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Comment by kvn_95 | Hacker News Reader

And also the opting for the nuclear option when faced with defending their 30% app store commissions.

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.

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Yes, it used to be a single phone a year, pricier options were just for storage. Maybe that was too far in one direction, I don't know. But now it seems like too many, and I couldn't even tell you the real difference between the options, much less why I should spend $1500 on one of them when I can a 1.5 year old android flagship for $400 with CPU & GPU benchmarks only a little less that theirs, which is all I really care about: snappy response for page loads, video streaming, gaming, reasonably good camera & video quality.

The 400$ SE seems to be pretty awesome from my 1 month of usage.

> I can a 1.5 year old android flagship for $400 with CPU & GPU benchmarks only a little less that theirs, which is all I really care about: snappy response for page loads, video streaming, gaming, reasonably good camera & video quality.

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)

I am less concerned about security updates on Android phones these days because a great deal of the relevant updates take place in the Google services that are now updated through their normal app store updates. For example, a recent s curity bulletin I came across said the latest security update would fix it, but it would also be caught by Google Play Protect as well, so even if my phone no longer received official updates I'd still be protected from the major source of vulnerabilities: installed apps.

I was not aware of this, and this is super useful context, thank you!

The SE and even the 11 seem fairly affordable. The pro versions seem fairly pointless imo. You also have the option of buying a second a second hand older model. Even the iphone X is faster than current year androids.

At the rate of their price increase, buying 2nd hand will soon be the only option left to get Apple devices.

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.

> 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.

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