gmgravytrain

Apple wants to serve everyone with a wide price range of iPhones? Every reviewer always ends up saying that all iPhones are too expensive for the masses and maybe even for some of the elites. I never see any iPhone reviewer writing about how iPhones are worth the price. If that's the case, is anything worth the price? Going to sports games, movies, dinner at a restaurant, the price of gasoline, a day at the amusement park, a pack of cigarettes? However, when it comes to Apple, it's always how their products are too expensive for the average Joe and yet Apple sells millions of iPhones every single year. If something is too expensive, then simply buy something cheaper. Problem solved. I doubt Apple will be able to sell many iPhones in India, but I'm sure we all know that much. Apple doesn't sell $100 smartphones and I don't think they should. I have never whined about not being able to afford a Lamborghini or Ferrari. That's my tough luck and I don't feel those companies are to blame for selling expensive products (beyond my personal means). I can always buy something cheaper and be satisfied. I'll never understand why people have a beef with Apple for selling so-called expensive products. No one has ever been forced to buy an Apple product.

ronn said:

Every. Damn. Year!

Now the haterz can go around saying how boring the event was because they knew everything in advance.

I remember when the iPad was originally announced and the haters were always saying it was nothing but a big, ol' iPhone and if I remember correctly, it was said in a derogatory sense. Well, now that render even actually looks like a big ol' iPhone, but I'm saying it as a compliment. Let's see who'll be the first critic to complain that there's too much bezel. Some people are always going on about some whiny "too much bezel" rant when it comes to displays.

These prototypes must be relatively useless. What would a person do with them? Display them on a coffee table or something? It's amazing people are willing to pay a lot of money for such old tech. I'm not a collector so it's hard for me to understand unless each auction over the years can bring an even higher price for the prototype.

I suppose this is factual news and may be important to those following global smartphone market share percentage but it's not likely to affect Apple in any way. I'm sure it will negatively impact other Android smartphone manufacturers whose market share is being taken by Huawei. It will be interesting to see if Huawei can maintain its position quarter after quarter when other smartphone manufacturers put them under pressure from newer models or lower cost. I sort of question Android smartphone user loyalty which is easily swayed by products costing less. I can't imagine there would be much of a difference in features of mid-range smartphones where consumers wouldn't quickly switch to another brand with similar features at a slightly lower cost.

 It's questionable how much pressure Apple is under competing against a dozen or so Android smartphone manufacturers considering Apple is mainly going after high-end smartphone customers. The high-end smartphone market is a fairly large market and Apple will never be able to take 100% of it no matter what they do. All Apple can do is stay competitive by offering some newer feature set and good customer service. It's something Apple has to do continuously in order to hold repeat customers and occasionally grab new customers. It's a long game that won't be won in just a couple of quarters.  I wonder if most analysts and investors even realize this.

Anyway, I'll be happy if Apple can finally get some additional revenue streams to take pressure away from iPhone sales. It's a shame Apple never considered a cloud computing business like many of the other tech companies managed to do.  It's rather annoying Apple always gets criticized about not taking higher market share percentage from these Chinese companies that sell smartphones at a much lower price range than Apple does.