iPhone 7 “Product Red” Special Edition | Hacker News Reader

iPhone 7 “Product Red” Special Edition

apple.com

79 pointsdanijelb60 comments

It's so pretty, but the front is white! Just like the blue one. Ruins the look completely for me.

https://twitter.com/cgpgrey/status/844168030540193793

Only once has Apple offered an iPhone with a black front face and a 'colorful' back[1]. I don't get the constraint of choice.

[1] iPhone 3GS with white back. Also the only iPhone I've purchased that wasn't the grey/black version

Nitpick: That color scheme was available first with the iPhone 3G. Mine is still kicking around somewhere.

Horses for courses I think. I've had every iPhone in white so far and I'm buying the red model next, which I wouldn't do if it had a red front.

I'm the same - it's so much 'cleaner' in the white.. Although I'm stuck with my 6S since they removed the headphone jack on the new models.

Not just the look. My first SE was white and silver, because the black/gray 64GB model wasn't in stock and I desperately needed to replace a 4s that'd aged very badly. Since I don't buy phones as fashion statements, I shrugged and got the white/silver model instead; I hadn't had a phone with a white face before, but couldn't imagine it would make any meaningful difference.

Not many months later, I went back and spent another $500 on a black/gray replacement. Turns out the white face throws back a lot of light when you use it in full summer sun! Enough so that, even at its brightest setting, black text on a white background, or vice versa, was barely legible, and anything less contrasty than that was unusable. A phone with a black face doesn't have this problem.

I've always gotten the black ones because I find it makes video look better, but I was considering a white for my next phone because if you use a black one as a GPS mounted on a car window, the sun on the phone will cause the phone to overheat and shutdown. I guess I won't now...

The contrast problem only occurs when the sun falls on the face of the phone. If that's not the case in the GPS mount (and I can't imagine how it frequently would be), then you should be OK for that. It's just that the white surround will blind you when you're using the phone handheld in sunlight.

Maybe find a way to put the mount somewhere that's not so much in the sun, or use some black card or silicone rubber to improvise a shield? As long as the sunlight doesn't fall directly on the device, it should be enough, I'd think...

As a counterpoint I^H millions of people use the white ones without a problem.

I've had a white iPhone 6 for over two years now and it hasn't been bad at all. Before it, I'd had a black iPhone 4 and a "slate" iPhone 5, so I needed the change. I'd recommend it.

I will be getting a black iPhone again next time I get one, though.

Might be a cost saving measure. Instead of having to manufacture two bespoke parts for this special edition, now you only need the single-piece back case.

Now they could have gone black on Red, but I'm not sure that would look hugely superior, just a different bad contrast. Plus white is their trademark look...

https://www.google.com/search?q=black+on+red&tbm=isch

Vs.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=white+on+red

As cool as the black on Red looks, it isn't Apple's look.

Don't forget the U2 Edition iPod! http://www.everymac.com/images/cpu_pictures/apple_ipod_u2_5g...

One of the (admittedly silly) things I really liked about the old Nokia WP phones was that they came in cool colors. And not just as a superficial paint job that could easily scratch.

I don't think it's silly at all. The old Nokia WP phones were brilliantly designed. Both on the outside and the inside. I used to repair phones, and the Nokias were a joy to work with. Their long experience in building phones really showed. I hope that quality has carried over to whatever faceless corporation bought the smoldering ruins of Nokia.

Yeah. It's so awkward looking because you've got these ugly borders when the screen is off, and on (frankly) most usage cases. The screen is rarely showing images that are white-heavy.

Strange that they released this 6 weeks after Chinese New Years. It would have been huge.. well it probably still will be, but it would have been huger.

The Product Red designation usually indicates that the revenues will be contributed, at least in part, to AIDS/HIV awareness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Red

I think the OP's point is Tim Cook is very pro-globalization, which implies being aware of the customs of other cultures.

HIV research happens all the time, a tactical market opportunity doesn't.

Can we please stop hacking common things like colors? I don't want "meanings" attached to things I wear or own. What if I believe in the cause but don't trust the organization? Now, I simply can't buy a red phone unless, shock, everyone thinks I support it!

If you want to support something, just check the little donate box in your shopping cart and let the rest of us choose the color of our phones that best matches the color of our shoes.

Also, needs a red facing front color, not white. :-P

People have been attaching meaning to the things you wear and own for about as long as we've been wearing and owning things.

If you believe in the cause but don't want a red iPhone then donate here: https://red.org/donate/

If you're serious about fighting AIDS I'd consider keeping your current phone and donating the entire amount directly to Product RED or another AIDS charity.

If you're just making a point about commercialized aid then thank you and please donate something directly to Product Red or another AIDS charity to offset good-intentioned negativity.

[add] And if you don't have the means to donate, but would like to help AIDS causes, would you add a comment to that effect and encourage other folks with means to contribute to help people with HIV/AIDS?

I think he just wants a red phone.

I'm going to hack your mind: The colour of your shoes has been metahacked!

> Can we please stop hacking common things like colors? I don't want "meanings" attached to things I wear or own. What if I believe in the cause but don't trust the organization? Now, I simply can't buy a red phone unless, shock, everyone thinks I support it!

I had a red hat before Trump co-opted red hats for "Make America Great Again." It is deeply annoying to me that wearing it makes me appear to support him (until you look closer and realize those words aren't on it).

I'd almost pay a premium just to AVOID branding associations with Bono.

Can we please stop misusing words like 'hack'?

So it's an iPhone... but red!

Totally going to post to HN when I change the colors on my site.

The ColorWare special edition old school iPhone wrap is pretty slick. If the cost of these wraps can come down, I think they will prove to be quite popular with the younger crowd. Who wants to wait for Apple to come out with a new color scheme??

> If the cost of these wraps can come down...

Unfortunately that "if" has been the problem with all those kind of products for years. They just don't have the economy of scale to bring it down - catch 22 :(

I want one. I have the red case already. But I'm holding out for the 8.

I really like Zizek's piece of consumer driven ideology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGpc_hg48ps

How many minutes until we see new service painting old iPhones to red?

They've sold red cases for a while... Instead of paying for a service which ruins an iPhone, just throw on a TPU matte red case.

Colorware has been around for years.

I hope the red color doesn't scratch as easily as my black matte. I don't get the point of getting a phone in a specific color if you have to cover it anyway with a case.

Counterpoint: I run a matte black with no case and have not run into this issue at all.

Product RED spends more on advertising and it's executives than any causes.

"(RED)’s critical work provides access to life-saving HIV/AIDS programs in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to more than two thirds of the world’s HIV-positive population. One hundred percent of all money raised by (RED) goes directly to Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants that provide testing, counseling, treatment and prevention programs with a specific focus on eliminating transmission of the virus from moms to their babies. Since it was founded in 2006, (RED) has generated more than $465 million for the Global Fund, with more than $130 million from Apple alone."

http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/03/apple-introduces-iphon...

Source?

A source: https://web.archive.org/web/20070624105650/http://www.africo...

$100 million on marketing and billboards etc. $18 million actually raised. That was 2007.

You can see this claim, their response, and a full breakdown of their donations on the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Red

> The collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola for the Red campaign has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million.

Even ignoring the weasely "some estimates", that's counting advertising by these companies. They advertise mostly to increase their own sales. That budget was never available to charity.

That article got the numbers backward (or more likely, they used the $100M as shock value, not caring about providing facts). In other words, that $100M was never spent by (RED). On the contrary, it's an estimate of the advertising value that they would have needed, if they had bought themselves all the publicity that their campaign got. See how it's backwards?

Was bad journalism. You can simply look at their 990 form https://www.one.org/us/about/financials/

Non-profits must have open data showing how their money was spent.

source?

Not really. I was expecting you to be somewhat right since it's such a high profile thing and come on, Bono runs it, but their financials are pretty nice.

https://www.one.org/international/about/financials/

Raise 1 million without advertising or executives => 1M for charity

Raise 2 million with 25% going to advertising+execs => 1.5M for charity

Raise 10 million with 80% going to advertising and executives => 2M for charity

Which one is better? From the point of view of the people who need it the latter, so where do we draw the line? Can we draw any line?

IMHO doing something that helps others does not mean you have to do it for free unless it's done under false pretenses. There is probably an equilibrium for maximizing the money raised for the cause where advertising and execs expenses are NOT 0.

Note: totally made up numbers, it's just an example

That doesn't work if the extra income is produced by convincing people to donate to your charity rather than others, which I'd bet is often the case. Comparing your first and third examples, that's $9 million that might have gone directly to people in need through a different charity.

I do agree that people who work for charities should be paid, but the overhead needs to be reasonable. I don't know where the line should be drawn, but if a charity has far worse overhead than average, that's probably a problem.

#2 imo. #3 is always at a perceptual disadvantage, because people are less willing to donate/spend on things they know have a high operating cost (in terms of salary/bonuses) when it comes to nonprofits.

Many would say it doesn't matter if the end amount gets where it's supposed to, but humans don't like the concept of wasting their charity.

Sorry it's intended to be a relationship and those were just a couple of examples. There are millions of values between #2 and #3, and some different relationship could be at play. What I mean is that for different people, wasting is a different value. Some people might be okay with a 40% overhead while other might not be okay with a 20% overhead.

I prefer, Case #1 esp. when it hires locals exclusively. Its much more robust and sustainable model.

Case #3 looks more like your average Poverty Inc. Circle Jerk. Where the 2 million will be largely spent on hiring consultants for high premium.

There's a finite number of dollars available for charity. There's a fine line between "raising awareness", and a zero-sum shouting match for attention.

Peacocks that invest energy into longer, heavier tails get more mates in the end, making it worth the investment for them and their offspring, but if all peacocks agreed to just halve the size of their tails, the species as a whole would suffer less predation and starvation (please ignore shoddy biology, take it as a crude analogy).

Seems like they have a very good rating for a charity. Maybe you don't like where the program money is being spent? A lot of the money is spent on policy change in UN and in other non-African nations?

The ONE Campaign spent 83% of its budget on raising public awareness and educating policy makers in support of smart and effective policies and programs that are saving the lives of millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries. We strive to spend as much of our budget as possible on this work, which has direct impact. The percentage of funds committed to these programs is above the international best practice of 80%.

It's great to see companies doing more to help charitable causes, but considering the price difference ($749 vs $649 for the base iPhone) I'd like to know exactly how much of that extra $100 goes to the supported charities...

The Red edition doesn't offer 32 GB version which is why the price seems higher. It's actually the same as the 128 GB "standard" model.

I probably should have read a little further in, thanks for the correction!

Is it? Wouldn't it be better if they paid their taxes?

I'd guess most people think charity is better than taxes. Also, Apple has payed standard taxes for some time now.

Avoids taxes, donates to charities. This is a way to let billionaires and corporations dictate public policy.

Don't like military spending? Defund it by donating all your taxes to the arts instead. Public school programs not teaching enough creation theory? Take their money away and give it to churches. Charity spending is seen as an enormous loophole by quite a few people. And that doesn't even get into scams such as donor advised funds.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/raw-deal-taxpayer-d...

Wikipedia says 50% of profits generated by partner licensing. Still kind of vague.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com