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Why do people think the iPhone is "overpriced"?

Because they got used to the carriers' subsidized prices of 199/299/399 and those numbers were blasted over advertising media over and over and over.

They don't realize that they are basically purchasing a computer these days that actually has more functions built in than a comparable laptop/desktop.
 
JGowan said:
So... how much do you think would be worth going from 16GB to 64GB? Quadruple the space for $100 is a bargain. They can buy for a few dollars because they're buying ten-millions at a time!
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Oh my. Apple's done a number on you.
 
bchreng said:
You get a lot more spec-wise for the price paid for an Android phone.
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That's what I do when I buy a phone, I sit and admire the spec sheet, feeling good about my purchase. Cus everyone knows spec sheet bragging rights are the be all, end all of phone use................wait what did I just say? I think I hit my head when I fell down just now. Shakes it off.......never mind.
 
HEK said:
That's what I do when I buy a phone, I sit and admire the spec sheet, feeling good about my purchase. Cus everyone knows spec sheet bragging rights are the be all, end all of phone use................wait what did I just say? I think I hit my head when I fell down just now. Shakes it off.......never mind.
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Yeah... You should sit out for a while. That head injury seems pretty bad. :(

That said, some of the spec differences are noticeable. Higher resolution screens, cameras and maybe even the RAM, are easy to discern. At least from the limited time I have to play with them at the store kiosks.
 
I do think the iPhone is expensive considering it's made in China like all the other phones and products these days. I do value apples build quality and support over other brands, but I do believe Apple could charge less and still make tons of profit.
 
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bpeeps said:
Which phones are these and what do they look like?
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The usual suspects are probably the "cheap" flagships like the ones offered from Motorola, OnePlus and the Google's Nexus phones. Some of them look pretty decent and others not so much. Not bad for those who, for whatever reason, use Android over iOS.
 
iPhones are overpriced but so are the top end phones from other makers. $700+ for a smart phone is crazy. That is two weeks pay for a lot of people.
 
This is going to sound biased, but what I'm about to say, if you're a logical person, is so self-evident:

Because they're biased uninformed people with some inexplicable allegiance to a marketing company that they literally pay to spy on them and provide dangerously insecure and unstable software. It's the one of the most insane things I've ever seen. There's really no logical way to insult the iPhone other than the "walled garden" (which is a feature to 98% of users) and I guess lack of hardware choices (which is actually a feature so that the OS isn't a sh**ty buggy mess, and the app ecosystem isn't hilariously broken), so they just go LULZ IT'S EXPENSIVE APPLE BRAINWASHED YOU INTO PAYING SO MUCH FOR YOUR PHONE I'M SO MUCH MORE CLEVER THAN YOU FOR PAYING EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE FOR A VASTLY INFERIOR PRODUCT, because they're illogical. It's so flagrantly illogical my synapses in my mind are imploding.

The only reason to buy an Android is if you're a hobbyist and/or you are going to root it and go run man in the middle attacks with zANTI at a coffee shop for the lulz.
 
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modemthug said:
This is going to sound biased, but what I'm about to say, if you're a logical person, is so self-evident:

Because they're biased uninformed people with some inexplicable allegiance to a marketing company that they literally pay to spy on them and provide dangerously insecure and unstable software. It's the one of the most insane things I've ever seen. There's really no logical way to insult the iPhone other than the "walled garden" (which is a feature to 98% of users) and I guess lack of hardware choices (which is actually a feature so that the OS isn't a sh**ty buggy mess, and the app ecosystem isn't hilariously broken), so they just go LULZ IT'S EXPENSIVE APPLE BRAINWASHED YOU INTO PAYING SO MUCH FOR YOUR PHONE I'M SO MUCH MORE CLEVER THAN YOU FOR PAYING EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE FOR A VASTLY INFERIOR PRODUCT, because they're illogical. It's so flagrantly illogical my synapses in my mind are imploding.

The only reason to buy an Android is if you're a hobbyist and/or you are going to root it and go run man in the middle attacks with zANTI at a coffee shop for the lulz.
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Yeah what you just said. Always amazes me how many adenoid folks come here to tell me why the phone I choose is wrong. Guess I should go over to the forums for their choice of phone and tell them why they are wrong.
 
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In previous years here in NZ flagships were the same price but this year I do think it's gone overboard it's now 1199 for a 16 gb 6s which is a little ridiculous.
 
Try European prices. iPhone 6S 16 GB is about 759€ in Finland. Samsung Galaxy S6 32 GB (or any other flagship Android) is about 600€.

So basically you pay 159 euros more for:
  • Much much lower resolution screen (Samsung goes for excessive res tho)
  • Less storage space (to the point where the 16 GB iPhone is going to need some file juggling)
  • iOS
  • 3D Touch
  • No OIS
I would've been ok with iPhone prices (though that 16 GB is a low blow from Apple) for what they were for iPhone 6 but they raised the prices about 100 euros for the 6S series. Part of it is dollar vs euro but it's still a big raise and I doubt we will see it coming down because people still buy them at those prices.
 
I don't think the iPhone is overpriced, especially with the leasing model that most cell carriers seem to be moving towards these days.

On AT&T, my 64gb 6S+ adds $28/month to my phone bill, but because I'm leasing the phone instead of buying it at the $299 subsidized 2 year contract price, AT&T gives me a bill credit of $25/month. So effectively I'm paying $3/month for my brand new phone and can get a new one every 18 months. That's not outrageous to me.

The iPhone is essentially a pocket-sized Macbook that makes phone calls and I have no problem with the price. Now, if there were no such things as leasing plans or subsidized prices and I had to pay $950 up front for the phone, I wouldn't be buying it. But just because I can't personally afford something, doesn't mean it's overpriced.
 
The economic reality is they are not overpriced, because they absolutely achieve their market value all year long and Apple sell as many units as they can make at the prices they set, therefore it's the right price.

Why is there a perception (largely amongst people who refuse to buy or use them) that they are overpriced? Because without that experience of the device and the whole ecosystem around it, people just look at almighty "specs" and judge that, on paper, the hardware components in that slightly cheaper Samsung are better in some way, or at least the same.

What this misses is the cost of all the R&D that goes into Apple products versus the average android phone where the OS itself comes from google at no cost to the manufacturer. It's the software side where a big chunk of the difference is found, and that's a hard thing to explain or get across on a spec sheet.
 
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They are overpriced... but they are effectively the best product out there so its like pricing a high end luxury car or designer cloths... you are paying for the brand. The other flagship phones are similarly priced too however. Mine was was $1150 with applecare and tax. Most people spend half that for a laptop computer these days. So yes, they are overpriced, and I feel a bit silly that I spent that much for this thing, but I do spend a lot of time using it.
 
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So what I'm getting from this is, the people complaining about it bieng too expensive and overpriced are from foreign countries?
 
Naw I'm from the US and planning to drop $800 on the 6s 64gb this weekend. I feel silly paying that much but I feel like it is the best and I will enjoy it so what the hell. It is awesome but overpriced imo
 
CupertinoSlave said:
So what I'm getting from this is, the people complaining about it bieng too expensive and overpriced are from foreign countries?
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Probably. All we hear from US guys is how they're $800 phones, but in the UK they're $1000+ phones. In Canada and some parts of Eastern Europe they're prohibitively expensive.
 
I didn't know Apple made flagship phones, Apple releases one iPhone model (or two sizes) every year. There is only one phone - flagship or not, it's cost is what it has always been and not comparable to other phones because of factors other than just the hardware. One factor is the OS, the cost of the iPhone includes the cost of OS, while the free Android OS is free because the user data has a monetary value to Google and the ad industry. The value of user data to the Google/ad industry and value of the data in the eyes of the user are two different valuations. Android phone OEMs don't have the cost of developing their own OS or ecosystem or app store etc., so the assumption from the getgo should be that comparable Android phones have to be cheaper than an iPhone. Even the so called superior hardware phones should be cheaper than an iPhone.

Just the cost of the hardware is just one part of the price of the device, it easy to focus on the cost of the hardware because that it is readily estimated, but the cost of intangibles like OS, hardware software integration, ecosystem, backbone/infrastructure (eg. services like Facetime, iMessage, iTunes) customer service are not well defined. It's naive bordering on imbecilic to think that one company could take the hardware inside an iPhone and make a comparable phone or be sucessful. Or think that iPhone is too expensive. I think iPhone is fairly priced when you compare the price of GS6 etc. is the similar to the iPhone.

And what's astounding is that Android OEMs are not able to thrive under the Google's free OS plus the ecosystem model while Apple can thrive when Apple single handedly does everything that the Google/Android collective does.
 
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spacemnspiff said:
I didn't know Apple made flagship phones, Apple releases one iPhone model (or two sizes) every year. There is only one phone - flagship or not, it's cost is what it has always been and not comparable to other phones because of factors other than just the hardware. One factor is the OS, the cost of the iPhone includes the cost of OS, while the free Android OS is free because the user data has a monetary value to Google and the ad industry. The value of user data to the Google/ad industry and value of the data in the eyes of the user are two different valuations. Android phone OEMs don't have the cost of developing their own OS or ecosystem or app store etc., so the assumption from the getgo should be that comparable Android phones have to be cheaper than an iPhone. Even the so called superior hardware phones should be cheaper than an iPhone.

Just the cost of the hardware is just one part of the price of the device, it easy to focus on the cost of the hardware because that it is readily estimated, but the cost of intangibles like OS, hardware software integration, ecosystem, backbone/infrastructure (eg. services like Facetime, iMessage, iTunes) customer service are not well defined. It's naive bordering on imbecilic to think that one company could take the hardware inside an iPhone and make a comparable phone or be sucessful. Or think that iPhone is too expensive. I think iPhone is fairly priced when you compare the price of GS6 etc. is the similar to the iPhone.

And what's astounding is that Android OEMs are not able to thrive under the Google's free OS plus the ecosystem model while Apple can thrive when Apple does everything that the Google/Android collective does.
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However you choose to package it, Apple products are very expensive. They sell exceedingly well so why change the business model, but one look at their bank account should tell you that despite all their R&D and premium customer service costs etc they still rake in more moolah than you can shake a stick at. Their profits are obscene. They have a monopoly because if you want iOS they're the only game in town. We all convince ourselves that we get value for money, and yes their products are very good, but they absolutely see us coming.:D
 
Most android phones when first released are in the same price range. The difference is within a month or two they drop buy $100/$200 dollars. iPhone's don't have this price drop they remain at the original price through out the life of the phone. Additionally as stated the big issue is the low storage and the additional cost to upgrade it. To some of us a $100 doesn't seem like a lot but people who don't like to over spend its out of the question. So to spend $200 on a phone when they could get one for practically free doesn't make sense. Plus people still have the mindset that its "just a phone" when some actually understand the capabilities of the device and they are much, much more than "just phones". They are today's computers. I can remember when people would think who would pay $1000 for a computer, to do what?
 
Do you really think Android manufacturers don't spend time on the OS, drivers etc as well? There's lots of work required to get each release working on every phone model and carrier. Lots of manufacturers also add their own software (whether good or not) too.

For me it's not that I cannot afford an Apple phone, it's just that I find their prices so insulting I choose not to. Apple has plenty of products that I consider worth their price, the latest batch of iPhones just isn't it.
 
kasakka said:
Do you really think Android manufacturers don't spend time on the OS, drivers etc as well? There's lots of work required to get each release working on every phone model and carrier. Lots of manufacturers also add their own software (whether good or not) too.

For me it's not that I cannot afford an Apple phone, it's just that I find their prices so insulting I choose not to. Apple has plenty of products that I consider worth their price, the latest batch of iPhones just isn't it.
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Exactly. Most people can afford to buy a mobile phone outright, either by going short one month or by saving up. Getting it on a carrier contract is even easier. A Ferrari or luxury penthouse apartment maybe not...
The argument that people who criticise Apple's prices can't afford their products is lame.
 
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