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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

The cheapest iPhone is also as expensive as some mid-range Android devices and completely inaccessible to a large chunk of the world's population.

When a device that most will spend $449 on is "cheap" you have to admire Apple's price anchoring[0], they release a $1249 flagship and suddenly what the largest iPhone 5S flagshp cost ($442.09 inflation adjusted to 2020) at launch is considered "cheap."

It is undeniably a nice phone, but we've all lost sight of how much any of us should be spending on smartphones when $449 is celebrated for being a bargain. We've lost perspective.

PS - This isn't exclusively an Apple thing. Google's "bargain" Pixel 3a is essentially the same price.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2013/09/16iPhone-5s-iPhone-5c...

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That's misleading. The low prices you quoted required a 2-year carrier contract.

> an unlocked, contract free iPhone 5c will be available through T-Mobile for $549 (16GB) and $649 (32GB). T-Mobile will also have the unlocked iPhone 5s for $649, $749 and $849, for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB respectively.

https://www.engadget.com/2013-09-10-iphone-5c-and-5s-go-on-p...

Lots of people are spending many hours a week on their phones. And that time is noticeably more enjoyable with a better-functioning phone. I think it’s rational to compare the cost of phone to the cost of something like a car, appliance, or couch and consider how much value you get out of it for how many years when deciding whether the price tag is worth it. Personally, I’d pay at least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone, and that pays for a higher end phone every few years.

Consider the case of someone who is upgrading from the iPhone SE they bought four years ago. $100/year seems like a pretty good deal for their next phone.

I still use my Nexus 7 with LineageOS - daily. It's cost? A hundred sixteen dollars - in 2013. I use it for web browsing, reading and video mostly at 1920x1200 for 7 inches with a battery that still lasts a couple of days of heavy usage - I find it extremely difficult to justify spending over a thousand dollars for something that offers a whole lot of stuff that I don't need. One caveat, if you're largely using your phone for pictures then I can imagine it would be worth the cost for newer tech. I just don't need it.

Maybe Apple's better pricing will give Google the kick in the ass they need to bring back an inexpensive phablet like the Nexus 7.

> I’d pay at least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone

That's 75% of a minimum wage in Montana.

Units error and fact error.

Min wage in Montana is $8.50/hr .

And it's probably not healthy to be on your phone 8hrs a day.

But if you are, then a $1000 phone is only 25cents/hr over 2 years, when you can resell your phone for half price.

Saw some map showing Montana min wage is $4. Even if you use your phone 8hrs a day (a ton of people do for work), you own it for 24. So that's $24 a day.

It all a bit pointless math for HN crowd, but it does give some perspective - there are places where pay is very low and you don't even need to look far. People do actual work on their phones there.

The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25. Maybe some state has a lower minimum wage law, but if so it isn’t in force.

If I were making minimum wage I’d probably be more in the “buy an iPhone SE every 4 years” rather than “buy a top iPhone every 2 years” category.

But if I are going to critique other people’s spending patterns, I’d start with anyone who bought a new car, not a phone.

Someone has to buy them, but I always are shocked how people can afford them, especially at something like 10% interest rate.

But why are phones that expensive to begin with? The actual hardware costs are magnitudes less than the retail price. For the price of a the cheapest iPhone X you can get a high end laptop. It doesn't make sense to me why other mass consumer electronics like PC's continuously get faster, better and cheaper but smartphones continuously get more expensive for only modest and incremental improvements.

My understanding is Apple has a pretty good margin while most other manufacturers are hardly profitable. It’s a competitive industry. Nobody is charging twice as much as they need to because nobody has that kind of market power.

$449 doesn't seem particularly expensive for something that will last 3+ years. That is $12.50/month (or less). Your data service is easily 3x or 4x the cost of the phone.

The value that you get from that device is extraordinary compared to the cost.

You have lost perspective when you ignore actual costs, including wireless service costs. The $449 SE you buy today will sell for half that price used in 2 years, making its actual monthly cost less than $10.

The cheapest smartphone in the US costs at least $25/month ($300 a year) in wireless charges, and its owner will typically use it for thirty hours a month or more. Trying to save less than $10 a month (maybe a quarter per usage hour) by having a significantly worse camera and a much worse phone experience seems like ignoring the forest for the trees.

If you aren’t going to pay up slightly for a much better phone experience in today’s world, what are you spending your money on?

As a side note, Pixel 3a got discounted down to $300 a few months after the release, which I think is a fair price for a phone of its specs and software support period. It was definitely too expensive for me for its asked release price.

I'm generally a fan of Apple hardware, but the 3a was the best phone I've owned in a long time. It doesn't have anti-features like slippery glass back or notch and has a headphone jack. And the best thing about it is the battery life - 3-4 days with 6 hours of total screen time.

I agree, I have the pixel 3a and it is the best phone I have ever had (I have switched between Android and iPhone). For me it's the size, battery life, and it just works.

Glass back is less slippery if it's polished. New ones (or aluminium ones) are most slippery.

Amen. It's pretty striking when with say the Samsung A30 you get a 6.4" OLED display, and 4000MAh battery, which costs the same as say an old iPhone 7 here in South Africa (which is still for sale!)

If you are using all the capabilities of your smartphone, it should be adding way more value to your life, than it costs. That's what makes smartphones indispensible - a huge ROI.

Edit: Wanted to share a tip. If you are planning to buy an iPhone anyway, be sure to get Apple Card. You'll get a 3% discount on your purchase, and they will let you pay 24 equal monthly payments with no interest.

Aside from the 3% discount, aren't most carrier plans no-interest payment plans?

Because of well-documented abusive behavior towards customers, I recommend to anyone to really minimize any connections or dependencies with carriers. I don't trust the carrier enough to engage in any "discounts" or "deals" with them. I don't have time to untangle their games.

Fair enough. I've had good experiences with Verizon (their iPhones are all unlocked) but other carriers you do have to jump through some hoops if you want to leave etc.

> completely inaccessible to a large chunk of the world's population.

You can say that about anything considered the “cheapest” in a group

- the cheapest new car - the cheapest new laptop - the cheapest new house

> When a device that most will spend $449 on is "cheap"

“cheapest” is not the same as “cheap”

I still can't get over the fact that apple is still putting in less than 2000hz batteries. Sure the life is great the first year, but as they make updates and increase the processor usage, suddenly that battery can barely last a day. I know people hate phablets, but if that gets me a 2 day battery life, so be it.

If I recall correctly the iPhone 8 actually lost battery capacity because they needed space for the wireless charging system. So if they wanted to use the same case design (to save money on re-tooling/re-use existing assembly lines) and keep wireless charging it might not be avoidable. We'll likely know more if IFixIt or similar do a tear-down.

I do agree though that even with potential battery savings from the newer CPU architecture, it could be a problem in the latter half of the SE 2's life.

It's what happened to the original SE. I lose like 20% battery on my original SE from 2 years use on iOS 13 just from web browsing for 30 minutes.

Apple has been making some just flat out awful design decisions in terms of their hardware for the past, what feels like a decade at this point but it's much shorter than that. While form can be greater than functionality, why would I ever want a phone that blatantly has printed on it "Planned Obsolescence?" The things I care about on an iphone are not "the best processor" out there. I want efficient ram usage and long battery life. Ram was never an issue with iOS so they just needed a great battery. What did they give us? A better processor...that's going to drain the battery in a year with the next iOS update because they keep pushing software updates that demand more of the system. I won't be shocked if malware get's into iphones any time soon showing how lazy they've been with MacOS in the last few years.

> hz

hopefully mAh

$20/mo for a mobile phone computer camera seems a good deal to me.

The iPhone XR models should have been the new SE and the iPhone 8 body should have gone. Apple is a joke when it comes to these things.

The entire point of this phone is that it's the iPhone 8 body. Smaller than the XR, still uses Touch ID and home button.

Apple could have easily replaced the screen on the 8 body with one of the XR with Face ID. It’s an admission that Face ID is another failure, along side the dreadful touchbar. None of the macs have Face ID and now a brand new phone without Face ID. Apple has iOS one day someone will replace it and Apple will be buggered.

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