Funny that. I have the same iPad. I was having a look earlier at the newer models, but now they’re pushing iPad Pro. It costs something like twice as much as the model I bought 4 years ago. Is it twice as good, not at all. Similarly I’ve got a 5-year old MacBook Air. It still runs fine, but I can’t see myself upgrading both the iPad and MacBook Air, not when I can get a Surface Pro or something similar for around half of what I would pay for both new Apple products.
Similarly, why would you want to spend £1,000+ on a phone which would be outperformed by an Android model costing £100’s less? I remember going to buy an iPhone 4 from a T-Mobile store maybe 10 years ago for £500. £500, for their flagship phone. Even with inflation I would guess they have almost doubled their prices. Their huge profit margins they now boast about show how for Apple it is more about marketing and lifestyle branding these days rather than doing anything truly innovative now.
I think with their installed base, good hardware, lock-in for existing customers, and services like itunes/app store, they will coast for another 10 years making substantial profits, and perhaps even reinvent themselves if they end up with someone a little more inspired and less focussed on operations/profits at the helm. Even if they don’t manage to become a creative power-house again, there is still a lot of life left in Apple as an established company which makes significant profits.
My only worry is that they try to push to the high end only and think that will sustain them - they need a mass-market ecosystem for so many of their plays (itunes, icloud, app store), and pushing prices so much higher was a horrible mistake in my view. Hopefully they will see sense and correct by introducing some lower priced models of phones.
Phones are becoming generic: they all have far more processing power than we need, they’re all about the same size and weight, the front is all screen, and the screens are all better than most of our eyes.
At this point, it becomes harder to create stand out features, they become just another commodity, and price becomes the main differential.
I’m not sure that we’ll see this in 2019 because the iPhone 11 design is probably already locked down, and Apple might not be able to change tack quickly enough. On the other hand, the rumours suggest the 11 will look almost identical to the X, so maybe Apple will need to work a bit harder on the price. (Lets hope so, because my 7 will be three years old by then and I fancy a bigger screen!)
I think for all other providers this is likely - but for Apple I honestly don’t see it.
The iPhone has increased in price almost year on year, model on model (here are just a few) -
Original iPhone - $499
iPhone 4 - $599
iPhone 6 - $649
iPhone 8 - $699
iPhone X - $999
iPhone XS - $999
and these are just for the “base” models - i.e. lowest GB and no Max models.
Apple’s other products have largely increased in price as well - in England we are seemingly at the mercy of “Apple Tax”. I just cant see Apple shying away from these high price tags - it seems to in the main be working for them.
I think my article were release - device only prices (no contract). Whereas your article as far as I can tell is what the prices were at the time of the iPhone X’s release/ announcement (when the 6S was a few years old).
Your article opens with:
“If you’re interested in an upgrade from your aging iPhone 5 or 6, but the $999 iPhone X is a little pricey, it’s the perfect time to take a look at some of the slightly older iPhones that Apple sells. To help you out, we’ve broken down exactly what your options are, along with how much everything costs.”
An archived Macworld article states:
“So what should we price it at?” Jobs mused. The price will be $499 with a two year contract for a 4GB model, or an 8GB model for $599.
In any event - the trend is till very clearly increasing year on year (even if it is pushing some consumers out of the demographic).
Did you buy it when it was new, as that was the price at the time?
When buying through carriers (which I believe is generally the way most people do it in the US), you get it at different prices I believe (like in the UK).
Its not an actual Tax per se - it is however the concept that Apple have higher price-tags in the UK than the simple currency conversion should be.
For instance, I bought a baseline non-touch bar MacBook pro for £1,299 - the price in the US is $1,299 therefore if you converted the dollar price to pounds you could buy a MacBook in the US - £1,020 (rounded) so to buy a MacBook in the UK is technically £279 more expensive.
In every state you pay sales tax at the till on top of the ticket price for an item (in this case $1299 will have a tax on it too). In the UK VAT is included in the ticket price.
Oh I know you have to add sales tax on top but in general the products are more expensive in GBP than USD.
I wasn’t suggesting to get a better price would be to buy from America and then ship - it was just the general statement that they are priced the same and don’t really account for currency conversion.
I think that the highest sales tax is 9-10% so the difference would be $1430 which is £1,130 so there is still a difference of £169.
Just a disclaimer this isn’t an actual defined concept its just a rough comment that is banded about on Apple’s pricing structure.
I know that our VAT is higher than say the individual State Tax on the product but the fact remains that the products are priced the same (i.e. it doesn’t take into account the currency conversion) - it wasn’t part of my overall point its just something I have always heard said when buying an Apple Product in the UK.
I’ve also heard people use Apple Tax to denote the much higher prices of the products when compared to a Windows equivalent.
Unfortunately, the media has a tendency to sensationalise events like this, especially when large (and successful) companies like Apple are involved. What I think has been forgotten is the fact that the company sill made c.US$84b this quarter (a single quarter!) – which is higher than the GDP of some small nations.
The media and analysts focus on iPhone, as they rightly should since it’s the company’s flagship product, but the business has become much more varied in the last decade, so focusing on iPhone as a sole indicator of success is wrong. Wearables at Apple is the size of a Fortune 250 company and Apple Watch outsold Swiss watches last year.