Sacre bleu! Apple's high price, marginal gain iPhone strategy leaves it stuck in the mud

People will probably still buy old-style up-market mechanical wrist watches for about GBP2k. The recommended annual service costs a few hundred - and the watch is away for a few weeks

An ALDI analogue quartz one in a "waterproof" stainless steel case comes in at under a tenner. In my experience the latter is also more consistently accurate. Out of service for a couple of minutes every year while the battery is changed.

My 1972 Omega Seamaster Cosmic is now relegated to "formal dress" ornamentation with the Wedgwood cameo cuff links.

Will the X have an appeal beyond oligarchs, expense account braggarts, and the fanbois?

I might share my hate of their business model and ethics (what ethicks?!) with 99.9% of the register readers, but I don't have much doubt their business model works (shear them short and often, as their coat grows fast) and will continue to continue to work for quite some time. Well, at least until the next world war. They created a mixture of both apple and i-cult of sorts, and the number of believers grows and likely to continue to grow in China, mostly. And the extra price will be even more appealing to pay for the believers who, let's face it, want to feel superior to those unsheared masses who can't or won't spend a grand, and hope that the price increase will help them maintain the feeling of being i-special. And all those wannabes will sell their blood to join the "elite" too. Apple just press the right buttons, so to speak, and price is one of them.

To be fair the industry standard fingerprint readers were pathetic at the time touchID was introduced as well. We'll just have to wait and see if Apple have provided as big a jump with FaceID.

Apple will be fine as long as they have an important enough percentage that they can't be ignored by most app developers and accessories makers. The fact that their customers are generally rich helps make their percentage heavier.

But it's a tricky game, and if they ever lose that, it will be near impossible to turn it around. Unlike desktops, smartphones don't command significant staying power in the workplace, so that when consumers leave, it's over.

I don't always agree with this author...

But I believe Andrew has got this spot on. Hopefully this will be the product that forces people to re-evaluate their relationship with Apple.

£999 or $999

Why not just sell it at 1000?

If someone is stupid enough to pony up 999 then they would be more proud in telling people it cost a grand and lets be honest iPhone users love to show off.

Sent from my iPhone.

Facial recognition - "live" sensing

Does the iOS version have the same feature to defeat holding up a photo - "liveness check" ???

Honestly, for a feature that I was using in 2014, it's a little irritating to hear people now talking like Apple have just invented it.

The market is big enough

The iPhone X is unremarkable for its price, but Apple can count on enough fanboys & girls as well as people purchasing a status symbol first, and a phone second, just like the 1k5 Hermes Apple Watch.

I would worry more about the iPhone 8 and 8+, which don't seem to generate a lot of buzz, even among Apple's customers, as far as I can see.

Who's paying, not buying!

My tech savvy friend recently asked me which Android phone I'd recommend (as a fairly long term Android user).

As I started to answer he proudly told me that you can bend an iPhone into close to 90 degrees with your bare hands!

My questioning look prompted him to tell me that he'd done exactly that to his pink iPhone 6/7 whatever, as he'd got yet another annoying call from his wife that evening, and bent the phone before throwing it in the traffic. (Drunk/ angry etc)

"I'm fed up of having last year's iPhone everytime my wife makes me but her a new one, she doesn't even do anything but call and browse Facebook"

I have a feeling he's wondering where $1000 is gonna come from right about now! I know her and she doesn't care, just so long as her friends see the latest in her hand. Apple know the buyers are often not the payers especially in Asia.

"Does the X astonish in the same way? Does it have the same lustre? You must be kidding."

Does any phone nowadays? No matter how much <insert phone vendor here> crows about their new releases, do they really make a compelling argument to go and buy a new shiny??

iPhone's early unique selling points

Apple were able to convince the US carriers to stop blocking features that had been standard in Japan for years. I am not sure why people are comparing early iPhone to Microsoft's attempts. A more obvious comparison would be to Symbian.

The other unique selling point was the exorbitant pricing. The Apple logo was clear statement: "I have money to burn". Other brands may have a flag ship model, but people would have to do some thinking because the same logo is also on bargain basement phones.

The new model is a step back to what made the iPhone such a success. If anything, I think Apple did not go far enough. The price should be higher and they should cut some of the features. I am sure that what they have done this year will be wildly successful and Apple customers will be able to queue up with breathless anticipation for something more expensive next year.

As an iPhone user...

As someone who's owned iPhones for the last 10 years, my desire to upgrade is inversely proportional to the model number.

It's even got a bezel

The big story was that it was to look like a sheet of glass ... but we ended up with a bezel and a cut out compromise. In order to achieve this compromise they tried to get touch-id through glass and failed - necessitating the step backwards that is face based security.

Why the wireless charger isn't even ready, when every man and his dog makes them is just a mystery to me, but suggests internal chaos at Apple.

I'd like something with the feature set of a Galaxy 4 only with a modern CPU and memory capacity. A lot of the newer ones are too big - the 4 fits in my pocket nicely and the screen is a reasonable compromise between portability and readability. None of this face or fingerprint crap for unlocking either. Dual-SIM would be nice, unless one of the carriers is prepared to offer me two numbers on a single SIM.