I get its a premium product, but they've priced themselves out of so many peoples budgets at this point I think.
But I would absolutely love a $400-500 iPhone and I'm fine if it's missing a lot of features. My phone just isn't my primary point of mobile computing anymore (if anything, Apple Watch fills that role for me now[0]), so I neither need nor want a $1000 phone (even though, being a fanboi, I have one). And the point of putting my CV in the first paragraph is to point out that, hey, even if you don't make money selling me a phone, Apple, you'll still make an arse-load of money off me. And maybe you'll get new customers/revenue to boot.
[0]Which, I'll point out, is also a ridiculously-priced device at $900 for the one I bought.
Apple still sells iPhone 7.
OTOOH, having given a bit of thought, is it just more economical to eat the expensive of the flagship up front and then hang on to it for four or five years (which is what we currently do).
XR: $750 / 6 years = $125/year
8: $599 / 5 years = $120/year
7: $449 / 4 years = $112/year
So assuming you plan to keep the device for its entire lifespan, I'm not sure it actually matters very much what you buy.
[0] http://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_5824_io...
Will easily last me 3-4 years.
50/year to own.
iPhone 8 assuming it lasts 4 years without battery/breakage means I could buy new moto x4 every year I own that 8. I get that its supported longer but these devices are heavily used and abused.
Or trailing edges of the 2nd and 3rd generation respectively.
Just make sure you don’t hold on beyond obsolescence.
Sometimes old stuff spikes in value a bit as others want to replace/repair instead of upgrade.
That's quite a shallow self-image
Well, as long as you're happy...
I’m sure from a TCO it will still end up being more expensive than Android but not quite as much when looking beyond initial purchase price.
My previous phone was an iPhone 6. I'm pretty sure it was around March when I got it, and it was the topend phone at the time, so I guess it was March 2015. So that was perhaps 2.5 years; this jives with my recollection of it being out of contract, but not hugely so. But my wife kept using it till May this year because I accidentally left it near her when her phone broke, and she thought it was fine even though to me it was unusable. Perhaps you can call that about 4 years of use.
Before that, I had a Nexus 5. I don't think it lasted particularly wrong. I got it on my birthday, which makes it July 2014. So I presumably replaced it within a year. I think I was unhappy withe the phone for its whole life; in particular, I had been planning to try an iPhone so I don't know why I bought a Nexus. Its battery life was awful. Once the screen broke, and its replacement cost was a massive proportion of its purchase price, I decided to try an iPhone. But my wife used it after hers got stolen till it completely broke apart sometime last year (she used both the iPhone and the Nexus for a time).
Before that, I had a G1. It was probably around 2009 or 2010 that I got it, so maybe it was four or five years. At the time, my coworkers laughed at me for having such an old phone, but I didn't think it was weird to keep a phone so long.
So I guess the phones I buy get used for about four years, no matter who owns (I mean, wrote the OS) them. But I get itchy feet every other year.
On the other hand, One Plus seems to behave somewhat special here. The Samsung phone of my mother might have received one or two minor updates and it's already down to the ground although it's not even two years old, I think.
So, pricing is always relative to the existing technological level and competing offerings. Within a given technological age, Apple chose to always go after the upper third - quarter - or even tenth of the market. It's a strategy that brought them great fortunes, they don't compete on price, not even on capability per unit of price, they sell premium gadgets for those with high disposable income.