iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
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.
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.
This 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.
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 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.
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 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.
This may have interesting consequences with a pending cliff fall especially if some other killer trend comes up.
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.
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.