iPhone 15 Announcement September 12 Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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[Sam Posten]

It's our most advanced iPhone ever! Yeah, no duh!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I'm in the upgrade program.

However, if there is going to be a price increase this year, that means my payments will go up and just doing the usual auto-upgrade is giving me second thoughts.

The rumors are the MAX phone will have a faster chip and lighter titanium casing. There will be a periscope zoom camera and an action button.

If that is all there is, I may just opt to wait for iPhone 16. However, as has been the case, something gets shown at the keynote that sparks my interest and I end up upgrading anyway.

 

[Sam Posten]

I don’t buy the periscope at all

 

[DaveF]

I told my wife her job is to keep me from buying the new iPhone. I want, but this is not the year for (more) big tech purchases in my household.

 

[Sam Posten]

Buyyyy it!

 

[DaveF]

You gotta get through my wife first! She's got strict orders from Today Dave to ignore all entreaties from Future Dave.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I am repeating these thoughts from a private conversation I had with @Sam Posten recently...

It is always exciting when a new iPhone or watch is announced, I have religiously upgraded my iPhone and watch every single year.

I say these things all the time prior to the event and then come out with a different feeling afterward but here it goes...

This year is going to feel different for me. The iPhone Pro is expected to get a $100-$200 price increase. As someone who has been in the upgrade program, the cost of owning an iPhone has been about $58 per month. I believe that is stretched over a 2-year loan and you can upgrade every year.

To think that continuing that trend will now potentially cost me close to $70 per month (if my math is correct) is concerning.

Then there are the separate up front fees that Apple and the phone companies charge you every year just for choosing to upgrade.

It's getting to the point where buying a new iPhone every year is just too expensive. I stopped buying one outright because I was tired of laying the money out. So, doing the upgrade program and making monthly payments was easier though it cost me more with Apple Care rolled into it (which I have never needed).

The iPhone 15 is rumored to have marginal upgrades with the iPhone 16 already being touted as the one to watch out for. The Apple Watch Ultra, on the other hand, is pretty much rumored to stay the same outside of a possible dark color and made with lighter materials.

The price of owning tech has gotten crazier over recent years. I have Nest cameras all over my home and the company just announced a $30 increase per year for their cloud recording subscription. Verizon hiked their service by $30 more per month for their Fios/Internet. That's an insane increase in a single month. I have finally come to that point in my life where I have to make hard decisions about upgrading my Apple products as frequently as I have. And these decisions come from someone who isn't even married. I am sure for those of you who are, these are very difficult choices to make.

It's just sad that tech companies are doing all these huge price hikes out of what I think is greed rather than necessity.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Welcome to the club, Ron!

I have never believed in upgrading every year (or even every 2 years w/ regularity)... and certainly never really believed in most any insurance/extended-warranty schemes, and AppleCare is certainly no different. That kind is probably only worth it for the accident/loss-prone and/or peace-of-mind (or in much need of handholding from Apple, et al). You're paying a premium for the "service", which you apparently never needed as you found/realized. Of course, you're probably gonna find the "need" once you stop and something immediately happens, LOL!

Having said that, I don't fault such companies for raising prices though. That's actually very normal and to be expected, not necessarily (anymore) greedy of them (than ever before). IMO, if you were basically fine w/ how much they charged before, then some increase should not be an issue... as long as your income has also increased (or was always more than high enough), of course.

Verizon charging more for Fios is probably something else -- you probably had their short term, deeply discounted, new subscriber rates before, and the discount(s) are now disappearing... though their undiscounted, "regular" rates are probably much too high... much as "retail price" for most anything else tends to be. Just renegotiate w/ them, but be very prepared to simply drop them for some other provider's new subscriber rates instead... and then, play that game again in maybe 2 years.

And these decisions come from someone who isn't even married. I am sure for those of you who are, these are very difficult choices to make.

Actually, being married is not the issue at all. Unless it's only a single-income marriage (for whatever reasons), you'd probably have more discretionary income/funds if married... that is, until/unless you have kids of course, heh...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

…

It's getting to the point where buying a new iPhone every year is just too expensive. I stopped buying one outright because I was tired of laying the money out. So, doing the upgrade program and making monthly payments was easier though it cost me more with Apple Care rolled into it (which I have never needed).
…

With no disrespect, I think this says more about you retiring than about iPhone prices. You didn’t get off the upgrade cycle when iPhone prices jumped nearly 30% in 2018 (introduction of the X). I expect mid-career tech enthusiasts who buy new iPhones annually will be undeterred by the first price hike in five or six years.

My own hesitation isn’t about price per se but it’s been a very expensive year and my normal upgrade cycle is 2-4 years. I think the new cameras and USB-C and getting the “dynamic island” would be enough for me otherwise.

I find iPhone prices to be pretty stable compared to everything else. My pain points are projectors, that have nearly tripled from $6000 to $15000 in a single generation. And cars that have literally doubled from about $30k to $60k for a mid-range sedan over three years!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Welcome to the club, Ron!

I have never believed in upgrading every year (or even every 2 years w/ regularity)... and certainly never really believed in most any insurance/extended-warranty schemes, and AppleCare is certainly no different. That kind is probably only worth it for the accident/loss-prone and/or peace-of-mind (or in much need of handholding from Apple, et al). You're paying a premium for the "service", which you apparently never needed as you found/realized. Of course, you're probably gonna find the "need" once you stop and something immediately happens, LOL!

Having said that, I don't fault such companies for raising prices though. That's actually very normal and to be expected, not necessarily (anymore) greedy of them (than ever before). IMO, if you were basically fine w/ how much they charged before, then some increase should not be an issue... as long as your income has also increased (or was always more than high enough), of course.

Verizon charging more for Fios is probably something else -- you probably had their short term, deeply discounted, new subscriber rates before, and the discount(s) are now disappearing... though their undiscounted, "regular" rates are probably much too high... much as "retail price" for most anything else tends to be. Just renegotiate w/ them, but be very prepared to simply drop them for some other provider's new subscriber rates instead... and then, play that game again in maybe 2 years.



Actually, being married is not the issue at all. Unless it's only a single-income marriage (for whatever reasons), you'd probably have more discretionary income/funds if married... that is, until/unless you have kids of course, heh...

_Man_

I'll comment more on your remarks, Man, in a moment but I do want to clarify something about the marriage remark I made as I don't want to be unfair to married couples and finances.

I always seem to pick up on comments that get made by guys who are married to the effect of, "My wife won't allow that purchase" or "In our household we have to justify that purchase."

And, I could be unjustly portraying marriage and finance but now being in what I intend to be a long-term relationship, I find myself having to weigh all purchases with my girlfriend. When I was single, I had more money to spend on myself and I had much more freedom to buy things.

With no disrespect, I think this says more about you retiring than about iPhone prices. You didn’t get off the upgrade cycle when iPhone prices jumped nearly 30% in 2018 (introduction of the X). I expect mid-career tech enthusiasts who buy new iPhones annually will be undeterred by the first price hike in five or six years.

My own hesitation isn’t about price per se but it’s been a very expensive year and my normal upgrade cycle is 2-4 years. I think the new cameras and USB-C and getting the “dynamic island” would be enough for me otherwise.

I find iPhone prices to be pretty stable compared to everything else. My pain points are projectors, that have nearly tripled from $6000 to $15000 in a single generation. And cars that have literally doubled from about $30k to $60k for a mid-range sedan over three years!

No disrespect taken, of course. And there is a lot of truth here. I am in a different position than I was a few years back as far as personal buying power is concerned. That naturally comes with retirement.

At the same time, there are some very important points raised in your remarks, Dave. It seems like prices for everything have jumped substantially within the past two years. It's happening all at once, and consumers have a lot less buying power than they used to have.

Utilities, Taxes, Car Prices, Food, etc. When you are paying more for everything else you look at luxury items like the iPhone 15 Pro and weigh whether it's worth paying up to $200 more for. You have to admit, the cost of owning a premium phone has become pretty outlandish. Apple tested those waters with the release of the X, found that people were willing to pay over $1k for a phone, and just went with it.

Listen, I don't mean to bring down a thread about the iPhone with my complaints about pricing and being retired. However, I may find a happier place where I learn to be content with what I already own instead of always trying to upgrade to the next shiny thing that Apple releases. We shall see.

Thanks for the responses. Always enjoy reading what you guys think.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I'll comment more on your remarks, Man, in a moment but I do want to clarify something about the marriage remark I made as I don't want to be unfair to married couples and finances.

I always seem to pick up on comments that get made by guys who are married to the effect of, "My wife won't allow that purchase" or "In our household we have to justify that purchase."

And, I could be unjustly portraying marriage and finance but now being in what I intend to be a long-term relationship, I find myself having to weigh all purchases with my girlfriend. When I was single, I had more money to spend on myself and I had much more freedom to buy things.

I think most of that have to do w/ HT gear and setups (and probably also large disc collections, LOL) being eye-sores/clutter for most wives, not necessarily the cost aspect, if one could already afford that before marriage.

But if you can keep all that away from being eye-sores/clutter for them, eg. in a dedicated HT room/space, they probably usually let you have your way w/ such.

The cost aspect probably comes much more into play once couples have kids, especially more than one kid, but becomes much less so again once the kids are done w/ college and working (and no longer needing our financial support), etc.

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

I'll comment more on your remarks, Man, in a moment but I do want to clarify something about the marriage remark I made as I don't want to be unfair to married couples and finances.

I always seem to pick up on comments that get made by guys who are married to the effect of, "My wife won't allow that purchase" or "In our household we have to justify that purchase."

And, I could be unjustly portraying marriage and finance but now being in what I intend to be a long-term relationship, I find myself having to weigh all purchases with my girlfriend. When I was single, I had more money to spend on myself and I had much more freedom to buy things.



No disrespect taken, of course. And there is a lot of truth here. I am in a different position than I was a few years back as far as personal buying power is concerned. That naturally comes with retirement.

At the same time, there are some very important points raised in your remarks, Dave. It seems like prices for everything have jumped substantially within the past two years. It's happening all at once, and consumers have a lot less buying power than they used to have.

Utilities, Taxes, Car Prices, Food, etc. When you are paying more for everything else you look at luxury items like the iPhone 15 Pro and weigh whether it's worth paying up to $200 more for. You have to admit, the cost of owning a premium phone has become pretty outlandish. Apple tested those waters with the release of the X, found that people were willing to pay over $1k for a phone, and just went with it.

Listen, I don't mean to bring down a thread about the iPhone with my complaints about pricing and being retired. However, I may find a happier place where I learn to be content with what I already own instead of always trying to upgrade to the next shiny thing that Apple releases. We shall see.

Thanks for the responses. Always enjoy reading what you guys think.

Prices have gone up. Objective fact. Real inflation the past couple of years. No "seems" about it.

But I don't think I'm being a Apple fanboy and needlessly defending a $2T company by saying: despite that, iPhone prices are stable. This new iPhone is going to be the first price increase in five or six years and it's a 10% hike. That's just no big deal in comparison. If only everything everything else was getting a mere 10% price every 5 years. I could get a JVC NZ8 for under $7,500 instead of $16,000. I could get a new car for $35k instead of $60k.

 

[DaveF]

Utilities, Taxes, Car Prices, Food, etc. When you are paying more for everything else you look at luxury items like the iPhone 15 Pro and weigh whether it's worth paying up to $200 more for. You have to admit, the cost of owning a premium phone has become pretty outlandish. Apple tested those waters with the release of the X, found that people were willing to pay over $1k for a phone, and just went with it.

The cost of owning a premium phone has always been outlandish. I think the difference is really in one's personal perspective and whether they're comfortable in the moment spending large sums every year for the newest, fanciest gadget.

I waited 3 years to get my first iPhone because a $600 gadget in 2007 was super expensive to me and I had to wait until it had enough features and we were ready for new cellphones and etc.

I guess I'm in a different place in my life in 2023 and I'm much more open to spending money on needless toys than 15 years ago. So iPhone prices don't really bother me now, as they didn't bother you just two years ago.

And in 10 years, I will feel like you do today, I expect.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Honestly, if one isn't upgrading phones and/or going for the best (regardless of actual, meaningful diff) w/ such great regularity, it's really not outlandish at all. Afterall, we're talking small, handheld, wireless devices that are becoming waaay more powerful and capable than general computers were just 10 years ago, if not even 5-7 years ago.

I just did a quick googled cpu comparison check for the A16 vs 10-yo Intel Core i7-4770, which happened to be my previous Dell XPS PC's cpu, and the A16's bench test results roughly doubled that old i7 in most cases and (naturally) utterly trounced it for GPU-related performance... and doing so while consuming just ~10% of the power/energy. And the A16 packs various multimedia codec acceleration, neural engine, meaningful GPU, etc that none of the older Intel cpus, NVM that 10-yo i7, would have -- offhand, I'm not sure if those were already factored into the basic bench test results I checked (at cpu-monkey), but probably not... or at least not quite that much anyway.

So we're basically, really talking fairly powerful computers (even compared to most full size computers from say just ~3 years ago... just before the M series Macs arrived) packed into such small, highly functional, extremely useful devices... that essentially nobody really needs to upgrade annually at all -- if one really puts one's phone to very heavy daily usage, I guess battery refresh might be needed, but most likely not brand new, marginally/incrementally better phone.

IF you buy a new iPad Pro or MacBook Air or something, those wouldn't really cost any less. Just that Apple doesn't release a new MacBook Air (or MBP or whatever specific Mac series model) every year, heh.

IF I'm actually upgrading my PC (or laptop) in the same way every year, that would certainly cost more than upgrading iPhone every year, LOL. I just don't... not remotely at all... for any of that.

Gosh, if Apple didn't make upgrading/switching iPhones so painless by now, the effort/hassle that could easily require would probably be a substantially bigger deterrent than the pricing me thinks...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

The big difference is that mobile carriers via subsidies made us think that buying a new phone every two years was normal, so enthusiasts buying annually didn’t seem so ridiculous in comparison. So they got in the habit of new ~$1000 (roughly equivalent accounting for inflation) handheld computer every year for over a decade. I don’t think anyone every did that with desktop computers during the good ol’ days of Moore’s Law or even with various peak-Laptop period past or present. But no mainstream gadget moved so fast, had so many new hardware or software features on an annual cadence.

And 16-some years later, the phones are basically mature and don’t inspire the same annual upgrading.

 

[DaveF]

And per usual, I’m traveling that week. Probably have to read summaries that day. Might not get to watch the keynote until the weekend.

 

[Sam Posten]

I’ll be clearing out my parents house Tuesday for closing on Wednesday. So maybe listening in background at best. I’m in for the big daddy pro no matter what.

 

[DaveF]

I’m in for AirPods Pro Gen 2 with USB-C case.

 

[Robert Saccone]

I’m in for AirPods Pro Gen 2 with USB-C case.

I hope they offer the case for sale separately so I can get one for my gen2 pros.