toyota which provides (profitable) products across the range of prices (including their Lexus luxury division). ... I'm not saying Apple has to pursue such a strategy. It's perfectly legitimate to pursue only the high end. But that strategy has risks and trade-offs of its own. In a business where switching (away) friction is low, it may carry greater risks than imagined at first glance.
Great post and I agree. The odd thing about Apple is that they aren't just pursuing the high end with a lot of their products, while others segments are aimed squarely at that high end. So, maybe there is some of what you're saying already going on.
Also, the key to Toyota has mainly been their long lasting nature vs cost ratio. They aren't (at least most of the line) particularly luxury or exciting, but most people just want a reliable vehicle. BMW is about the driving experience and luxury (and image)** than what the Toyota crowd is after, even if they could afford it.
Apple has those aspects as well, at least traditionally. A lot of Apple owners of the past bought them less because they were luxury items, or high-end, but because of the ease of use and reliability. The 'fashion brand' thing is rather recent. At the same time, iPhones and iPads have sold to the average consumer the way BMWs haven't. So, it's kind of an odd blend.
** (That said, there are some interesting charts Consumer Report produced over the years of the range of brand reliability - where each brand had a bar that covered the range of models and their reliability for particular years. Some years, Audi and BMWs most reliable models topped Toyota and Honda's most reliable models. Of course, the bottom end of the bars was lower than Toyota's lowest end... so Toyota is more consistently good. But, the upshot, is that if you bought the right model of Audi or BMW in those years, they statistically were more reliable than the best from Toyota/Honda. That's something most people don't realize.)
IMO, the main problem is being a public company and the whole push for constant growth. A company could do just fine making a substantial profit year after year. The push, though, to keep increasing, increasing, increasing at an alarming pace can really mess up a company.
Comments
But, I think I disagree that they are really all that good at it. Look how long it took them to get the basics of MobileMe (now iCloud) working reasonably stable. It was total %$#-show for quite some time. I just don't want them to get distracted by a bunch of me-too services that they are just kind of OK at. I guess they are add-on sales so long as the hardware/software remain strong, so long as they don't distract.
They probably meant from the viewpoint of 'investors' (a.k.a. day-traders, a.k.a. gamblers) or WallStreet, or 'business growth experts' or that kind of silly stuff. It's completely stupid in terms of making the best stuff and actual success, but most people aren't about those things in the business world. It's often more about chasing the mythical unicorn of doubling growth each year or some such vanity metric.
Um, OK.
I assume you mean rear-view mirror, but no, they actually serve a good purpose and work pretty well. I'm sure FaceID works well and serves its purpose OK too, but I'd rather have TouchID. And, as for the notch, I'm not saying one can't get by with it or things like that, but I'd rather just have a small band at the top, etc. instead of the notch.
Yeah, once you start making your money from things other than having the best stuff, you end up with all kinds of dependencies that can easily evaporate. Market share used to not matter with Apple, beyond having enough to attract software development. But, if more of their success is tied to services that are tied to the platform, then yeah, it becomes more about marketshare, or at least numbers.
If Apple produced world-class services that brought people to the platform, or brought people from any platform (assuming the services are cross-platform), then I'd be more onboard. Generally, they just don't though. Maybe they'll pull it off, but we'll have to wait and see.
It isn't just Cook, though. It's really anyone who tries to apply 'business wisdom' to Apple w/o Steve's key to success... making the best stuff and then marketing it well so success follows. Most 'business wisdom' tends to put all the other stuff first, and then 'best products' end up if they get around to it.
I think they had like $1B in cash when they were 'on the edge of bankruptcy' but as the tale goes, apparently things weren't good and M$ saved them (with a minute investment).
I suppose maybe we (on the outside) didn't realize how things really were internally, but I don't recall any of we Mac users being overly concerned about them back then. One of my good friends was buying stock and I sure wish I would have (I was recommending others do so).
Yeah, I think they do have to be careful. There seems to be this idea among some of the Apple community that Apple is a premium brand, so it doesn't much matter what they cost... they are for the elite who can afford them. But, I don't think that's really what Jobs ever meant (and certainly not with his 'computer for the rest of us' stuff way back. He meant they build good stuff, not junk, and there is a certain cost to good stuff.
Or, in way of analogy.... Apple has to be careful to be the BMW not Lamborghini or Ferrari. They just don't care to be the Pontiac Sunbird or whatever. Apple shouldn't be trying to 'race to the bottom' or even care about that. But, they don't want to price themselves into some elite luxury category. That, IMO, would be a huge mistake.
That's just a silly statement. Then neither do most of the rest of the companies in the world. Have you not ever watched Milton Friedman's 'Lesson of the Pencil'?
Your theory on Apple is cracked. They still sell the best stuff, the stuff everybody else copies, and they sell services on top of that. Unlike the silly narratives some paint, Apple hasn't abandoned or pivoted hardware for services. The services sales are auxiliary, to their existing hardware customers. And that's completely fine. They still don't need to worship at the Church of Market Share as SeanJ claims.
Which is why people pay more for high-end brands like Apple, despite PCs being a commodity now (and smartphones soon if not now). The category is mature, but the room for a higher-quality brand exists, just as you noted with autos. The demand for the high-quality brand will always be the case in the foreseeable future. This is why Apple doesn't cater to the Church of Market Share, and prefers the Church of Profitability.
The rest of your post is 100% absolute nonsense -- there is nothing in common between iOS/Apple today with '90s Mac/Apple, other than the name. This topic has been so well covered I don't feel the need to explain what should be obvious by now. It's not the same market or company or product position. You analogy is fatally flawed.
Sorry you can't afford the monthly payment on an interest-free loan for the flagship iPhone, but who said you're entitled to the top-tier offering? There are several other tier models across the price spectrum.
BMWs are more expensive than Toyotas. Today's BMWs are more expensive than ones from decades prior. They do more and have more tech inside them. Such is life. Get what you can afford.
Some of the best stuff, yes. Some of us have just been worried that it has been slipping and their priorities have changed. I think that was true to some extent, but there seems to be a swing back again on some fronts. Probably a mixture of both.
The fashion aspects and services are most worrisome to me, though, as they most easily become distractions, or actual potential to conflict with Apple's traditional values.
I'm not sure that necessarily follows. What does one outselling another have to do with price not being a factor? It just means that more people bought one model, that yes, cost more than the other. But, it might also have had to do with feature-set. And, it doesn't mean that a different lineup at different price-points wouldn't have sold even much better.
Yeah, the circumstances were much different. Bottom line for me, is that it depends on whether Apple is now operating more like the rest of the tech industry, or with 'business wisdom' often too driven by Wall Street, or if they are operating more on Jobs principals. It sure seems more like the former at times.
*FACEPALM*
But the XR IS actually cheaper. That's not an argument or theory or assumption, that's a FACT.
Just like iPhone X outselling the cheaper iPhone 8 is a FACT.
This is how you can spot the outsiders. They're so brain-dead. Back to Youtube comments you go!! Idiot!
The argument was that the X was "too expensive" for consumers but the X sold "well" or "very good".
Factually it outsold the iPhone 8 which was much cheaper.
The point is, anyone who said price was a factor was disproven.
Of course if Tim Cook had said it sold "terribly" you wouldn't have questioned it.
My whole point was that the Xr is less than $1,000. Yes, of course it is factual but, and here is where you have to pay maximum attention, it is still far to expensive for the entry level iPhone of a refresh.
However, if you increase the storage you can hit $899 on an Xr and in Europe you fly past the 1,000€ mark easily. In fact, the base Xr is 850€ when you include sales tax.
So expensive that sales tanked and that's why the price reduction (the claim of 'from $479') appeared from out of nowhere before Christmas.
If things were rosy that promotion would never have materialised and much less on Apple's front page, where, eight months later, it still sits.
Your wilful denial extends to the iPhone X which of course did top $1,000 and far higher in Europe.
I have already broken this down but here it is again:
1. What does most popular mean? You have no numbers. If it sold just one more unit than the others it would still qualify for 'most popular'.
2. Run through the 2018 earnings calls and tell me if the iPhone X was the most popular in all of them.
3. Check out the analysts estimates that suggested a dramatic fall in iPhone X sales in Q4. Supposedly far more marked than for any other new generation iPhone before it.
4. Move one step further into the fifth quarter of $1,000+ phones (Q1-19, the biggest quarter for Apple and with entirely revamped phones) and now we see more than a drop off. We see a massive promotion from Apple before Christmas day followed by a profit warning and a YoY drop in sales but Apple had previously declared it would no longer detail iPhone unit sales which obviously came in very handy, right?
5. Time to draw conclusions. When you have revised the earnings calls you might find that the 'most popular' label (undefined as it is) didn't actually have much stamina to it and after three years of flat sales, the higher prices were but just one of the reasons that Apple saw a YoY decline and issued a profit warning for its historical blowout quarter. It is not unreasonable that there simply aren't enough users in the Apple ecosystem with the resources to keep iPhone chugging along on flat sales at current prices and no one in their right mind would switch to a current iPhone because they offer far less value on the hardware. Yes, your $1,000 phone still gets you an ultra slow 5W charger out of the box!
Tim Cook doesn‘t focus on the product - but this has been the secret Ingredient of Apple products when Steve was still alive.
Some of the recent moves from Apple give me hope, while others worry me. It is now a massive company that is probably quite fragmented department by department (like most big companies). But, that even scares me a bit more if there isn't proper communication going on between them, with the proper work-together attitudes, and the right leadership structure in place.
No, you can't draw that conclusion from that fact. It's a valid possibility, but A doesn't lead to B.
Let me give you an example to illustrate. Let's say BMW made two models... the B1 and B2. B1 only costs $20k but doesn't include air conditioning. B2 costs $50k and is a pretty great car. B2 outsells B1 despite the price difference. Can we conclude that price wasn't a factor because more bought the B2? Of course not. There was a legitimate reason people bought B2 more often, and a legitimate reason people bypassed B1. If the price were lowered, would they have sold a lot more? (Possibly creating more overall profit from a volume increase.) It also doesn't mean people don't really desire a B1 priced product (because the missing feature is too crucial for most). And, a zillion other possibilities.
This is a bit of the same problem with the SE experiment. Apple has equated small size with budget product. So, we have no idea why people don't buy more SEs than they do. For all we know, they could make an SE with full features and price it the same as the full-featured model and it might outsell it. We also don't know how many more SEs would be sold if they had more features, and how many really wanted one but decided, say, a better camera outweighed the form-factor.
Apple had the exact same business model issues with desktops and their hubris had the company go bankrupt - then Bill Gates had to step in and infuse them with cash to keep them afloat.
The only thing that saved them was SJ coming back and designing a revolutionary product in the iPod. Then the new iMac and G3 line... OSX, Pro Tools...
So now we seem to have history repeating itself with yet again the same hubris and results... and who is going to revolutionize a new industry for Apple? Tim? He’s Scully 2.0
The only question is - how fast can Apple blow through half a Trillion in cash and will they wise up before they do?
As Designr explained, it was a symbolic gesture. Yes, I'm sure Apple would have eventually been in trouble had they not turned things around, and the whole deal with Microsoft was crucial (and Microsoft gained as much or more than Apple in the deal!), but it had little to do with that investment in terms of $.
I think they are just testing to see how far they can push it. Most businesses do that with their pricing. However, it is also a bit risky at some point. They can always drop them again, but that becomes difficult because of the Wall Street idiocy and impact on their brand image. (And, I don't think Tim's whole 'they cost more because we're putting more tech into them' is fooling too many people.)
Great post and I agree. The odd thing about Apple is that they aren't just pursuing the high end with a lot of their products, while others segments are aimed squarely at that high end. So, maybe there is some of what you're saying already going on.
Also, the key to Toyota has mainly been their long lasting nature vs cost ratio. They aren't (at least most of the line) particularly luxury or exciting, but most people just want a reliable vehicle. BMW is about the driving experience and luxury (and image)** than what the Toyota crowd is after, even if they could afford it.
Apple has those aspects as well, at least traditionally. A lot of Apple owners of the past bought them less because they were luxury items, or high-end, but because of the ease of use and reliability. The 'fashion brand' thing is rather recent. At the same time, iPhones and iPads have sold to the average consumer the way BMWs haven't. So, it's kind of an odd blend.
** (That said, there are some interesting charts Consumer Report produced over the years of the range of brand reliability - where each brand had a bar that covered the range of models and their reliability for particular years. Some years, Audi and BMWs most reliable models topped Toyota and Honda's most reliable models. Of course, the bottom end of the bars was lower than Toyota's lowest end... so Toyota is more consistently good. But, the upshot, is that if you bought the right model of Audi or BMW in those years, they statistically were more reliable than the best from Toyota/Honda. That's something most people don't realize.)
IMO, the main problem is being a public company and the whole push for constant growth. A company could do just fine making a substantial profit year after year. The push, though, to keep increasing, increasing, increasing at an alarming pace can really mess up a company.