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iPhone X Who to blame for Apple's high prices?

brofkand said:
Apple will only charge what people are willing to pay. If fewer people buy the new models at $750 or more, they'll cut prices. If they sell all the new phones they make, the next models will be more expensive. Eventually they'll figure out the top price people will pay for a phone.

It has nothing to do with manufacturing costs or anything like that. It's all about the price people are willing to pay. Apple has been just jamming features into the phones to attempt to justify the prices they charge. How many people actually use 3D Touch, Animoji, Slow Mo, Live Photos, etc? I'd imagine most of these features are not used very often by most iPhone purchasers.
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This. Not so hard to understand.
 
It’s a business.
With the amount of apple resources I am sure their marketing team has performed countless studies on price points.

Keep in mind apple 8 models on sale in 2017-2018. They provided price points for a large audience.

Keeping more models on the tables they can surely push up the price of the latest and keep the price on the lower end more affordable.
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Deguello said:
My phone, like my computers, will be used until resale is so trivial it makes more sense to keep as an emergency backup than to sell it.
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This is the best trade in value you have.

Ask a specialist how many people come in with a dead phone in a panic.

Old phones can always be used to get texts, emails and so on.
Some apps may not be used but if having the basic functions is a necessity, the old phone may prove its worth quickly.
 
Deguello said:
I think it’s getting more and more common the further we get away from carrier contracts and subsidized phones and the real cost of the phones becomes more apparent.

Obviously, there will be a lot of people who are just fine with a never-ending phone payment just like they are with car payments and will just roll into a new one rather than stick with a paid off one. Even so, we’ll see how long that continues once the cost gets closer to that of a MacBook.
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Of course. Then there are the group like myself who run their business off it. So at $45/month to do all of my calls and email for work too, it's a drop in the bucket to make $. So perpetual phone payments dont really mean much as long as I perpetually make money (which is a given if I plan to eat).

If I can save myself just 15 minutes in the month with my phone that I can instead be working on billable hour work, it's just paid for itself (and it's far far more than 15 min). Even if its a few seconds here and a few there, or more often the larger display phone so I dont have to switch over to a laptop.

There is no one answer really to that issue though as every use case is different.
 
Deguello said:
I think it’s getting more and more common the further we get away from carrier contracts and subsidized phones and the real cost of the phones becomes more apparent.

Obviously, there will be a lot of people who are just fine with a never-ending phone payment just like they are with car payments and will just roll into a new one rather than stick with a paid off one. Even so, we’ll see how long that continues once the cost gets closer to that of a MacBook.
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Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t underestimate the number of people accustomed and numbed to a never-ending phone payment. It’s the new 2 year contract. And people are absolutely willing to pay more and more and more if it’s spread out into monthly payments.

I think more people will be more attracted to a shiny new toy and keeping the payment they are used to than saving $50 a month but not getting the shiny new toy.

I hope I’m wrong though.
 
brofkand said:
Apple will only charge what people are willing to pay. If fewer people buy the new models at $750 or more, they'll cut prices. If they sell all the new phones they make, the next models will be more expensive. Eventually they'll figure out the top price people will pay for a phone.

It has nothing to do with manufacturing costs or anything like that. It's all about the price people are willing to pay. Apple has been just jamming features into the phones to attempt to justify the prices they charge. How many people actually use 3D Touch, Animoji, Slow Mo, Live Photos, etc? I'd imagine most of these features are not used very often by most iPhone purchasers.
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3D Touch every day.

Having the camera tools available attracts people attention.

Many apps use 3D Touch. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are 2. I show people this feature every day and they are always wowed
 
1144557 said:
Of course. Then there are the group like myself who run their business off it. So at $45/month to do all of my calls and email for work too, it's a drop in the bucket to make $. So perpetual phone payments dont really mean much as long as I perpetually make money (which is a given if I plan to eat).

If I can save myself just 15 minutes in the month with my phone that I can instead be working on billable hour work, it's just paid for itself (and it's far far more than 15 min). Even if its a few seconds here and a few there, or more often the larger display phone so I dont have to switch over to a laptop.

There is no one answer really to that issue though as every use case is different.
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Oh, absolutely. There are scenarios in which leasing a car can make sense and in which leasing a car is a money pit. And so on.

Other people know more about how they want to spend their money than I do. I was responding mainly to the idea that people “must” consider resale value.
 
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Not seen a single mention of one of the biggest culprits, Wall Street. Because it’s not enough for a business like Apple to be hugely profitable they have to be constantly showing growth too.

Obviously Apples desire to please Wall Street by chasing higher average selling prices and bigger and bigger unit sales and consumers buying into it are a major factor too.

It’s complely unsustainable. The constant jacking up prices will shrink Apples market share to a slither if they aren’t careful.
 
Rob_2811 said:
Not seen a single mention of one of the biggest culprits, Wall Street. Because it’s not enough for a business like Apple to be hugely profitable they have to be constantly showing growth too.

Obviously Apples desire to please Wall Street by chasing higher average selling prices and bigger and bigger unit sales and consumers buying into it are a major factor too.

It’s complely unsustainable. The constant jacking up prices will shrink Apples market share to a slither if they aren’t careful.
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The only culprits are the people who buy the phones.

Investors can want whatever they want, but if people don’t buy the phone, none of that matters.
 
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joeblow7777 said:
Well of course we consumers are to blame. We vote with our dollars. If no one bought a $1000 phone, you better believe the price would drop. In fact, didn’t that happen with the very first iPhone?
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I wish I could have some kinda mind control device where I could tell everyone next time an iPhone comes out “don’t buy it! And complain about the price being the reason you didn’t”. Literally overnight apple would drop the price and change their practices.

But that won’t happen. We are a consumerist culture with really weird priorities. Some of us would rather have the latest smartphone than health insurance or pay off debt or something
 
Ralfi said:
Ok, thinking more on this, the X was such a big leap for those on the non-plus/plus who wanted a middle-ground, that people on 1 year old phones understandably had reason to upgrade. Those on 2, 3 or more year old phones had even more reason to upgrade, so it's not hard to see why it sold so well.

I think this years "S" models are a chance for consumers to say 'no more, Apple'.

Next years iPhones can't possibly match this years prices as it'll be the 3rd iteration of the Face ID-era iPhone. Only the people can force the price down.

If you own an X, unless you want a screen size upgrade to the Max, by not shelling out $$ for the Xs, you'll be helping lower prices in future imo.
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It as the other poster said, majority of users are still on iPhone 6/6S/7. And since Apple still support the 5S today on software updates, these people won’t mind paying quite a bit for their next iPhone as they can see the longevity. Even if the balk at the price, Apple has the XR lineup for them.

We won’t see the price issue until those owning a FaceID model become the majority. Then Apple have to significantly refresh the iPhone again.
 
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