That is to be expected, most of the world doesn't do contracts, the phones already do what 99% want from such a device, and most new features look like pointless gimmicks without much relevance for most public.
> the phones already do what 99% want from such a device
Until a technological limit is broken through that opens up new possibilities. If I imagine the perfect device, it wouldn't even be a physical tablet shaped device I need to hold in my hand. Better voice recognition and understanding of natural language commands and some breakthrough in display tech that doesn't require a glass screen could change the game. Yes, the current form of phones is near optimal, but it's a local optimum, and someone will jump out of it and eat Apples lunch at some point.
I'm quite fond of the telepathic mode of communication shown in Ghost in the Shell. Between now and mass adoption of Neuralink (if it happens...), I imagine there'd be a neck-worn device that can read off the neural signals going to our throat and allows us to operate devices/communicate through subvocalization [0].
I’m probably part of that crowd. As a geek I wanted to have the newest and the shiniest for years. But currently iterations are boring. There is no novelty. Since I’m the payer for the phones of my family if I don’t see the point there are usually at least few sales per year on phone alone that are lost here. It’s anecdotal but based on my talks with friends it’s the same for them.
You're totally right. My mom absolutely loves her phone and yearly, iterative upgrades are godsend to her. And that's why i think Apple went into other devices to please gadget-loving crowd, such as watch or headphones.
I think that would explain decline in sales. Stage has been set and the movement is rather small between the platforms.
Yes, this. I find it far more satisfying to take older devices, put the latest AOSP-derived distribution on them and make them work just as well as new ones than to just buy... buy... buy... to follow the 'trend'...
And also the opting for the nuclear option when faced with defending their 30% app store commissions.
I love Apple devices, but at some point no one can afford them anymore. Strangely, I noticed that this has happened before when Steve Jobs left Apple for the first time. At that point, Apple's product lineup keep getting more complex and more expensive, until Jobs came back and cut both the product count and pricing back to sensible levels.
This time, there is no one that can go back there and do that anymore. Will be interesting to see where this goes.
Yes, it used to be a single phone a year, pricier options were just for storage. Maybe that was too far in one direction, I don't know. But now it seems like too many, and I couldn't even tell you the real difference between the options, much less why I should spend $1500 on one of them when I can a 1.5 year old android flagship for $400 with CPU & GPU benchmarks only a little less that theirs, which is all I really care about: snappy response for page loads, video streaming, gaming, reasonably good camera & video quality.
> I can a 1.5 year old android flagship for $400 with CPU & GPU benchmarks only a little less that theirs, which is all I really care about: snappy response for page loads, video streaming, gaming, reasonably good camera & video quality.
How many more months of security updates do you anticipate receiving on that device. Are security updates a priority for you?
(Written on my $450, in 2016, 4 year old iPhone SE, which I am considering upgrading for the new $450 iPhone SE in 2020)
I am less concerned about security updates on Android phones these days because a great deal of the relevant updates take place in the Google services that are now updated through their normal app store updates. For example, a recent s curity bulletin I came across said the latest security update would fix it, but it would also be caught by Google Play Protect as well, so even if my phone no longer received official updates I'd still be protected from the major source of vulnerabilities: installed apps.
The SE and even the 11 seem fairly affordable. The pro versions seem fairly pointless imo. You also have the option of buying a second a second hand older model. Even the iphone X is faster than current year androids.
That's one theory that has been thrown. It's pretty sensible. The hardware and software does a ton already .. every year seems like tweaking absurd performance counters already.
4G in my area is currently faster than my home internet on the Australian NBN. The killer feature seems to be not the fact that its faster but that it is shorter range so there is less congestion. If you live in a big city, 5g will bring 4g speeds that the suburbs experience.
And speed doesn't seem to be the limiting factor of mobile internet. Data caps are by far more restricting.
It doesn't really matter, people want 5G. There's also the standard argument that when 5G becomes standard, new applications will arise. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but that's also kind of the point. People in the 90s probably couldn't imagine graphics cards enabling a deep learning either.
5G is primarily targeted at IoT. New applications yes, but those applications won't necessarily be for phones.
Unless bandwidth prices for 5G get dramatically lower than 4G (unlikely, because I don't see mobile operators discriminating subscriptions like that), then 5G won't have much of an impact on phone owners.
Traditionally dumb devices that are streaming telemetry / sensor data to, and possibly receving commands from, a central server.
5G is supposedly better for the use-case because it should support more connections, it should have less latency, and the devices should use less power for staying connected.
The only deployment that actually makes a lot of sense is better coverage at sporting events, but why buy a phone for that this year when nobody is going to sporting events.
It does not follow that you have huge personal issues if you mistake a 59.99 price tag for 50 dollars and make a purchase, when you would’ve reconsidered it at $60. If that didn’t happen often enough, it wouldn’t be common practice.
Whether a price is $59.99 or $60.00 conveys a notable degree of information to the consumer. I wouldn’t be quick to assume it’s taking advantage of people’s innumeracy.
If you look closely enough, that is. It’s happened to me that I saw a useful product, only remembered its rounded down price when later discussing a potential purchase with my girlfriend, decided to buy, then realized I fell victim to this sales tactic. I imagine that happens a lot more often than someone getting useful information out of the price tag (not) ending in 99. It’s not a big deal either way, just a bit dishonest IMO.
Apparently it is a superhuman effort -- else those companies wouldn't be using this trick.
Rounding up might be easy. Getting rid through the act of rounding up the instictual psychology that "this is less than the round" is not easy at all, might even be near impossible at the feelings level.
Perhaps, but there is a small benefit to the consumer. A whole number can indicate the brand is positioned towards upper-class consumers and that a price conscious consumer should look for cheaper alternatives.
It’s not a significant benefit, restaurants are the best application I can think of, but the harm that occurs from it is similarity miniscule.
I was disappointed that the article ends with “ Apple is losing new iPhone users at a drip-drip-drip pace” without considering how long a user is keeping their phone or why.
I would have thought the number of iPhone users continues to rise even though annual unit sales are falling, due to the longevity of the devices.
I’m typing this on my nearly 3 year old iPhone X and don’t intend to replace it until 2021 at the earliest (and then give it to my son!).
If you take a look at the ios device support charts you can see that the trend is that every iphone gets 1 year more support than the device before it. My 2014 ipad is getting the upcoming update while 2 year old android devices get cut off and budget models never get updates.
I got this 2014 ipad second hand recently and it works more than well enough. I expect this is a big reason for a drop in sales.
I don't think this is the only reason for that statement. I think Android phones, specially the cheaper brands, are selling way more than iPhones in new and less income markets in Asia and Africa. Apple has very few chances in thoese markets and the rich markets have already many iPhones still working.
Therefore Apple strategy is to sell other hardware complementary to the iPhone and Internet services.
I think so as well. Having been so impressed with the longevity of our current devices (old SE), my next phone also will be Apple's. My Samsung S8+ has served me well, but Samsung has no clue how to play the software game.
That's why they created airpods, watches, homepods and the forthcoming airtags and glasses. Those items don't get purchased standalone; they're part of the iphone experience. Analyzing iphone sales without accessory sales is missing the point.
i stopped reading ZDNet since years specially due to their useless articles about Linux and Opensource. I think this is another "useless" article.
As you said, its pretty obvious the Smartphone market is full, Apple since years looked for other ways to monetize. Thats why now Apple services have more earnings than iPhones. Apple strategy now is to keep the customer at home buying watches, headphones, tablets, Music etc... etc...
Regarding the sale of iPhones itself it would make sense to compare it per regions and against other competitors like Samsung and Xiaomi. I suspect they sale way more phones smaller and less income markets.
The numbers on chart 1 and chart 2 do not match at all, even though they are supposed to be the same, just with different scalings.
One has 2015 unit sales below 200 million, the other has it above 220 million.
one has the trend line drawn from 2016 and the other starting in 2015.
I think a good rule of thumb is to say, if the writer can't see that they made two completely different trend lines for the same thing, right next to each-other, there is probably a lot of things the writer did not notice in the numbers. Best not to spend time on their conclusions.
iphone unit sales declining was a well known secret - this is the reason why apple stopped reporting unit sales and bragged about services and average revenue per customer.
This may have interesting consequences with a pending cliff fall especially if some other killer trend comes up.
Perhaps if they made physical dual sim phones widely available (and not just in China and Hong Kong) they might be able to lure more users. In my corner of the globe, a significant number of people have more than one SIM so Purchasing an iPhone is not very cost efficient. And even if you do have the means to purchase a second device it will most likely be a cheaper android phone. Eventually you’ll come to realize that android isn’t that bad compared to iOS and at times it even does things better. So your next logical upgrade purchase will be a high end dual sim android phone.
What's the point of sim cards anyways? I'm not sure why it's needed when things can be done over software. It feels like an antiquated piece of technology. Like just use the phone identifier or something, and map it to a digital sim.
It decouples the carrier from the phone manufacturer.
I'd rather swap sims than beg Apple to change my carrier. Maybe to one they don't yet support.
Of course, you need an unlocked phone for this, but in the poorer countries most people are on prepaid not contract, and their phones are unlocked from the start.
> The obvious solution is that sim is replaced with a username and password
That would still go through the phone manufacturer? Or maybe not, but in that case it would require changing how all the cell phone networks work. Not going to happen soon.
I have wondered the same thing. I just did a search and all I can find is uninformed speculation about how its "more secure" or because its required as part of the mobile technology. None of it seems correct and my guess is there is just no push for esim because every phone has to have a sim tray for compatibility and every carrier gives out a sim because everyone has a sim tray and knows how to use it.
This is natural. iPhones have a really long life, and the improvements are marginal.
I actually wanted to get off the iOS train, as I hate its restrictions, yet I just bought a new iPad, because my other 5 year old iPad Pro and my iPhone 8 are still being updated, and still running fine with no performance issues.
Apple's devices age well. And it's why I became their customer, despite not liking their philosophy for iOS, as I refuse to get on the 2-year upgrade treadmill forced by others (e.g Samsung).
What upgrade treadmill? Most people use pre-paid phones until they either break down or get stolen.
Most non-techies that I know don't even have updates enabled, because they don't want UI to change under their feet (typical users where E icon == Internet).
> "Most people use pre-paid phones until they either break down or get stolen."
Reference please. My personal impression is that most people buy subsidized phones, as part of the contract, every 2 years when the renewal is up.
If you have better data than my anecdote, I'm all ears.
The Android devices that I've had, and that my family has had, stopped receiving major updates, and even security patches, after only 1 year.
So first of all, I don't care what other people do, I can't use devices that are no longer upgraded with security patches. Meanwhile iPhone 6s is getting upgraded to iOS 14.
Also, low end Androids stop being usable after about 2 years, either because apps become too slow, or because the battery is affected. And even the high end phones have hardware issues much faster than my iPhones. I've had two Galaxy S phones in my household, after 2 years one had a damaged motherboard and the other had a battery dying on us.
These devices are designed for obsolescence. And many people are actually spending more money on those lower end Androids than if they got a higher end iPhone and keep it for 6 years.
My 3 year old iPhone 8 still has a battery that's in top shape BTW, with no performance issues.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadThis applies to Android as well.
Until a technological limit is broken through that opens up new possibilities. If I imagine the perfect device, it wouldn't even be a physical tablet shaped device I need to hold in my hand. Better voice recognition and understanding of natural language commands and some breakthrough in display tech that doesn't require a glass screen could change the game. Yes, the current form of phones is near optimal, but it's a local optimum, and someone will jump out of it and eat Apples lunch at some point.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition
But what us bleeding edge geeks tend to forget is that the releases aren't really aimed at the people who buy a new phone every year.
To the user whose phone went into EOL because of the new release, the 5 year jump in features is HUGE.
I think that would explain decline in sales. Stage has been set and the movement is rather small between the platforms.
I love Apple devices, but at some point no one can afford them anymore. Strangely, I noticed that this has happened before when Steve Jobs left Apple for the first time. At that point, Apple's product lineup keep getting more complex and more expensive, until Jobs came back and cut both the product count and pricing back to sensible levels.
This time, there is no one that can go back there and do that anymore. Will be interesting to see where this goes.
How many more months of security updates do you anticipate receiving on that device. Are security updates a priority for you?
(Written on my $450, in 2016, 4 year old iPhone SE, which I am considering upgrading for the new $450 iPhone SE in 2020)
You know something is not right when their own website start to list trade-in prices. I mean, this is a phone, not a car.
And yet my car’s entertainment system is massively enhanced by my phone.
Meanwhile I can still buy an iPhone new for $450 with 128GB storage, and an expectation to receive security updates for at least 4 years.
The annual insurance on my car is higher, and I use my phone for many more hours per day, and these days, need it a lot more than I do my car.
And then your 4G LTE won't be fast enough.
And speed doesn't seem to be the limiting factor of mobile internet. Data caps are by far more restricting.
Unless bandwidth prices for 5G get dramatically lower than 4G (unlikely, because I don't see mobile operators discriminating subscriptions like that), then 5G won't have much of an impact on phone owners.
5G is supposedly better for the use-case because it should support more connections, it should have less latency, and the devices should use less power for staying connected.
The only deployment that actually makes a lot of sense is better coverage at sporting events, but why buy a phone for that this year when nobody is going to sporting events.
https://www.mobilesportsreport.com/2019/10/ohio-state-breaks...
Here in Germany, we would already be happy if actually HSCSD worked everywhere, let alone LTE.
This pricing technique is just to make someone look.
So, if this is unethical, so is a brightly lit sign, or a couple well-placed adjectives in a sales pitch.
Rounding up might be easy. Getting rid through the act of rounding up the instictual psychology that "this is less than the round" is not easy at all, might even be near impossible at the feelings level.
It’s not a significant benefit, restaurants are the best application I can think of, but the harm that occurs from it is similarity miniscule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing
I would have thought the number of iPhone users continues to rise even though annual unit sales are falling, due to the longevity of the devices.
I’m typing this on my nearly 3 year old iPhone X and don’t intend to replace it until 2021 at the earliest (and then give it to my son!).
*edited typo
I got this 2014 ipad second hand recently and it works more than well enough. I expect this is a big reason for a drop in sales.
Therefore Apple strategy is to sell other hardware complementary to the iPhone and Internet services.
As you said, its pretty obvious the Smartphone market is full, Apple since years looked for other ways to monetize. Thats why now Apple services have more earnings than iPhones. Apple strategy now is to keep the customer at home buying watches, headphones, tablets, Music etc... etc...
Regarding the sale of iPhones itself it would make sense to compare it per regions and against other competitors like Samsung and Xiaomi. I suspect they sale way more phones smaller and less income markets.
One has 2015 unit sales below 200 million, the other has it above 220 million.
one has the trend line drawn from 2016 and the other starting in 2015.
I think a good rule of thumb is to say, if the writer can't see that they made two completely different trend lines for the same thing, right next to each-other, there is probably a lot of things the writer did not notice in the numbers. Best not to spend time on their conclusions.
Shows that even on HN, the vast majority only reads the headline of an article.
What’s more wrong about the article is the conclusion, that Apple is losing new iPhone users. It does not and cannot follow from the numbers at all.
Also, as several other posters have said, phones have stagnated a bit. Not as bad as desktop computers, but they're going there.
The last time I changed my iPhone was because the daughter completely ruined hers, and she needed a new hand-me-down.
The last time I changed my iPhone because of a new feature was with the 5S i think. Or whenever they introduced answering phone calls on your laptop.
This may have interesting consequences with a pending cliff fall especially if some other killer trend comes up.
I'd rather swap sims than beg Apple to change my carrier. Maybe to one they don't yet support.
Of course, you need an unlocked phone for this, but in the poorer countries most people are on prepaid not contract, and their phones are unlocked from the start.
That would still go through the phone manufacturer? Or maybe not, but in that case it would require changing how all the cell phone networks work. Not going to happen soon.
I actually wanted to get off the iOS train, as I hate its restrictions, yet I just bought a new iPad, because my other 5 year old iPad Pro and my iPhone 8 are still being updated, and still running fine with no performance issues.
Apple's devices age well. And it's why I became their customer, despite not liking their philosophy for iOS, as I refuse to get on the 2-year upgrade treadmill forced by others (e.g Samsung).
Most non-techies that I know don't even have updates enabled, because they don't want UI to change under their feet (typical users where E icon == Internet).
Reference please. My personal impression is that most people buy subsidized phones, as part of the contract, every 2 years when the renewal is up.
If you have better data than my anecdote, I'm all ears.
The Android devices that I've had, and that my family has had, stopped receiving major updates, and even security patches, after only 1 year.
So first of all, I don't care what other people do, I can't use devices that are no longer upgraded with security patches. Meanwhile iPhone 6s is getting upgraded to iOS 14.
Also, low end Androids stop being usable after about 2 years, either because apps become too slow, or because the battery is affected. And even the high end phones have hardware issues much faster than my iPhones. I've had two Galaxy S phones in my household, after 2 years one had a damaged motherboard and the other had a battery dying on us.
These devices are designed for obsolescence. And many people are actually spending more money on those lower end Androids than if they got a higher end iPhone and keep it for 6 years.
My 3 year old iPhone 8 still has a battery that's in top shape BTW, with no performance issues.