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Apple to Stop Including EarPods With Every iPhone Sold in France From Next Week

chenks said:
again, "most" people.. any stats to back that up?

most will have a USB-A power plug, but not necessasrily the cable, as the iphone ships with a USB-C cable.

by "most" you are actually meaning people upgrading from an older iphone model.
you are excluding everyone that is upgrading to an iphone from another mobile device. those are most likely to have a power plug with a USB-A port, meaning the cable shipped with the iphone is useless. they either need to purchase a different cable or a different power plug.
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But that’s not most iphone buyers. By far the biggest group of people buying iPhones are replacing older iPhones.

But you are correct, those without a previous lighting cable and a USBA charging brick will have to either buy a USBA lightning cable or USBC charging brick. But that’s probably a pretty small group of people at this point.
 
mrochester said:
But that’s not most iphone buyers. By far the biggest group of people buying iPhones are replacing older iPhones.

But you are correct, those without a previous lighting cable and a USBA charging brick will have to either buy a USBA lightning cable or USBC charging brick. But that’s probably a pretty small group of people at this point.
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do you have any stats to back up both your claims in your post?
 
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BreakYurAnkles said:
read my post again.
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OK I missed the part where you said put them in a Ziploc bag. No company is going to package items like they’re at grandma’s garage sale.

They could package them in some form of environmentally friendly packaging though. This would still require people to pay for them because if you’re implying they are just going to be a free opt in choice than most people would still choose to get the item for free regardless if they were actually going to use it. This would not solve the problem of e-waste.
 
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Correction: FNAC is not a carrier, but a brick-and-mortar, and increasingly online, retailer.
 
chenks said:
is it actually increasing though?
one would hope that actually their manufacturing and build costs should decrease over time.

if it's not decreasing over time then they are doing something wrong.
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No nothing in manufacturing is decreasing. Prices are going up significantly. It’s not they’re doing something wrong but rather the world economy.
 
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russell_314 said:
It’s not they’re doing something wrong but rather the world economy.
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or so some people would like you to believe.

Apple (and every other major tech company) continue to use cheap labour working in poor conditions.
I'd argue that there hasn't been a year in past 22 years where the "economy" hasn't been blamed for prices.

The reality, in my opinion, is that prices could easily fall if the business wanted them to, but they don't want them to.
Keeping prices the same but reducing what you get for the price means better profits whilst using the excuse that the economy is the reason.

the size of a Mars bar has continued to get smaller for nearly 30 years, yet the price has never fallen.
 
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psxp said:
Not everyone has had previous phones that were iPhones, a lot of us came to iPhone as a new device or switching back from another platform.
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Fair enough. I wonder, even for switchers, how many actually use a plug in headphone vs bluetooth? Even an old schooler like me finally made the switch.

A nice alternative would be to sell the headphone adaptor for dirt cheap for those who want it...

psxp said:
I would have happily taken one from your drawer,
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Oddly enough, I couldn't even give them away...

psxp said:
oh and a power adapter too.
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Aren't most power bricks USB-A or C already with other phones?
 
chenks said:
or so some people would like you to believe.

Apple (and every other major tech company) continue to use cheap labour working in poor conditions.
I'd argue that there hasn't been a year in past 22 years where the "economy" hasn't been blamed for prices.

The reality, in my opinion, is that prices could easily fall if the business wanted them to, but they don't want them to.
Keeping prices the same but reducing what you get for the price means better profits whilst using the excuse that the economy is the reason.
Click to expand...
It’s not just labor. I’ll agree that overseas manufacturing uses cheaper labor then if they were making it for example in the USA. I don’t know if the prices of overseas labor are going up. I do know the prices of everything else are going up though. Prices have gone up for supplies whether you want to believe it or not. I work at a small business that has raised their prices significantly because of prices going up. If the materials we buy are going up then we have to raise the prices. We get the same complaints that oh we’re just trying to make more money and price gouging people. It’s not some wild conspiracy theory.
 
russell_314 said:
OK I missed the part where you said put them in a Ziploc bag. No company is going to package items like they’re at grandma’s garage sale.

They could package them in some form of environmentally friendly packaging though. This would still require people to pay for them because if you’re implying they are just going to be a free opt in choice than most people would still choose to get the item for free regardless if they were actually going to use it. This would not solve the problem of e-waste.
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As other users here on the forum have stated, they wouldn't take them. They already have them. (few of them in drawers never used)

its the sales/retail job to qualify/listen/wait for the customer to bring the issue up, then allow that customer REQUEST to "OPT-IN" or "request complementary".

If the customer never brings up the issue then its not a problem and will NEVER be offered by the employee EVER.

It reduces e-waste. I never said it was a pure 100% fix.

I've received a few iPod replacements under warranty from my local Apple store that came in plain Jane cardboard boxes.

I'm not going to complain, criticize, or get mad at the packaging for something that is free, that I will use.
 
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chenks said:
is it actually increasing though?
one would hope that actually their manufacturing and build costs should decrease over time.

if it's not decreasing over time then they are doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Are your everyday prices for goods and services increasing? Looked at car prices, real estate (rental or purchased), groceries, utilities, gasoline, shipping, etc. costs lately?

Apple provides salaries and benefits to around 150,000 people, leases office space, pays for services, etc. Do you believe those costs stay constant over long periods of time?

Apple suppliers face the same issues.

Yes, ideally the price of tech should decrease. But times are different now, and even with Apple's immense negotiating power, there's only so much you can squeeze out of others.
 
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chenks said:
that has nothing to with the claims made by that poster though.
their posts kept saying "most" people do this, "most" people do that.

loyalty rate has nothing to do with their claims.
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Did you even read the article? I’m not sure if you’re just having a hard time understanding or just trying to be argumentative

To quote the poster that you’re asking for some sort of verification “By far the biggest group of people buying iPhones are replacing older iPhones”

To quote the headline of the article I linked “iPhone loyalty rate continues to exceed 90%”.

I know what you’re going to say but Russell that just means 90% of the people that have iPhones are going to get another iPhone but it doesn’t mean twice as many android users aren’t switching. That’s when you have to read into the article not just the headline. It says “loyalty to each operating system has remained at about 90% for the past several years". That means 90% of android users are still going to go with an android phone. I think 90% qualifies as “most” or the “biggest group”
 
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"For environmental reasons" is a really nice, politically-correct way of saying: "We're haven't lowered prices, to make sure our bottom line has as much padding as humanly possible."
 
It's a cynical, albeit probably correct, viewpoint that Apple are doing this for the benefit of their own pockets. On the other hand, it's also true that the included EarPods are much less popular than they used to be and that many iPhone owners probably already have multiple pairs.

If this stops products being manufactured, shipped, thrown into a drawer and ultimately ending up as e-waste without ever serving a useful purpose it has to ultimately be a good thing.

Of course Apple aren't going to reduce the sales price of their phones by $19. The EarPods probably cost Apple somewhere between $2-$5 to produce. At that kind of price, it hardly seems worth reducing the cost of the handset.
 
KOTN91 said:
Race to the bottom. Should have seen the look on the employee’s face at Apple store when I recently booked a genius appointment for some EarPods that weren’t working. You could tell they thought I was scum, despite me having an iPhone 13 and Apple Watch 7

I’d still be prepared to bet that 90% of consumers if not more would be happy with EarPods, I feel they are good enough quality and I’m really into music. Certainly not worth spending hundreds of pounds more, talk about diminishing returns. As for AirPods, they are considerably more expensive, need to be charged and very easy to lose so that’s 3 huge disadvantages

As for not including them for environmental reasons (green tyranny), that’s nonsense. It’s simply to boost their profits
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Add 1 more disadvantage to the AirPods: Latency.
The audio lag is still perceivable.
 
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I fully support this. Nearly no one is getting their first smartphone now. This is all just more e-waste. I have a drawer filled with these things and iPhone chargers. They're all ending up in landfills.

Sorry, but for the 1% of people that have a need for these things, let them pay a couple bucks for one. For the rest of us that have no need, let's save the junk.
 
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contacos said:
They could price the drop by what they charge for those items separately then, if it was supposedly all done in the name of the environment
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Why can't it be both for the environment and for financial purposes? Also, how do you know Apple didn't drop the price? If a product is more expensive to develop and manufacture, leaving out extras (e.g., headphones) and not increasing the price is the same as dropping the price, especially with inflation. Maybe this is a way for Apple to increase profits but we do not know for sure without having access to all their financial information. This isn't a comment about whether or not Apple's margins are appropriate. I'm simply pointing out that we cannot assume $700 == $700 == $700 for both Apple and us over time.

The $650 iPhone 4s (2011) is $800 in 2021 U.S. dollars. The iPhone 13 Mini is the closest to the iPhone 4s (from a "flagship" perspective). It's $700. The larger iPhone 13 is $800. The 13 Pro starts at $1000. The iPhone SE is $400. Altogether, iPhones are both more expensive and cheaper than they've ever been.

Could Apple cut prices by $20 across the board? Yes, but it's possible they already did by not increasing prices by $20 across the board.
 
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