Mac and iPhone prices will always be about perceived value. Unfortunately they don't have enough competition to drive prices down and they will take advantage of that for as long as they can.

Some tried from different angles but it seems people just don't feel confident enough to leave the ecosystem. Google keeps pushing sub-par phones. No one has delivered a robust face recognition tech as good as Face ID. Screen and camera quality are almost there but never better in a distinctive manner.

In fact, no one is trying to compete with Apple anymore. Android manufacturers abandoned the high-end market. The tablet and smartwatch markets are pretty much dominated by iPad and Apple Watch.

And as the service category expansion shows, people are getting comfortable with the idea of paying a monthly price for good tech. If competition eventually becomes a problem, they can just start bundling things up like Amazon does: iPhone Upgrade Plan + Apple Music + Cloud Storage + Apple Care + (eventual) TV content.

>In fact, no one is trying to compete with Apple anymore. Android manufacturers abandoned the high-end market.

You'll need to convince me that the Note 9 is not a high end phone.

Using one will do that for you.

Just kidding, never used one, I’m sure it’s a fine device. But Apple has managed to dominate the high end smartphone market for over a decade and they don’t seem to be losing much ground there. Pretty amazing testament to the power of focus. Literally all their competitors have smartphones as a small piece of their business and it shows.

I have an iPhone and a OnePlus which cost half the price. The OnePlus's face recognition is not only faster to unlock but is more reliable.

This side of the Atlantic I see Android tablets everywhere, specially outside of the 1st tier EU countries.

He knows they can charge anything. When the iPhone X dropped at $999, even as a total iOS person with the money to afford it I scoffed. But I knew they would sell like crazy. Apple has a brand beyond any company's wildest imaginations. It could be $2k and people would still want the latest iPhone no matter what, if not just to be seen with it.

I scoffed at that price too and then realized that I spend more money on way stupider things regularly. My phone is something that I use literally every single day. If I want to continue using it, then I need to pay the price they're asking. So far, I haven't upgraded because my iPhone 7 continues to be a great daily driver. I'm tempted by things on the iPhone XS but not enough to make the jump. Once I do, though, I firmly believe that it'll be worth that price tag. I can genuinely say that I haven't had an Apple product that, in the end, didn't live up to the cost I paid for it and then some. It's the one reason I haven't left the ecosystem (even though I own an Android phone for dev work and a PC for gaming).

If the price ever outweighs the utility, I'll just stop buying Apple. There's nothing that's that important that would keep me locked in. If a comparable Android phone comes out that works as well as my iPhone, I'll jump ship but only because the extra cost in no way outweighs what I've spent in iOS apps. I'm not going to keep putting money into something that doesn't work for me. I don't get the people that are just brand loyalists for the sake of brand loyalty. I like Apple products because they're the best for me. Why is that weird for some people?

"I can genuinely say that I haven't had an Apple product that, in the end, didn't live up to the cost I paid for it and then some."

I think this really hits the nail on the head. Granted, this is all anecdotal, and for every positive story I'm sure there is a negative one, and we'll never really have these statistics, but I'd kill to know what percentage of long term Apple users feel this way about their products vs users of other companies. Not counting the Apple II's inherited from my stepdad as a kid, I've had a clamshell iBook that I ran Debian on in high school, a ~2008 Mac Mini that I developed my first iOS game on, an iPhone 3G, 4S, 5S, 7+, a ~2010 and a ~2014 Mac Mini at work, and my 2016 MBP, and every single one is either still in use, or was used basically to obsolescence.

FWIW, I don't use the entirety of the ecosystem by any means. I literally don't use iCloud, Apple Music, Siri, and probably a myriad of other tech they offer. And yet, I still get an enormous amount of value out of each product I purchase from them.

Full disclosure, I was primarily an iOS dev from 2011-2015, and at least 50% of what I do now is still iOS development.

I had the lowest tier macbook for 7-8 years (upgraded RAM and HD to SSD). Replaced it with a macbook pro from Ebay, which I found for $400 (Was a fluke, it had ubuntu on it and I think that confused people), which I've now had for 5 years. I still rock an iPhone 5 (never had a case either). Apple products definitely last for me.

Agreed. My entire family now has Apple products because I hand them down when I buy the newer models. I'm sure I could sell most of them and get some of my money back but it's worth it to me in both cost and hassle to just give my family the old stuff since I know it's both good and really simple to use for them. With family sharing and all the other good stuff, it's the easiest my IT work I've done. lol

I certainly don't care about being seen with a cool phone, but for somebody like me who doesn't want Google tracking my every move, I don't see any alternative to iPhones. So yes, they can charge whatever they want and I don't have a choice.

Also, I factor my phone purchases as a per year cost. Apple is still supporting the iPhone 5s. I only have to replace Apple devices every 5 years. At that rate it's about $250 per year, which is better than any high end Android phone. Privacy is the main reason I get iOS devices, but the price is not bad.

Yup, I'll have had my 6S Plus for 3 years in December. With a new battery and the new OS it's still a very high end experience. 6S Plus was when they added optical image stabilization, so the camera is still pretty good too. Cost $1k brand new then and I'll probably drop the same $$ or more for a maxed out iPhone whatever in Dec 2019.

If only their laptops were this high quality.

I'm still working (happily) from my maxed out 2012 11" Air. I put a new battery in it earlier this year and upgraded the SSD last year. You can definitely get longevity out of the laptops. My work undulates between email, text editors, Perl, C#, and whatever I do while SSH'ed into servers. None of that requires much in the way of CPU. Maybe if I was an iOS developer or did some other creative work I'd have a different opinion.

The new Air may be enough for me to upgrade (mostly for the Retina Display), but that's mostly because I can rather than because I need to.

iPhone 6 Plus had optical image stabilization.

I stand corrected.

Of course, you don't have to pay $1K for a new iphone: you can buy a new iPhone SE 32GB for $140 from Walmart (locked to their captive cellular provider for a year, but still). Or refurbed for $70!

You don't think Apple is tracking your every move too?

No, they are not. When customers set up a phone Apple presents clear choices about the use of Location Services, Siri, etc., and various types of tracking can be easily turned on or off at any time in the settings. Most people opt in to some amount of tracking, e.g. for getting map directions, and using the internet inherently involves sending data around, but they are all optional. Applications must explicitly request customer permission at runtime to track location, look at contact info, etc., and Apple takes action against apps which collect customer information without authorization or abuse it.

Both first-party location/data tracking by Google, and underhanded tracking by third-party apps on Android are pervasive, and more difficult to keep tabs on / opt out of.

Of course, the main people tracking your every move with any phone are the phone company, anyone the phone company is selling or providing your data to, and anyone operating a device which can trick your cell modem into connecting to it (“stingrays”).

They're not. You can inspect the network packets being sent from an iPhone (and it's been done) and it doesn't phone home data to Apple outside of iCloud usage and those packets are encrypted.

They are. Worse, you can't even opt out of it. On an Android phone, AGPS data collection is opt in. On iOS, there is no way to turn it off.

On an Android phone, you can set an offline maps app as the default. On iOS, every map link will open in Apple Maps, sending data to Apple in the process. On an Android phone, you can set Signal as your default messaging app. On iOS, any time you click an SMS link, it will open in iMessage, which tells Apple the number you want to SMS and check if that user uses iMessage.

Really, anything Apple has said about privacy has been pure marketing for the easily duped.

Apple actually could charge $2k.

For most people their phone is their only computer, television, ebook reader, camera, watch etc. It's their life. And so if you think your phone delivers you far more value than your car then you can appreciate why Apple is able to push prices up.

But you can get a phone for 3-500 (xiaomi, oneplus) bucks that would be 90% as good. Samsung phones usually have BOGO deal so you can get them for 3-500 as well.

>that would be 90% as good

Maybe to you but I've tried several other phones that are nowhere near that close to Apple. I'd give the best non-Apple phone I've ever used a 70% and even that might be being generous.

A lot of people say what you do, but personally I don't understand that argument.

I'm typing on a $200 Huawei , and on my side there's a $900 iPhone paid by my employer that I can't even get bothered to use. I even switched to the iPhone for 4 weeks while abroad (free data roaming) and just went back to the Huawei when I returned; I just like it more.

I'm in the same boat. I work for a mobile telecoms provider so have my iPhone upgraded for free every 18 months.

I still prefer my personal handset (Honor 10 right now, love it).

The iPhone 8+ is closed and boring to me.

That's fine. That's your preference. No one is saying you can't have a preference. I prefer the iPhone and none of the Android phones that I've tried and used regularly hold a candle to it. The argument was that these less-expensive phones are 90% of the way there and I disagree. I used to like to tinker with phones a lot. Now I just want something that works every time I use it without fuss. There's no phone that's close to where the iPhones are in those terms.

Of course. I'm just saying that for most people their phone is by far their most important and intensively used product they own.

And so if you need a product like that I am sure you would be willing to absorb higher prices. Which is what people are doing.

I always hear that there are issues with Android devices getting the latest security updates, etc since there are manufacturer and carrier dependencies.

Is that still the case or just urban myth at this point?

Cheaper phones rarely get more 2 software updates, and security patches can take years to roll out. This is mainly because manufacturers have no incentive to spend money on patching/updating software that a small number of people use. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271774/share-of-android-... Google is working on a new OS for the pixel which will attempt to solve this fragmented Android issue.

I believe Android has gotten better about pushing security updates, at least to most flagship phones. But they still lag behind on OS updates.

Turns out that last 10% is where the majority of value is created.

Not even sarcastically true. That's why I'd get an Apple, to get some polish. Apple is far from perfect, but the rest is so far behind..

Definitely not the case in rest of the world. US is where iOS is equally dominating as Android. Probably due to social pressure or everyone having an iPhone. Android is still majority overall everywhere else.

Not just the US. iOS is also majority in all the anglosphere countries: uk, canada, australia

Then it has about 70% in japan. Europe is a bit lower, around 30-35%. And then the result of the world is android by a vast margin.

So in all the rich markets, iphone puts in a majority or good showing. Whereas android dominates at lower price points where the iphone doesn't compete.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan

You can click around this site to see stats on different regions. Mind you I don't know where they source from.

Also, https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ios-market-share-us-eu...

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5a5e13a228eecc26008b5...

No majority in GB as well. France is highest in mainland EU at 22.7.

How about this site then? https://www.statista.com/statistics/260415/market-share-held...

Majority of the profit? Majority of the revenue? Android has the majority of the unit volume, definitely.

You don’t have to buy new. I just bought a second hand 7 plus for around £350, and it’s excellent.

It’s a couple of generations old now, but it’s in immaculate condition with a good battery and will easily last me a couple of years unless I do something stupid.

I'm OK with Macbook's prices, but not with their abysmal keyboards. I'm not buying another one until that is fixed.

Man... I love the new MacBook keyboards. I know they're not for everyone but I love the feel of it. Any other laptop I use gets my mechanical keyboard plugged in immediately. The MacBook just feels so damn nice.

I like the feel but the feel means nothing if it stops working after a year.

I've had this MacBook for 2 years now and the keyboard is still working. I have a year-old work machine too with the v2 keyboard and it's still working. Maybe I'm just more careful around my expensive electronics than most. Who knows?

How come the keyboard has become some infamous, then? Strange...

I would argue that, because it's Apple, the people experiencing issues are more vocal and because, realistically, this is the first generation of the new butterfly keyboard so there will be some growing pains. I believe Ars posted a hardware survey sent to a bunch of laptop owners and the majority of Apple users preferred the new keyboard. YMMV, obviously, but I think it's much easier for issues to become "infamous" now that more people are using them and they all have easier access to post their complaints in public. On top of that, blogs and tech "journalists" want to jump in on any problem they can.

Because we expect Keyboard to last. Even the crappy ones that doesn't feel good with typing should last 5+ years with less than 1% repair rate. The newest Apple keyboard had close to 3% repair rate, and we had expect it to be less than 0.1% from Apple. That is a 30+ times difference.

They are on the 3rd generation keyboards now. They are fixed in the sense that they don't break as easily nor are affected by dust etc like previous generations.

But if you didn't sort of like the 1st generation I don't think you will like the 3rd, 4th, 5th etc.

> They are fixed in the sense that they don't break as easily nor are affected by dust etc like previous generations.

As far as we know. It’s only been a few months.

Hell, they'd want it more if it was 2k. That thing must be premium.

As long as he manages to bail out before the whole thing falls apart.

The timing didn't work out for Sculley in '93, but maybe Tim will have better luck. Maybe "this time is different."

Apple is a very different company to what it was back then. They only had one revenue source i.e. Mac which was struggling to compete with Microsoft.

Today we have Apple with diversified Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch and Services businesses. And soon to add Glasses and Car if predictions come true.

Apple had at least two other revenue sources when Scully was there†. Apple II was still selling. There was also the LaserWriter. It was tied to their desktops, but their ecosystem today is also interdependent (eg: "services").

Apple was less big in the 80s than today, but they were still huge. There's a reason they lasted a decade despite uninspired management.

The situation is remarkably similar, if you ask me. Just replace IBM/MS with Android vendors/Google.

† Edit: on second thought, it's not necessarily a plus to say Apple is working on many different products. That was part of the problem post-Steve. See: https://youtu.be/xchYT9wz5hk

They're eventually going to price themselves out of the market. It's just a matter of when.

Has any huge, ultra-successful, ultra-profitable company ever “priced themselves out of the market”? Not for a single product launch or anything, but in a sustained way that seriously damaged the business long-term?

Yes. Apple in the 1990s.

That is why what they ought to know better now. Mind you, they probably do! I think they just worry about the next few quarters. As for the long-term, little personal incentive because "let the next guy or gal deal with that after I've moved on"

Yeah, that’s not what happened to Apple in the 90s. At all.

Maybe your memory is playing tricks on you?

It's why I switched to a PC in the 1990s. And everyone I knew. And everyone I met, read or heard about.

What was the point buying a Mac, when you could buy a faster, more compatible PC running Windows 95, which was pretty Mac-like, for half the price?

But the Mac was NEVER the majority/success the iPhone is today (at least in the US). It was always way behind. And price was a big part of the problem. Performance wasn’t until much later.

Not the Mac, but the Apple II was. When the PC industry began, Apple was king for a few years. Then Commodore overtook them in the home market, and IBM in the workplace.

I'm not sure what you mean about performance? When I switched, I had the impression PCs were outperforming Macs by a long shot. That must have been within a couple years of the Win95 release. I should probably hedge a bit there because my memory might be off. It was a long time ago.

The Apple 2, yes. It wasn’t the cheapest but it was certainly the big player in the US.

Performance: Macs were quite competitive, or even better than PCs for quite a while. It was only later as the Intel juggernaut kept going that Apple started to get steamrolled and had to switch off 68k. They regained the crown for a little while, but even the G3/4/5 were quickly overtaken by Intel.

I can't remember much about specs. Actually I can't even remember if I knew enough back then to interpret specs! Maybe i just thought PCs felt faster or something :)