Of all the "eras" possible this is a disappointing article, I thought it would be about the risk to apple from deteriorating US China relations.

I'm pretty sure that will have a bigger effect that services vs phone prices.

My understanding has been that Apple's orientation toward protecting privacy has been rooted in the fact that it makes most of its money from hardware sales, and therefore doesn't need to track people for ads, or to sell data (at least not to the same degree as companies whose profits are based mostly on such things). But if Apple starts selling phones at a low price, how will its motivations be different from, say, Google's? Maybe it can have the simple model of selling App Store access and other services, without resorting to the "your users are your product" model. But it seems like the the line will be thinner and the temptation greater. In the end, Apple's behavior will probably be determined purely by how much marketplace advantages it gives them to be able to tout such advantages. And my impression is that the average person really doesn't care that much, even if HN readers do.

Apple sells tons of subscription-based services: Music, News, TV, Games, Storage, etc. (+ their slice of App sales). If this keeps up, they don't have an incentive to track their users and sell that data. (They could still track them to find out what's "hot" and what genre(s) they should produce next, like Netflix did)

But Google sells services too. If Apple is not making most of its money on hardware, then what differentiates Apple's incentives from Google's? Do you think they'll simply decide, "We will not track people for targeting ads, and we won't sell their data"? But what if they find that that perspective doesn't actually help them sell their services, because the vast majority of consumers just don't know or care about these issues like HN users do? It didn't cost them much to have that perspective when most of their income was from hardware, but once it's coming from online services, it may turn out that they're leaving a lot of money on the table, which would be very easily made, by being less purist about the privacy issue. Not that they're super-purist now, from what I've heard...

Apple is pushing the privacy narrative because it's an area in which Google, and hence Android, cannot compete. Google/Android can't compete because the vast majority of Google's revenue comes from ads, which cannot work well with privacy.

Apple is spending lots of money to make privacy become important to the average smartphone user. It's spending that money not just to make itself look good, it's spending it to make Google/Android look bad, and thereby cause more users to switch to iPhone.

But is there evidence that enough consumers care about privacy, so that we can have confidence that this approach will pay off for Apple? Because, if not enough consumers care that their privacy orientation is rewarded from a purely financial point of view, I have little faith that Apple will stick to it purely as a matter of principle. Do you?

It's not a matter of users picking privacy vs no privacy. It's just one point in the package Apple are offering. For some people it's a major point, and for some people it's not. But it's still a point, and it's one nobody can compete in so it's particularly strong. They are just leveraging a competitive advantage, but it's not the only one.

Rah-rah cheerleading about Apple based on an uncorroborated rumor of future low prices?

We can do better than this.

I feel like even if Forbes makes good reports on Apple, they should overall be ignored on any matter pertaining to Apple. If you do a Google search for popular headlines, you'll see that Forbes has been recycling Apple articles for years with tiny variations in headlines.

https://www.google.com/search?&q=ios+%22nasty+surprise%22+si...

fyi, this is a "Forbes Contributor" article, so basically like attributing to Medium something that someone posted on it.

Privacy and long term support converted me from Android to iOS in 2019.

I’d say the narrative is working :)

Try and find an alternative device that has the same level of privacy and updates for 5 years.

You can do it if you flash a rom on your android device - but that’s not currently realistic for most of the current user base.

The new era seems to involve just as many frivolous lawsuits against small companies as the old one. They need to shape up ethically, not just modify business strategy to get a “new era”

$549 iPhone 12? Count me in!

That would indeed a be a nice price! £550 for a modern iPhone would be great.

I don't see it happening to have a iPhone 11 for that price, though

The iPhone SE 2, which has the same processor as the iPhone 11, is 400 USD currently.

If I remember correctly, it doesn't have the OLED display and the cameras. I think those £1000+ phones is just a bit too much.

Dammit. Just when I bought the new SE.

Are all the headlines on Forbes generated by an algorithm optimized for click baitingness? Why link to a paywalled site most people here don’t seem to care much about?

Maybe it's just competition? Reviews for the Google Pixel 4a at $349 are claiming that it's just as good as a premium priced phone.

Or perhaps it's convergent evolution: both Google & Apple decided at the same time for the same reasons to concentrate on cheap phones again.