Gurman: Apple Considering New High-End iPhone Alongside Pro and Pro Max

[tofagerl]

They're market segmenting themselves into a joke...

 

[Kottu]

Just give me a call managing feature like Samsung has then I won't even look at other mobiles in my life.

 

[mjs916]

Pro users get the best features because they pay higher, they will no longer get that if another model comes along and the pro line just becomes a basic line with a stupid name.

How is that envy? You know Tim isn’t going to hate you right if you don’t agree with Apple for once

You don’t get how getting mad over a more expensive model displacing your chosen one as the highest SKU equates to envy?

Pro users would hypothetically still get the same exact quality they’ve been paying for assuming the Pro model pricing stayed the same.

LMAO how stupid we were to think the Ultra would replace the Pro Max when all along Apple intended to release a Pro, Pro Max, and Ultra.

i am so done with Apple. they are bleeding everyone dry during difficult economic times but oh no think of the poor shareholders who have to deal with a 5% decline in profits!!!

i'm going back to Android when my 12 pro max starts slowing down or breaks.

You do realize you are reacting this way to an article on a rumor site?

Wait til it actually happens. If it happens.

 

[bruinsrme]

I will be happy if the 15max will be able to read barcodes.

 

[Curry119]

I don't care if it happens.
Adding more stuff I don't want and don't use to make the phone more expensive/profitable simply puts it even further out of my interest zone.
I have NO apple subscriptions
I have not bought any books
I have not bought any music (2nd hand CDs are so cheap)
The last "app" I bought was 5-6 years ago
I am not on the "upgrade" treadmill (I still use my 2009 iMac for video editing)

There is ZERO "must have" in any of this.
I do not care about "fashion", it will be different next year.

I am not even sure I need a phone anymore the very few times I actually need one

I am far more interested in buying a mill for my workshop and doing something interesting and enjoyable by making model stationary steam engines. I bought a 2nd hand lathe 6 months ago and I am teaching myself how to use it.
I retire in 5 or so years, so I am really keen to have a hobby that makes me happy, "devices" are not part of that strategy.

Saving money so I can buy tooling, materials, and kits instead of buying "junk" is where I am at.
In the meantime I have made a few useful tools with the lathe, and make some bespoke items for repairing stuff at home and work.

And my Grandkids will have some REAL metal toys (steam engines) that will out last them if look after rather than adding more plastic to the growing heap of rubbish out there.

I completely agree with your points here. I feel like I personally have fallen victim to the need to upgrade everything in recent years, and yet when you compare the phones/devices to the old ones, it's not really a major leap in tech. Some people have money to burn on these upgrades every year/two years, but I'm really rethinking my priorities when it comes to this stuff.

 

[AndiG]

Of course he didn’t. He took apple in a different way that SJ evangelists don’t like…is my observation.

Your on the wrong path like TC. You care about money and you seem to understand that TC "took apple in a different way ..." - so you have to understand that TC is not able to innovate or develop new products, like Jobs did.

How long can Apple sell the same thing without a basic refresh? Will Apple still be the "iphone company" in 10 years? With DMA and all other legislation breaking Apples barriers?

Apple followed its strategy to "lock competition out, lock customers in". This works for a certain period of time. But competition is what drives evolution and by locking others out, Apple locked itself in. Maybe Apple will crash and burn, or it will slowly vanish.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

If this ever happens then I'd expect Apple to do to the Pro's what it did to the regular iPhones, hike the price and reduce the features. Expect an £1800 starting price lol.

 

[solarmon]

If the delivery process involves dropping it from a Chinese Delivery Balloon, that would be convenient.

 

[webkit]

I'm a shareholder, and yes, it is embarrassing.

We still don't know what this new high end phone will have or even if it's going to happen but what’s embarrassing about Apple expanding the capabilities of the iPhone while not forcing new high-end features and higher prices on customers who may not want or need those features?

It can make sense for Apple to offer different levels of features at different prices thereby allowing consumers to more closely choose what best meets their needs and budget. If the top end phone is a good value and has what someone wants or needs, they can choose to buy it. If the top end phone has features someone doesn't want or need, they can buy a lower level model for less. If the top end phone is not a good value compared to the competition, they can buy the competition.

Giving customers more choice can be better than trying to push them into too much of a "one size fits all" box.

 

[I7guy]

Your on the wrong path like TC. You care about money and you seem to understand that TC "took apple in a different way ..." - so you have to understand that TC is not able to innovate or develop new products, like Jobs did.

How long can Apple sell the same thing without a basic refresh? Will Apple still be the "iphone company" in 10 years? With DMA and all other legislation breaking Apples barriers?

Apple followed its strategy to "lock competition out, lock customers in". This works for a certain period of time. But competition is what drives evolution and by locking others out, Apple locked itself in. Maybe Apple will crash and burn, or it will slowly vanish.

Think your thoughts are stuck in the past and are playing semantics regarding what is viewed as innovation.

The tech forum is a better place to have this type of discussion.

 

[bartszyszka]

They should make an iPhone Pro Mini, but make the screen the size of the old iPhone X (halfway before the mini and regular iPhone).

 

[d686546s]

The above is illogical. What is not good for customers is NOT, I repeat, is NOT good for shareholders. People here act like apple sales are guaranteed. They aren’t guaranteed. Apple has to give their customers what they want.

As absolute as you present it I'd say in a romanticised version of capitalism maybe.

In reality, yes if you push your customers beyond their breaking point or produce products that they absolutely do not want there's an alignment between what is bad for customers is bad for shareholders.

But in between there's plenty of wiggle room to squeeze your customers, try to monetise everyone and everything as much as you can get away with and push them into higher price tiers, often unnecessarily, by making features exclusive or having a "creative" price ladder.

That is NOT good for customers, but great for shareholders -- if you can pull it off.

 

[BidFlux]

We still don't know what this new high end phone will have or even if it's going to happen but what’s embarrassing about Apple expanding the capabilities of the iPhone while not forcing new high-end features and higher prices on customers who may not want or need those features?

It can make sense for Apple to offer different levels of features at different prices thereby allowing consumers to more closely choose what best meets their needs and budget. If the top end phone is a good value and has what someone wants or needs, they can choose to buy it. If the top end phone has features someone doesn't want or need, they can buy a lower level model for less. If the top end phone is not a good value compared to the competition, they can buy the competition.

Giving customers more choice can be better than trying to push them into too much of a "one size fits all" box.

Or add a software feature, like Dynamic Island, to higher end models so consumers will pay more to have it...

 

[darngooddesign]

Simplicity or KISS is on of the basic principles of Apple. That is why the iPhone had only ONE button, the "Homebutton" - while Android needed at least three buttons to achieve the same functionality.

Android also had one home button, but they had two other buttons with additional functionality.

 

[brandoman]

Didn't they try this with Apple Watch? Or was it more so that they used ultra-premium metals to create the watch? Could this be in the same vein, or instead different internal components/tech?

 

[Rogifan]

We still don't know what this new high end phone will have or even if it's going to happen but what’s embarrassing about Apple expanding the capabilities of the iPhone while not forcing new high-end features and higher prices on customers who may not want or need those features?

It can make sense for Apple to offer different levels of features at different prices thereby allowing consumers to more closely choose what best meets their needs and budget. If the top end phone is a good value and has what someone wants or needs, they can choose to buy it. If the top end phone has features someone doesn't want or need, they can buy a lower level model for less. If the top end phone is not a good value compared to the competition, they can buy the competition.

Giving customers more choice can be better than trying to push them into too much of a "one size fits all" box.

This seems all about pushing up the prices of the entire line. So the current Pro models end up becoming the mid-tier when they used to be top of the line.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

I'm a bit late to this particular party, but as someone who doesn't buy Pro iPhones the introduction of yet another tier of iPhone makes me wonder how attractive Apple will be able to keep the regular line up.

The base iPhone used to be the one that got all the new stuff, while Apple kept an older model around to sell at a cheaper price. Then they added the SE, which was basically the same phone in a different form factor. They slowly started to fragment the Pro and temporarily give it exclusive features that would eventually trickle down to the base iPhone. The iPhone 14 introduced even more fragmentation by reusing last year's chip, which means the base is a sort of halfway house that's almost an iPhone 13.

If you add in an Ultra, depending on how Apple plays it, this could mean that the base iPhone is even more behind the curve than it already is in some respects. On the one hand, Apple could truly set it apart and create a new product category that's differentiated by features that you'd never expect to come to the base models and thus wouldn't constrain them -- that could be a pen like on the Samsung Ultras or it could be a foldable. But that would fragment iOS in a way that no previous model has done and I'm not sure Apple is willing to go down that way.

So, on the other hand, their general approach would suggest that the Ultra could be yet another piece of the ladder that's supposed to upsell you while providing the exact same iPhone experience as every other model. That's great for shareholders, I guess, but for us regular iPhone users it probably means that we have to wait even longer for certain improvements. This might work out for Apple and push people to "really stretch," as Tim Cooks expects, or it might push people elsewhere unless the competition equally pushes prices endlessly.

This is exactly how they should have kept things. The base iPhone receiving all the new features, no other models in existence.

Apple got greedy after Steve Jobs died this is all down to Tim Cooks management. John Sculley in disguise.

 

[ShadowJade]

I was interested until they mentioned it would be a portless design. That alone makes it a lower-end option

I know that one mans trash is another mans treasure...but for me this is the dream. I only use airpods and homepods...the speaker is useless to me...wish they would get rid of those too. I charge on magsafe at night, my mousepad at work has a Qi charger in the corner, as does my car charger. To create a waterproof design, I would take that trade-off. Give me a sapphire screen like my apple watch, and a ceramic case...I would pay for all that.

 

[Rogifan]

This is all just a strategy to keep pushing the average sale price higher and higher to please investors.

The Pro line is what we would have normally gotten in the regular models, but because sales are so high, Apple has no incentive to bring those features down to the regular models (Promotion, more cameras, etc.) And now the Pro line will turn into essentially a mid-tier in Apple's line-up, which sucks.

Only chance this strategy fails is if the Ultra model fails like the iPhone 12/13 mini and 14 Plus did, but I have my doubts. People like to buy the latest and greatest at any cost.

Yep this would be Apple’s way of making the current Pro modes the mid-tier line and raise the average selling price overall.

 

[GuruZac]

I’ll get a new phone this year, but overall, iPhone excitement is pretty much gone for me. The UI is the same across all devices, the apps are the same, they’re all fast, they all have great display, they’re all waterproof. There’s not much left. Dynamic Island and ProMotion are the coolest things they’ve added in recent years.

 

[nikaru]

I think 2 was right -- regular and plus size. Otherwise they would not be able to appease small or large crowd. But the current confusion with cheap and expensive is a bit much. It really doesn't help affordability all that much. To get affordability they can just sell last year's phones, which they seems to be doing anyway now while marketing it as new. I'd have been happy if they just kept updating the 8/8P line even with the same colors from back then. They were gorgeous looking phones. Never cared for Apple's implementation of full screen with swiping to get to home.

I think part of the fault is the crazy industry-wide tendency to keeping improving certain features up to the point where is complete nonsense. The camera is very good example. Crazy resolutions, framerates, features, etc while most of the photo content on the interned is "used" through Instagram on small smartphone screens where you can hardly can appreciate the quality and details due to compression and bandwidth limitations. And yet, you have to buy this sophisticated camera if you want the latest and greatest iPhone in terms of CPU and display characteristics. It is like equipping all cars by default with expensive rear seats displays and entertainment features while most people use only the front seats in 95% of the occasions. You have it, you paid for it, and you make properly use of it like....almost never.

 

[compwiz1202]

Pro users get the best features because they pay higher, they will no longer get that if another model comes along and the pro line just becomes a basic line with a stupid name.

How is that envy? You know Tim isn’t going to hate you right if you don’t agree with Apple for once.

Yea it's the same trickery psychology they use now with regular and Pro. It's only $X more for much cooler stuff. But could it backfire like someone posted? People finally won't be able to afford top tier, so they won't want the Pro because they don't want to have less than the best.

 

[compwiz1202]

They’ve gone mad! What else would they be selling as differentiating features?

I don't even care about any of that stuff they listed:

A faster chip - Why?
A larger display: I even like large screens, but I would rather go back down to 6.5"
Portless design without Lightning or USB-C. He said the device would be "pricier" - No thank you to either

One thing that might sway me is Touch on Power or under Screen. And maybe a 5G Modem that would actually toggle properly on Auto back to 4G when 5G is bad where I am like inside work.

 

[compwiz1202]

The smart phone business will eventually be like automobiles.
Every year there will be small, incremental differences.
We are getting there.

But at least the main purpose of an automoble is to get from A to B. I like tech, but some seems unnecessary. So many distractions in a time when everyone is "Don't drive distracted"

 

[compwiz1202]

I think it's time that Tim Apple is replaced and someone new comes in to take over Apple.

The Apple bubble is about to burst if this is the road they are going down. I know Apple has always been for people with money to burn but this is beyond a joke now. When colleges/universities and individuals with a good amount of disposable income are turning against them then that says a lot.

People can't afford this **** anymore (unless you're rich) and they certainly wont in 2024.

And it was better way back when. Lower middle maybe could then but not now. We are middle and barely can sometimes. The bigger issue though is it's not exciting anymore, so even if we had infinite money, it's not worth it