Apple is still rapidly growing in other countries but is nearing a level of saturation in the US that has resulted in an interesting change of strategy. Apple used to dispose of prior model units each year or nearly a year as evidenced in the MacRumors Buying Guide.
While the MacPro life cycle was elongated due to appropriate chip availability by Intel, Apple makes its own Ax chips. Therefore the elongated life of the iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 is driven by the fact the units suitably run current software and are also made on evolved production lines with fully amortized and reduced price components. They still drive the same network and ecosystem fees as their younger sisters, yet cost relatively far less to make.
The pass-down capacity of the units without disposing of them has interesting network effects. The passed unit captures a new data fee and new app fees, and the person passing buys a new unit where Apple captures a new retail sale.
The newly manufactured "older units" which is a strange and new reality for Apple, is the category where initial price is the driver, but captures full data fees and software markup fees anyway.
It does seem to be a change brought to us by Cook. I think we are also seeing quite a bit more forward visibility of product road maps without disclosing specific marketing data such as capabilities, product names, or feature sets.
It really is a slightly different and better Apple in several notable ways.
You would still be in the RDF if you said it was actually better before than now.
Rocketman
While the MacPro life cycle was elongated due to appropriate chip availability by Intel, Apple makes its own Ax chips. Therefore the elongated life of the iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 is driven by the fact the units suitably run current software and are also made on evolved production lines with fully amortized and reduced price components. They still drive the same network and ecosystem fees as their younger sisters, yet cost relatively far less to make.
The pass-down capacity of the units without disposing of them has interesting network effects. The passed unit captures a new data fee and new app fees, and the person passing buys a new unit where Apple captures a new retail sale.
The newly manufactured "older units" which is a strange and new reality for Apple, is the category where initial price is the driver, but captures full data fees and software markup fees anyway.
It does seem to be a change brought to us by Cook. I think we are also seeing quite a bit more forward visibility of product road maps without disclosing specific marketing data such as capabilities, product names, or feature sets.
It really is a slightly different and better Apple in several notable ways.
You would still be in the RDF if you said it was actually better before than now.
Rocketman
