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Apple Screwing its Customers Re: 16 GB

S

sillywabbit

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 10, 2012
592
4
Glad I am not the only one who feels screwed by Apple with starting their line up of Apple products with 16 GB instead of 32 GB.

A business doesn't do this to its customers especially if they have a long term relationship/brand loyalty.

(Please try not to defend Apple this)


See article below:

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Struggling to see the issue. You get 64gb for the previous price of 32gb.

What you are missing is Apple can keep the cost of the 16gb one at the same price as previous years (avoiding an inflationary rise) because that base price is subsidised by people paying extra for 64gb.

There are two main groups who will go with 16gb:-

1) people like my mum, she has used about 1gb max in two years of using the iPad. She browses, face times and like looking at pictures of grandkids. She will never need more than 16gb and liked a cheap entry point.

2) people with low disposable income who want to own an iPad and accept the limititation.

If they made 32gb the base then group 1 wouldn't care as they don't know what a gb is. Group 2 would be delighted. Except for the fact that they may not own the 32gb iPad because they couldn't afford it. Without the extra revenue from all the people who didn't go to 64 because 32gb was enough the base price increased.
 
It seems openly consumer-hostile.

Not because it forces everyone who would have been happy with 32GB to pay the extra $100 for the 64GB - those people, like myself, have always paid the extra $100 for the mid-tier storage model anyway, so Apple isn't getting an "extra" $100 to pad their margins, they're protecting existing margins from users (like me) who would have gone with the base model for the first time instead of automatically choosing the mid-tier.

No, it's consumer-hostile because 16GB isn't a viable amount of storage for anyone except grandmas and enterprise users. When your available storage on that device out of the box is only 12 GB and an iOS update requires almost half of that, it's a problem.

Ultimately it comes down to an argument of demographics: if you think that the majority of iPad owners are grandmas and enterprise users (using them primarily for email and web), 16GB makes total sense. If you don't, then it's a giant ******* you to your customer base and Gruber is absolutely right in calling Apple out.

Without knowing the demographics, we can't know for certain one way or the other.
 
Sparkey03 said:
What you are missing is Apple can keep the cost of the 16gb one at the same price as previous years (avoiding an inflationary rise) because that base price is subsidised by people paying extra for 64gb.
Click to expand...

LOL. Is that supposed to be a joke? I sure hope so.

----------
localboy28 said:
Screw Apple and get the 64gb
You get 32gb free
Click to expand...

Hahaha. This stuff is classic sarcasm.
 
I got screwed by apple on the 1st generation iPhone on launch day. I paid the same amount on 4gb iPhone at the same price as my iPhone 6 plus 128gb. A few weeks after launch, they dropped the price... like $100 less. To make up for the quick price drop, they gave me credit that I could use at the apple store. LOL..
 
Don't you like it when someone buys something and the blames the retailer for their purchase? No one was holding a gun to your head when you made the purchase. You screwed yourself. You could have bought a 64 GB for the price of last years 32GB.
 
GoingDark said:
It seems openly consumer-hostile.

Not because it forces everyone who would have been happy with 32GB to pay the extra $100 for the 64GB - those people, like myself, have always paid the extra $100 for the mid-tier storage model anyway, so Apple isn't getting an "extra" $100 to pad their margins, they're protecting existing margins from users (like me) who would have gone with the base model for the first time instead of automatically choosing the mid-tier.

No, it's consumer-hostile because 16GB isn't a viable amount of storage for anyone except grandmas and enterprise users. When your available storage on that device out of the box is only 12 GB and an iOS update requires almost half of that, it's a problem.

Ultimately it comes down to an argument of demographics: if you think that the majority of iPad owners are grandmas and enterprise users (using them primarily for email and web), 16GB makes total sense. If you don't, then it's a giant ******* you to your customer base and Gruber is absolutely right in calling Apple out.

Without knowing the demographics, we can't know for certain one way or the other.
Click to expand...

And what about other companies that do this as well? The new Moto X starts at 16GB.
 

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As the "Apple Guy" around my friends, I've never had more people come to me trouble updating their iPhones to iOS 8 due to space limitations. Yes, a majority of them are 16GB entry iPhones.

The issue is 16 GB iPhone is really a 12GB iPhone. And when you want to update, you need at least 2-4 GBs free. So, you can't use more than 8GBs of your "16 GB" iPhone if you want to update. I don't want to rely on iTunes to update my iPhone. Neither does anyone else.

Either way any spins it, it is bad customer experience for Apple. They're a company that differentiates themselves on customer experience with "it just works". For John Gruber, a definite Apple fanboy, to admit this means that it is an issue.
 
Don't blame Apple, blame the consumer.

If the majority of the consumer base out there bought the 32GB model or up then Apple would have dropped the 16GB a long time ago.

But the average consumer either wants:
A. The cheapest iPhone they can get
B. The "prestige" of saying they have an iPhone but with no one knowing they paid for the base model
C. To just have what everyone else has - as cheap as possible

There's probably more to this, but can you see the common thread here? Most people want an iPhone, but they don't want to pay for the higher capacities. Whatever their reason for that, it means that historically the 16GB model has been the model that sells most. Apple won't sneeze at selling more 16GB models than any other capacity because they still make money.
 
heisenberg123 said:
they doubled the space fir tier 2 and 3 without changing the price sure sounds like a screw job to me
Click to expand...

:D

You can make 16 GB work with a little effort. A few games instead of a dozen, less than three weeks of music, no seasons of Archer installed... It's definitely doable. Nobody is getting screwed - the iPhone works the same.
 
I too at first thought this was just a money grab, but once I started thinking about it more, I think this is really Apple saying "Most people will only need 16gb, but if you really want a lot of space we will offer 64gb or even 128gb for a little bit more."

I don't know what the product sales mix is between the models, but I would bet that somewhere between 50-75% of the iPhones and iPads sold are the base 16gb model. And I'll bet the 128gb model is less than 10% of sales. Only people like us here on the tech sites, or people who like to store everything on their phones and run out of room repeatedly on previous devices, really care a whole lot about having the more storage.

I think this is Apple really saying, most people are going to get the 16, but we'll offer the people screaming for high storage a couple of really nice options. I don't think they intended it as a money grab. Yes, they could have made it 32, but then sales would have sunk for the 64, possibly to the point where it wouldn't have made sense to offer a 64.
 
ELPresidente720 said:
:D

You can make 16 GB work with a little effort. A few games instead of a dozen, less than three weeks of music, no seasons of Archer installed... It's definitely doable. Nobody is getting screwed - the iPhone works the same.
Click to expand...

I've always had the 16gb iphone until I got 128gb in the Plus. I could make 16gb work but why bother? this thing takes such great videos and photos that I would be out of space right away. it's worth the extra money.
 
bigchief said:
Don't you like it when someone buys something and the blames the retailer for their purchase? No one was holding a gun to your head when you made the purchase. You screwed yourself. You could have bought a 64 GB for the price of last years 32GB.
Click to expand...


I did buy 64 GB. Had Apple started their line up at 32 GB, I could have saved $100.
 
How many thread are we going to have on this. Besides, buy the 64gb if you feel you are getting screwed.
 
It's definitely a smart business move. The 16GB model sells the most, and having such a big jump to 64GB as the next tier would definitely induce people to move up.

I think people are just mad that they weren't given an extra "free" 16GB for price of just 16GB.

From the consumers' side though, as someone with a 16GB phone I do think it's not enough but mainly because the OS takes almost 4GB :rolleyes: Storage size should be reported by usable storage.
 
i bet apple is up-selling with the cheap model and making less profit with the more expensive models
 
Someone has to say it:

Storagegate.


I swear. The iPhone 6 has more people bitching about perceived shortcomings, paranoia, Apple screwing people over, manufacturing processes, materials used in construction, cost of device, shortages, scalpers, colors, not enough ram, etc. more than any Apple product ever made.

Just one more thing that people are going to bitch about.

Tune in for tomorrow's bitch.
 
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