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Apple May Start Accepting Android Phones As Trade-Ins
HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg reports that according to a person with knowledge of the matter, Apple plans to start accepting non-Apple devices as trade-ins as the company seeks to extend market-share gains against Android smartphones. Apple is seeking to fuel even more iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales after selling 74.5 million units in the last three months of 2014. Thanks to record sales, shipments of iPhones surpassed Android in the US with 47.7 percent of the market compared with Android's 47.6 percent. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook Apple "experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches in the three previous years." While Android phones don't hold their value as well as iPhones, it still makes sense for Apple Stores to accept them, says Israel Ganot, former CEO of Gazelle Inc., an online mobile device trade-in company. "Apple can afford to pay more than the market value to get you to switch over," says Ganot, "on the idea that you're going to fall in love with the iOS ecosystem and stay for a long time."
Oh yes SUCH a high markup....
Ignore that the HTC M8 and the soon to be released M9 cost as much as the iphone 6 plus.
But then we have the Samsung S6 that will only cost....... $899 to $1199
So what it your point again? ALL cellphones are expensive as hell.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Recent versions of Android have suffered from many of the same problems that GNOME 3 suffers from. The UI is changed not because there's a good reason to, but just because it can be changed. These changes don't actually make the software more usable. In fact, the software is much less usable in most cases. And these unnecessary changes prevent beneficial changes from happening. Android's default camera software is still total crap compred to Open Camera, for example. Even when new functionality has been added, it's rarely about benefitting the user, but more about benefiting Google in some way. GNOME 3 wasn't developed with the user's best interest in mind, and I see the same thing happening to Android. Hopefully the Android situation is reversed before it becomes a disaster like GNOME 3 became.
Most people will be attempting to trade in phones with almost no value. The people who buy high end Android phones are Android fans and are going to be unlikely to trade for an iPhone. The vast majority of the Android phones sold are low priced and drop to less then $50 trade in value within two years, the time that they would be traded in. An iPhone that is bought new is typically worth 3-5x that at the two year point. The 2.5 year old iPhone 5 still sells for $200 on eBay in good condition.
Apple is trying everything except the one thing that would actually work - stop price gouging their customers.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I've really been a fan of many things Samsung in the past (TVs, LCDs, even my Blu-ray player is Samsung) and at some point I'm going to replace my Galaxy S3. The S6 is now NOT an option because of things I really care about: user replaceable battery - I use the 4x sized ZeroLemon battery from Amazon), removable SD Card, and the ability to easily root (Not sure what Knox and stuff has done to the newer models).
Is this going to make me trade in my S3 for an Apple phone? No way. Absolutely not. Apple is even worse with all these important features. It doesn't matter how much they give me in "trade in" it's still probably less than I could get just selling the phone myself anyway.
Morphing Software
ALL cellphones are expensive as hell.
I just got a new Sony Xperia phone for $300. Nice screen, fast CPU. Works great.
Exactly. GP is like a Ferrari owner objecting to the high cost by saying "All cars are expensive - just look at the Lamborghini. And the Bugatti is more expensive than the Ferrari".
I still use a perfectly usable Nexus 4 and my daughter has just bought a Moto-G for a fraction of the price of an iPhone and that works really well
Apple had the most profitable quarter ever recently and is the most profitable company in the world. How do you do that without heavy markup?
You don't get highly profitable by adding a huge markup. Instead, you have to do two things: First, make production of your product as efficient as possible so that production cost plus markup isn't too high. Second, create a product that is so good that people buy it instead of competing products, even at the higher cost.
If you don't manage these two things, then a high markup only makes you uncompetitive, you don't sell anything, and instead of profit you make losses.
Strangely, in my little world, I'm seeing a surprising uptake in WIndows Phones lately. Never thought I'd see it coming. It seems people who have been happy with Android are wanting a little more, and are horribly confused by the iPhone's single button interface, and see that Windows Phone 8.1 is easier to figure out than the latest/greatest version of Android.
Just my little ecosystem, correlation does not equal causation, but I'm finding it fascinating. Microsoft might still have some life in it. (Helps that Cricket is now giving away a couple different free Windows phones)
I haven't plugged my iPhone into anything iTunes since the iOS 5 release that allowed over-the-air updates and iCloud backup.
iTunes is a complete non-factor, and has been for years.
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