goofy1958

Somez said:

Guys!

I’ve been a longtime reader of AI and reading the comments hete made me to signup and make my first comment.

I guess most of you are from the US. I’m from Europe (eastern part, still an EU member). I’ve been using Macs since 2004 (Mini G4, white iMac core2duo, first auminium unibody MacBook) and iPhones (3G, 3GS, 4S, 6), iPad mini.

I love these products because the UI is great, I get stability, good hardware, etc. I admit there are exceptions like the cracking polycarbonate Macs or the recent MacBook keyboard problems, etc. But overal I trust Apple’s products and I agree with the philosophy behind.

However I’m getting more and more fed up with Apple due to the pricing and restrictions around upgradebility. With latest iPhone X they went crazy. I cannot buy any of the Macs because they become insanely expensive as well. Still, you cannot upgrade the hard drive or the memory. And these restrictions are clearly not because of somekind of technical limitation. I believe Apple has started increasing prices since they cannot increase the volume sold. So the only way to make more revenue is by increasing prices.

I want to replace my old iPhone 6 this year, but I’m afraid prices will again be so high that I might just buy a Xiaomi phone. I know it’s Android, but one should not spend a whole month of salary in an iPhone.

Apple Watch? Same thing. I really want one but it’s so expensive compared to the wages here that I will probably skip it this year again. I have a Xiaomi Amazfit Bip for now and I don’t even want to tell how cheap it is. Of course it’s dumb compred to an Apple Watch.

Prices (apple.com vs my country’s Apple website)

iPhone X 256 GB, SIM-free: $1149 vs $1570 (36%)
Apple Watch S3 42mm, GPS-only: $359 vs $467 (23%)
iMac cheapest option: $1099 vs $1509 (37%)

Do you now understand why more and more people buy cheaper Android alternatives outside the US?

Not to mention that these prices only include 1 freaking year of warranty. 

jarredkm said:

As a huge Apple fan, I was incredibly excited about the X. It was hard for me to justify the increase in monthly payments though, so I wasn’t planning on upgrading any time soon. My face lit up when my husband “bought” me one for Christmas by forgoing his upgrade and taking my year old 7 in exchange. That’s true love right there. As much as I was excited for it, and do love almost every aspect of it, I will say that FaceID is incredibly frustrating. It does not work as advertised for a lot of people. Especially for those like me who have narrow eyes. My husband works for a major wireless carrier and said that he takes more calls from people wanting to return the X than any other device. A common complaint he hears is that FaceID doesn’t work. It usually takes me 2-3 tries to make my phone unlock, which makes me warn friends thinking about upgrading. My work phone still has TouchID, and comparing unlocking the two phones throughout the day makes me wish I still had TouchID. I can’t help but to think that the word of mouth from all of these disgruntled users could possibly have a measurable impact on sales. I know I’ve talked a couple of friends out of upgrading, and I highly doubt I’m the only one.

gatorguy said:

Roxy Balboa said:

Should I believe Apple that has over 10 years experience in making mobile phones and has the trust of millions of people or should I believe failing Bloomberg that has a consistent record of lying to the public. It’s not that difficult a choice in my opinion.

Did Bloomberg claim that Apple made any changes that resulted in a less-accurate Face ID? I didn't recall seeing that but maybe? I thought all they claimed was that Apple reduced the quality assurance standards to increase yield, but I could surely have missed something in the article. 

kkqd1337 said:

not seeing this update in the UK