Metriacanthosaurus

elijahg said:

corrections said:

elijahg said:

Let's hope the games on Apple Arcade are more serious games like on Mac, Windows and consoles. At the moment they're mostly just crappy childish phone games blown up to TV size. There's a bit of a vicious circle as to why I don't play many AppleTV games: cost of the games themselves with no demo, and requirement for the better games to have a controller. The cost of these combined is a little too much for me.

Apple initially required all titles to work with the Siri Remote, but this hobbled playback and prevented games developers from setting a minimum controller for good gameplay. The fact that some more complex games require a dedicated controller is not a problem, it's a solution. 

Are you arguing for stretched up iPhone games, or against higher quality games optimized for a console-type TV experience? Because it makes no sense to complain about both directions at once. 

I'm not arguing against higher quality games at all, which is why I said "At the moment they're mostly just crappy childish phone games blown up to TV size." I want high quality games, but I also want some kind of demo, time limited or whatever, so I don't fork out £15 or £30 on something crap. 

corrections said:

GeorgeBMac said:

AppleInsider said:

Better features at a similar price

Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.

Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.

Ok.... MY "free advice":   Bull!
I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier "
Further, why does it have to be either / or?  Either very cheap or very expensive.   That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.

You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?

Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further. 

The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in. 

There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.

While admittedly, Apple transitioning to cheap products ($300 iPhones) would have multiple negative effects, that does not mean that they have to or even should rely only on premium products.   Apple has both the ability to produce moderately priced products (the Xr is an excellent example) as well as the customer base to support it.   Plus, selling last year's products at reduced prices leverages their fixed investments into the development and manufacture of those devices -- which is a win-win for everybody.

Again, the situation is that Apple was selling iPhones around $650 and pundits where demanding a $300 iPhone. This occured from 2010-2016. 

Apple responded by making a more expensive Plus in 2014, higher capacity tiers at a premium, and iPhone X at $999. Apple raised its ASP to nearly $800. And that came despite also offering increasingly cheap iPhone options like the SE and older models offered at a discount. 

You're holding up the $750 XR as an example of "mid priced" but it's higher that any new iPhone Apple was selling during the period of analysts demanding $300 phones. What do you mean by that? The XR is a massively premium priced high end phone, Apple just also offers even more expensive models. 

Also, Apple has been "selling last year's products at reduced prices" for over a decade now, so what does that even mean? 

What the article is saying is that Apple's forward strategy involves introducing new models at premium prices with features to match. 

Samsung tried to do this and failed. Nows it's focused on new $300 Galaxy A models. Every other Android maker is similarly dumping out mostly $250 models, even if they hope or would like to sell some of their iPhone-priced devices, or even much more expensive Fold or diamond bedazzled versions. 

That said, the current AppleTV seems locked into a no-man's land:  it is moderately to high priced but offers little more functionality than far cheaper competitor's products.   Apple and its customers could benefit by producing a "pro" model AppleTV -- while leaving lower priced model for those who do just fine watching the evening news of Sunday game on their AppleTV.

That's just not true. As the article points out, the cheap./free things people might want to do with a low priced dongle are now available: you can AirPlay and stream iTunes from many devices now. Apple doesn't need to introduce one and try to sell it at a loss just to have a low end product category. Same with HomePod. Apple doesn't have to make a $30 Siri Dot just because that's what Amazon and Google are doing. They're making zero money and just hoping to create an installed base among affluent users.

Apple already has that.  

ireland said:

No they won’t. Don’t want one. Reliability on smartphones isn’t perfect, and folding then will no doubts make that worse, and make the already very expensive devices even more so. The screen size isn’t a major problem. The number one issue with Apple’s phones is cost. Other prominent areas for improvement are battery life and especially photo quality: photos, optical zoom quality and low-light photo quality. $699 for a top-tier iPhone would be ideal.