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Apple is already lowering iPhone prices in China and seeing some return on the tactic, at least according to two online retailers.

Well Apple didn't "lower" prices, Sunning Did. Apple did lowered it wholesale prices a while ago, but that was before the Tim Cook announcement.

fred stein said:

Siri, like Apple's Maps, was mis-managed by Forstall. Then handed over to Eddie Cue, who had no ability in AI. Finally, Craig got the mandate. It seems Craig realized that AI / NLP is THE future and needed a fully dedicated expert. My guess he told Tim to hire the best and give him carte blanche, C-level authority. I'm total FanBoy, but Siri is terrible. It makes Lily Tomlin as Ernestine look like a genius. "Is this the party to whom I'm speaking" - Showing my age.....

It wasn't mis managed. Apple wanted a Google Map competitor within two years of work while giving less than one tenth of a budget to a group of people with little experience in Map products. And 7 years later Apple Map is still no competitor to Google Map. 

Same with Siri, there is only so much you can do with the privacy stand and much smaller amount of Data Apple had. Siri, in terms of Multi lingo does better than Google. I mean Amazon Dots isn't even in many countries.

I wish people take a look at Apple from a Global perspective, it really isn't just your Home or US market anymore. Apple generate 60% of their revenue outside US.

The focus of long term research sounds alarming to me. Out of all the improvement that Apple needs to be done, Siri is the one I least concern about, and yet they decide to make the cut there.

Gruber has been consistently wrong about everything with regards to BOM cost. 

I mean, seriously, if you have zero expertise in that field don't try to speculate. And NO, the AirPods are not sold at cost. 

And now after all these website publishing, we have zillion of idiots who would argue for Apple saying they sold at cost, without going through a little research or googling how this is far from truth.

Apple's pricing has been extremely simple, and their BOM cost reverse calculation has been straight forwards for nearly a decade I have no idea why these Apple's fellows still don't get it. 

$50 dollar a month over 24 months that is $1200, or $25 dollars a month for 4 years. There are lots of people can afford that. So it really isn't the price., or $1000. It is the value on offering.

Imagine Apple has a iPhone XS with solid battery, giving you 2.5x the battery life, and a fast full charge in less than 30min, doesn't degrade after 3 years of use, and rise the price again by $100 to $1099, would people still bitch about it? ( They would ) but it gives lots of reason for people to buy it. It was a functional improvement that user are willing to pay.     

I have argued again and again, it is not the price, but the value proposition from Apple is declining in all of their product lines.

The One MacBook Air problem that makes the 2018 not worth buying.

Butterfly Keyboard.

( And non active cooling, making this a 7W TDP machine vs the old 15W )