People can’t afford that shit when groceries and fuel prices are inflated this high. And new phones have tiny incremental changes that nobody gives AF about.
My friend, who has a lot of debt just bought the $1200 15 pro and I was like wtf man you’re broke. I guess it proves that even if apple makes a nonsense item, people will still buy it.
I mean how many people don’t have a smartphone by now? Do they expect to sell more and more every year?
That’s capitalism, baby!
They’ve put all their eggs into the “let’s hope people upgrade their perfectly working phone every year” basket and that basket is getting smaller.
Ironically, if they made another smaller phone like the mini, I’d be more inclined to upgrade.
You and one other person probably because the mini was consistently the worst selling iPhone model
Yes, that’s why they have planned obsolescence
Haven’t iPhones had service lives far past most other phones? The used market for iPhones is huge compared to Android.
Agree. Lemmy loves to trash on Apple, but this is actually something it’s hard to criticize them over. Especially compared with any other consumer electronics manufacturers.
Yep. I used to upgrade my iPhone every year just because smartphones were moving fast in the 2010-2020 era. Now, I’m on a three year cycle and barely even notice.
I’ve resold every iPhone I’ve ever owned for 50% of the value or more, and I manage a fleet of iPhones for my job and we still have 5Ses in the wild for people. Apple still provides critical security updates for those devices and we’re at 11 years for those devices. Most people have 7 year old iPhone X era devices and I get almost no complaints or dead devices.
iPhones have ridiculous longevity and hold resale value better than any other device.
If you look at the numbers, a LOT of this is China. Sales the western nation are pretty much flat year over year.
Apple sales are down YoY in China, and Huawei are way way up. A lot of these American devices now have their differentiating features stuck behind the great firewall, are outright banned if you work certain jobs, and are subject to a lot of propogada that is promoting national alternatives.
I was rocking an iPhone 6. Yes, a 6. My wife had an xs max - two weeks ago she dropped it and it smashed. We went and bought a pair of iPhone 15 pro max phones, fully loaded.
- they are ridiculously expensive - over 2k a piece. Most people can’t afford that. What happened to sub $1000 phones?
- yes there’s a lot of improvements over the 6. But the 6 still functioned perfectly - albeit a bit slowly
- the only improvement I can tell as a user over the xs max is the cameras. They are arguably better. Otherwise it’s the same phone.
- the software is nearly identical on all three versions. There’s not many “ooo this one does xyz like this, and that’s an improvement”
Bottom line: there just isn’t a reason to upgrade a phone anymore, unless they break. Sales HAS to go down if the price point stays the same or goes up.
What happened to sub $1000 phones?
Brother you are the one who bought the most expensive phone on the market. You realize that you’re reinforcing the market you don’t like, right? Your purchase sends a message to Apple that “Yes, we want crazy expensive phones because people keep buying them”
What happened to sub $1000 phones?
They exist. Even iPhones. You just didn’t buy one… wtf?
I’ve just bought an old iPhone 13 Mini (after owning a 12 Mini for several years), because I hate big phones.
I’ve had the 13 mini for a couple years for the same reason, I’d like a newer one with upgraded chips/battery but it looks like I’ll just keep this one till it dies. It’s basically the same size as the 4 and aside from the antenna thing that was the best fo factor IMO
W
