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Comment by tumblewit | Hacker News Reader

The iPhones didn't see a price drop after charger removal since apple said it was for environmental reasons it should be obvious the price should have been reduced. same goes for earpods. can't believe no one directly asked apple this.

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FTA: “While the iPhone 12 mini costs $729 in the U.S., in Brazil the same phone is around $1,200. Back in 2019 when Apple introduced the iPhone 11, it started at $799, while in Brazil it also cost around $1,200.”

I see no evidence for “no price reduction” there. It’s “iPhone 11 with charger” versus “iPhone 12 without charger” (AFAIK, they never sold the 12 with a charger). Also, average top of the line smartphone prices have gone up world wide.

Also FTA: “The depreciation of the Brazilian Real and the pandemic helped to increase the U.S. dollar over Brazil’s currency.”

I guess that could easily explain why the 12 mini is cheaper than the 11 in the USA, but equally priced in Brazil.

Hmm smart... the bigger problem however is that users buy 1$ chargers at local gas stores and thats gonna destroy their phones. One might think a person spending 800$ on a phone may spend 20$ on a charger but its quite easy for them to buy a counterfeit being ignorant at a local store cause it didn't come with one breaking their phone which is a far higher risk than anything in my opinion. Of course removing the port itself will solve this which is probably when they should have removed the charger.

You think it should be illegal to raise prices?

“Hey, we usually give you this extra stuff, but now we removed it because we want to charge money for it instead, also the environment”

You don’t know if that’s true and Apple hasn’t hidden the fact that they removed it.

It's a new version of the iPhone, with a new price.

It would be a different case if Apple stopped including the charger and earpods with the iPhone 11.

They should be required to mark it accordingly on the box with bold marking, on the front face: “I come without charger and without earplugs”

IIRC, they did stop including it with the SE (or some other model that wasn't refreshed at the time the policy was instituted).

I think that saying it is for the environment and increasing prices while removing things from the box is false advertising and should be fined.

Also, it should be marked prominently on the box that the device doesn’t come with a charger or earplugs and won’t be self-sufficient. Let’s just regulate by making any device sold without charger display a 2x2cm logo on the box saying « I come without charger ».

I don’t buy a car expecting it to be missing tires or wheel.

Expectations do change though. In the UK, it used to be the expectation that appliances came with no power plug at all.

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