caskey

paulmacintosh said:

The ‘e’ is a clumsy leftover from the SE, it doesn’t even mean anything.

'e' = (Entry) model, (Essential) features only?

rob53 said:

If the chip doesn't include all operational capabilities then it should be considered defective and either disposed of or sold for no more than half its fully functional cost.

This happens everywhere in manufacturing...look at agriculture. Less than perfect but totally fine veggies get used for frozen/dried/processed products when their more attractive brothers and sisters are the ones that make it to the produce shelves at the store. As long as the materials function the way they need to for the product they're being used in, it is wasteful to simply dispose of them...driving up the component costs for all models of phone the chips are being produced for.



 If someone tells me a fully functional A18 SoC only costs $100 why does the rest of the iPhone cost so much? 

Possibly because a phone is made up of hundreds of other components beside the SoC as well as labor, shipping and all the development? They're not just handing you a chip when you buy an iPhone. 

 Someone is reaping the benefits of every new Apple device.

Yep! Congratulations, you've discovered how a business works.

jamnap said:

  I would pay a few more bucks for MagSafe.  Sad.

Thats literally the point. Thats why there's multiple devices with multiple price points and differing features. For some customers the 16e is the correct phone. You are not that customer. Thats' why there's a 16 and 16pro. 

kkqd1337 said:

I think the price conscious would choose a lower price vs FaceID and AI.

And also, for your average use, AI really is a junk feature.

Whatever Apple say I feel like I am being used as a free trainer for their AI 

I'm sure there are some folks who would prefer to use the telegraph if given the option, but the technology is advancing and this is in service of bringing their products all to the same, current feature sets. Maintaining touchID on one random product means continuing to have to support that feature in future software updates as well as continue sourcing components in small quantities for one product line, which will actually make them more expensive over time than sharing components in larger volume across all devices.

jbirdiikun said:

I get that Apple had to cut costs somewhere, but the loss of MagSafe (coupled with the $599 price tag) is disappointing.

I think it's twofold...it helps differentiate the "budget" phone vs the "premium" and also I think that the kind of customers who actually use the MagSafe features for things like bedside stands for StandBy mode and the like, are the kind of customers who are purchasing the flagship models anyway so the 16e customers will not really experience missing anything without MagSafe.