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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

Apple has 8 different phones you can buy right now counting all the max/plus models (SE, 13, 14, 15, 15 pro). If you add in the storage differences it is 24 unique circuit boards/phone internals, and colors bring it to over 100 different unique products.

From an inventory and logistics perspective, that's actually pretty wild!

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Yeah, but they only release like 4 or so new models a year, excluding storage/color differences, which are relatively trivial, despite making many billions of dollars.

Apple made almost $200B from iPhone in 2023, for example; per model, even including the older ones, that's an insane revenue per model. Not sure I can think of any other product at that level.

> SE, 13, 14, 15, 15 pro

This more analogous to different model years of a car, rather than entirely different car models.

The customer immediately and intuitively understands 14 is better than 13, 15 is better than 14, etc.

The main thing clear to me is that the "mental flow chart" involved in selecting an Apple phone is much, much clearer than it would be for selecting a Nokia.

Yeah, but from a software perspective, it's just 2-3 form factors to support (Square Screen, Notch, Cutout). Even those are very well defined that those developing software for it doesn't have to bother with it at all. But you're right, the fact that a red iPhone 15 128 GB is one of the over 100 combinations available is wild. It seems like a smaller pool

Maybe it's a matter of doing things in order ? Nokia had no strong image, they were well established but not like Apple, and also iPhones are flagships with a lot of advanced capabilities.. nokia lineups at the time were very much mainstream/average (the notion of advanced device was also limited at the time).

When you're on top of the industry, you may have a shot at selling lifestyle.

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