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Comment by genie514 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder at what price people will consider switching from iOS to Android. Seems like they sold an incredible number of iPhones at ASPs higher than analyst predictions.

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I recently moved from a GS8 to an iPhone 8. Just yesterday I took delivery of an iPhone XR.

I used Android from its inception with the HTC Magic and Dream. Nexus One, Nexus 4, 5, 6p, GS2, GS3, GS8, Motorola Glide somewhere in there. Lots of devices, over every Android version. From a full financial cost perspective (e.g. lifetime cost and then value when retired if I were selling them) virtually all of them cost me more than the iPhone of the days.

It was never about cost. Various platform benefits drew me, from a development perspective it enticed me, and it seemed right for the industry. Almost morally right.

With recent iOS versions, however, Apple has stolen many of the best features of Android (the notification system, how multitasking operates, intents, etc), while at the same time improving on the benefits they already have (a higher quality platform, better security, a better app ecosystem).

As Google started moving to their Pixel platform, continued to abandon 2 year old devices with disregard (my devices are always new, but from a utility perspective I like being able to safely give older devices to my children), Android lost me. Not to mention that it became the Samsung platform with a fringe of Google devices. I also seriously question Google's motives in providing a quality API for developers for things like computer learning and computational photography.

So there's a counterpoint. These devices are so important for our lives now than $1000 a year seems entirely reasonable.

It totaly depends on how important you think a device is.

I bought a $100 Motorola and plan to keep it until the battery isn't charging anymore. So if I can keep it for 5 years I think $20 per year is reasonable.

Comparing this to the iPhone it will save me $980 a year. That's a nice holiday with my family...

Who is buying a new iPhone every year and trashing the old one?

A $1000 iPhone you use 3 years is $333 a year. What is that, one days work as a developer?

A lot of people given that the major carriers have upgrade plans to trade in for the new one after one year.

Or a month salary in less fortunate regions.

Yah so you probably shouldn't spend $1000 on a phone if your yearly income is < $100k

That device won't have security updates. So you just dismessed a major part of OP's reasoning: they don't want an insecure phone and don't want to hand one off to their kids.

Maybe that's what you meant by important?

Most parts of Android can now be updated via the app store. So security is now a big issue anymore since Android 7

Do you have further info on this? It's not Android's reputation to say the least.

This sounds better, but better doesn't make good.

Purchasing a new iPhone every year is not a necessity by almost any definition of "necessary". So you are more like $500/year or $333/year or even $250/year depending on how often you refresh.

That isn't true with many Android devices because of the poor track record of OS upgrades and support.

Even if you do upgrade every year, iPhones hold their value very well, so you can sell your old phone for a substantial proportion of what you paid for it and only pay a fraction of the cost of the new one.

I spend less than $20 per year on smart phones, and have had no complaints about them whatsoever. So maybe the marketing is just really working on you?

Not really.

I work in technology. I have a family. This device is my communications platform, information conduit, photography device, GPS device, and on and on and on. This is the computing device I use for probably 50% of my time.

I also don't have a junk laptop. The things that matter to me I'm willing to not cheap out on. Even if an alternative offered 80% of the utility for "$20 per year", the last 20% would be easily worth it.

And what's the difference? My phone provides the same things you want from yours. I use it all the time. Obviously if you can get the same thing at 1/8th the cost, it's probably not worth it to spend that extra money.

The phone is not even a junk phone:

https://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto-e-plus-gen-4

It's just not a premium "luxury" phone. I spend $45 per month on service and $170 for the device. My fiancée's phone is a $1000 Pixel, and it offers almost nothing more. Nothing that she actually uses anyway.

You are making quite a lot of assumptions prematurely presented as facts, although they may not apply at all to the person you're talking to.

Personally, while I don't doubt that the Motorola works fine for you, I wouldn't even consider it since it doesn't run iOS. Or likely any up to date OS in 3-4 years.

I really hate the “marketing doesn’t work on me” trope. Such a weird way to be condescending. It’s almost never true either.

You're reading too much into what I said.

Apple's attitude towards, and stewardship of, my privacy is worth a very serious markup to me personally. Doesn't hurt that the products are so good too.

You've got to remember that cost of phone is far from the only cost. There are non-monetary costs such as loss of iMessage, Game Center (JK JK no one care about that), Apple Pay, etc. And then there are the actual costs, I've spent just shy of $3K since 2008 on Apple digital "stuff" (so iOS apps, Mac Apps, Subscriptions, IAP, etc) and while I'd estimate there is about $1k or so of actual residual value in those purchases (as in apps/subscriptions I still use daily and would buy again tomorrow if they went away) it's still not anything to sneeze at. While not all of that is iOS (Most of it is, my iOS apps/IAP/Subscriptions total alone is $2.4K) it is all part of locking me into the system.

Here is my breakdown (I pulled these number out of my Apple Data Export):

    iOS and tvOS Apps: $1087
    In-App Subscriptions: $380
    iCloud Storage Subscriptions: $251
    In-App Purchases: $520
    Mac Apps: $560
    iTunes Match Subscriptions: $150
    Apple Music Subscriptions: $0
    Books: $6
    Movie Rentals: $9
    Songs: $5

iMessage is a surprisingly good platform lock-in for the mac, too. I didn't realize how much of my normal Messages/SMS happens on my computer until I tried to switch to linux. No more "let me just text this link to someone..." or "ha ha, let me share this meme with my friend" without it.

I mean you COULD, but then you have to go convince your friends to use $alternateMEssenger instead of their phone's built-in SMS app.

iMessage is the greatest long con that isn't a con of all time. You don't know how great it is until you talk to someone that isn't on iMessage or you lose access to it. It just slowly sneaks into your life until you think it just IS text messaging. Never bought into iMessage "apps" or sticker packs but I love things like typing indicators/read receipts/etc.

I don’t understand the group features at all though. Do people really have groups of friends in which noone has an Android phone?

In smaller or very similar groups yes. I have a group iMessage with 11 friends in it but even so for group messages I normally use FB messenger, a surprising good product, so android/ios is equal.

Out of 40-50 family and friends that I text regularly, maybe 3 are on Android.

Certainly in Europe WhatsApp fills that gap. There isn't much point solely using iMessage when at least 50% of your friends have Android phones.

The web version is fast and functional too.

Does the web version keep login credentials well? I tried the desktop app, but it was taking an insane amount of storage for some reason.

You login with a QR code from your phone.

I don't think WhatsApp even has accounts - just phone numbers.

Oh I know. I meant whether the login stays persistent or whether you have to scan repeatedly on the web version. On the desktop app you can once and it lasts months.

I have an iPhone and almost never use it. I use FB messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, and Discord for 99% of my contacts.

To me, iMessage on the Mac is almost a sad indictment of just how little progress has been made in computing in the last 2 decades.

It's a feature that was obvious back when we were all using Nokia 3310s. Connect phone and computer as one thing. Call and message from either. Heck, calling from your computer was an obvious feature-to-be back in the monochrome screen days!

It's ridiculous that a) Apple is the only company that has this right now, and b) it took them so long to get there in the first place.

What the hell is everyone doing!?

What are you buying for iOS and In-App? I've only spent maybe $100 in total on iOS apps, across a good five years

I think my only MacOS app expenditure was parallel and daisy disk.

My Apple costs is almost purely hardware

I'm not going to lie, I'm not proud of my IAP total. I am perfectly fine with purchasing level packs in games or full unlocks in apps but about half of that IAP was shit like gems/coins/etc that I spent on various games before I got that under control. As for iOS apps I have a couple of $20-$30 apps that really ratcheted up the total but I test out a lot of apps/games and while that number is large we are talking about ~$100/yr on apps which I am personally OK with.

If you would like I could get more specific on which apps/games.

Sure; I’m mostly fine with ponying up... my biggest issue is I don’t see much out there even worth paying (especially with my macbook; most things seem to have an equivalent or better OSS alternative, especially if you’re not constrained to the gui [where OSS is usually ugly as sin]). Even in games, the only mobile game I’ve ever thought to pick up was King of Dragon Pass, and that was just because I already knew it’d work well on a phone

As long as that budget isn’t comprised of a single photoshop license, I’m interested to know what you’ve thought was worth grabbing.

Here are some quick stats I spit out:

  Paid vs Free apps:
  Mac: 57 Paid vs 33 Free
  iOS: 310 Paid vs 227 Free

  Stats:
  ╔══════════╤═══════╤════════╤═══════╤═════════════════╗
  ║ Platform │ Mean  │ Median │ Mode  │ Range           ║
  ╟──────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼─────────────────╢
  ║ Mac      │ $9.83 │ $4.99  │ $4.99 │ $0.99 -> $59.99 ║
  ╟──────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼─────────────────╢
  ║ iOS      │ $3.51 │ $2.99  │ $0.99 │ $0.99 -> $59.99 ║
  ╚══════════╧═══════╧════════╧═══════╧═════════════════╝

I need to clean up my output for "By Seller" because right now it looks like this:

  Totals By Seller:
  Apple Inc.: $493.05 (iOS Apps: $21.6, Mac Apps: $70.96)
  Supercell Oy: $252.7 (IAP: $252.7)
  Evernote: $147.96 (Subscriptions: $147.96)
  Panic, Inc.: $87.95 (iOS Apps: $37.96, Mac Apps: $49.99)
  Hindsight Labs LLC: $67.94 (iOS Apps: $17.96, Mac Apps: $49.98)
  Assembla, Inc.: $59.99 (Mac Apps: $59.99)
  American Honda Motor Co., Inc (Acura): $59.99 (iOS Apps: $59.99)
  Strong Fitness Ltd.: $54.89 (Subscriptions: $54.89)
  ...

Which is not super useful unless you know that name of the company behind the app. I need to re-write my code to at least put a list of the app names at the end or something. For reference, in order the apps are:

  Apple Inc = Mac OS's
  Supercell Oy = Clash Royale (Not proud of this number at all)
  Evernote = Evernote (duh)
  Panic, Inc = iOS: Prompt, Prompt 2, Coda, Transmit, Status Board | Mac:  Coda 2 (I own most all their mac apps as well but didn't buy through the store)
  Hindsight Labs LLC = Paprika 2 and 3 (for iPad/iPhone/Mac) (recipe app,  hands down the best one out there, trust me)
  Assembla, Inc = Cornerstone (svn program)
  American Honda Motor Co., Inc = Acura Link (WASTE OF MONEY, I should have fought this charge)
  Strong Fitness Ltd = Strong (iOS Workout tracker, I think it was like $5-$6/mo)

I need to also have my code print out top purchases by price (ignoring seller). I can pull out more if you would like.

Edit: As you can tell the Apple Inc line is wrong, it looks like it's not pulling in the "special" categories they created for iCloud stuff, I'll fix that later.

People are also factoring in TCO with iOS/Android.

Apple supports their devices for 5 years. Android it's more like 2 or 3 and often much less. And with Apple's retail presence it's easy to get 1-1 support which is non-existent for anyone other than Samsung. And with the extraordinary performance of their A CPUs often their devices are holding up longer as well.

Who keeps their phone for 5 years. The battery will be bad in 2 years. Replacing it requires disassembling a phone.

I've had my 6s since Sept 2015. It reports battery capacity as 86% of new, and still not throttled. I'll probably get the $29 battery replacement before the end of the year, just in case and keep the phone at least another year, if not 2. Previous phone was a 4s, bought Oct 2011. So, I guess I'm saying, "me. I keep my phone that long, or nearly so."

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-people-wait-to-upgr...

The average person has their phone less than 2 years. If we assume a normal distribution and a standard deviation of 11 months then 83% of people will keep it less than 3 years. 5 years would be 3 std deviations. That is a very small number.

Not sure about US but in Australia you can go to any shopping mall and there will be a shop where you can get your battery replaced.

Or even in most cities there are phone repair places that will get you a new battery pretty cheaply.

This is also true in the US (not sure of prices though I can’t imagine why it’d be mich different from Australia).

One big problem is that you don’t know whether you’re getting genuine parts, and aftermarket stuff can be quite crappy.

I usually just keep my old phones in storage when I switch, and hand 'em off to visitors and such (or when I break my phone); comes in handy often enough. Battery holds sufficiently in a drawer.

Replacing the battery is $29, parts and labor (for this year).

That was a special because of the throttling the normal battery replacement is more than that.

Yeah, but it’s not like it was $150 before. Compared to a new phone starting at $650 or so, even $89 (old price?) is a bargain.

(Obviously the new phone would have other benefits, but it’s a big price jump. Even for a refurb.)

You could get a mid tier new phone for 200 which will be better than a 2 year old phone.

The phones keep resale value that way.

I doubt cost would ever be a primary concern that drives people to Android. If cost is a concern for me, I could still get the iPhone 7 ($449 - new from Apple).

I think that the cost of the phone is financed really helps here, too. It hides (mostly) that you are purchasing ~$1k worth of equipment.

I have a Dell XPS dev edition that I tinker with, installing various linux distros and trying stuff and breaking it and fixing it. I do it because it's fun.

My phone has to be 100% rock-solid. I do lots of actual important stuff on it.

I'm never switching to Android, because it's a gamble. Which model? How long will it be supported? Is it vanilla Android, or did they break it with custom shit-ware? Will they ever fix security holes?

The "wall of sheep" at Blackhat is mostly Android phones too.

You hit the nail on the head. Lots of tech-oriented people seem to have this compulsion to tinker with everything which is why they can’t understand why someone would prefer an iPhone.

I simply do not care about being able to root my phone, side-load random crap, or use third party browsers. I barely even change the wallpaper. That stuff is what my real computer (running FreeBSD) is for.

What I care about on my phone is having a huge, pretty screen, good performance (i.e., no frame drops and jank when interacting with the UI), reliability, and security.

What Apple has realised is there is an entire class of people who simply don’t mind paying $70 a month or whatever it costs to have a new iPhone, even though they’re not competitive in price, it doesn’t matter, and so Apple gets to make these huge profits.

What HN commenters have realised is there is an entire class of commenters who simply don't mind inventing figures or whatever it takes to create a straw man, even though they're not congruent with reality, it doesn't matter, and so the poster gets to declare victory.

> not competitive in price

Yeah those rubes paying Apple's $793 ASP could gotten a Galaxy S9+ for only $840. Or a Pixel 3 starting at $799,a Pixel 3XL for $899, a Note 9 starting at $1000 or a Huawei P20 Pro for €899 instead.

I'm one of those people. I was getting iPhones every 2 years, but my phones were laying around wasted. I would rather "rent" my iphone and switch it out every year for essentially the same cost, and not have to deal with the phones laying around. Plus getting Apple Care every year makes sense now with the screens being so expensive to fix.

>even though they’re not competitive in price

Explain to me how having the fastest silicone in the business is not "competitive" in price? I mean if you are the top dog, you kinda get to set the stage, no?

You mean “silicon”, not “silicone”. (Or maybe you do mean “silicone”?)

Right you are, silicon. Thank you. Not caulking material :)

They do have the best silicone, and I was trying to explain why they get to set the price they do and get away with it.

It’s just that, for example in South Africa the new iPhone XS costs R22000-24000 which is $1500 - the Samsungs and especially the Huawei’s are much cheaper. You can get a P20 lite for like R5000 which is an outstanding phone. But again many South Africans can afford the iPhone.

Well of course! Not everyone needs the best CPU. I recently got Huawei Mate for my mother in law for let's see 1/7th of what I paid for my IPhone XS Max. Some people do (I play a lot of 3D games and what not), but vast majority of the people do not. It's just that Huawei and Samsung have offerings that span the whole range of prices whereas Apple only covers ultra-premium segment. And if you venture into Apple prices are comparable to others (and command much better resale).

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