tundraboy

I call BS on an Apple folding phone.  Some lowly flack in Samsung or LG probably processed Apple orders of flex screens for its R&D department then put two and two together and got "Apple Folding Phone is Coming soon".

Until a flex screen mfr announces that they have solved the crease durability problem, Apple will not sell a device that buyers will complain about after a few months.

What Apple is doing though is it's developing prototypes of foldable phones so that when the day comes that durable flex screens become a reality, it won't take too long for them to roll out their own foldable device.

DAalseth said:

Eliminating Qualcomm modems will save Apple billions annually, as Apple paid around $23 per modem and $8 in patent fees per device

So, should we expect a major price drop this fall? I’m not holding my breath. I expect them to bump the 17 prices up by $100-$200, based on what they did with the 16E. 

Some basic Econ common sense:

The price of a product does not depend at all on how much it costs to produce the product.  The price is determined by whatever the market can bear, which factors in the state of competition.

A company's cost of producing a product, however, when compared to what price the market can bear, determines whether or not that company would produce and sell that product.

Now when a company achieves a lower product cost, it may or may not choose to lower its price, and this completely depends on what price (and resulting sales revenues) maximizes its profit.  It might increase a company's profit to turn some or all of that cost reduction into a lower price, or it easily might not.

In Apple's case, the fact that it has very high profit margins compared to its competitors reveals that its customers value Apple products way more than it costs to produce them.

No denying that Jonny Ive's design vision was a tremendous contributor to Apple's success.  But it had run its course.  How much thinner and how much more minimalist can Apple's devices get?  You know that the limit has been reached when we had the bendy phone and the disastrous butterfly keyboard that they eventually had to abandon. When form starts to be at cross purposes with function, that's a sign that you didn't get the form right.

Ive knew it was time to go or he would die of boredom.  He pushed Apple design to the limits that hardware tech and materials science can reasonably allow.  Any major advances in design at this point are dictated by what the engineers who design and build the components and materials can come up with.

As to the assertion that Ive would have been a better choice than Cook for CEO: To be silent about that opinion is to be kind.

Ennio said:

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.

netrox said:

The last SE was $429. Now it's $599. That's a $259 increase!

Last time I checked, 599 - 429 = 170.  Innumeracy in America.