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Apple Executives Discuss Targeting Low-End Smartphone, High-Growth Tablet Markets
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Old schooler - back in the day, Apple answered the call (the Macintosh was $1500 and Color Macs were $2500) with the Classic, LC (Low Cost), and IIsi (low cost business).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzOXlhB1pyM
(Still one of the most classic Apple commercials!)
I jumped in and bought the FIRST Mac under $1000!
Apple was never the same, and we know what happened from there on out...
Reading between the lines, I envision Apple merging their computers into the iOS Eco-system. This would allow a reduction in staff & payroll. It would simplify operations and increase revenue. Reducing tech support costs via simple cloud based devices, instead of computers, would allow the savings to be spent on store expansion & even greater profits. An enhanced amount of attention would be focused on Apples ego driven high profile and keep them at the center of attention. Apple would in turn become the completely dominate player in the consumer electronics space.
I doubt Apple would start making an 8GB iPhone 4...there isn't an 8GB iPhone 4 now why would they start making one with less storage?
Not true...that's a very broad and simplistic statement.
There are plenty of things I have purchased in my life that have a high degree of quality that were in fact, far less expensive than "the premium" product or other competitors. Examples would be tvs, furniture, cars to name a few.
There are "features" that come with every product and some products come with few and some many (in the same category such as a tv or phone).
Apple is expensive, comparing all features and quality to all of Apples competitors. Someone always has to be the most expensive and someone the least expensive...everyone else falls in between. Apple, very traditionally, has always been the most expensive (and that's fine) concentrating on high margins and low volume.
Back to the topic at hand, it would be great to see cheaper iPhones in the future...but for me, if Apple is just going to give me a price break while removing a high degree of functionality, I will not buy the el cheapo model. That's me. But to others they may not care about missing features.
you have a short memory
this is just like the ipod, first you take the high end and then flood the market with cheaper versions to protect yourself. after the ipod there came the nano and the shuffle starting at low price points.
The shuffle is a very bad analogy. It didnt have the burden of needing to run the app store. And for Apple to release another version of the iPhone that can't access and run apps, qould frankly be idiotic. That's by far the iPhone's BIGGEST advantage compared to the competition- everything else is just details. Its a massive revenue stream for that and it would not make any business sense selling phone hardware that would restrict people from tapping into that and contributing to it.
Personally, I don't think a phone that does not allow this access would deserve to have the iPhone branding. It would dilute the brand.
Right, this is what I was referring to.
Apple sure had a funny way of "competing with the el cheapos"..lol.
Cheaper phone able to use all the cases currently out there...
I was thinking iPhone 4 8Gig for $49 subsidized (ATT or Verizon).
Maybe keep the 3Gs around for $199 unlocked and non-subsidized (the only problem is that it won't work on Verizon here in the US).
Apple could surprise us all and make an iPhone 4 8Gig version that works on all US carriers, unlocked for $249...
I bought my original iPhone 4Gig for $299 and still use it on T-Mobile - love it!
there is still a 2 year contract for $70 a month minimum. you can get all you can surf, text, email whatever android phones for $25 a month. this market is apple's next target
i just traded my 3GS in for an android phone. 4.3 inch screen and 90% of the functionality is worth the $80 i paid. and i'll get a refund once costco's sale starts on the 10th.
Explain it to me then. The guy was saying with his prepay virgin phone his bill is $25/month. Does the phone he is using have access to the Internet, apps, email, etc...?
I mean don't get me wrong I would love for my iPhone bill to be 20 bucks a month too, but I understand why my bill is more than most phones I've had.
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I'll check that out, interesting. Still wouldn't equate that with why they were failing, it goes FAR beyond a low margin offering IMO....
"Clever Things" being a two pronged strategy, first a 2GB or 4GB iPod Touch or iPod Nano coupled with something like the Peel520 add-on and a more robust version of FaceTime. The device would default to WiFi/FaceTime for calls whenever in range of a WiFi signal. Second: an MVNO as revealed in the recent patent with operators bidding for minutes. Potentially Apple taking a slice of the minutes. Still Apple might just opt for it being a loss leader/break even product and look to make up the revenue with iTunes/Apps/Subscriptions etc
"priced for the rich" - So they admit they overprice their stuff! I keeed I keeed 
I know they sacrifice top of the line hardware specs/speed for stability, which has worked in their favor. However, I don't know how low they can go while maintaining that signature Apple "experience". Also, with them sounding like they want to stick it to the carriers, how will that help in further subsidizing cheaper iPhone? Or do they sell a POS $50 "iphone" with a "softsim" for payg service that has only nano-type functionality?
This is a bad DOA move on their part. I guess we'll see more jokes about the 50 different sized/specced iphones they'll release over the next 3 years, like what happened when they would release different ipods at the same time. Also, at what point does this not smell of fragmentation, which $teve blasted Google for? How fragmented in the ghettoIphone from the "rich" person's iphone? Does it receive the same iOS updates?
Apple, further delving into the iEntertainment and less of the Mac-centric company it was...
I know they sacrifice top of the line hardware specs/speed for stability, which has worked in their favor. However, I don't know how low they can go while maintaining that signature Apple "experience". Also, with them sounding like they want to stick it to the carriers, how will that help in further subsidizing cheaper iPhone? Or do they sell a POS $50 "iphone" with a "softsim" for payg service that has only nano-type functionality?
This is a bad DOA move on their part. I guess we'll see more jokes about the 50 different sized/specced iphones they'll release over the next 3 years, like what happened when they would release different ipods at the same time. Also, at what point does this not smell of fragmentation, which $teve blasted Google for? How fragmented in the ghettoIphone from the "rich" person's iphone? Does it receive the same iOS updates?
Apple, further delving into the iEntertainment and less of the Mac-centric company it was...
most people don't care
my wife's iphone4 rarely goes above 200MB per month. almost every woman in NYC with an iphone is only using it for facebook and a few other low bandwidth apps. they don't care about games and the 300,000 other apps out there. you give them a cheap android phone with a big blue F on the main screen and they will buy it instead of an iphone
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)
Before 2010, there wasn't an 8GB 3GS either.
The problem I have with these "cheaper" iPhone stories is that the price of the phone isn't what keeps people away, or even signing a two year contract, but people don't want to pay more for a data plan they will never use because either a) they use their phone as a phone 90% of the time or b) they are almost always in a wifi network.
Unfortunately for apple the one thing they can't really control is the price of a subscription plan and that's what drives some customers away from a smartphone in the first place.
Me personally, I am annoyed that I have to pay $40 for 450 minutes when I only use 50 in a month. Hacking around that limit isn't really somethig I want to do either. Its more about the carriers bottom lines than anything else. That's why you see the iPads pricig points to be much more reasonable in the long term.
Before 2010, there wasn't an 8GB 3GS either.
The problem I have with these "cheaper" iPhone stories is that the price of the phone isn't what keeps people away, or even signing a two year contract, but people don't want to pay more for a data plan they will never use because either a) they use their phone as a phone 90% of the time or b) they are almost always in a wifi network.
Unfortunately for apple the one thing they can't really control is the price of a subscription plan and that's what drives some customers away from a smartphone in the first place.
Me personally, I am annoyed that I have to pay $40 for 450 minutes when I only use 50 in a month. Hacking around that limit isn't really somethig I want to do either. Its more about the carriers bottom lines than anything else. That's why you see the iPads pricig points to be much more reasonable in the long term.
Good points, but I just think the iPhone 4 will be cheaper when the new iPhone comes, but I doubt they will down grade the storage to 8GB when the smallest GB iPhone 4 you can buy is 16GB.