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

Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Chrisq]

They have such a markup that they can afford to buy market share. On the other hand I don't know how attractive a change would be though. I think that a lot of people buy one system and stick with it because of the integration. Either you use hangouts, gmail, google calendar etc, or facetime, iCalender, and so on. Changing from one to another would be a pain.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[alex67500]

Yep, I was just thinking the same, and I'm a hardcore HTC fan. But the markup thing hardly stands anymore. It sounds like HTC and Samsung have decided that the only way to make your phone as cool as an iPhone 6 is to price it like an iPhone 6... :-(

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[lloy0076]

I have an Android because my ex-Apple device got stolen at basically the wrong time between technology cycles and my pay cycle. I'd gladly trade my Android piece of crap in for something that does what I expect.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[XxtraLarGe]

I think that a lot of people buy one system and stick with it because of the integration. Either you use hangouts, gmail, google calendar etc,

Google was kind enough to provide most of those things for the iOS ecosystem as well.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Chrisq]

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

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[gnasher719]

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.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[iluvcapra]

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?

Right, but why don't Samsung or HTC have such a high margin on their phones? Do they sell at a lower price because they want to be nice to you? Or because the people who set the prices at Samsung and HTC only want to charge you a "fair" price?

Their phones are just less desirable. Supply and demand.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[erp_consultant]

One PlusOne comes to mind https://oneplus.net/

The reviews I have read say that it's a very good phone, and an amazing phone for the price. It starts at $299 for 16 GB of storage and only $50 more for 64GB of storage. I'm pretty sure this is going to be my next phone.

Android today is like GNOME 3.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Very low trade in values

[beltsbear]

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.

Good luck

[kuzb]

Apple is trying everything except the one thing that would actually work - stop price gouging their customers.

Re:Good luck

[iluvcapra]

Apple is trying everything except the one thing that would actually work - stop price gouging their customers.

It seems to me like everything they do works great. This story kinda sounds like BS, very un-Apple, they've never cared about market share, except in the depths of the Gil Amelio/Mac Clone days, and anyways their actual unit share of sales in the US and other developed markets is increasing.

Everybody just wants mobile to play out like the PC/Mac wars, and for network effects to award the whole pie to the dominant player, but it's just not working out that way. Network effects don't count for much anymore, "ecosystems" aren't as closed as they were, even the Apple one, and the most important applications, the drivers of growth in the IT space, of our era are cross-platform, usually web-centered. Android has a majority of the mobile installed base, but it's a worthless hill to hold. Things have reverted to a mean and traditional branding and product positioning are more important now, you buy from a company you had a good experience with, not the company that's logo-compliant with your box at work.

Samsung

[Ark42]

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.

People sell their new phones

[BarbaraHudson]

Too many people sell their old phones for decent money. Others (like my sister) like their two-year-old models with all their data on them and see no real reason to upgrade, so when they're offered an upgrade, they sell the new phone.

iTunes drove me to Android in the first place

[enjar]

I got sick and tired of dealing with iTunes and its many failures and switched to Android. My wife still has an iDevice and regularly gripes when they change the interface, move stuff around for no reason and otherwise make the design "better".

My Android phone has no idea about my home PC because it doesn't have to. I don't see iTunes going anywhere, no way in hell I'm going back to the iOS ecosystem. I'm not likely to get another Samsung phone, which is what I have now -- I'll likely just go for the Nexus so I can skip the bloatware.

Re:iTunes drove me to Android in the first place

[Higaran]

Getting the nexus is the best upgrade you'll ever make, I have a nexus 5 and it's the best phone I've ever had, especially for the price.

Re:iTunes drove me to Android in the first place

[MachineShedFred]

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.

Hackers vs Everyone Else

[BoRegardless]

Until bricking ransomware hits the Android market, people who like to program and play with hacks will mostly stick with Android.

People who just want it to work and play well with their other devices in an organized way will likely use iPhone.

Re:Hackers vs Everyone Else

[rivaldufus]

It's all about comfort, I think. People often say "it just works" because they've been trained to use the Apple UI. The same thing could be said for people who argue that the Droid (or Windows phone) interface just works like it because they know that UI.

I'm sorry, I don't think any particular interface is going to be intuitive to someone who's not already somewhat familiar with a smart phone ui. Apple interfaces are intuitive to people who already use an Apple device.

I'd certainly agree that apple tends to be more consistent with the way they change their GUI over time, but I don't believe it's inherently more intuitive.

riiiight

[slashmydots]

Because once someone can drag and drop photos off their device, add a micro-SD card, use standard chargers, and have almost full control over the phone, they'll definitely want to go to Apple.
I just learned yesterday that there are two ways to get photos off an ipad air. One, download dropbox and upload them at about 1Mb/s (that's a lower case b). Two, buy a real tablet.

Windows Phone

[KlomDark]

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)

Re:User replaceable battery is pointless

[Ark42]

I think you completely misunderstand the point of the replaceable battery I use. I don't ever switch back to the original battery. The after-market battery I put in my S3 has something like 4x the capacity of the stock battery. It takes up more space and sticks out of the back of the phone. Because of this, it includes a case back that makes the phone a bit thicker than stock, while doubling as a protective case similar to an otter-box. I no more want to swap batteries in and out day to day that I want a second phone-sized object dangling from my phone by a tiny cord.