Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ok... may as well call this one of "iPhone 4"

oh, theres already a name for that.

Its shares all the same features anyway. But the price tag, and probably the chip too.
 
Make no mistake about it, Apple is a premium brand. Just about everything they make is priced much higher than their competitors (a.k.a "the apple tax"). Consumer electronics can never be directly compared to cars, but to the extent that they can Apple is the Porsche or Mercedes or BMW of the consumer electronics world. As such, they need to be very careful of their brand. If they start releasing cheap junk, they will regret it very shortly thereafter.

Let me know when they start selling new premium cars at Joe's House of Everything.

You can get iPhones at target, walmart, etc. As others have said. "Premium" is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone can get an iPhone if that's the phone they want.
 
No wonder Apple's stock went to a 3 year low. They are going backwards.

It's a 16 months low?!

Sure feels like 3 years though.

----------

So... a low end iPhone; D'oh!

Only MacRumors where people could even discuss whether thats a good idea. Of course it is. How do you think Android got to its 70% market share.

Apple is covering the high end well. But that doesn't mean they should not cover the low end as well. Tim Cook himself said it - they did that successfully with the iPod and they're gonna try for it with the iPhone too. If they get it cheap enough, it'll work. $300 is really an upper limit, I am hoping for less.
 
Let me know when they start selling new premium cars at Joe's House of Everything.

You can get iPhones at target, walmart, etc. As others have said. "Premium" is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone can get an iPhone if that's the phone they want.

If they continue to diminish the brand they can say goodbye to the Apple tax, my friend.

Apple is slowly turning into a cheap junk brand.
 
If they continue to diminish the brand they can say goodbye to the Apple tax, my friend.

Apple is slowly turning into a cheap junk brand.

Apple tax? On the iPhone? There are phones that are more expensive or of equal price. And for awhile now - the iPhone (previous models) have been given away for as little as free. Doesn't seem to be hurting their bottom line.

You realize that hardware isn't the only piece of the puzzle, right? It's about getting people invested into an ecosystem.
 
Apple would never lower themselves to make something out of plastic! Why would they use something so cheap it's used for making baby toys, when they could be using the same material coke cans are made of? Ridiculous!

Save for the iPhone, the iPhone 3, the 3GS, the first few generations of iMacs, Macbooks, iBooks, earlier Powerbooks, etc. etc. etc, Apple would never use plastic!

You just said half of the iPhones that were made are made of plastic. Back then you didn't even care about it, did you?!
 
Whipped this up just to sort of visualize how it'll look with a 3,5'' screen on a bigger phone than the iPhone 4/4S. Don't like it, won't buy it.

 
Last edited:

W-w-w-w-w-w-here am I?

Okay, just in case you're all missing the obvious sarcasm, I'm not one of those "Aluminium equals premium" people. There are some advantages to using aluminum housing over plastic for electronics, but I don't think it somehow makes a phone suddenly exude more quality.

Last time this came up, I looked up the cost of a square foot of aluminum, about the same as they use in the iDevices, and it ended up being something like $20 or so. I think the iPhones use about a buck fifty worth of the stuff. The only thing that makes it relatively more expensive than plastic is the milling process, which probably costs...I dunno...maybe 2 bucks per device to do?

It's not exactly the metal for rich people who prefer quality and class in their products. Sure, it looks nice. Feels nice in your hand, too. But so does a coke can. That does make aluminium equal to platinum now, does it?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.