Why iPhone and Android Phone Prices Will Get Even Higher (cnet.com)

Critics scoffed Apple when the company priced the iPhone X at $1,000. But the way the market has responded to it, there is a good chance that the upcoming flagship smartphones from Apple and those of its rivals -- Samsung, Google, and HTC -- will be pricier. From a column: The critics were wrong. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in July that the iPhone X had outsold every other Apple device in each week since it went on sale Nov. 3, 2017. With strong iPhone X sales, Apple proved that mainstream buyers are willing to pay almost as much, if not more, for their cell phones as they would for a powerful laptop. And with rumors of an even pricier 2018 iPhone X Plus-style phone coming down the pike this September, Apple's moves to usher in the era of the $1,000 phone may just be getting underway. Apple isn't alone in boosting mobile phone prices ever higher. Creeping prices on high-end handsets from Samsung, Huawei and even "value" darling OnePlus signal that price hikes are here to stay. In just two years, the cost of Samsung's Galaxy phone for US buyers has spiked 15.1 percent from the Galaxy S7 in 2016 to this year's Galaxy S9, while the Huawei P series has climbed 33 percent since 2016 -- and that doesn't even account for the existence of a "Pro" model. [...] The trend of increasingly costly handsets in the top tier underscores the cell phone's importance as an everything-device for communication, work, photography and entertainment. And as processing power, camera technology, battery life and internet data speeds improve generation after generation, the value people attach to a phone is sure to swell.

Comments

Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[geschbacher79]

To me, the most interesting development in phones has been the incredibly value in the sub-$300 price, as evidenced by Motorola's various phones, Huawei, Honor, OnePlus, etc.

At the top end, perhaps prices will continue to climb but that certainly doesn't imply all prices will increase. The top tier phones will be luxury items for a certain segment of the market, but the overall trend in terms of phones being shipped has been the amount of value being delivered in the and mid and low price tiers, and that should be heart-warming for consumers. That $1000 phone might be better or the best, but it won't be $700 better than the Moto G6 or similar phone.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[atrex]

A thousand dollar phone better last six or seven years (even if you have to drop it off at a service center every couple years to have the battery replaced).

Meanwhile, you're right on that money that phones from the likes of OnePlus continue to pump out features and performance at a price tag fully half that of the major flagships.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Oswald McWeany]

A thousand dollar phone better last six or seven years (even if you have to drop it off at a service center every couple years to have the battery replaced).

Meanwhile, you're right on that money that phones from the likes of OnePlus continue to pump out features and performance at a price tag fully half that of the major flagships.

The kind of person willing to spend $1000 for a top-tier phone is not the kind of person who would be willing to keep the same phone for 7 years. Especially since, two years after it is released there will be $250 phones that are more powerful.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Anubis IV]

Exactly this.

I can't help but feel as if this news is missing the obvious explosion of growth in the value proposition being offered by the low-to-mid portion of the Android market. Whereas in years prior a phone that cost 1/4 that of a flagship phone might provide most people with an equivalent value (i.e. it's about 1/4 as capable as the flagship phone), these days you can get a phone that costs 1/4, yet provides most people with 90% of the value of the flagship. If you're an Android user, there's really no reason to go for the flagship phone unless you're set on getting that last 10%, but for most people, that's well past the point of diminishing returns.

I'm an iPhone user and am almost certainly going to upgrade from my 2013 iPhone to whatever new flagship they launch later this year, but even I wouldn't advocate my choice as a general practice. In years past, it used to be easy advice to tell people to get max(favorite_brand) (with favorite_brand being swapped around depending on if someone was in the Android or Apple ecosystem), since the lesser models all made significant compromises. These days, however, most people are best served by double-checking on what that last 10% actually gets them and whether it's worth the additional cost.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[houghi]

You talk about sub 300usd phones as ifthey are cheap. Few years ago that was expensive. Very expensive. The thing the 1000usd phone does is making 300usd look like a bargain.
It isn'r.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[zlives]

the person looking for a "bargain" can have a very decent and long lasting mobile device at sub 300 range. and if you are looking for a bargain, then you also don't care if its the same device that will last you 3-5 years without issue. without making a fashion/status symbol, the bargain phones are much better than a few years ago's top of the line. then again most bargain phones are subsidized by carriers as "free" anyway so ...

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[AlanBDee]

The kind of person willing to spend $1000 for a top-tier phone is not the kind of person who would be willing to keep the same phone for 7 years.

Yep, I treat my phones like I do my cars. I let some other idiot buy the "new shiny" phone and then I buy a top tier phone that's 1-2 years old for $200-$300 bucks. You're better off buying 3 used phones then keeping a $1000 phone for 7 years.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[oldgraybeard]

BOM?

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[willy_me]

Prices will also increase on the low end. What is considered an acceptable price is being determined by the cost of cellular access and not the price of the phone. When cell access accounts for over twice the cost of the phone (over say, 2 years) then the cost of the phone is of no real importance. People will spend more if it implies having a better phone for 2 years.

I am speaking from the perspective of a Canadian - from a country with some of the most outrageous cellular bills in all the world. Things could be different south of the border. So Americans - are prices trending up or down? If trending up then it helps explain why consumers are more accepting of higher priced cell phones.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[known_coward_69]

my mom is on an iphone 6. I have a spare 6S i'm going to give her soon. she also has a 5S at home that works just fine but i just had an extra phone for her

old phones work just fine. people are buying new ones

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Streetlight]

The problem with keeping an Apple phone or some another brands is that OS software updates seem to result in performance degradation, i.e., the hardware can't keep up with new "features" or increased complexity in OS updates. Phones from Google only guarantee OS updates for two years and security patches for three years. The phone makers see a cash cow as users need to update on a two or three year schedule. Those who can afford these schedules will pay the price. Those who can't will make use of much lower priced replacements.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[itsme1234]

To me, the most interesting development in phones has been the incredibly value in the sub-$300 price, as evidenced by Motorola's various phones, Huawei, Honor, OnePlus, etc.

Honor IS the cheapo brand of Huawei. Together with Xiaomi plus a lot of other small(er) players they DO deliver a lot of value and usable devices even under $200 (sometimes on special sales even into double digits).

However with Oneplus (as mentioned in TFA) the situation is totally different: they START at $500++ and that is if you order from China. And NO, you can't do better by shipping at Amazon or similar, you'll only get even more expensive devices and "international version no warranty" bla bla.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[slinches]

Bill of Materials. It's the list of components that make up a product, usually including details like cost, weight and procurement information for each line item.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[ranton]

A thousand dollar phone better last six or seven years

This argument isn't much different than saying "A $100 meal better keep me full for 3 days".

The phone isn't expensive because of extra durability or a longer shelf life, just like a fancy meal isn't expensive because it keeps you full longer. They are expensive because they are at least subjectively better than other phones (or meals) you could purchase for less.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Kristoph]

You can buy an iPhone and replace it every year, selling your current version for $150-200 less then itâ(TM)s purchase price.

I spend more time with my phone then with any other electronic device I own so $150-200 a year seems like money well spent.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[TomGreenhaw]

You are absolutely right, and they do the opposite. They engineer the phones to be fragile. Apple refuses to touch a phone with a third party installed battery and refuses to supply repair parts rendering many phones unrepairable.

Its a great business model if consumers will go along.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Hognoxious]

Bill Of Materials.

It's industrial jargon for "parts list". It's also commonly used by twats.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Hognoxious]

Hasn't it always been like that, for pretty much everything? Diminishing returns and all that.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tuidjy]

I'm one of the idiots who buy a high end phone, and then keep it until it stops working. I'm perfectly happy.

I had a smart phone before the term was coined - I bought a Samsung 'Mobile Intelligent Terminal'. It ran .NET when admitting you liked C# syntax was a faux pas in GNU circles.

I have had a grand total of two smart phones since. All three work. Yes, seriously. My next to last is being used by my daughter as a music player, and I just booted my Sumsung MIT to see whether it still works. It connected to my garage and got refused connection by my Volvo. I felt bad about the poor thing, its feelings must have been hurt.

Yes, I also drive a 1990 Toyota Supra, and a 2004 Volvo S-60R. They were both high end cars, they are both running beautifully 30 and 15 years after they were bought.

I am not saying that your way is worse than mine. But I do not think that I am an idiot for buying what I like the most when I need something, nor for using something that is no longer cutting edge when it does its job.

My niece just got a $300 Windows laptop. My daughter has a 2009 (10?) macBook Pro with Ubuntu 18.04. Guess which one has a better screen, more oomph, and better security.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Anubis IV]

That's a great question. I'd agree that eventually, yes, pretty much everything has diminishing returns, but I don't think that's necessarily true for brand new types of products.

When products are revolutionary (which modern smartphones most certainly were), the value provided can, in some cases, be outsized compared to their cost. In the case of smartphones, they were for many years well worth the additional cost we were paying over lesser (i.e. dumb) phones. The $400ish extra that an early iPhone cost over, say, a late model RAZR was easily justifiable because it provided SO much more functionality and utility than what the RAZR could provide. Even as low-end smartphones started to enter the market, the value proposition was still there: paying more netted you a proportional gain in the value you received, since those early, low-end smartphones were only marginally better than the dumb phones they were displacing from the market.

As the market matured and what had been high-end features trickled down to the low-end, the value proposition steadily grew worse and worse for the high-end devices. These days, paying $400 more may not actually get you any extra features that could show up on a checklist, depending on what models you're considering. And I do agree that this is to be expected in most markets and for most types of products. As markets mature, low-end products eventually—perhaps inevitably—become "good enough" for most people. Safety features aren't relegated to high-end cars: they all have them. High-efficiency heating or cooling isn't relegated to high-end homes: they all have it. Computers are relegated to industrial mainframes, we all have them. And, likewise, having the Internet and apps in our pockets isn't relegated to high-end phones: they all have them now.

But, again, it didn't start that way. So, as long as we acknowledge that one caveat, I'd agree with what you said.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[oldgraybeard]

thxs I should have figured that out lol

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[kurkosdr]

OnePlus phones are not status symbols. Because that's what these phones are. It's high-tech luxury.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Shikaku]

Why would China give a shit about a normal USA citizen enough to log them, and what would they do with that data?

Serious question, I'm genuinely curious how, if it's true, what is the worst that would happen to me.

Also they make Android phones, you know, the one OS that Google already put tracking services on by default. How is it worse than Google doing the same thing?

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[rainer_d]

I'm one of those guys who wants to keep a phone for a very long time - simply because they are so expensive - though I guess if you only kept it for a year and sold it to fund the new one, you'd not make such a big loss.

Also, those $250 phones aren't from Apple.

AFAIK, Samsungs high-end phone-sales bombed last quarter. Few people want to own their flagship phones for the price they ask - because if you spend so much money, you can just buy an iPhone.

Keeping a phone for a long time is also more friendly to the environment than buying a new one every other year.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

A thousand dollar phone better last six or seven years (even if you have to drop it off at a service center every couple years to have the battery replaced).

Then for the last four years it will be worse than the mid tier phone that you can get for half the price. See how this game just doesn't work out? If not, let's be clear: you bought the flagship for status, but for most of the time you own it the message you broadcast is: "I heated up my credit card to get this on release day and now I can't afford to replace it".

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

I'm one of the idiots who buy a high end phone, and then keep it until it stops working. I'm perfectly happy.

Sure? Been there, towards end of life it gets really crappy.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

Phones from Google only guarantee OS updates for two years and security patches for three years.

Right, that's one reason I swore off Google phones. Google, out of anybody, ought to be concerned about supporting loyal users and has the infrastructure to do it, but they just don't give a shit. From now on, whoever keeps those updates coming is going to get my loyalty, other things being equal.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

You can buy an iPhone and replace it every year, selling your current version for $150-200 less then itâ(TM)s purchase price.

Really? Great strategy if it works, let's see what ebay has to say about that... oh right, you're full of crap: iPhone 7 msrp $650 now going for $275 on eBay. iPhone 8, msrp $700, not even a year old, going for $450. Face it, the kind of person who wastes money on Apple products wants to waste it on new ones.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

You talk about sub 300usd phones as ifthey are cheap. Few years ago that was expensive.

Different planet? Even the last candybar I bought was considerably more than that, admittedly a flagship, but your memory seems to be selective.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[Tough Love]

No need to teach me about that, I still have my Desire-Z from 2008 and it still works fine. Needed a new battery. Amazing keyboard, why can't I get that as a bluetooth accessory now? Most Google services rotted, that was crappy of Google.

Re:Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[cthulhu11]

Not necessarily true. Don't discount those of us who benefit from integration with family computers, phones, and other devices without devoting hours and hours to dicking around with whatever Android fork a given cheap / frangible phone happens to come with.

Time is money.
Happy wife => happy life.

Re: Why SOME phone prices will go higher

[houghi]

Same planet. Average phone was around 100 EUR. A lot where cheaper.

Who is buying these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people I know have decided that all the selling points of flagship devices aren't really that big of a deal and are buying cheap phones that can browse, take some crappy pictures, and do messaging.

Re:Who is buying these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots who are trying to impress other idiots. It's a huge market. Most of them don't even have the money for this type of thing, they spend on expensive trash to show off but are delinquent on their rent for the apartment that's too much for them, while driving the new Lexus that they're behind on payments for. Because they're idiots showing off for other idiots.

Re:Who is buying these things?

[known_coward_69]

i bought two new phones and gave my wife's old phone to one of our kids. BOGO deals on AT&T are great for this. i might do the same again this year for the next kid but give him an older phone. I work consulting and can write my phones off as a tax deduction

Re:Who is buying these things?

[ranton]

Most people I know have decided that all the selling points of flagship devices aren't really that big of a deal and are buying cheap phones that can browse, take some crappy pictures, and do messaging.

My wife and I buy the nicest phone available every other year almost entirely for the camera. We like not having to carry a separate camera for photos of our kids, and it's worth an extra $50 per month for us both to have the best camera phone money can buy today, instead of what the top of the line was 2-3 years ago. There are plenty of other nice things about having the best phones available but the camera is the main selling point.

Re:Who is buying these things?

[OneHundredAndTen]

You are such a child.

Re:Who is buying these things?

[ranton]

I don't believe you. Are you truly distributing the highest quality, highest resolution photos you can take with your phone to everyone? [...] Keep in mind the top of the line phones don't always have the best cameras.

The fact you bring up high resolution as one of the key aspects that makes a camera phone better shows you aren't very interested in photography (that is not meant as an insult). Aspects such as aperture, light sensitivity, auto-focusing quality, and software tools are all very important as well, if not more important. And top of the line phones (iPhone, Galaxy, Pixel) absolutely have the best camera phones available. You may find some $200 phones with better cameras than $500 phones, but none of them are as good as the flagship phones of the major manufacturers.

Your kids aren't going to care about those best-quality images nor will you in 20 years. How many photos of your younger years do you look at? How often? Do you throw them out because you can't see everyone's pores? There are other ways you could spend that $600 which will have a far bigger impact on your kids' and your lives.

I would agree that these photos provide more utility now than in 20 years, but not everything we spend money on is only for the benefit it provides decades from now. My guess is we won't care much about how we spent that $600 in 20 years regardless of how we spent it. Put into a retirement account that would grow into about $40k in real dollars over 30 years, increasing our currently planned retirement fund by less than 2%, providing about $100 of extra income per month. Or put into college funds it would come to a little over $5k per child, less than 10% of our current target. And these are likely the two best alternatives if you are looking at the benefit 20 years from now.

I would also agree with anyone who says you should properly fund your retirement and college savings accounts long before getting a $1000 phone. The same could be said for getting a BMW, a $10k+ family vacation, or many other luxury purchases arguably similar to a flagship phone.

Simple - supply and demand

[anthony_greer]

If the same, or close enough to the same number of people will buy a phone for $1100, why "only" charge $1000? at some point the upper end of the market will be found but I think its higher than we expect. There is a range of phones just like there is a range of cars and yes, you can get into a BMW for $40k, the top end is like $180. There is still room for the top end phone market to climb but the middle of the pack (iPhone se/7/8, cheaper androids like Motorola and such) are good enough for a ton of people.

Re:Simple - supply and demand

[aaronb1138]

Supply and demand assumes rational and knowledgeable consumers, which we don't have. It also assumes a naturally limited supply of widgets, rather than artificial production limits. It also assumes competition rather than price fixing. The flagship and midrange smartphone markets exist in a state of price fixing by the major players. Even OnePlus has jumped on the bandwagon of artificial price inflation to get better treatment from their upstream OEMs.

Re:Simple - supply and demand

[zlives]

hehe car analogy, it is true that avg age of cars on the road keeps going up... until we get used to the licensed deployment software model that certain vendors seem to be pushing.

Greed

[grumpy-cowboy]

Period

As an Apple shareholder

[Anonymous Coward]

These people are dear to my heart...

I suspect...

[redmasq]

People are using their phones increasingly more like a low-end laptop. I suspect the bargain cellphones will eventually catch up, but in the meantime, my $400 will not do the stuff that I would like to do. While I am more willing to forego doing the extra things, some people have more dollars and less restraint. We share see what the market will bear once the data is bare.

Re:I suspect...

[bluefoxlucid]

In Apple's market, it's basically whether your brand can attract loyal, rich customers.

In the Android market, you have more price competition. Actual manufacture and operating cost comes into play more, with slimmer net operating profits. Prices will go up as people demand those high-end $200 SOCs instead of the basic $40 VIA SOC: they want an 8-core heterogenous processor with long battery life and a 256MB SSD on-board, not a 512MB Raspberry Pi with a 1GHz CPU and a slot for a 2GB SD card.

I would like to see something like a Minix-core hypervisor with a virtualized file system, whereby something like ZFS or EXT4 (doesn't matter what) is mounted by a Control OS (analogous to Xen Dom0 or a VM Host OS, but sort of to the side rather than underneath) and its file system interface exposed to the various OSes running on the hypervisor. That is to say: rather than the kernel routing syscalls through the VFS layer to a driver which handles the physical disk, the driver routes those calls to the hypervisor which makes them through a VFS layer that uses an entire operating system as its "driver". The Control OS essentially makes a call to the hypervisor that says, "I am accepting file system commands; here is an ID and a call table".

"Look at me: I'm the driver now." --Linux kernel

Then your cell phone can have an armhf OS (e.g. Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Haiku, ReactOS, Windows 10 ARM) running, with /home mounted from that exposed virtual file system. Conceivably, your phone could run ChromeOS, Android, and some kind of full desktop OS, with ChromeOS exposing the Google drive users and such, so /home/user/Google_Drive is mounted from ChromeOS:/Drive/user/ in Ubuntu or whatever.

Drop into a dock and you have HDMI output. You can pick an OS and load it up. Your cell phone is now your laptop. You can shutdown your full desktop OS when not in use; you can pull up ChromeOS when you don't want to run a full desktop OS (e.g. for better security, which is a huge trade-off in ChromeOS since you're restricted from doing anything).

At that point, it suddenly makes a lot of sense to have a thin phone that costs $1,000. It might make sense to have a sort of Chromebook that's just a case with a screen and USB port headers, designed to fit a standard-sized phone, with each cell phone slipping into whatever carriage made to dock it with such a contraption.

Convergence.

Re:I suspect...

[b0s0z0ku]

The problem is that the docking station will weigh 90% of what a laptop weighs, so there isn't actually that much point to it.

Re:I suspect...

[bluefoxlucid]

Asus R11 Chromebook weighs under 3 pounds. You'd pack the board and components into the phone; the chromebook is a lightweight aluminum shell with a display and, possibly, a battery. Desktop docking station can connect you to multiple monitors, a surround sound speaker system, wired Ethernet, and so forth, and isn't meant to move around.

You can always carry the laptop case the way you normally would, and keep your phone in your pocket. When you'd normally pull out your laptop, you pull out both and mate one to the other. It's just a processing core.

Re:I suspect...

[b0s0z0ku]

A motherboard, M.2 SSD, and some RAM weigh a few ounces. Not really worth not having the processor on-board. Remember that you'd still need the hardware to run the LCD, ports, power the speakers, etc. And yes, you'd need another battery to run a 13" screen for any significant time unless you're going e-Ink.

Re:I suspect...

[bluefoxlucid]

Many Android phones had three little metal dots on the side. Those output HDMI. Likewise, many phones now have USB Type-C, which can carry audio, HDMI, and wired Ethernet (the specification allows particular pins to carry things not encapsulated by USB protocol--it even provides straight four-pin analogue stereo audio with microphone in both Nokia and Standard pin-outs).

You probably would need the extra battery, although I can't imagine this adding much weight: the Asus R11 Chromebook uses a 3490mAh lithium ion battery, while the OnePlus Six uses a 3,300mAh lithium ion battery. Seriously. The same battery in your phone runs the Chromebook for 10 hours. That's an 11 inch screen, not a 13 inch screen.

We live in a strange world. If you actually understood how computers work, you wouldn't believe it. It's like someone trying to convince people Harry Potter is real.

Re:I suspect...

[b0s0z0ku]

If you understood how electrical engineering worked, you wouldn't believe it either.

watt-hours are the proper measure of battery energy storage capacity. (also known as Joules divided by 3600).

watt-hours = amp-hours * battery voltage

Most laptops including Chromebooks use a 12 to 15 volt battery. Phones are 3.7 volts. Therefore, for a given amount of amp-hours (mAh/1000), a laptop's energy storage capacity will be 3-4x the capacity of a phone's battery!

You'd still need a breakout board to convert the USB-C to usable ports, and that takes weight.

Re:I suspect...

[bluefoxlucid]

Ah, right. The battery uses three cells at 3.7V each in series to give 11.1V. The energy storage is indeed higher than the phone's. I'm so used to those devices running on 3.5V that I forgot you need a stronger driver to run a screen and didn't think about it.

That's an extra pound of batteries, unless you're going with lower capacity cells to add the 12V screen driver and not power the phone itself.

Re:I suspect...

[Tough Love]

my $400 will not do the stuff that I would like to do

Mine will, it's a Moto G6+. I suspect you're going to be seeing a whole lot more of that.

From where I stand, prices are dropping.

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid $69 last year for my unlocked Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G.
I mean, of course you'll have to pay a premium if you want special features like carrier locking, no hardware keyboard, uninstallable bloatware, and no ability to use the external SD card to move files between your phone and your computer.
Prices are going up because newer shinier crap is in high demand.

There is a huge market here

[SuperKendall]

If you asked the average person today, would they prefer to spend more to get a better laptop, or more to get a better phone - which do you think they would choose?

People are on phones ALL THE TIME now. Good or bad, that's the truth. So why wouldn't you be willing to spend more on something you use more than anything else - more than a laptop, more than TV, more than even driving a car?

If I had to choose today I would greatly prefer an expensive phone and have to get a beater car rather than be forced to get a cheap and under-performing phone.

The phones after all can last many years, so $1k for a phone is a tiny cost considering how much you use it, in relation to the cost over time of something like a car or other things. A phone could easily be $2k or more and if it had the right feature set people would buy it...

Now the real question is, what features will truly be worth more to own? Massive amounts of internal storage might be one, possibly a super battery life phone would be another. Apple has FaceID which allowed for them to reach the $1k premium but the trick will be finding other features that can provide enough value over $600-$800 to justify spending more.

Re:There is a huge market here

[b0s0z0ku]

You can pay $100-125 for a phone with massive amounts of storage and good battery life. Moto G5 or E4. Removable (swappable!) battery, SD card slot. SD cards are cheap, so are second batteries.

Given a decent processor, everything else is hype.

Re: There is a huge market here

[houghi]

Good battery life, compared to the rest. Many people walk around with an extra battery, so why not have one already build in?

People are on their pho e all the time, jyet often friends have dead batteries. I use mine less, yet still would like a larger battery.

Re: There is a huge market here

[zlives]

there is a constant battle between security and convenience. the convinience of face-id and touch id make basic security available to masses. Apple did not remove other options and you can do without enabling face/touch id. However most people will do without security rather than implement what is easier to use.

Re:There is a huge market here

[ranton]

Given a decent processor, everything else is hype.

This is simply not true. There is a big difference between a top of the line mobile processor and a budget one. The same goes for the amount of RAM, size of the screen, and camera quality. It may not be worth the extra $20-30 per month for you, but there are significant improvements you can get to your phone for that money.

Sources of Value

[clawhound]

I'm seeing a big correlation between people getting older and screens getting bigger. And for people who rely on their phones for business, again, the phones are working devices, so their size and usability has direct payback for their working experience. So a phone's source of value directly corresponds with the price that people want to pay for the devices.

Re:Sources of Value

[b0s0z0ku]

Phones are mostly NOT working devices other than a few specialized apps. Doing work on even a 6" screen with tippy-tappy-crappy touch keyboard is inefficient.

Re:Sources of Value

[zlives]

almost all our sales force does 80% of their work via email, phones are their primary work device. its only when they have to create documents they touch a computer/ipad. you can take anything away except their phones.

Oneplus

[Pedestrianwolf]

My Oneplus 6 was $579. You can still have both.

Re: Inflation

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Apple is making more than 60% profit on anything they sell. It's just pure greed

People aren't seeing the actual price

[Nidi62]

Very few people are shelling out $1000 straight up for the phone. They all have $20-40 tacked on to their monthly plan payments to pay for the phone. This will also inflate the number of new phone purchases because, once their old phone is almost paid off in 2 years, there's a brand new phone that they can "buy" without paying any more than they already are. Take away payment plans and you won't just see the price of phones drop, you'll see the number of new phones purchased drop as well.

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[b0s0z0ku]

"Interest free" -- only problem is that the "base" price is often severely inflated compared to the cash price at B&H or on Amazon.

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[swillden]

Very few people are shelling out $1000 straight up for the phone.

True, but I don't think that's the core reason people are willing to pay so much.

I think the core reason is that what people are willing to pay is driven by the value they perceive, and that in turn is closely related to how much they use a thing, and what for. To an increasing percentage of the population, their phone is their sole computing device, and society is increasingly organized around connectivity and computation. To put it another way, look at what people use their phones for, and how many times per day they use them.

I'm something of a luddite (as are many slashdotters, I think), in that I prefer to do most of my online interaction on a physical keyboard, either my laptop or my big, multi-screen desktop with its funky ergonomic keyboard. But most people don't. So nearly all of their non-local (and sometimes local) interpersonal communications for work and play, news, entertainment, banking, information retrieval, etc., etc., etc,. is done on that one device. When you spend so much time using one object, it makes sense to spend whatever you can afford to get the best one you can.

I used to sit on $40 office chairs in my home office. Then one day I thought about the sheer quantity of time I spend with my butt planted in that chair and realized that I would get more value out of money spent on a better chair than many other things I could spend my money on. So I "blew" $600 on an Aeron-style (not actually Herman Miller, but similar, and with a high build quality) ergonomic chair and it has been money very well spent because it eliminated a lot of minor annoyances. Little stuff, like how the mesh seat and back allows airflow so I don't get sweaty, and how it has enough flexibility of positioning that I can always get comfortable. I not only don't regret the choice, when this one wears out (which it shows no sign of doing), $600 will be my price floor for a replacement and I'll be looking for what is available at higher price points.

I get my phones for free so I don't really have to make this decision. But if I did, I suspect I'd have no trouble dropping $1K on a phone that I replace every other year. I'm sure I use it 100 times per day, 365 days per year. A tenth of a penny per use? Makes sense to me.

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[DigiShaman]

Oh, I'm sure it will be the 4rd most expensive item soon right under a mortgage, student loan, and car loan.

20k iPhone here we come.

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[swillden]

A $1000 phone that you replace in 2 years is costing you $42/mo.

Or $0.001 per use. You seem to have missed my core point, which is that how much you use something also factors in. Monthly cost is far from the whole story.

Of course, if you can't afford $500 per year for a phone (less resale value), then you can't afford it. But for something you use as extensively and intimately as a smartphone it's easy to justify spending as much as you can afford. I know lots of people who make far less than $100K per year and feel the money they spend on high end phones is well worth it. And I'm not going tell them they're wrong about the value of their own money.

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[antdude]

How did you get your phones for free?

Re:People aren't seeing the actual price

[KixWooder]

It depends on the device. For iPhones its usually the same, until about six months in, then you'll start seeing discounts elsewhere.

Re:Good bye

[DontBeAMoran]

Step 2. Buy duct tape

iPhone as a text terminal (Re:I suspect...)

[mi]

People are using their phones increasingly more like a low-end laptop

I certainly do. With Termius app, I can ssh into anything straight from the phone. A Bluetooth keyboard can, optionally, improve the typing speed (except with vi — pressing Esc is misinterpreted by the iPhone). No need for a laptop any more...

Re:iPhone as a text terminal (Re:I suspect...)

[b0s0z0ku]

That's great until you're on a plane or in a rural area with poor to non-existent Internet access. Using a dumb terminal when you can have a laptop with full local computing power is silly.

Re:iPhone as a text terminal (Re:I suspect...)

[mi]

That's great until you're on a plane or in a rural area with poor to non-existent Internet access

If I don't have Internet-access, I can't do my work anyway. Can't watch the server-logs without the Internet, for example, can I?

you can have a laptop with full local computing power

There is no laptop in existence, that can do the sort of computations I'm currently working on (hint: it takes seven 24-core servers 4 hours to do it.)

is silly.

I'm sure, there are things fitting the niche — too demanding for a phone, but can be done by a decent laptop — and if such are your typical tasks, by all means, keep using a laptop. Yet, that niche is narrow, and you should not be dismissing everyone outside it as "silly". Makes you look, well, silly...

Re:iPhone as a text terminal (Re:I suspect...)

[tepples]

If I don't have Internet-access, I can't do my work anyway. Can't watch the server-logs without the Internet, for example, can I?

That's fine if your job is server administration. It's not quite so ideal if your job is programming, and you need more flexibility than Apple deigns to offer you through the Swift Playgrounds app but not quite as much raw computational power as a server farm. A laptop can git pull before you leave; edit, build, and test while you're out; and git push when you return.

So I guess my job, involving development of video game asset conversion toolchains, is in that niche you mentioned. I was disappointed when the compact laptop market contracted severely in 2012.

Because they can

[paratek]

As the flagship device manufacturers raise their prices, the more value brands can do so in lockstep. Some people will pay almost any price for the latest shiny bauble.

Re:Because they can

[Jaime2]

I don't think so. Flagship phones are more fashion accessory than technology. If the prices of $3000 dresses go up, it doesn't affect WalMart's clothing prices.

The iPhone X exists for one reason: so its owner can say "I can afford an iPhone X". Their increased sales are a result of more of the world using technology for wealth signaling. No surprises here, flashy things with little intrinsic value have always existed and will never go away.

tim cook lies

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.fastcompany.com/40564691/source-apple-will-produce-only-8-million-iphone-x-units-in-q2

"The company has been disappointed by global demand for the device, and some believe the $1,000 starting price may be partly to blame."

Visible status marker, that's why

[DNS-and-BIND]

If you're toting the latest phone, you're going to have it out all the time. People will see it. We all know what it costs. It shouts to the world, "I HAVE ENOUGH INCOME TO AFFORD THIS OVERPRICED DONGLE!" It's the same as the peacock's useless tail. Companies have noticed that status is important and people will happily pay to have it. No different from leaving your keys with the BMW logo out on the table for everyone to see while you eat at a restaurant.

Re:Visible status marker, that's why

[magarity]

It's kind of sad how bitter you are. No, I would not like fries with my order.

Re:Visible status marker, that's why

[KixWooder]

Phones haven't been a status symbol for years. The person viewing you with the phone doesn't care and the person buying the phone doesn't care what you think. NO ONE CARES.

Re:Visible status marker, that's why

[Jaime2]

If you don't believe wealth signaling is a thing then you aren't paying attention. It's not as obvious as "status symbol", but people notice brand name shoes, bags, jeans, dresses, cars, and phones. We've all come up with rationalizations so we don't feel like judgmental assholes, but we all do it to some extent. I like to think I'm more rational than the typical American, but there's no way I'm going to a job interview not wearing a good suit. There is no functional purpose for the suit, but I know I'm improving my chances of getting the job by looking like I don't need it.

Re:Visible status marker, that's why

[DNS-and-BIND]

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

Re:Visible status marker, that's why

[ejasons]

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

No, I think that he got it right...

Re:However

[DontBeAMoran]

Apple supports their phones and tablets for a lot more than 24 months.

As an example, iOS 12 will support the following:
iPhones
iPhone X
iPhone 8 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 6S
iPhone 6S Plus
iPhone 6
iPhone 6 Plus
iPhone SE
iPhone 5S (First released on 2013-09-20)

iPads
12.9-inch iPad Pro
10.5-inch iPad Pro
9.7-inch iPad Pro
iPad (fifth-gen)
iPad Air 2
iPad Air
iPad Mini 4
iPad Mini 3
iPad Mini 2 (First released on 2013-11-12)

Capitalism

[sdinfoserv]

If you want prices to drop - the answer is simple. Skip the product, buy something else for a cycle. The company will reduce prices in response.

Re:Capitalism

[gman003]

I did that, and in response they killed the product line.

I have a Nexus 5. I skipped the 5X because it didn't seem like a significant upgrade. Then they killed off the Nexus line for the twice-as-pricey Pixel, now on its second iteration. Now I actually need to upgrade, and I can't find any good 5", ~$300 phones with minimal OS changes and good long-term support. The Nokia 5.1 looks like just what I need, but it hasn't hit the US market yet.

Re:Capitalism

[samwichse]

My wife has a Nokia 6.1 and she has really liked it.

It was $270, it's got an SD card slot (or dual sim), nice non-glass-body construction, gorilla glass 4 on the front, and a pretty snappy processor. The OS is almost totally stock and gets guaranteed updates in the Android One program (2 years OS updates, 3 years security minimum IIRC).

I've got a ZTE Axon 7, it was a bit more at $350, but adds very good sounding front-firing stereo speakers, a faster processor, gorilla glass 5, and OIS on the rear camera (which I do miss if I'm taking pics with the wife's phone). And OEM-assisted LineageOS support.

Both phones very uncourageously have headphone jacks (a must for us).

I'm not sure how much you really gain in the jump from $350 -> $700-800 phones. I'd say go for it. Motorola also has some excellent phones in the mid and low range like the Moto X4 ($350), Z2 Play ($300) and the G6 ($200). They all have Android that's pretty close to stock, too.

Re:Capitalism

[gman003]

I have a strong personal aversion to phones that are too wide. 5.5" on a 16:9 phone is already borderline, 6"+ is just too big for me. That cuts out a surprisingly large proportion of the Android phone lineup. The Nokia 6.1 has everything I'd want otherwise (well, I wouldn't say no to USB-C, but it's not a must-have), so I feel like waiting on the 5.1 is a good call.

Re:Capitalism

[dyslexicbunny]

I was going to suggest the Moto G line but I think it's good deal bigger than 5". Solid phone too. Whenever my G5+ dies (hopefully in a couple years), I'll grab the next in this line.

Peculiar choices

[Miles_O'Toole]

I guess we now live in a world where quite a few people are willing to pay top dollar for second rate quality. Let's face it, even the best Bluetooth link doesn't provide the best sound. And it doesn't matter how you massage it, the sensor in a cell phone isn't going to match even a relatively cheap camera.

So the tunes on my old iPhone 4S physically plugged into a good-quality outdoor speaker, are a consistent "people's choice" over anything linked to that same speaker via Bluetooth. And my primitive Nikon makes pictures consistently better than anything I've yet seen from a smart phone's camera.

Re:Peculiar choices

[Aqualung812]

I guess we now live in a world where quite a few people are willing to pay top dollar for second rate quality. Let's face it, even the best Bluetooth link doesn't provide the best sound. And it doesn't matter how you massage it, the sensor in a cell phone isn't going to match even a relatively cheap camera.

I can't think of a single thing a microwave oven cooks better than a real oven, skillet, or grill.

So why does nearly every home have a microwave oven? It is fast, and "good enough".

As a photographer, I was taught that the BEST camera is the one you have with you. I have a DSLR, but I don't carry it with me everywhere. My phone camera works far better for that.

When I'm listening to music on an airplane or a volleyball tournament, I'm not looking for reference audio. I'm looking for something that sounds better than the noise I'm hearing without headphones on. Not having to get my headphone cable snagged on something is a very nice plus, and my headphones have 40 hours of use on a charge.

  You're missing the point completely. It isn't about a single measure of quality.

Re:Peculiar choices

[cthulhu11]

I see what you did there :D

Re:Peculiar choices

[Miles_O'Toole]

Sorry, my friend, but it is you who is missing the point. The Nikon I'm referring to is a simple point-and-shoot. It still blows the doors off anything offered in a smart phone, simply because the sensor is considerably larger, and the lens contains some decent glass. So that is, in fact, the camera I have with me. It fits comfortably into the pocket of a jean jacket. I have an excellent DSLR that is usually in the trunk of my car...relatively accessible if I think I'll need it. And yes, I have worked as a professional photographer for three publications that have actual newsrooms.

As for your sound requirements...we'll just have to agree to disagree. What's good enough for you isn't good enough for me. There's a lot of room between "reference audio" and the boomy drek you get from a Bluetooth signal. If that level of quality suits you...have a party. It doesn't work for me when I want to relax.

You're also wrong about microwave ovens. There's lots of stuff you can cook in one that's more than just "good enough". Two easy examples: scrambled eggs and lasagna can both be made restaurant quality if you know what you're doing. The only proviso is that in the latter case, the lasagna won't be great unless you've got at least 1200 Watts to play with. You can have the recipe if you want it.

Re:Peculiar choices

[Miles_O'Toole]

Yeah, I've noticed that. Sure there's times when all you have available is a cell phone. But if you're a pro, those times will be few and far between, because in addition to a big, heavy DSLR with a bag full of lenses and accessories, you're also going to have a decent point-and-shoot like the Olympus TG5 that fits easily into a pocket, will stop a bullet, and that you carry just about everywhere.

Re:Good bye

[b0s0z0ku]

Low-end Moto or Samsung devices that are designed for poorer countries are often better at being phones than the latest and greatest from Apple. They're half-decent smart devices as well, but for $100 or so, you can't lose.

Opposite take from actual user

[SuperKendall]

Apple can go ape themselves with faceid. It's a step back from touchid

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to educate others.

I find what you say to absolutely to be not the case, having had the iPhoneX since launch. How long have you owned or used a FaceID device? My guess is never.

In fact I was planning on buying a newer iPad, but held off my purchase until iPads include FaceID also, I like it so much more.

I find it VASTLY better than touchID. I like how it authenticates without thought, for many uses the device works just like the old days when people did not have passcodes, and of course FaceID is also much more secure than TouchID (by 20x or more).

Re:Opposite take from actual user

[jittles]

Apple can go ape themselves with faceid. It's a step back from touchid

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to educate others.

I find what you say to absolutely to be not the case, having had the iPhoneX since launch. How long have you owned or used a FaceID device? My guess is never.

In fact I was planning on buying a newer iPad, but held off my purchase until iPads include FaceID also, I like it so much more.

I find it VASTLY better than touchID. I like how it authenticates without thought, for many uses the device works just like the old days when people did not have passcodes, and of course FaceID is also much more secure than TouchID (by 20x or more).

This is entirely a personal preference. Face ID is not going to recognize me with a motorcycle helmet on. And yes, I have pulled over on my motorcycle to answer an urgent text before. I also find your comment that it authenticates without thought to be disingenuous. So does Touch Id. Only I can have my phone unlocked before it even comes out of my pocket or bag and you have to wait until you look at your phone to have it start to unlock.

Monthly payment shoppers

[bobbied]

Ah yes, the monthly payment shoppers are responsible for this...

How many people pay attention to the total cost of that shiny brand new phone with all the bells and whistles? They are sold on MONTHLY price for the most part, and usually sold though the cell phone carrier. These folks look at that $25/month and say WOW! That's cheap, never mind it's for 60 months and that shiny phone will be replaced with a newer model in 24 months and they haven't yet paid for half of it.

This is what happened to cars too. Go talk to a car salesman and I guarantee that you will get the "It's only XX per month!" pitch, no mention of interest rates or payment terms. Most folks don't care and don't find out what that interest rate is or the number of months they will be paying until they are in the finance office. Even then, it's all about the monthly cost, forget what I'm actually paying for this because I get to drive that shiny new car..

So, us strange folks, who actually look at the total costs of financing and are ready and willing to pay cash up front to save bucks when we can, get to look at the "buy it outright" costs and think "who's going to pay that?" Well, I assure you, a whole bunch of folks will if you break it down into small enough monthly payments and that's what carriers and device makers are doing. I don't blame them for doing it and making more money, why not? If people are willing to be sold this way, so be it, just don't expect me to be happy about the prices I have to pay because of it.

Re:Monthly payment shoppers

[cthulhu11]

With the complexities of modern life, MRC $50 or even $100 is noise floor for a lot of people. The cost -- in more than $ -- of migrating to a different, possibly less durable phone can easily outweigh the cost of a more-expensive model.

Re:However

[zlives]

i think the comment was pointed towards samsung (2yr support)
Apple has a 5 yr commitment which seems appropriate for aging hardware.

Phones are peaking in useful capabilities

[shellster_dude]

Latest gen flagship phones are having trouble differentiating themselves. Cameras have reached the point where the newest and best features are mostly marketing ploys and not that valuable. The processors are fast enough for the kinds of things one would want to use a phone for. The screens have high enough pixel density. The phones are relatively robust and the battery life is acceptable. The new flagships are trying to race to the bottom with thinner bezels and thinner phones, but phones are already thin enough and many new phones are going for thinner at the cost of battery life, and ports. So at the end of the day, there will always be fools that will buy the latest and greatest because it is the latest and greatest. The rest of us, will pick mid-tier phones or previous gen flag ships, and have great phones, for half or less of the price. I predict that the increase in flag ship pricing, will result in a greater interest in bootloader unlocking and replacement OSes like LineageOS.

Apple made the brilliant move ...

[Qbertino]

... of transitioning from a pure technology brand to a lifestyle and fashion brand with the advent of the iMac. They've been going further down that road ever since.

Today they are so far ahead that they can even drag their heels with us opinion leaders delivering meh hardware with last year's specs and still cap at 1 billion due to iPhones sold everywhere all the time.

That brand power of Apple these days is something it's would kill for.

Supply and Demand

[jellomizer]

Prices will go up, until people reach a point where they can consider their phone good enough. Where the demand for a new phone is becomes much smaller. Then we can allow the cost of components to go down to offer cheaper phones.

Right now there is no race to the bottom for phones. As I expect many of these companies have learned from the PC industry from the late 1990's and early 2000's

Where PC manufactures stopped focusing on quality and focused on price. Cheap-o keyboards and mice, Celeron processors (which were in general Pentium chips that pass the full QC Test, but still functioned). Win-devices such as win modems which were in essence D2A and A2D converters that were handled by the PC.
So we have the like of Gateway-2000 which was once considered a Quality System, Race to the bottom as a cheap crappy system that no one wanted to use. Then came Dell which did the same thing.

  Yes they are some budget phones out there. But they are not trying to compete against the Samsung or Apple, they are tageting the people who wouldn't get a Samsung or Apple anyways.

Re:However

[DontBeAMoran]

Which is ironic considering they're still selling Macs with completely outdated specifications in 2018. Look at the Mac mini and the MacBook Air, for example.

At some point ROI has to come in to play

[oldgraybeard]

I priced getting an iPhone but the price vs capabilities vs need vs ROI just was not there. I can even write the cost off on my business.
Granted my cell phone needs are very basic, calls and text. I write apps for iOS devices but don't have a need or desire to use any apps.
Apple will be the last to have problems, most in that world have to much money and just don't care about cost. It is more about status than needs. But I would have to think the device bubble will burst at some point. After all how long is playing some variant of candy crush going to keep the masses enthralled.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:At some point ROI has to come in to play

[Streetlight]

A cell phone or land line phone is a necessary item these days but I'm not sure a cell phone is an investment but rather an expense, especially if you're using it for pleasure and not for business. An investment is purchased in order to increase one's wealth whereas a phone is a necessary tool. If you're not creating income you wouldn't get without the phone, then I guess it might be considered an investment, but for most folks that's not the case.

S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[thegarbz]

Between the S7 and S9 developments which may justify the price were to be seen. E.g. the S9 supports Dex which effectively turns your phone into the brains of a desktop ala laptop in docking station.

I would gladly pay well over $1000 for a phone that replaces my laptop.

Meanwhile the iPhone X unlocks automagically when you stare at the ugly notch and sends animated poo. Progress!

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[b0s0z0ku]

What's the point of a phone that docks into a docking station? The station is effectively the size and weight of a laptop -- may as well just get the laptop and call it a day.

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[tepples]

Four reasons:

• A docked phone runs mobile-only apps. Many chat apps lately are mobile-only.
• A docked phone runs the mobile version of apps that are cheaper on mobile than on desktop, such as Microsoft Office.
• Your data also come with you without having to wait for sync.
• If outside the range of your home WLAN, you can use cellular Internet without having to pay a tethering surcharge to your cellular ISP.

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[b0s0z0ku]

Mobile-only is a bug, not a feature. Mobile apps are crap on the desktop. Frankly, not mobile-only chat apps, I'd rather either (a) use another chat app or (b) stick it in the nice, padded cell of an Android emulator.

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[tepples]

Frankly, not mobile-only chat apps, I'd rather either (a) use another chat app

Good luck getting your contacts to switch from their preferred chat app to your preferred chat app, especially if it uses a protocol without built-in support for battery-efficient push notifications, attachments, or offline messaging (such as IRC). I keep having to turn down requests to join groups on Signal and WhatsApp over this.

or (b) stick it in the nice, padded cell of an Android emulator.

Only if the chat app is (legally) available as an APK, because Android emulators for Windows, macOS, and X11/Linux didn't include a (legal) copy of Google Play Store last I checked.

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[b0s0z0ku]

Live a little, break some rules...

Re:S7 to S9 vs iPhone 7 to X

[thegarbz]

The station is effectively the size and weight of a laptop

Err no, it's the size of the phone. And why do you carry your docking station around with you? Do you even understand the concepts or are you just trying to form sentences with a random word generator?

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Those are not good features

[b0s0z0ku]

Battery capacity only varies by a factor of 2 or so between the smallest and largest available. The reason that people buy phones with glued-in batteries has to do with ignorance, manufacturers pushing disposable crap, and OMG! NEW! SHIIINY!, not because they're inherently better.

Your drunkard example? More like marrying a Ph. D. with some mad carpentry and cooking skills, but whose looks are somewhat homely.

Why I Will Continue...

[rally2xs]

...to use the same phone I have now until the sun burns out...

The next revolution....

[Rick Zeman]

...should be on pricing and making the phones less expensive, not more. They already have enough doodads and features. When an iPhone X costs roughyly 1/40 of the average American's gross income, that's way too much. Even the lesser models at 1/60 need to come down.

I think the opposite occurs

[SuperKendall]

Many, many Apple users skip phone cycles, in part because the devices are well built and last a long time, in part because Apple is really good about providing product updates.

I would argue that more expensive phones are in part a response to this, because Apple is trying to make a device advanced enough to get people to switch away from older phones to a newer device rather than seeing a customer getting a really usable model from a year or two earlier at a lower price.

This doesn't surprise me...

[laird]

This doesn't surprise me. For many people a call phone is used much more than a laptop, so arguably if you're going to spend $1,000 on tech there's more return on the cell phone than a laptop. Don't think of it as "just a phone" - think of it as the personal electronics that most consumers use more than any other, as a camera, camcorder, web browser, email, etc. Heck, if you ask 'kids' now, most of them care a lot more about their cell phone than laptop or car!

on top of that, with the move towards pricing plans separately from hardware, people are buying phones less often and keeping them longer, and getting them fixed instead if replaced. So buying a more expensive phone less often isn't as crazy as it would be if you replaced it every year or two.

Re:This doesn't surprise me...

[b0s0z0ku]

Except that usability doesn't actually increase beyond a certain price point. $200 phones often have the same basic hardware as $1000 phones.

To use the car analogy, a Corolla is often a better car and more reliable than a Lamborghini.

Re:This doesn't surprise me...

[guacamole]

For many people a call phone is used much more than a laptop, so arguably if you're going to spend $1,000 on tech there's more return on the cell phone than a laptop. Don't think of it as "just a phone" - think of it as the personal electronics that most consumers use more than any other, as a camera, camcorder, web browser, email, etc.

The problem with this argument is that a cheap sub-300 dollar phone can do almost all of these things just as well as a flagship phone. They run the same OS as Android flagships. They run the same apps. They now come with large and bright FHD screens and even cameras on cheap phones have been getting pretty decent.

The only big difference is now in the processor specs, which the expensive phones coming with cores that can be 2-3 times faster than something like Arm Cortex-53. But at the end of the day, how much horsepower do you really need to browse the web or send messages. It turns out not a whole lot. The low end Snapdragon 450 or 625 SoC can deal with all these tasks and is now installed in many sub-300 devices.

Re:Nationalize Apple! (Re:Greed)

[b0s0z0ku]

Or is a disciple of Teddy Roosevelt, the original "rough rider", man's man, and "trust buster."

You know how you get a cheap phone?

[kaatochacha]

Walk into your phone center and tell them "I'm looking for the cheapest phone you've got".
I had to do this back in the Midwest in a town that my family was visiting for funeral preparation. Only Verizon worked there, and none of us had Verizon.
The lady at the counter pulls out an new in box Samsung they just got in, "on discount, I don't know why" . $30 out the door, pay as you go.
Functions perfectly acceptable.
At that price point, I don't care if I drop it in a toilet.

Re:You know how you get a cheap phone?

[tepples]

Did you try buying a Verizon LTE SIM for your existing compatible unlocked LTE phone?

Only varies that way NOW

[SuperKendall]

Battery capacity only varies by a factor of 2 or so between the smallest and largest available.

I am talking about features that would convince a buyer to spend a lot of extra money on a phone. A somewhat larger phone with a truly huge battery life (again, I'm talking a week or more) might be one of those features. It could easily be as simple as using some very advanced battery tech that costs quite a lot more than traditional batteries...

Re:Only varies that way NOW

[b0s0z0ku]

What if the phone had a removable battery and the choice of two back covers, one that fit a 3000mAh battery, another one for a 10,000mAh battery? Shouldn't cost $1000 and you'd have the choice between slim size/low weight and super-amazing batter life.

Re:Only varies that way NOW

[SuperKendall]

What if the phone had a removable battery and the choice of two back covers, one that fit a 3000mAh battery, another one for a 10,000mAh battery?

You can already essentiality do that today - choose to bring along an external battery pack or not (a big reason why people do not miss swappable batteries, since external battery packs come in many different form factors and capacities). I think that's also why no phone maker has done anything like that already, which seems otherwise like a good idea, just not one that would be worth hundreds more. I guess in fact it has been done with battery cases which has the same effect as what you are thinking about (and most offer charge-through so you are just plugging the whole thing in to charge phone and battery).

I think people would pay more for a sealed device that was a bit larger but offered some really advanced battery tech that lasted quite a lot longer. People want to not have to think about things like swapping out a back or remembering to charge something besides the phone, that is what they would pay more for.

Re:Nationalize Apple! (Re:Greed)

[mi]

Neah, that'd require the knowledge of history these people do not typically possess.

Re:so what?

[b0s0z0ku]

LOL, get with the times -- you need a "2500" desk phone!

For a device you use 50 times a day

[OrangeTide]

I'm not sure if we've really hit the upper limit for a device that most people use dozens to hundreds of times a day. Seems like a bargain if you compare it to a Macintosh 512K from 1984 that was $2,495.00 (equivalent to $6,169.90 today), and that you weren't likely to use a computer like that more than once or twice a day.

PS - before anyone says PCs were generally cheaper than Macs. An IBM XT that was well equipped was still quite expensive when it was released: "1983: March - IBM announces the IBM PC XT, with a 10 MB hard drive, 128KB RAM and a 360KB floppy drive. It costs US$5000.". I wasn't able to find the price of a 512K or 640K RAM, dual 360KB floppy, and no HDD configuration that I remember better from that era.

I'm not paying that! But someone else will

[BLToday]

I'm still using my wife's old rose gold (pink) iPhone 6S. It works well, does everything I need it to do. I drop it all the time because that thing is so damn slippery. I don't see a need to upgrade because unlike most people it's not my only computing device.

Nothing new

[thunderclees]

Apple is charging what it does to give its iThings implied value and exclusivity
This is why Beats was so attractive to them as it operated on the same model.
The twist is that as most people who buy these things are doing so on credit.
Buying on credit buffers the cost of the device

"opinion leaders"?

[Brannon]

That's hilarious. The vast majority of smartphone users have no idea that the Slashdot crowd exists and couldn't care less. Apple has a $1T market cap specifically because they ignore any opinions coming from this site.

The average person

[DogDude]

If you asked the average person today, would they prefer to spend more to get a better laptop, or more to get a better phone - which do you think they would choose?

The average person is a fucking moron.

It is just because the rich are getting richer

[petes_PoV]

Prices reflect what people are willing to pay.

If there is a burgeoning market for $4-figure phones, it is because there are enough people willing to drop a $k for a mobile device. Whether they get that amount of value from it (compared to the amount of value they would get from a $500 phone, or a $200 one) doesn't really enter the equation.

For many people the value is in the having - and ensuring that everyone knows they have it. Pure status.

Re:Nationalize Apple! (Re:Greed)

[kaatochacha]

My favorite Che Guevara shirt, is a picture of Che wearing a che shirt, in which he's also wearing a che shirt, into infinity.

Strongly disagree

[cshark]

Apple customers are not mainstream customers by any stretch of the imagination. Apple's always been an elitist product for elitists. The reason smart phones have had wide adoption isn't because the devices are valuable, but because they've provided a way for the poor to get online, and effectively closed to digital divide. At least in america. The high end of phones is the high end of phones. But hiking the price of all phones, through trickle down effect will hurt adoption across the board. It's too early to be playing games like this.

Maybe not a fail

[SuperKendall]

It also authenticates you with blood on your face, strapped to a chair with broken kneecaps

If your face is very damaged it would not. Also if you refuse to look at the device it will not...

But all of that is a pretty stupid argument considering a passcode will also still unlock the device and they could just use the XKCD method if we are talking about people willing to use extreme physical force to open a device.

With FaceID at least you'd still have as much a fighting chance to not unlock the device as you would with a passcode, vs. TouchID where they can just cut off your thumb and go in the other room with it, if you want to talk about the efficacy of different schemes.

Re:However

[DirkDaring]

I have a Galaxy Note 5, 3 years old now and still getting updates.

Elephant in the room: Trade war with Apple

[shanen]

Your comment might deserve the "Interesting" mod (though I think it's just a first-post effect), but you are touching the topic so lightly...

The elephant in the room is actually the trade war with China. If China wants to win, and I'm betting they do, then smartphones is where they are going to fight. The story only hinted at it the situation, but just imagine what happens if Xi slaps a YUGE tax on the iPhone. Apple's stock price and trillion dollar market cap would be collateral damage, perhaps only minor damage in the ensuing chaos.

Don't panic. Yet. Wait until you find out that Xi's cronies are shorting Apple.

Actually spent a while searching this discussion for similarly obvious thoughts. There was a time when Slashdot could do better. I especially miss the humor. Not a single comment yet moderated "Funny".

Again, I have used both systems

[SuperKendall]

Face ID is not going to recognize me with a motorcycle helmet on.

So you are biking with a helmet but no gloves????

It will work through helmets that have a transparent faceplate. There are no gloves where TouchID will work.

If I were in a place without helmet laws I would contemplate biking without a helmet. But there are zero times I would bike without gloves, that is way, way too much risk exposure.

The ability to use FaceID in winter is a huge advantage BTW as I can wear touchscreen compatible gloves and still use FaceID to unlock where I'd have to remove a glove for TouchID.

I also find your comment that it authenticates without thought to be disingenuous. So does Touch Id.

That is absolutely false because you have to move your thumb into place when prompted, or to think about it beforehand. Again I have used TouchID for many years and now FaceID for a very long time also, there is simply no comparison as to how much better and freeing FaceID is compared to TouchID.

Only I can have my phone unlocked before it even comes out of my pocket or bag>

So what? I just lift my device and it is unlocked when I can see it, I really don't care if it's unlocked before I view it. In fact the scenario you described I found annoying because a handful of times (not frequently) with touchID I would accidentally unlock the device in pocket and trigger something like music or a call I did not want.

you look at your phone to have it start to unlock.

You simply do not understand how fast the system is. It's unlocked before I even start to do anything. The screen is on before it's unlocked just by the act of starting to raise it. In practice it simply does not feel like you are waiting for anything, you raise the phone and you are using it. Like I said, it's like you are using a device with no passcode.

good stuff

[bigtreeman]

They're putting insanely good processor technology inside phones and it's got to cost.
Each new model brings technology advancements,
throwing out old silicon for the newest arm ++ with amazing IO.
I use SBCs and am just starting to see cheaper offerings with a couple of A72 cores,
I'd love to keep up with the Joneses but I'm cheap!

Re:good stuff

[Tough Love]

They're putting insanely good processor technology inside phones and it's got to cost.

It's been that way through the entire history of computing, it's called Moore's law. Historically the cost actually went down with each process shrink because volumes went up. For the 7 nm node starting to come on line right now, you can have your choice of lower cost or more CPU power. Personally, I'm leaning more to lower cost these days, which tends to go together with longer battery life. I just don't feel a compelling need for the equivalent of a warehouse of Cray 1's in my pocket. I want that in my workstation for sure, but I just don't have the use case for that on my phone. Maybe somebody else does.

It's not like a flagship phone is going to break the bank, I just feel I'm looking like a bit of an idiot doing that, especially knowing how the halflife of a flagship is less than a year now, then I'm just hanging on to a second tier phone because dropping that much dough on again each year for no reason just makes me look like a drooling moonie.

Re:good stuff

[Tough Love]

At some point if phones get 16GB RAM, 8-core cpu, GPU, SSD I could just use my crappy and outdated desktop as a thin client to the phone

Not sure what point you are making but if you are trying to say that phones are getting more powerful than desktops, then just no. Mine current one runs 8 (full size) cores with SMT for 16 threads, 32 GB ram, 512 GB M.2 system disk, 12 TB raid for archive, and that is really only mid-tier for a workstation as of today. My next build will roughly double all of that and still not be particularly high end.

Your phone has a huge bottleneck that it will never get be rid of: heat dissipation. Try to run a compile on it, say, and it will throttle immediately. See how hot it already gets, just decoding video.

Deliberate tablet incompatibility of Apple Music

[tepples]

I want a phone I can make calls and receive calls. I can use a tablet or laptop for everything else.

Until you need to use applications whose publisher has set a maximum screen size. Last I checked, the "Apple Music" app for Android was listed as compatible only with phones, not with tablets.

Two Years later: Crap

[Crass Spektakel]

Why buy a $1000 smartphone when you can get a half as good phone for $200? Which still beats every smartphone from two years ago?

This only makes sense if you are [b]NOT[/b] using a smartphone as a tool [b]BUT[/b] as a status symbol. But then, there are some people who are in desperate need of cheap status symbols. Though an apple smartphone is mostly a status symbol for being in the lower class.

Re:Two Years later: Crap

[cmseagle]

Why buy a $1000 smartphone when you can get a half as good phone for $200? Which still beats every smartphone from two years ago?

Because when we're talking about a device that I'm going to use dozens of times per day, every single day, I'm willing to pay a premium for something that is twice as good. Do you honestly never buy yourself nice things simply for the pleasure of using them? I understand the economic argument against buying a top-of-the-line widget (car, phone, graphics card, CPU, TV, whatever), but not the surprise that others choose to do so.

It's Over

[BrendaEM]

The cellphone gravy train is over. The market is saturated with good enough phones, and making marketing-designed phones with gimmicks like curved screens and multiple crappy cameras, and the lack of headphone jacks is just turning me off.

My next phone with be a Cheap phone.

Buyer's remorse

[Tough Love]

Demoed my mid tier Moto G6+ to a new owner of Google Pixel, the immediate reaction was, looks the same, does the same, I wish I had bought the same. Sure, you can see differences if you squint. A single data point, but...

I bought the Nexus phones when they were stylish and cheap. Google decided to go all carriage trade on me, I said goodbye Google.

Tim Cook Lies

[HannethCom]

Apple has refused to release iPhone X numbers sold. The only times Apple has done that is when their products have grossly under performed. If they under perform they just try to spin things.
We know from multiple sources how badly the iPhone X is selling. The most telling is that Samsung is selling the iPhone X screen to other manufacturers, which only can happen if Apple does not buy the agreed upon minimum number of units.
But to get the real story, you just had to walk into any store that sold them on launch day, or month, and notice how they were constantly in stock, even though most stores only got limited supply. I'm not talking about the pre-ordered ones either, those are stored elsewhere. On the other hand, iPhone 8 sales are doing quite well. People were skipping the 7 because of its stupid design. After seeing the disappointment that was the 8 many people I know we're waiting for the X. Most of them bought the 8 after the disappointment that was the X.

As for fooling investors, I hope they know Apple is lying, else maybe that is why Apple is doing so well, it's investors are just too stupid to see the major problems Apple is having.

Side effect

[info6568]

Well ... when people pay more, builders are forced to improve their phones capacity in each new iteration.

This produces better sub $300 phones that are comparable to two years before $1000 ones and, as a side effect, new types of gadgets using the phones SoCs as multimedia boxes and Single Board Computers. Even, this makes the PC foundation to be weaker because more IoT oriented machines are eating the previously only PC kingdom.

I am not one of those purchasing $1000 phones, but for those making the investment, my sincere gratitude. You are financing all the other marvels that are not simple phones.

Re:Deliberate tablet incompatibility of Apple Musi

[tepples]

Some people anyway ignore "apps" and only use the web browser, having been trained to do that on the desktop.

And many sites' mobile view is just a button to download the associated app. Pandora Radio (US) is one example.

Re:However

[Bender0x7D1]

The OS may run on the older hardware, but it is almost unusable. I upgraded from my 5S (to an SE) a year ago because apps would, on occasion, take 10+ seconds to load. So, if I wanted to check a movie time and traffic to get there, it would take a minute to switch back and forth between Flixster and Google Maps to see if I could make a movie time. God help me if I was comparing 2 different theaters! Also, if I was out running and wanted to take a picture it took way too long to actually get the shot.

So, supported: Yes.

Usable/practical: No.

People bought the X?

[sabbede]

It's not like it had some big technological advantage. It's horribly overpriced and sucks to use. At least that was my experience with it.