Tim Cook on iPhone Prices: 'We Want to Serve Everyone'

[YaBe]

Well that is almost certainly true, but the fact that fools exist doesn't justify taking advantage of them, and it certainly doesn't justify sanctimony.

If I were the manager I would wqant to get the most out of my company, and if people are foolish to buy my product , well the's on them

Shame on me if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice.

There was a time where the money they asked were worth (at least to me), but lately they are just releasing minor upgrades with higher prices, and people seems to buy it, it's their choice and that justify Apple taking advantage of them.

Yes buy what you can afford and what you think if fair, but to some poeple even a 100.000$ phone would be justified, and believe me If i could build and sell a 100.000$ phone that people would buy, I would do it!

They are getting away with it because people let them.

 

[usarioclave]

The 5s is still supported, and is only about $90 used. So current models range from $90usd up to $1500!

The 5s is now 5 years old, so overall Tim's on target with the price point for everyone crack.

 

[jimothyGator]

We Want To Serve Everyone (Of Our Investors)

Keep in mind their investors aren't served if their customers don't buy.

That said, this long time Apple customer fears they really are becoming what critics have long accused them of being: out of touch and elitist. They shouldn't chase marketshare, but nor should they price their products so high that they'll appeal only to a shrinking sliver of the market.

In the short term, it may serve them and their investors well. Apple is a trillion dollar company, their profits are fantastic, and who's going to take my lowly word over Tim Cook's? But Cook and crew should remember the lesson of Icarus. It might take five, ten, or more years, but hubris has a way of catching up with companies.

 

[Bacillus]

I ...Yesterday Apple proved so blatantly that the shareholders are their biggest responsibility. Why not just come out and say it. Yes we always knew that, but they dressed it up very well to make people be ok will spending a little more. The keynote overall was dreadful yesterday. If you're gonna screw people with pricing at least romance us a little first.

Sorry, but Phil’s appearance & ever increasing pants size deter me from anything more intimate than sitting 28.000 miles away.
(and Tim, ehh...mmmhpf)

 

[Matthew.H]

Quite a few of you are missing the point. Tim said people use their device many times every day, which is in sharp contrast to for instance your house.
Therefore, Apple deserves to price the device equal or even higher than your house.
I (with Tim) won’t go into price elasticity too much but I think a reasonable market price would be around $ 250.000

So your trying to say a luxury item like a smartphone is as important as having a roof over your head? If you are then I have no words to how stupid that sounds.

 

[blacktape242]

translation - "we want to serve all of our investors".

 

[DNichter]

I think it's a fair point. The iPhone 7 isn't all that much bigger than an SE, and at $449, is a pretty good price.

 

[imageWIS]

This mentality is baffling. The vast majority of users aren't even using 64GB. It's 2018, internal storage is all but irrelevant.

What are you babbling about? It makes perfect sense to keep music saved on the phone, along with a myriad of other things, especially if you use CarPlay. Your dependency on the cloud is wrong.

 

[mevans7]

That kind of logic is baffling. If the storage were irrelevant, there would be no 512GB option.

Why do we need anything larger than 64gb since Tim is going to store all our junk in the cloud?

 

[pat500000]

iphone x max buyers will be served.....

 

[TheSkywalker77]

So their answer to everyone wanting the iPhone SE 2.0 is a $700 iPhone that's bigger than the iPhone X itself which is a giant phone. Thanks Timmy.

 

[Bacillus]

So your trying to say a luxury item like a smartphone is as important as having a roof over your head? If you are then I have no words to how stupid that sounds.

Sorry, I have 2 roofs - and Tim even more.
Joni has at least 8 cars - the cheapest being a $ 800.000 Bentley - some only used once a month.
So my estimate merely is on the conservative side
You seem to confuse rip-off with opportunity costs.

 

[YaBe]

I'm not even sure which part to tackle. First off, you can do plenty with a phone without needing more than 64GB. When our phones charge, all the video and music is sync'd to the cloud. We're not carrying around our digital lives on physical devices that can be lost or similar. In the end the base need is down to apps and whatever photos/videos are embedded in text messages.

From there, it varies by user.. I have a bunch of digital comics eating space so I have a 512GB iPad. If we are going on a trip then it might be nice to download some music or movies, but these are hardly pieces of data that need to permanently reside on the device.

TLDR: You can do plenty with a 64GB iPhone than simply use it as a dumb phone.

Also, thanks for the condescending response. It's one of the reasons I don't participate much here.. too many ... hmm can't say it without moderation. Regardless, there's no "luxury of showing off"... we're well into the ease of use and well beyond such insecurities at this point. Heck I'm still driving a 15 year old car and my wife just replaced her 1997 model... if I wanted to show luxury I'd be tackling those issues first.

Takle this.

What are you babbling about? It makes perfect sense to keep music saved on the phone, along with a myriad of other things, especially if you use CarPlay. Your dependency on the cloud is wrong.

I mean 64 for a dumb phone is more than enough, even more than needed, 64 for a smartphone with maps, music, photos or videos (4k videos are heavy) apps... i mean you know what poeple would have to use to make it a "Smart" Phone is the bare minumum, even not enought!

 

[FreshBoy]

€1,179 includes 23% VAT doesn't it? Thus the comparable cost is €958.54, or $1,056.79. As such someone getting in the US for you would save you $57.79. Sure a small saving, to me it isn't a big enough saving to worry about. But appreciate for some it may be $57.79 too much

You need to check your sums and exchange rate. Yes the Irish price includes VAT but buying it at $999 plus whatever the vat is and after the exchange rate in the USA would equal nearly a €200 saving.

 

[Juan007]

Apple has done a great job making great phones at all price points. No matter your budget, Apple has a phone for you. Even people with < $100 budgets can get onboard with a used iPhone.

 

[AngstyKylo]

I like his sense of humor.

You could see he was so nervous when announcing the prices. It's probably not even his decision, but I guess they almost don't believe what they can easily charge nowadays and it was really visible in the keynote at the end.

 

[zoozx]

Especially serving the "rich" elite, am I right Mr Cook?

Apple has LOST its WAY !

Very Sad.

 

[MsRandall]

Wasn’t planning to upgrade from my launch day X - the keynote didn’t change that fact. I do believe the max will sell out out the gate - long term i think we will see it discounted with gift cards or bogo options just like X. My son is preordering one tonight and trading in a 7plus for $300 with Verizon

I am only buying a watch this year for the first time since the iPhone 4

 

[curtvaughan]

Fantastic. I’ll be picking up a used 8 plus to replace my 6s plus because I love Touch ID. Not having the headphone jack will suck but it ‘‘tis what ‘tis

If you don't care about the jack the 8+ is definitely a good deal. A friend of mine, who recently lost her 6S+, got a good deal on an 8+. She doesn't care about sound on her phones, so wasn't bothered by the missing jack. It came with a wired set of headphones with a lightning connector. I mentioned that she couldn't charge her phone and listen at the same time, but she never really used headphones with her iPhones. She would miss the jack if they removed it from the iPad and iMac, on which she frequently listens to music with wired headphones.

 

[ksec]

Price isn't the only differentiator. Different sizes also. A replacement for the SE please.

I think I have written somewhere, that an 4.7" iPhone Xr would be the same size as the current iPhone SE. I actually think having the iPhone SE discontinue this year is a good sign that we are going to get the 4.7" Xr next year. Although it will likely cost $659.

 

[Taipan]

Since some people seem to have been living on this planet only since yesterday: No, he didn’t really mean every single person and without regard for his personal gain. Don‘t take everything a salesman says literally.

 

[Rangertuf]

The latest and greatest of 2018 is just very expensive I guess. These iPhone's are indeed quite impressive in terms of technology. An A12-iPhone probably beats my 2017 13" Macbook Pro in a lot of computation intensive tasks. So if you want that power in your pocket, you would probably want to pay for that. But not a lot of people render 4K video's on their phones, so yes, then it becomes very expensive.
In my experience iPhone's do last long. No need to upgrade every year. And sadly technology is not (longer) advancing fast enough to give phone manufacturers the possibilities to engineer radically new phones every year (or they try a bit too hard and end up with a phone that ignites spontaneously). Apple seems to adapt their strategy towards a market where people no longer upgrade every year, so an expensive phone once every x years becomes an option.
I like the iPhone XR (performance over display), but the display is too large for my taste (and my hands and my pocket). A smaller iPhone XR would be ideal for me.

 

[zoozx]

Apple has done a great job making great phones at all price points. No matter your budget, Apple has a phone for you. Even people with < $100 budgets can get onboard with a used iPhone.

Not Really!
Purchasing a USED iphone should be much easier .
Compatability, UnLocking, and in General the whole process of getting a working USED phone needs to be Easier , MUCH EASIER.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I've bought a new iPhone at launch every year since the 3GS. It started out as $200*, then $400*, then $600, then $650, then $750, then last year $1000. This year the phone I would get is $1150. They say a frog won't jump out of a pot if you heat it slowly, Tim Cook has priced me out of the pot.

*due to how contracts used to work in the US

First, when you bought one for $600 or $650, you were buying the lowest-end new model. It happened that at the time the only differentiating thing between models was storage. This year you're choosing to say you would get something more than the lowest-end new model and that would cost $400 more. The lowest-end new model starts at $750.

Second, if I remember correctly, the off-contract price of a the lowest-end iPhone 4 was $650 in June 2010. Calculating that with inflation, that is $752 in today's dollars. So the lowest-end new iPhone today costs as much as it did in 2010.

The difference is we have more upgrade options today than before. Today you can upgrade to dual-cameras and OLED screen, in addition to the usual storage upgrades. All of that of course pushes the price higher.

Here is where I argue against myself: The smartphone is now a mature technology. Mature technology should go down in price, not up or even staying steady as the iPhone has. The lowest-end PowerBook G4 cost $2600 in 2001 (which is $3744 in today's dollars!), but today the lowest-end Macbook Pro starts at $1300. As laptop technology matured, prices went way way down. Why aren't we seeing the same thing with smartphones? Not enough competition?

Something odd is going on if the two major OEMs that have something like 65% of the US market combined (Apple and Samsung) are simultaneously raising prices by the same amount at the same time. I don't know anything about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a decade from now we learn there was some price-fixing going on or some other anti-competitive collusion.

 

[Khedron]

In this day and age 64GB should not be an option. This pricing model is nothing but self serving.

It should still be an option, but for RAM not storage