
Apple iPhone X Demand Limited, Wall Street Analysts Say - walterbell
http://fortune.com/2017/12/25/apple-iphone-x-demand/
======
Joeri
The iphone X is very overpriced when viewed as a utility object, because it
doesn’t provide 4x the utility of a $250 phone. But it is very reasonable when
viewed as a fashion accessory. A $1000 phone to go inside a $2000 purse is not
crazy at all.

People keep looking at apple as a tech company and struggling to understand
them, but if you view them as a luxury/fashion company who happens to
specialize in technology they make a lot of sense. Nobody complains ferraris
are overpriced for the mileage they get and the amount of trunk space, because
utility is not the point of a ferrari.

I expect the iphone X to sell really well, to the crowd that buys luxury. The
question is whether that is a big enough market to sustain the volume.

~~~
user5994461
>>> it doesn’t provide 4x the utility of a $250 phone

That is not correct. Try taking a photo of a text document with a $250 phone,
the text is not readable because the camera and the software is terrible. A
better phone would allow you to not have a dedicated scanner.

~~~
hrktb
Motorola G Plus[0] is 184$ with a 12Mp back camera. You won’t catch a cat
jumping in pixel perfect beauty, but that’s plenty enough to scan a text
document.

Same for your mail, maps, browsing, messaging, light gaming. It won’t be
blazingly fast under the latest OS, but will do any important task with decent
performance.

[0]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N6NTIRH/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N6NTIRH/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1514329936&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=motorola+phone&dpPl=1&dpID=51DjUO0f4PL&ref=plSrch)

~~~
user5994461
The number of pixels has zero relevance to the quality of a photo.

The world is filled with cheap phones that will make a blurry picture if there
isn't perfect lighting or if you move by a single millimeter when you press
the button.

~~~
hrktb
Of course. I found it interesting that scanning a document is the exact best
case scenario: exposure can be adjusted with the flash, and the document
hopefully doesn’t move (I had the previous Motorola G, hand shaking would need
to be pretty bad to make it blur when using the flash)

~~~
user5994461
On the contrary I take it as an example of bad case scenario. Texts and
annotations can be very small, a tad of blurriness and it's unreadable. The
blurriness might not be apparent on the phone screen but it's very noticeable
on a computer or TV.

I speak from experience with a cheap phone, having to take 6 photos not moving
by a iota hoping one will be good enough. Same shit next month when I will
have to take a newer proof of address.

------
dkrich
I think market analysts continue to miss the mark on this story.

What I keep hearing over and over are variations of "people are turned off by
the $1,000 price tag." I think this is a complete misread. People don't pay
$1k for an iPhone because it's the practical thing to do. If practicality is
the #1 priority for phone shoppers, they will simply buy a 7 or 8. I don't
think this comprises the top of the market, though, and the top of the market
is Apple's wheelhouse.

Practicality has nothing to do with why people buy the X. People buy the X
because it's a status symbol and they want to be seen with it. With consumer
spending up pretty much across the board, I will be very surprised if Apple
misses on earnings next month or reduces guidance. I think comparisons to the
release of the 6 are misguided as well, since this phone was in shorter supply
to begin with, carried a 50% higher price point, and was released alongside
two other models.

~~~
aiofgniaotnio
>People buy the X because it's a status symbol and they want to be seen with
it.

I find this aspect of the tech industry so gross that I'm considering changing
careers. Building a new tool that makes people's lives better is great, but
much of the time it just becomes a status symbol. No one should feel bad for
owning a machine that's a few years old but does everything they need. I'm not
convinced that consumer gadgets fill a real need any more rather than just
being new and shiny for the sake of being new and shiny.

Unless we as a society can get over showing off by buying things we don't
need, I think we're in trouble.

~~~
dkrich
I don't disagree with you about what people should do, but the reality is that
consumers have been this way for a long time, the only thing that changed is
that phones shifted from commodities people bought for performance to fashion
accessories. People pay more for cars, bags, clothing, etc. to elevate their
feeling of status, now we can add phones to that list. Perhaps this has been
Apple's greatest contribution to the hardware industry.

~~~
bunderbunder
The part that irritates me is, I am actively punished for being someone who
doesn't behave this way.

It used to just be the hidden surcharges that phone companies tacked onto my
bill to cover the cost of the "free" phone, calculated from the assumption
that I'd get a new phone each year.

Those surcharges are now gone. But they have been replaced with constant
nagging to update the OS to a version that will harm the performance or
battery life (or both) of a >2yo phone. They have been replaced with apps that
will eventually refuse to stop working if I don't upgrade to a version that
doesn't run on the older version of the OS that I used to use. They have been
replaced with mobile sites that flat-out don't work on my older device's
smaller screen.

~~~
valuearb
Those updates are always optional, and also keep your 2+ year old phone
secure.

------
chewz
iPhones are technological marvels, masterpieces of engineering. But Apple
software is getting worse and worse.

I have recently started playing with my Mom’s phone which is some cheap Huawei
Android and surprise - I can do the same on this phone as on iPhone - Google
Maps, Google Photos, Google Inbox, Google Search, Google Allo, Google Drive,
Firefox, bank applications, Spotify, MS Outlook - everything works OK.

The feeling is liberating like discovering Linux after years of thinking that
Windows is the only choice.

I have stoped using Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple Photos, Apple Mail app,
iCloud etc because they are all half-baked and frustrating. At least Google is
trying harder with their software.

So what is the reason - excluding vanity - to pay 1000$ for a phone when I can
have the same functionality for 100 - 200$. I will spend the difference on
books, coffee and really good headphones.

~~~
thisacctforreal
Some areas iPhones excel in:

    
    
        - LTS Updates
        - HW quality
        - Relatively consistent UX elements
        - Foolproof-ish App store
        - Less features
            ie no App drawer, just homescreens
        - Forefront of security & privacy technology
    

The 5s was released Oct 2013, and still received iOS 11. It was also the
first(?) phone with a Secure-Enclave device for fingerprint reading.

If iOS doesn't limit your glass-brick usage patterns, it's a very simple OS,
with features that were thought about and picked for a reason. Or maybe more
importantly, left out for a reason. This of course gets frustrating if you
disagree with what Apple's designers have prescribed you.

But to a lot of people; Android phones these days feel creepy to be around,
with the amount of Google-integration that requires much hoop-jumping and
ignoring-of-gentle-pushes, just to get peace of mind over your data not being
vacuumed from whatever crevices Google can find. And there are a lot of
crevices on your personal smart phone.

If you're installing + maintaining LineageOS or something then you can get par
with iPhones for the features that a lot of people in the HN crowd might care
about, especially if you subsect for DDG-users.

~~~
chewz
I agree on hardware quality.

Security to me seems like a sales pitch - Apple is just as sensitive
information greedy as Google. And I deal in this area with Google as well as I
do with Apple.

But the inferior software quality is terrible drag for Apple.

Photos - their syncing with iCloud is out of control. There are bugs that
haven’t been eliminated for years. I gave up when after deleting 50 GB of RAW
photos Apple re-created then and synced back to mu Mac.

Google Photos is not only more open but also smarter and better at improving
picture quality.

Apple Music - I gave up after a month of getting recommended Heavy Metal
albums and playlusts everyday. Nothing in my Library, listening and followed
artist suggested that I might like Metal. What kind of company can’t write
simple recommender?

iCloud - Google Drive is just superior, more open, integrates and exchanges
files with almost everything, Google Backup just works. iCloud backup is
really inferior and again out of control for user.

Apple Mail stoped beeing developed and there are well documented frustrating
bugs and quirks if you use IMAP accounts.

Maps - despite Tim Cook’s promise to users it never got on par with Google
Maps. The quality difers wildly from country to country but recently I have
re-installed Maps, used them for a week in my hometown and got so frustrated
that I have deleted Maps and went back to using Google Maps.

Oh should I mention that touch interface is full of bugs. Try selecting a
piece of text in iOS...

~~~
yladiz
> Apple is just as sensitive information greedy as Google

As in Apple stores the information on their servers, forever? A lot of the
sensitive information like a fingerprint or face scan is saved solely on the
phone, as is a lot of the ML based features like content detection within a
photo. Apple doesn't use a server farm to tell you there's a dog in your
photo, it uses your phone.

There aren't good excuses for some of the bugs on iOS (the most recent iOS has
been out for months and they still can't fix the emoji keyboard size issue,
when this issue didn't exist in previous iOS versions?) but I trust Apple
significantly more than Google with my data, in part because I know Apple's
money isn't from my data, it's from the sale of their phone. This isn't true
for Google and it will likely always be true that Google makes its money from
advertising and user data. I also trust Apple to actually do some semblance of
due diligence and make sure their app store isn't full of malware, something
Google seems unable to do reliably.

~~~
chewz
I agree that Google is evil regarding data collection. I have no illusions
about Google. But I am dealing with it through blocking Google calling home
mostly via DNS, firewall and some custom extensions in Chrome or using Firefox
Focus and on the go via Raspberry Pi router and my private VPN.

Apple however is calling home no less then Google and is quite secretive about
why and what information is transferred so I am blocking most of it same as
Google.

~~~
walterbell
How do you generate an Apple IP blocklist while still permitting access to App
Store, security updates, mail, etc?

------
PacketPaul
Good. The phone is too damn expensive.

My middle school son has a $64 BLU phone. It was subsidized by Amazon in
return for ads on the lock screen. Non-subsidized price is around $100. Last
week we went to a theme park with a lot of waiting for rides. He played plants
vs zombies and YouTube videos non-stop while we waited for rides. I
occasionally surfed the web on my $1049 iPhone X.

By 3 PM my iPhone battery was dead. His battery ... 64%. I’m hard pressed to
justify the $1000 price tag of my phone after seeing his in action. Yea it
takes better pictures and the screen it a little better. But is that worth
$1000 premium? Oh yea, my Son’s phone is over a year old. So compared to an
iPhone 7 the differences are even less.

~~~
1123581321
I hope you won’t stay complacent about the battery issue. I would have 70-80%
left in your scenario. Is it possible that sweat was leaking into your pocket
and keeping the screen active?

~~~
nomel
Could you describe the sweat more? The screen is always active, that’s how the
tap to wake works.

~~~
1123581321
Listening for touch events but not displaying anything. If your pocket is wet,
it records touches from your leg (or just the water?) and keeps the screen on.
I’ve had this happen on other phones; the home button would get pressed in the
pocket and then sweat would keep the screen on, draining the battery. Just
something to look into.

------
olegkikin
What do people buy $1000 smartphones for? For gaming I can get a pretty good
gaming PC for that amount, or Xbox One X with a VR headset.

I've never seen anybody do anything really cool with their phone - everyone
browses the internet, checks the email, does chats/videochats, maps, take
photos, and some silly mobile gaming. I do that all on my sub $200 phone.

~~~
dfabulich
JS-heavy sites are night-and-day faster on iOS, thanks primarily to faster
CPUs (which is mostly due to better L2/L3 caches). The iPhone X has 8MB of L2
cache; your sub $200 phone likely has no L2 at all. Even high end Android
phones have, at most, 1MB of L2 cache. This shows up pretty clearly in
Speedometer scores.

[https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-
benchmarks](https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks)
[https://browser.geekbench.com/android-
benchmarks](https://browser.geekbench.com/android-benchmarks)

~~~
PacketPaul
Can you post a few links of websites that are painfully slow on low end
machines? I would like to test with my Son’s $64 Android vs my iPhone X.

~~~
always_good
Try browsing the web on your son's phone at all. You'll find that just about
every website is slower to begin with.

------
sajithdilshan
I have been using a Xaiomi Mi4i for a couple of months and at the beginning it
was great. The camera was awesome and it was worth the 200$ I paid for it. But
after few months it became slow and the storage became a bottleneck. After
that I've switch to an iPhone SE and never looked back. I've been using if for
almost a year and it is smooth and perfect for my day-to-day work and not to
mention it is worth every penny I've paid for it. I think I'm gonna stick with
it for a couple of years.

------
pfranz
Good? I feel like these "analyst" reports are often completely wrong and
generally not useful. Who knows what Apple's goal with the iPhone X is, but as
an observer I see it as a low volume, premium product, that allows them to
innovate. If you have a crazy high volume product you can't do anything
risky...even if you could you'd run into volume issues (acquiring parts) and
any bad choice would affect a majority of your profits for the year.

------
pinewurst
Why doesn't anyone call out that these are Grade Z analysts? Come on, Sinolink
and JL Warren?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I agree with this analyst analysis.

------
DSingularity
Goodness. Everyone is speaking with such authority. I bought my X because I
wanted to switch out of Android and because I only buy a phone once every
three years it pays to buy the best phone I can buy. Why should I care that
it’s 1000$ when I buy a phone once every three years?

~~~
grepthisab
Because $1000 is a lot of money to most people.

~~~
jakebasile
That's true, but why should that color someone's decision on what they buy?

~~~
grepthisab
Because people who budget responsibly live within the constraints of that
budget.

------
jsjohnst
I wonder if these analysts actually get out in the world or just sit in
cubicles closed off from the real world. Traveling this holiday season, I saw
the characteristic notch all over the place. Rural areas of flyover country
included, saw them everywhere. In the month prior while in NYC, I saw them
being used by folks of virtually every division of socio-economic background.
I’ve not traveled internationally yet since it was released, but it seems in
the US anyway that the X marks the spot of a home run release for Apple to me.

~~~
alyxmxe
I've been in NYC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, SF, Los Angeles over the past
few months. Haven't seen a single iPhone X yet.

~~~
brahj123
If you haven't seen one in nyc, then you're either blind or don't know what
the iPhone X looks like.

------
thisisit
I think Apple might have missed the mark by not adding some kind of incentive
for the wireless operators to continue offering subsidized phones. Wireless
operators helped create the market when the $500+ iPhone was considered
costly:

[http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/death-of-the-199-iphone-
wirele...](http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/death-of-the-199-iphone-wireless-
subsidy/)

Additionally, phone market is reaching maturity slowly. First few generations
had real changes in terms of hardware and capability. Sure, there are new
capabilities but none of them are in the category of "Must Have".

~~~
at-fates-hands
> Additionally, phone market is reaching maturity slowly. First few
> generations had real changes in terms of hardware and capability. Sure,
> there are new capabilities but none of them are in the category of "Must
> Have".

I've been saying this for years. I'm starting to see family and friends
holding onto their phones for two, sometimes three years now. The prime movers
to upgrade are slowly disappearing like you said.

~~~
nugi
Yup. I have been elegibe for an upgrade for 3 years, yet no current phone
matches the featureset I have currently.

\- Removable battery (huge deal, i carry 2 spares, often away from chargers
for days)

\- headphone jack (bt quality sucks, a lot, also battery and security issues
keeping it on)

\- Physical function buttons

\- Waterproof/resistant, semi rugged. (Can I use it ouside in weather? Useless
if not.)

\- Decent camera, and audio.

\- Gets regular security updates.

\- Removable mass storage

\- Makes and recieves phone calls without excessive dropouts.

\- Internet connectivity with email and very basic browser.

Most modern phones dont even check half the boxes. They all seem to be made
for people who never leave their car or office.

~~~
kalleboo
> \- Removable battery (huge deal, i carry 2 spares, often away from chargers
> for days)

I thought losing the removable battery would be a huge deal when I switched to
the iPhone, but in practice, switching to using USB powerbanks was actually an
improvement. Don't have to reboot when you swap out, and you can charge it at
the same time as your phone without carrying an extra special charger. And you
can get them in massive capacities, and share them with friends who are caught
out.

------
ramshanker
I swear this post seems to have suddenly dropped out of HN. I saw it on the
phone. Than came to laptop only to find it no where. As it can be seen, some
many comments were posted in last few minutes of this post.

Is there some moderation or something?

~~~
Steko
It seems like most articles about Apple are quickly flagged off the front page
by a small cadre of haters.

------
kalleboo
People still believe the shit "analysts" say?

------
JohnTHaller
The couple folks I know of who got the iPhone X were really keen on animojis,
so Apple artificially limiting animojis to the X seems to be driving a few
sales. There's no technical reason you can't do them on a regular old iPhone 8
since they only use the regular camera. It's purely a marketing limitation.

------
scarface74
Who am I suppose to believe "analysts" or Apple who gave revenue estimates
that if they met, would be a record breaking quarter for them?

By the time they gave those estimates, they were already about a month in the
first calendar quarter.

------
bob_theslob646
I think a major mistake Apple made was assuming that it's iPhone base would be
willing to accept change so quickly coupled with the fact that they charge
1000 dollars for the phone. I think psychologically , that number bothers
people.

It would be interesting to see what age most iPhone users are. I know plenty
of elderly people in their 70s and early 80s in the U.S., who have an iPhone
because it is super simple to use. The iPhone X, with it's gestures, not so
much, but what do I know.

------
jacksmith21006
This is not surprising. Like PC sales a decade ago phone replacements were
going to slow.

------
nugi
Its a luxury, disposable income signalling device. I don't know many tech
savvy people with iphones of any kind anymore. Its clearly image and
exclusivity driving sales, not features.

I think many people see apple as a luxury brand more than a technology company
now. Which might be better than the alternative. 'Anyone' can create tech, it
takes years and billions to create a valuable brand.

~~~
jrs95
This is bullshit. I just switched back from Android to an iPhone X and I'm
loving it. More than half of the software engineers I work with have iPhones.
None of us seem to be particularly interested in 'image and exclusivity'.

------
batter_eaze
The non-metal rear back plate, and the absence of a headphone jack are really
stiff turn-offs considering the price. Also, it’s kinda big and heavy in terms
of the physical dimensions of the form factor, and besides, I’m just not that
into photography.

Also, the whole thing with the batteries, and not so much the surreptitious
performance throttling, but more the eternally non-swappable battery locked
behind delicate ribbon leads inside the pentalobe-secured chasis.

So, sorted in preferential order (most desirable first), for an extra special
_X_ model, I’d have enjoyed seeing:

    
    
      - the all metal, black gloss finish introduced with the iPhone 7 (yes i’ll be clapping inside some stupid mil-spec plastic envelope because it’s $1,000 but metal doesn’t shatter into a gritty spider web on a bad drop)
      - normal wired headphones
      - USB-C replacing the lightning port, because one less dongle for my macbook pro
      - sane, toolless battery options, ...maybe a universal apple battery format? (yeah right)
      - maybe smaller and pocket friendly? i dunno... maybe the bigger screen is nice to have...
      - and whatever other extra crap they bundled in lately
    

Also, a watch without the weird red dot on the dial? Christ, almighty. Why the
red dot? Why?

