I don’t think Apple ever sees itself as making any of its products “budget” products. Apple sees itself as a provider of premium products only, even at the lowest price points. This allows Apple to justify pricing even its lower tier products at selling prices that maintain healthy margins for Apple.
If Apple started selling product variations that are primarily targeted at certain regions they would probably have more flexibility in pricing and come a lot closer to what some buyers consider “budget” worthy devices. The difficulty there would be the possibility of dulling the shine on Apple’s premium-only positioning.
One thing that has surprised me during the Tim Cook era of Apple is the substantial growth in the number of product variations across a lot of their product lines. Steve Jobs seemed to place greater emphasis on keeping the total number of product variations to a minimum. Now we have three tiers of iPhones, four tiers of iPads if you consider the mini to be a separate tier, and two primary tiers of MacBooks, with the MacBook Pro having three or four sub tiers based on SoC variations.
The growth in variations seems to be helping the bottom line but walking into an Apple Store today is much more challenging than it was 15+ years ago. You need to do your homework before walking through the door. Thankfully it hasn’t reached the mind numbing level that walking into a MicroCenter entails, but it’s moving up nevertheless.
Basically half of the office was discussing the iPhone 16e just now. And when someone finally asked “How much is it?”, the answer immediately turned everybody off of the phone. Talk quickly changed to the “Sony (something)” or the “Samsung (not sure)”.
(I’m not trying to be dismissive of Sony or Samsung. I just not super-familiar with Android and don’t remember the names everybody said.)
Important to note that my office is a Japanese office. So we were discussing the price of phone in yen. At ever-so-slightly under ¥100,000 (¥99,800, tax included), everybody (that spoke up) instantly dismissed it completely.
In dollar terms, with the tax excluded, the Japanese price is basically the same as the American price. But maybe psychologically nobody wants to pay ¥100,000 for an entry level phone (and pricing it 200 yen below 100,000 doesn’t matter, lol). I have an Apple Balance of about $650 USD (in actual USD — on my USD Store Apple Account), so I was just simply thinking about the phone in USD terms. But in JPY terms… maybe it’ll be a tough sell in Japan. Though my sample size for saying that is just one small Japanese office’s worth of people, lol.
I’m curious now about the pricing in other regions of the world.
(Enough of that though. Coffee break over. Back to work!!!)
It is embarrassing that they compare the 'speed' to a six year old iPhone 11. Mainly because it is not any faster than most recent phones, and it has less GPU cores.
LOL. The iPhone 12 mini had the worst battery life of any phone Apple made, and combined with the iPhone 13 mini, both models only amounted to 5% of all iPhone sales. You can say it was the worst phone Apple ever made, next to the 5c, which is why Apple killed it.
For a budget smartphone anyone in their right mind would be far far better off just buying a $100-200 android via your mobile network store/shop. Don’t see the point at all of paying good money for a hobbled and throttled iPhone with clueless AI and a rubbish camera, plus the SSD upgrade price to 256gb is pure daylight robbery.
LOL. The iPhone 12 mini had the worst battery life of any phone Apple made, and combined with the iPhone 13 mini, both models only amounted to 5% of all iPhone sales. You can say it was the worst phone Apple ever made, next to the 5c, which is why Apple killed it.
Yep. The Mini sucked so much that everyone that owned and used it daily can’t stop praising it. Huge piece of garbage, it was!
Maybe there is a reason (or two) why the people with the most personal experience with the Mini love it so much. Maybe. Not sure.
LOL. The iPhone 12 mini had the worst battery life of any phone Apple made, and combined with the iPhone 13 mini, both models only amounted to 5% of all iPhone sales. You can say it was the worst phone Apple ever made, next to the 5c, which is why Apple killed it.
Ok, so yeah that original statement does seem a bit over the top. But I’m still using my 12 mini with the original battery. Health is reading 79% and yet it’s not causing me any issues. I often go the day without needing to recharge. I’m hanging on to this thing as long as I possibly can. I’m 6’2 and have rather large hands and I’m just baffled at how people prefer bigger phones. My naked 12 mini looks startlingly tiny when next to most any other phone and yet still always feels bigger than a pocketable handheld device should be. Maybe by the time it totally gives out there will be a cheap 16e refurb market. Then I’ll have to go up in size but at least it’ll be cheaper. OR the Apple Watch will be a true standalone device by then and I can just forego a phone (the dream that will never come true)
I have had the original iPhone SE since the beginning. I’ve purchased a second one for more memory and spare parts. I’ve replaced the battery, screen, Touch ID. Realizing the small form factors were going out of fashion, I then purchased the iPhone Mini 12, didn’t use it much. Turned it in for a 13 that I am just now starting to use as my main device. After seeing Apple’s new iPhone 16e, I purchased a second iPhone mini 13 with more memory. I really have never been interested in the fascination surrounding the bigger is better mentality. I wonder how many more years it will take before a phone is obsolete?
I have had the original iPhone SE since the beginning. I’ve purchased a second one for more memory and spare parts. I’ve replaced the battery, screen, Touch ID. Realizing the small form factors were going out of fashion, I then purchased the iPhone Mini 12, didn’t use it much. Turned it in for a 13 that I am just now starting to use as my main device. After seeing Apple’s new iPhone 16e, I purchased a second iPhone mini 13 with more memory. I really have never been interested in the fascination surrounding the bigger is better mentality. I wonder how many more years it will take before a phone is obsolete?
It's the bigger screen that outweighs the inconvenience of having to carry around a larger, bulkier phone. Obviously, that tradeoff doesn't work for you.
Just... wow. I'm kind of stunned. The phone, itself, is pretty much as expected. But that price point... YIKES. So the cheapest iPhone is now 40% more expensive than it was yesterday. Although, in an apples to apples comparison -- price of SE 3 128 vs 16E base model 128 -- it's a 25% hike. I'm not saying the 16E isn't worth it, fhe list of improvements over the SE is huge, but raising the price of entry into the iPhone ecosystem by 40% is a giant cojones pricing move. I'm certainly not going to question the decision, since I'm sure it was made with a ton of data supporting that this would work out okay, but I never saw this coming.
No surprise and I will also not be a surprised with most people buying the even higher priced iPhone’s above it, over the years the marketshare enthusiasts have always said without fail, Apple should offer a cheaper device (for marketshare) but every time they do most people elect to buy the more expensive models this time will be no different.
The reason being is simple. Every time Apple placed a so-called cheap product to buy in the iPhone or iPad models. It is always at a price that's not very reasonable when compared to the other models. They keep pricing it so close to the next model that many just pony up buy that model. Only the people who really want to buy the very cheapest model offered buy it. Most others who understand specs vs cost will most likely buy the models that are a bit more expensive because they are too close the base (cheap) model in price to justify in buying.
This is where Apple is hardheaded at. You want to offer a low budget device then it needs to be low budget priced. If it's too close in price to the next model in the lineup then chances are people are going to ignore it.
I'm still using my 11 Pro Max 64GB iPhone, 16GB iPad Mini3 and late 2015 27" iMac. Cook isn't going to see a cent (yen coin) from me until prices in Japan are reasonable again.
I’m still using an 11 Pro Max iPhone (512 gig), but that doesn’t mean that I think Apple should offer a low margin low or no profit smartphone, Apple has never played the marketshare game, when I bought that 11 Pro iPhone I maxed out the storage and anything else I could at the time because I knew I was going to keep it for a period of time, and I’ve done the same thing with Apple computers, and Apple iPads (storage maxed out five years ago, handed down to relative).
Skimping on Apple products, particularly when they have a high resale value in comparison to the competition has never been a smart thing to do. But many people believe all electronics are created equal and that is not the case with an Apple product versus a Wintel product which has no resale value once you walk out the door, the only thing of value is the graphics card if you had the foresight to not skimp and buy the computer with the Nvidia graphics card.
It is embarrassing that they compare the 'speed' to a six year old iPhone 11. Mainly because it is not any faster than most recent phones, and it has less GPU cores.
Not really…. When you look at where Samsung, Google and Qualcomm really are In comparison to where Apple Silicon is.
Samsung is not years ahead in anything important in fact, they are four five years behind and the same thing applies to the Google Pixel 9 smartphones.
https://browser.geekbench.com/mobile-benchmarks With the intro of the three new 16 iPhones Samsung/Qualcomm are 24 spots (now 31 spots) and five generations back in performance to the iPhone running a eight core SOC against Apples, six core SOC, and if they weren’t running a 8 core SOC, they would be behind even a 12 Pro in iPhone in performance that’s how far back Samsung and Qualcomm are.
The new Pixel 9 is somewhere behind the iPhone SE (2nd generation) 50 spots and 5 to 6 years off the pace. No one cares about the difference between 60Hz or 120 Hz but they do care about battery life and they will care more in the future about the speed of the SOC and the overall performance of the phone that’s why the resale value of iPhones are far beyond the competition.
The 12 Pro iPhone still out performs S24 and the Pixel nine in software and hardware why because the Qualcomm/Tensor processors are four and five years behind, tweaking the camera and phoning home the pictures back to the cloud for manipulation can’t make up for using four and 5 year old processors.
The link provided cannot be accessed directly on the geekbench site, it is too embarrassing for Apple‘s competition so they hide it.
How long can I expect to still get OS updates for my 12 mini? Looks like I’m gonna be hanging on for as long as I can.
I have an 11 Pro iPhone you’re in a better position than I am, don’t cry……
Why do you think he is crying? Also, why do you think he would care whether you are in a worser position than him or not? He would only care about his situation, isn't it?
How long can I expect to still get OS updates for my 12 mini? Looks like I’m gonna be hanging on for as long as I can.
I have an 11 Pro iPhone you’re in a better position than I am, don’t cry……
I promised myself I wouldn't cry... ... ...
However, I'm definitely looking into the most economical way to swap to a 13 mini just to squeak out another year. But also, I live in the U.S. so society as we know it probably won't make it that far and what kind of phone I have likely will be the least of my concerns.
I have had the original iPhone SE since the beginning. I’ve purchased a second one for more memory and spare parts. I’ve replaced the battery, screen, Touch ID. Realizing the small form factors were going out of fashion, I then purchased the iPhone Mini 12, didn’t use it much. Turned it in for a 13 that I am just now starting to use as my main device. After seeing Apple’s new iPhone 16e, I purchased a second iPhone mini 13 with more memory. I really have never been interested in the fascination surrounding the bigger is better mentality. I wonder how many more years it will take before a phone is obsolete?
I don’t think Apple ever sees itself as making any of its products “budget” products. Apple sees itself as a provider of premium products only, even at the lowest price points. This allows Apple to justify pricing even its lower tier products at selling prices that maintain healthy margins for Apple.
If Apple started selling product variations that are primarily targeted at certain regions they would probably have more flexibility in pricing and come a lot closer to what some buyers consider “budget” worthy devices. The difficulty there would be the possibility of dulling the shine on Apple’s premium-only positioning.
One thing that has surprised me during the Tim Cook era of Apple is the substantial growth in the number of product variations across a lot of their product lines. Steve Jobs seemed to place greater emphasis on keeping the total number of product variations to a minimum. Now we have three tiers of iPhones, four tiers of iPads if you consider the mini to be a separate tier, and two primary tiers of MacBooks, with the MacBook Pro having three or four sub tiers based on SoC variations.
The growth in variations seems to be helping the bottom line but walking into an Apple Store today is much more challenging than it was 15+ years ago. You need to do your homework before walking through the door. Thankfully it hasn’t reached the mind numbing level that walking into a MicroCenter entails, but it’s moving up nevertheless.
Apple's limited number of product variations is of course how they maintain their it just works ethos. There aren't that many hardware variables that an Apple OS must address. Even with a few different models updated every year or two, for every Apple operating system iteration, you could map out every hardware variable the OS must handle on a single tab spreadsheet.
For Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows, the same hardware variable map would require a database, and even that would always be incomplete.
Comments
(I’m not trying to be dismissive of Sony or Samsung. I just not super-familiar with Android and don’t remember the names everybody said.)
Important to note that my office is a Japanese office. So we were discussing the price of phone in yen. At ever-so-slightly under ¥100,000 (¥99,800, tax included), everybody (that spoke up) instantly dismissed it completely.
In dollar terms, with the tax excluded, the Japanese price is basically the same as the American price. But maybe psychologically nobody wants to pay ¥100,000 for an entry level phone (and pricing it 200 yen below 100,000 doesn’t matter, lol). I have an Apple Balance of about $650 USD (in actual USD — on my USD Store Apple Account), so I was just simply thinking about the phone in USD terms. But in JPY terms… maybe it’ll be a tough sell in Japan. Though my sample size for saying that is just one small Japanese office’s worth of people, lol.
I’m curious now about the pricing in other regions of the world.
(Enough of that though. Coffee break over. Back to work!!!)
The ‘e’ is a clumsy leftover from the SE, it doesn’t even mean anything.
This iPhone doesn’t have an edge to edge display, because its hideous 8yo notch gets in the way.
Imagine trying to sell an iPhone 12 user on an iPhone without MagSafe, which has been a standard feature for five years now!
Maybe there is a reason (or two) why the people with the most personal experience with the Mini love it so much. Maybe. Not sure.
Samsung is not years ahead in anything important in fact, they are four five years behind and the same thing applies to the Google Pixel 9 smartphones.
https://browser.geekbench.com/mobile-benchmarks With the intro of the three new 16 iPhones Samsung/Qualcomm are 24 spots (now 31 spots) and five generations back in performance to the iPhone running a eight core SOC against Apples, six core SOC, and if they weren’t running a 8 core SOC, they would be behind even a 12 Pro in iPhone in performance that’s how far back Samsung and Qualcomm are.
The new Pixel 9 is somewhere behind the iPhone SE (2nd generation) 50 spots and 5 to 6 years off the pace. No one cares about the difference between 60Hz or 120 Hz but they do care about battery life and they will care more in the future about the speed of the SOC and the overall performance of the phone that’s why the resale value of iPhones are far beyond the competition.
The 12 Pro iPhone still out performs S24 and the Pixel nine in software and hardware why because the Qualcomm/Tensor processors are four and five years behind, tweaking the camera and phoning home the pictures back to the cloud for manipulation can’t make up for using four and 5 year old processors.
The link provided cannot be accessed directly on the geekbench site, it is too embarrassing for Apple‘s competition so they hide it.
However, I'm definitely looking into the most economical way to swap to a 13 mini just to squeak out another year. But also, I live in the U.S. so society as we know it probably won't make it that far and what kind of phone I have likely will be the least of my concerns.
For Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows, the same hardware variable map would require a database, and even that would always be incomplete.