
Apple’s New Era Has Begun - dankul1
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danrunkevicius/2020/08/10/apple-new-era-has-begun/#3ad4e9b34072
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zpeti
Of all the "eras" possible this is a disappointing article, I thought it would
be about the risk to apple from deteriorating US China relations.

I'm pretty sure that will have a bigger effect that services vs phone prices.

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garyrob
My understanding has been that Apple's orientation toward protecting privacy
has been rooted in the fact that it makes most of its money from hardware
sales, and therefore doesn't need to track people for ads, or to sell data (at
least not to the same degree as companies whose profits are based mostly on
such things). But if Apple starts selling phones at a low price, how will its
motivations be different from, say, Google's? Maybe it can have the simple
model of selling App Store access and other services, without resorting to the
"your users are your product" model. But it seems like the the line will be
thinner and the temptation greater. In the end, Apple's behavior will probably
be determined purely by how much marketplace advantages it gives them to be
able to tout such advantages. And my impression is that the average person
really doesn't care that much, even if HN readers do.

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moviuro
Apple sells tons of subscription-based services: Music, News, TV, Games,
Storage, etc. (+ their slice of App sales). If this keeps up, they don't have
an incentive to track their users and sell that data. (They could still track
them to find out what's "hot" and what genre(s) they should produce next, like
Netflix did)

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garyrob
But Google sells services too. If Apple is not making most of its money on
hardware, then what differentiates Apple's incentives from Google's? Do you
think they'll simply decide, "We will not track people for targeting ads, and
we won't sell their data"? But what if they find that that perspective doesn't
actually help them sell their services, because the vast majority of consumers
just don't know or care about these issues like HN users do? It didn't cost
them much to have that perspective when most of their income was from
hardware, but once it's coming from online services, it may turn out that
they're leaving a lot of money on the table, which would be very easily made,
by being less purist about the privacy issue. Not that they're super-purist
now, from what I've heard...

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noworriesnate
Apple is pushing the privacy narrative because it's an area in which Google,
and hence Android, cannot compete. Google/Android can't compete because the
vast majority of Google's revenue comes from ads, which cannot work well with
privacy.

Apple is spending lots of money to make privacy become important to the
average smartphone user. It's spending that money not just to make itself look
good, it's spending it to make Google/Android look bad, and thereby cause more
users to switch to iPhone.

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garyrob
But is there evidence that enough consumers care about privacy, so that we can
have confidence that this approach will pay off for Apple? Because, if not
enough consumers care that their privacy orientation is rewarded from a purely
financial point of view, I have little faith that Apple will stick to it
purely as a matter of principle. Do you?

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anko
It's not a matter of users picking privacy vs no privacy. It's just one point
in the package Apple are offering. For some people it's a major point, and for
some people it's not. But it's still a point, and it's one nobody can compete
in so it's particularly strong. They are just leveraging a competitive
advantage, but it's not the only one.

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pwinnski
Rah-rah cheerleading about Apple based on an uncorroborated rumor of future
low prices?

We can do better than this.

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threatofrain
I feel like even if Forbes makes good reports on Apple, they should overall be
ignored on any matter pertaining to Apple. If you do a Google search for
popular headlines, you'll see that Forbes has been recycling Apple articles
for years with tiny variations in headlines.

[https://www.google.com/search?&q=ios+%22nasty+surprise%22+si...](https://www.google.com/search?&q=ios+%22nasty+surprise%22+site%3Aforbes.com)

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basch
fyi, this is a "Forbes Contributor" article, so basically like attributing to
Medium something that someone posted on it.

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robynsmith
Privacy and long term support converted me from Android to iOS in 2019.

I’d say the narrative is working :)

Try and find an alternative device that has the same level of privacy and
updates for 5 years.

You can do it if you flash a rom on your android device - but that’s not
currently realistic for most of the current user base.

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gentleman11
The new era seems to involve just as many frivolous lawsuits against small
companies as the old one. They need to shape up ethically, not just modify
business strategy to get a “new era”

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Ecco
$549 iPhone 12? Count me in!

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wdb
That would indeed a be a nice price! £550 for a modern iPhone would be great.

I don't see it happening to have a iPhone 11 for that price, though

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satvikpendem
The iPhone SE 2, which has the same processor as the iPhone 11, is 400 USD
currently.

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wdb
If I remember correctly, it doesn't have the OLED display and the cameras. I
think those £1000+ phones is just a bit too much.

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onyva
Are all the headlines on Forbes generated by an algorithm optimized for click
baitingness? Why link to a paywalled site most people here don’t seem to care
much about?

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bryanlarsen
Maybe it's just competition? Reviews for the Google Pixel 4a at $349 are
claiming that it's just as good as a premium priced phone.

Or perhaps it's convergent evolution: both Google & Apple decided at the same
time for the same reasons to concentrate on cheap phones again.

