Well, there is a rumor that there will be three new releases this year:
Standard 7s and 7s+ that will have the same cost structure as we’ve seen
Then an all-new design, super high-end iPhone 8 (or 10th Anniversary Edition, or whatever) that has a bunch of snazzy features and an OLED screen. I can totally see this costing over $1k. This is the Apple Watch Edition of the iPhone. It will be available only in very limited quantities, at least at the start.
I don’t see that price as too far fetched for this structure.
Hmmm. Well if it’s a limited edition thing, then sure. They had a stupidly expensive Apple Watch version too. But if it’s a mainline numbered release, OLED screen or no, then they’d be insane to charge that much.
The Pro or Anniversary or whatever model they’re selling has been widely leaked to be in restricted volume, due to the OLED borderless screen and possibly the through-screen touchID. Apple won’t be making many of them. They aren’t the mass-market product.
The 7+ 128GB is $869, so the lowest remotely plausible price for the iPhone Pro is $969. But if it was only an extra $100-200, everybody would want the Pro, and that would chill sales for the 7s/7s+, which are products that Apple can produce in staggeringly large volumes, which is what they need to meet market demand.
And that’s why people are saying it will probably start at $1200 or even higher. I would not be surprised if it launches at $1400. And yeah, that means they won’t sell many phones. But that’s the point.
Apple is in a weird position now that all phone carriers have ended those “subsidized” 2-year plans. Of course they immediately went to a ‘financing’ model… but i’m not sure how this will affect Apple’s bottom line, if there is any. 70% of Apple’s revenue is now from the iPhone and to a large extent this was on the back of the subsidized model carriers developed in the early years. AT&T has for years shoved Apple products in the ugly corner of their stores since subsized contracts are much more profitable selling cheap Android phones over expensive (to them) Apple phones. Now that those contracts are gone… everyone i know is acting sticker shocked about being asked to pony up $800+ for replacement iPhones, but people just do it because they don’t have an alternative. It might take a year or two for sticker shock to settle into the consumer consciousness as contracts slowly come up for renewal and replacement buys for damaged phones filter in. But $1000+ for a phone that is smaller and almost exactly functional as a similar iPad or even laptop is eventually going to start become a ‘meme’ in the headspace of consumers. Queue big, whiny articles at WSJ, NYT, Atlantic et al about the crazy cost of smart phones 6-18 months from now.
So maybe Apple is anticipating a drop in phone sales counter-balanced by increased average phone pricing?
Vanishingly few people actually put down full price day one, instead they amortize the cost of the phone over 12-24 months, depending on the carrier and whether they want to get a new one after a year. So you’ll pay $58/month for the iPhone Pro versus $36/month for the 7s+. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
Removing subsidies just means carriers make more money. You put the word in quotes but they actually were subsidized-- if you signed up for a 2 year contract, AT&T/Verizon/whatever would knock $200 off the price of the phone.
That’s what i haven’t looked closely enough at to really understand; the “subsidized” model of contract vs the financed model. Clearly the carriers must be getting more else they wouldn’t have abandoned the former. From a consumer point of view it seems like the cost of service is the same but now you’re paying full price for the phone? But i haven’t worked the numbers in detail, aside from a few in my head. IE, AT&T used to be 80$ a month for unlimited data but limited text and calling (unlimited texts and calls were i think $10-$15 more each?), for a $300 paid upfront iPhone. Now it’s $90 a month for unlimited LTE data and unlimited text and calling, but the phone is on you.
They say they charge less now, but cellphone service in the US is so deliberately labyrinthine and complex that you really can’t tell. Generally you come out of it with the vague feeling that you just got roofied and fucked, you don’t remember it or have any clear recollection of the actual act, but it hurts when you sit down and what else could explain that?
AT&T is notorious right now because it’s Unlimited Choice plan is restricted to 3G speeds (!!) and the Unlimited Plus plan is restricted to 3G download speeds unless you login to your account and click some UnfuckMyInternet option in your settings (!!). The only plans “worth” having, if you can call it that, are their very un-monopolistic DirectTV bundles. It seems like those are the only plans worth getting, if for some reason you wanted DirectTV or were already a subscriber.
These are so egregious that part of the reason i know this stuff is that i’m looking around at switching carriers. Which in practice means Verizon, because i live in BFE and Sprint et al just don’t have service where i live.
Yep, pretty much. Actually use data? Enjoy using Verizon or AT&T. The MVNOs are too heavily capped, or reliant on gimmicks to reduce pricing (hello Fi), while Sprint and TMO can’t be fucked to build more than 2 towers per state across the US, so good luck actually using the service you (admittedly, barely) pay them for.
One of the great pleasures of living in a populated area now is that I can get a $30-$50 TMO plan and it performs as well or better than Verizon/AT&T. So it works out that both the phone (because I can watch for the best deal and pay up front) as well as the plan are substantially cheaper for me than when I was living in a much more rural area and locked in to Verizon. This is not the kind of price segmentation that would really work for most industries, especially with the trends of rural vs urban incomes these days, but hey, regulation and cost barriers to entry will probably continue to work just fine for them.
Unrelated, I picked up an iPad Pro 10.5 to replace an ancient* iPad 3. It’s everything that everyone said it would be. So fast, so smooth. I can’t wait until they upgrade the OS five or six times with stuff I don’t care about, so I can buy a new iPad with the specs to do mostly the same things that I do now. (90% sense of wonder, 10% bitterness. Sue me.)
*Obligatory mention that my fully functional i5 2500k is almost a full year older.
Received my new iMac 27-inch 4.2 i7 with 8 GB RAM and 2 TB SSD. Initial reaction - this is a blazingly fast computer. Took hardly any time to set up. My old 2013 27 inch iMac is extremely slow in comparison, but that has a 2 TB fusion drive among other antiques. I will purchase some more RAM and self-upgrade. Bluetooth keyboard with numeric pad works great.
Now that Apple shamelessly steals your data and tracks your every moment just like Google, which I like, I find myself seriously considering the next iPhone despite the high price and my past 3-years Android preference.
Part of the reason is the above, and the other is how important the camera has become to me as I almost always leave my DSLR behind and just use my phone, and I think I’m willing to lose the big camera entirely now, even for big events such as birthday parties etc. So I recently did a back to back comparison of the iPhone 6s camera (not even 7) vs the Galaxy S8, and the 6S pictures were a bit better. Not measurable detail or noise, but the overall look, skin tones, range of light and dark parts of the picture. Editing could get close to or even the same look with the S8 I suppose.
Anyhow, looks like this next generation has a fair amount of excitement going for it.
It doesn’t, actually. What Apple does is called differential privacy, and what that boils down to is that while your activity is indeed tracked and sent to the mothership, it’s done in such a way that mathematically cannot be traced or correlated to an individual user. It is truly anonymous, as opposed to “we collect and aggregate anonymized data” which basically means your name is replaced by a userID but that data corpus is available to be correlated via second-party information.
Now we have no way to tell how Apple actually implemented it. Their execution could be flawed, by accident or deliberately, and it could be a smokescreen. But I do find it heartening that they’re making the effort and acknowledging that protecting their users’ privacy is important. Apple is the least of all evils by far.
Could someone quickly explain to me who an iPad Pro is for? My wife suddenly wants one to take notes at work because she saw it can use a keyboard. But I see the regular iPads can use Bluetooth keyboards as well. Is there any advantage to the Pro for note-taking and web browsing?
Big advantage for the Pro is the Apple Pencil support, which means if she ever wants to handwrite or sketch while taking notes it’s the way to go. Other than that, it’s all about “pro” level performance and enhancement (smooth scrolling, faster processor, better screen and speakers). If it’s really just for typed note taking at work, the new (non-Pro) iPad will serve her very well.
The Pro is really meant for people who will push its processor to the limit, and take advantage of the Pencil and better colour gamut. Graphic designers, mainly.
No, bluetooth keyboards are fine. The pencil is nice for taking notes, because it doesn’t look like you’re swiping around on facebook while in meetings. But of course they sell styli for older non-pro iPads too and they work fine.
Okay thanks guys. She was looking at a 128GB model to load it up with movies for the kids on trips, and the price difference between a 2016 9.7" Pro and a 2017 iPad at that size is only $70.
I really love the Smart Keyboard for my iPad Pro (12", last year’s model). It won’t be for everyone. I use no other case with my iPad; if you want a more protective case, that changes things for you.
But having a keyboard always with me and stuck onto the screen as a cover when not in use is so much more convenient than carrying even a small separate Bluetooth keyboard, I don’t think I could ever go back. And the smart connector means never having to charge the keyboard separately. And of course it serves as a stand, another thing I don’t have to separately carry. I really dig it.
I know there are some other 3rd party Bluetooth keyboard/case combinations for all sizes of iPad, those might be great too. I’ve never used one to know if any particular model is worth recommending. But I definitely couldn’t go back to just a totally separate Bluetooth keyboard.
