The other thing that saves money is not making the screen the size of a PDA. I'll take more storage over increased screen size any day. I don't want a Samsung, I'm not over 60 and don't carry a purse. 3.5-4" displays do the job just fine.
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Phil Schiller Talks 16 GB iPhones and Thinness vs Battery Life Tradeoffs
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Good to hear! Look forward to listening to it. You're right it's probably not fair to say he doesn't criticize Apple but it seems like he will, but then quickly justify.
The problem with a company like Apple with a product like the iPhone is that you can have so much success that you can't see when you make multi-billion dollar mistakes. Apple was selling music but without enough local storage they threw it away and created the music streaming industry. How much did Beats cost? How much did all the iCloud data centers cost?
^This
Apple use to be able to charge more because it was a premium experience both at a technical and aesthetic level. Well the aesthetic has stagnated or imitated (the 6 looks more like a Samsung than anything resembling an Apple product), yearly iOS and OSX updates induce more anxiety than excitement, and the technical experience is insufficient and hamstrung from the start.
Wasn't it Phil that said "[Apple] can't innovate anymore, my ass"? Well here's an innovated idea, provide something customers actually want - more storage, and a 4" screen and less updates that aren't polished and bog down products.
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And you're being majorly ripped off compared to the cost of other devices.... and those "other" devices have better parts under the hood than the iPhone all around, are cheaper, and come standard with 32GB.
This is Apple tax at it's finest. Sadly, if you want IOS/iPhone, you gotta pay. Until people stop upgrading and they see a dip in sales, they have no reason to change their practices. And if I were Apple, I'd milk the cash cow too if people were willing. (Then again, they keep losing marketshare to Google too....)
I agree with the arguments on storage size and the new MacBook. The argument that the problem with a bigger battery is that it takes longer to charge is just kind of bizarre.
Apple has a cost they need to hit, so you can't just say "there should be more Flash", you need to say what there should be less of to compensate. If you think the cost target is wrong, then it sounds like you should just buy a higher storage model. Having that low cost anchor product is important from a marketing perspective-- it doesn't have to be the highest volume device.
I'm glad Apple doesn't play it too safe on product design. The new MacBook as a really, really nice machine. It doesn't do everything for everyone and shouldn't. I like that they don't just release products to address a market, but also to change it.
On the battery thing though, he should have stuck with "batteries are heavy" and stats on how 95% of users dock their phone at night with more than 30% of charge left [citation needed]. Bigger batteries take longer to charge is just a dumb thing to say-- of course they do, and I'm fine with that because they also take longer to discharge
Greedy means maximizing profits. Maximizing profits means maximizing units * (price-cost). Raising price reduces units, reducing cost through reduced features or quality reduces units. If they're among the most profitable companies on earth for an extended period, and they're making their profits through legal and ethical means in a relatively free and competitive market, that's a good indication that they've hit the sweet spot.
That doesn't mean they're perfect, nor does it mean they're making what you personally want, but it certainly means they aren't making less desirable products out of greed.
Apple has a cost they need to hit, so you can't just say "there should be more Flash", you need to say what there should be less of to compensate. If you think the cost target is wrong, then it sounds like you should just buy a higher storage model. Having that low cost anchor product is important from a marketing perspective-- it doesn't have to be the highest volume device.
I'm glad Apple doesn't play it too safe on product design. The new MacBook as a really, really nice machine. It doesn't do everything for everyone and shouldn't. I like that they don't just release products to address a market, but also to change it.
On the battery thing though, he should have stuck with "batteries are heavy" and stats on how 95% of users dock their phone at night with more than 30% of charge left [citation needed]. Bigger batteries take longer to charge is just a dumb thing to say-- of course they do, and I'm fine with that because they also take longer to discharge
I see this line of reasoning come up over and over, and it's so paradoxical it's maddening. Beyond the fact that Apple is a for-profit corporation and only able to do what they do because they make gobs of money doing it, the logic is broken. Basically, the argument is that they think they can make a bigger profit making things people want less and that they're charging too much for something people are willing to pay more for.
Greedy means maximizing profits. Maximizing profits means maximizing units * (price-cost). Raising price reduces units, reducing cost through reduced features or quality reduces units. If they're among the most profitable companies on earth for an extended period, and they're making their profits through legal and ethical means in a relatively free and competitive market, that's a good indication that they've hit the sweet spot.
That doesn't mean they're perfect, nor does it mean they're making what you personally want, but it certainly means they aren't making less desirable products out of greed.
The flavor of this is (sadly IMO) nothing new for the company that "thinks different".... ....base model Macs, despite a premium price tag have nearly always been underspecced in terms of base RAM and storage, compromising the user experience... ...and in my mind diluting the longer term halo effect a better experience would bring....to their market share benefit if there had been much less beachballing and low storage warnings over the decades...
Well, that is Job One in the short term.... ...but again, strategically and long-term I think Apple's spiting themselves by knowing what optimal speccing's required to make their elegant hardware and software sing, and then putting out base model that are clearly suboptimal, even knowing that the low end entry will overwhelmingly outsell the properly equipped ones.
[I'm not even doing heavy computation on my MBA and often am using all 8GB, e.g.]
....And maybe the thing about Apple that adds the most to the negative side of my mostly love/but some dislike feelings about "The World's Most Valuable Company."
Most people are probably fine with two hours charging time instead of one hour it it brings them a smaller and lighter power adaptor. You might say size doesn't matter for something as small as these chargers but others might say time doesn't matter for something as short as two hours.
Pardon me for being rational, but I was always under the impression that the things that sold a product were how useful and affordable it is TO THE CUSTOMER. If the marketing strategy is to lessen its usefulness to the client, and to increase the benefit of selling it, to the seller... then, surely that's a POOR product. I mean, the point of selling something is to provide a product to someone who sees your product as USEFUL and VALUABLE... you may say I am over-simplifying this, but in my experience, it's the simple, rational and fair strategies that win, in the long term.
Yeah, so short form - sell products useful TO US, not TO YOU.
Yeah, so short form - sell products useful TO US, not TO YOU.
This is a tired excuse. Even after all of these expenses, Apple still has higher margins than any other manufacturer.
Let's just put it this way - I would rather pay more for a device which I know will serve me well, rather than pay less for a product that won't work as well for me.
I am reminded of the time I had a case of skin allergies. I visited a few clinics around me, but none of the doctors could help me. The medicine they prescribed me didn't work either. I finally went to visit a specialist. He took one look at me, typed something into his computer, showed me some ppt slides about the nature of allergies, then sent me out with some medication. The medicine wasn't some super-expensive or rare drug, but it worked. And his fees were expensive, but what I was paying for was his medical experience in knowing how to diagnose what problem I was suffering from, and knowing how best to remedy it. By contrast, all the previous doctors, while cheaper, couldn't help me at all!
What I am paying here is not just the raw cost of components. I am also paying for Apple's expertise in assembling those parts together in a manner which will offer me that user experience unique to Apple products. If you base your buying decision on which device has the most expensive parts, irrespective of how well it works or whether it is even suitable for your needs, that just strikes me as being "penny-wise, pound foolish", IMO.
Wait until some other company can replicate the integrated ecosystem that only Apple can offer. Then we will talk about whether the iPhone is overpriced or not.
How exactly does iCloud make up for this Phil? How can we store something on iCloud but not on our iPhone? Does he not know how their cloud storage works?
EXACTLY!!!!! God you can tell that a VP of Marketing is being interviewed. Clearly no knowledge of the device or how its designed and works for the population. Just canned answers that dont even address the question.Notice he was asked SPECIFICALLY about apps, but because he doesnt understand he gives the canned sales pitch of
"The belief is more and more as we use iCloud services for documents and our photos and videos and music," he said, "that perhaps the most price-conscious customers are able to live in an environment where they don't need gobs of local storage because these services are lightening the load"
Well guess what stupid, if you listened to the question you would know, I could have no music, no video, no photos on my phone and because of THE SIZE OF APPS TODAY, 16GB doesnt work in todays marketplace.
Oh, then we also got the same tired crap when the low end was 8GB
"using 16 GB storage for lower-end models allows Apple to save money for use on higher-end components in other parts of the device, like the camera"
Yea, you said that before when the low end was 8 but when the marketplace changed you somehow were able to bump up to 16. Just a bad person to interview to begin with. Your really going to be asking a marketing VP about design and battery life? Well, when you do your going to get answers like, if the battery is bigger it will take longer to charge.......UMMM, maybe but it will also give us longer battery life genius so its worth it.
Hmmmm... are you personally wishing you will be able to buy one or that they will exist? Because iPhones already can come in 128GB models.
Perhaps the 8GB-16GB models are for older people who are finally dipping their toe into the smart-phone pool. My father-in-law doesn't add music to his phone and rarely downloads an app. There are millions like him. Sorry the current size doesn't work for you. The 5S model difference between 16GB and 32GB is just $50. The other top tier 6 and 6 Plus models are just $100 for 64GB vs. 16GB. We are not really talking about a whole lot of money for a lot more space. iOS9's size just went way down if anyone's been noticing.
That is not what is happening at all. Apple sells loads and loads of the 16gb because many people do not realize or care about the storage. The tiered price levels exist to satisfy the demands of people that are prepared to pay more. Read about the price elasticity of demand and it will make sense.
I'm not defending the 16gb entry level here but to say that apple makes millions of 16gb iPhones to push people to buy the larger version is total nonsense.
If you're just trolling, please disregard this...
If you're making a serious argument though, step back and look at it:
You aren't saying that you want the top end to have higher capacity, you're complaining that Apple shouldn't sell a low end device. I understand complaining that they don't make something that you want, but complaining that they do make something that you don't want is, well, odd.
Your line of reasoning seems to be that the VP of Marketing for one of the largest, most profitable, and most highly ranked brands in the world is "stupid". Wishing for something different is one thing, but arguing that Schiller doesn't have the intellect for his position, or doesn't understand what the company does or how the customers use what he sells is just a dead end argument. Perhaps he doesn't understand you personally but, then, maybe he's wanted to all this time but finds our gruff exterior intimidating and doesn't know how to start the conversation.
As evidence of his stupidity, he seems to think that apps, music, videos and photos all share the same memory space and that by offloading the need to store most of those you might have more space for WeChat. From your position of superior market knowledge, you know that the device simply doesn't work in today's market place, presumably evidenced by the fact that nobody buys it.
You're probably right though that this is just like the last time when he wouldn't increase the amount of memory until the market changed and then he did.
Joking aside, though, I'm with you on the "bigger batteries take longer to charge" thing... That was dumb.
No, he's saying people don't have to justify it. The fact that it sells justifies it.