Was having drinks with a good friend yesterday... I pulled out my iPhone to check a message, and he said "Dude, you got the cheap iPhone... You're a banker, what are you doing with one of those." This guy is a trendy dude (works in art, etc) and pretty funny... I told him it was the same as the iPhone 5, better than his 4S (which runs iOS7 beautifully, BTW), etc. At the end of the day, he was a bit unconvinced. It's a dumb conversation, but the fact is millions will have the same view. And its difficult to really say the 5c is much better than the 5 given iPhones 4-5S basically work well for most people's phone usages and all run the current OS.
In prior years, I would have upgraded to the 5s, but this year I chose the 5c instead due to the more hefty feel and better battery life. Cost wasn't an issue and really shouldn't be given the phones essentially cost the same. However, it will always be seen as the "cheap iPhone" when no such thing ever existed. This may be a problem going forward as Apple has never made "cheap" products even when some of their products have been inexpensive (iPhones are pretty inexpensive on contract and basically always have been). I doubt this issue would have been solved by making the phone worse and cheaper as many suggest.
Not sure how Apple overcomes this in the long run.
In prior years, I would have upgraded to the 5s, but this year I chose the 5c instead due to the more hefty feel and better battery life. Cost wasn't an issue and really shouldn't be given the phones essentially cost the same. However, it will always be seen as the "cheap iPhone" when no such thing ever existed. This may be a problem going forward as Apple has never made "cheap" products even when some of their products have been inexpensive (iPhones are pretty inexpensive on contract and basically always have been). I doubt this issue would have been solved by making the phone worse and cheaper as many suggest.
Not sure how Apple overcomes this in the long run.