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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2019-08-09, 00:57

Next month, Apple is going to introduce their new iPhones, the 6.1-inch LCD "iPhone R" and the 5.8 and 6.5-inch "iPhone S and S Max." (That's just my guess on the naming, but honestly I think they have to ditch the numbers at this point.) Judging by the past, they'll also cut the price on their older phones by $150, putting the iPhone XR at $599 and the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus at $449 and $549, and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will presumably be no more (at least in "developed" markets).

This last year has been an interesting one, though. First, it seems clear that iPhone XR and XS sales haven't met Apple's expectations. This is a little puzzling, because I think the XR is a pretty phenomenal device that brings the X all-screen design to the "mainstream" iPhone price point in a bunch of fun colors, so why wasn't it a success? Jon Gruber had an interesting idea, and that's that maybe the 2018 iPhones underperformed expressly because they brought the X all-screen design to the whole line. To a lot of people, a big chin and forehead and a round home button is the iPhone, and there was no new iPhone-shaped iPhone last year. The all-screen phones have a bit of a learning curve, and the XR is a good bit bigger than the 4.7-inch 6/7/8.

Second, competition in the "midrange" $400-500 segment has been heating up. Most notably, Google has introduced the $399 Pixel 3a and $479 Pixel 3a Plus, which are pretty exceptional values and have the same Night Sight camera, which is honestly the Pixel's killer feature. Just as importantly, the 3a and 3a Plus got Pixel phones onto a bunch of carriers, not just Verizon. Google's not holding back, any more, and anecdotally, of all the people I know who switched away from iPhone, it's always been to a Pixel, not to a Samsung or anything else.

With these things in mind, I think it would serve Apple well to be a little bit more aggressive with their entry-level iPhone rather than just replacing the iPhone 7 with the iPhone 8 at the same prices. And I think it would be good to create a more current option for people who want an iPhone-shaped iPhone, something basically on par with the iPhone XR, but with the "classic" iPhone design, because I think there is a lot of people who still want that design.

I'm reminded of the $399 iPhone SE, which was a surprise success for Apple (in a year where the "mainstream" iPhone 6s disappointed). It was basically an iPhone 5s with the SoC and camera from the iPhone 6s shoved inside, and everybody loved it. It was a small iPhone for the people who wanted a small iPhone and a far better cheap iPhone for the people who wanted a cheap iPhone. They made something for the people who liked the iPhone 5/5s design, because they didn't want to leave anyone behind.

Apple should do the same thing this year. Call it iPhone 9, call it iPhone classic, whatever, but they should beef up the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with the A12 and newer cameras and sell them for $399 and $499. (They can ditch the three metallic-look paint colors for the simpler and potentially cheaper black and white from the XR.) The new phones would be iPhone XR-equivalent, with 3GB of RAM, and would be supported and sold for as long as the iPhone XR is, just as the iPhone SE matched the iPhone 6s and was sold for just as long.

Is that "too good" of a deal? I don't think so. It's actually less aggressive than the iPhone SE, which had the then-current best-in-class A9 SoC at $399, which was two generations newer than the A7 in the $449 iPhone 5s it replaced. These phones would use the year-old A12, making them one generation ahead of the iPhone 8.

And the A12 might actually be cheaper to produce than the iPhone 8's A11. The A12 is built on a 7nm process and it's smaller in area than the A11; it's actually the smallest A-series chip since the A4. The A11 is 10nm, which is shaping up to be a bit of an oddball short-term node, like 20nm was; 7nm is anticipated to be around for a lot longer. That's important, because it means lower prices over the long haul, and I think this phone, as the "last hurrah" of the old form factor, could potentially be sold for good while.

I just keep thinking of the people who have iPhone SEs now, and it's like, what's their upgrade path? Jump straight from their 4-inch phone to the 6.1-inch iPhone XR, which is basically plus-sized? Even people who have a 7 or 8 might not want that. But what's the other option, buy a new two-year-old phone that won't get software updates as long as the other phones? Neither of those seem like great options. And two-year-old phones aren't a very exciting way to compete against the buzzy new midrange competition.

I think the time is right for Apple to pull another iPhone SE. What do you think?

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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