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."

Comments

Re:User replaceable battery is pointless

[SuperKendall]

iPhones have batteries that last long enough there are only a handful of times I've needed an external charger anyway.

But when I did, I didn't have to power off my phone as you do with a replacement battery. Since a phone is mostly sitting in my pocket it's hardly an issue that it sits in a pocket charging.

Unlike you I can choose an external battery source that makes sense for what I am doing, a replacement battery can only be one large flat form factor.

You carry an external device, I carry a smaller external device

Wrong. IF I carry an external device, it can be smaller than yours because if anything all I need is a top-up. A replacement battery MUST be, well, battery sized...

you have to hang a cable off your phone for who knows how long.

Which again is irrelevant because it's in my pocket. Since attaching the external source does not require powering down my phone I can disconnect and reconnect as I please.

Also you must remember to charge your external battery which usually has no means of checking to see current power status unlike most external battery packs.

*ALSO* with an external battery pack *I* can share power with anyone. You selfishly hog your backup to yourself, with no easy means of sharing it except a handful of people with the exact same model phone.

And to top it all off, having an external battery means your device has less battery than it could. All around an insanely stupid trade-off given how little most people need more power.