You Need A New iPhone

But you're not gonna buy one.

Talk about a tempest in a teapot, Apple tries to save your ass and you're up in arms about it. That's right, in order to prevent your old phone from shutting down because of its lame battery Apple is slowing down the OS. If they didn't do this, you'd be bitching the phone was broken, which way do you want it?

Oh, you want a user-replaceable battery, but you want a sleek device to show your friends. This is kinda like the electronics repair conundrum. You complain you can't get anything fixed while not realizing that a new CD or DVD player is cheaper than the cost of a repair, which was often done so poorly anyway.

That's the uninformed public for you.

But the public is cheap.

In case you've missed the memo, iPhone sales are stalling. You can walk in and buy an X. Certainly an 8. There is no backlog.

All the analysts were wrong about this. Except me! I'm gonna take my victory lap right now. Because this is important. It's not only about income inequality, it's about intelligence disparity. The analysts and the media have no idea how people live their lives. They said we were at the advent of the mother of all iPhone upgrade cycles. And now that proves to be untrue. Proving once again these people can tell you where we've been, but not where we're going. It's positively scary. They were wrong about the election, they're wrong about almost everything.

They're too expensive. And they're no longer subsidized.

The new phones used to FEEL free! Because the cost was baked into your plan. But when John Legere at T-Mobile got rid of these subsidies and you realized you were paying full price for these handheld devices you didn't want to.

The 5 was the breakthrough, because of LTE. But that was hard to explain, especially if you were on anything but Verizon, with poor coverage and bad data. Verizon is the only carrier that just works, and even sometimes it does not. But people are afraid of switching providers for fear of...god knows what, you can take your number with you. And they're cheap. So they're going with T-Mobile, which works where it does, and nowhere else, which is a lot of places, especially when it comes to LTE, or Sprint, which should be out of business, or AT&T which is just lame. If it didn't have that moniker it would have a lot fewer subscribers, never underestimate the power of a name.

So the 5 gave you LTE, i.e. high speed connection. You needed that. Even so, people stayed with their 4.

And then came the 6. With its larger form factors. This was the breakthrough, the public was hungering for larger phones. And...YOU SHOULD BUY THE BIGGEST PHONE YOU CAN!!! That's right, if you settle for the small one you're an idiot. You heard me, I'm insulting you. It's not a phone, it's a COMPUTER! Honestly, you can live without a desktop machine, you just need a phone. Where you've got enough screen real estate to function. You buy stuff on it, you research on it, would you go to Best Buy and say SELL ME THE SMALLEST FLAT SCREEN? You want a 65" TV but a small iPhone, think about it.

So people bought the 6 in droves. There was pent-up demand for a larger screen.

And then came the 7. A me-too device. We were told a breakthrough was around the corner but I bit the bullet because...

They gave me $650 off. That's right, you always want to buy your phone at the beginning of the cycle. The fall. That's when the best offers are. Because the providers are afraid you'll jump ship! You may be paying full price for the device, but it's spread over 24 months, so you're locked in until you're not. And to tell you the truth, this fall's offers were not as generous, but they were there. If you're a nincompoop who's waiting until spring or summer to upgrade... You're probably the kind of person who pays nearly full price for the outgoing automobile that's gonna be upgraded. You're buying a gasoline engine when electrics rule. You've already got a year-old device and you don't want this.

And a 7 looks almost identical to a 6 but I love my 7 Plus...BECAUSE OF THE CHIP!

You can't see it, but that's not only the heart of the device, but the matter. Usually every year speed is increased by 50%. This won't last forever, but we're here now, it's kind of like the nineties when as soon as you brought your Packard Bell home from the store it was obsolete. Just try surfing on your 6 next to a 7 or 8 or X. You'll be stunned how slow your 6 is. This is not Apple messing with you, it's the old chip you've got inside and the lame battery to boot. Apple can't change science. Everybody's trying to increase battery capacity, no competitor is doing much better. But you think since you bought an iPhone it should keep a charge forever. You're dreaming. Just pay them $80 for a new battery. But that's stupid, because you're better off just upgrading.

And here's the dirty little secret. iPhones have value. Yup, the one you used for two years is still worth $200. So trade it in now, before it loses value. So, you've got the $200 plus the $80, which is basically $300 towards a new phone, with a better chip, battery, camera, everything, but you'd rather bitch and complain while you use your old device which doesn't hold a charge and is so slow to boot.

So now we're at the latest iteration of the upgrade cycle.

You can buy an 8 Plus. Once again, don't be stupid and buy a small 8. But only get this device if you're gonna flip it in two years. Because facial recognition is gonna be a big thing by then. You'll want that feature to get into the show, it's gonna be your ticket and so much more.

Or go straight to the X, which has almost the same size screen as the 8 Plus but in a smaller form factor.

But WHATEVER you do go buy a new iPhone IMMEDIATELY!

But people aren't doing this. They're uneducated, they think their old phone is good enough. And the new devices cannot be identified at a distance, so there's no status involved. Remember almost twenty years ago when everybody bought that tiny Nokia to look cool? And then came the RAZR. Hell, even if you've got an X most people are not gonna know.

But you get functionality.

But that doesn't resonate with people, not when they've got to pay a grand.

And if you're not in the iPhone camp, you're...

An Apple hater with an almost as expensive Samsung. You're losing out financially, because that trade-in premium is nonexistent, but I'm not gonna argue with you, not gonna go on about features, you're happy, o.k.

Or you're truly cheap and utilizing a whack Android.

That's okay. It's just that you're hurting yourself. Because you need a fast, full-action phone to compete. Kinda like needing a car in L.A. to be a person.

But everybody's scared away by the thousand bucks.

Flat screens keep coming down in price. Chromebooks go for nothing. Yet mobile phone prices keep going up? MAKES NO SENSE!

This is psychology, not reality. If iPhones were still subsidized they'd be flying off the shelves. But they're not.

But the analysts missed the memo. They couldn't see the landscape through the customer's eyes.

And the truth is gadgets no longer titillate us. A phone is a functional device. Lusting over hardware is so last decade. Now it's all about software.

So, once again, if you're in the iPhone ecosystem, repeat after me, you get the largest screen size of the latest phone every two years.

But I can hear you arguing with me right now.

Which is why the numbers are going in the wrong direction.

But I'm right.

"Apple's New Phones Notch Modest Start -- WSJ": http://bit.ly/2Db6ZOD

"Analysts Cut iPhone X Shipment Forecasts, Citing Lukewarm Demand": https://bloom.bg/2kW19d7



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