If Apple wants to get serious about emerging markets, it should develop a an iPhone more in the range of $250. Now, that’s not something Steve Jobs would probably do, but going downscale could be what the company needs right now.
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Apple has avoided this move out of fear of diluting its premium brand. That’s why discussions about selling a truly cheap iPhone haven’t progressed, I’m told. “We don’t offer stripped-down, lousy products,” Jobs said years ago, and Apple still lives by that philosophy.
But the market is changing. Competitors have advanced, and the stakes are higher. Apple also made a recent move that suggests it’s more open to new ideas: The company now sells a $699 M1 MacBook Air through Walmart that it doesn’t advertise on its own channels.
I just don't think anyone, including Apple, needs to overthink this. Simply sell a three year old model exclusively in a few emerging markets. Sure, the profit margins wouldn't be as good, but the trade-off is getting a toe-hold in such markets, stopping worldwide market share decline, and upselling the now all-important services.
If all this pans out, it is indeed news, but the news is that Apple has successfully gotten the entire Mac hardware lineup onto an annual upgrade cycle. Whereas Gurman is framing the news as a reactionary response by Apple, “overhauling” the hardware lineup very shortly after a supposedly tepid reaction to the M3 generation of Macs that, at this writing, still hasn’t completed rolling out.
Listy is a free and simple app for making lists of your favorite things. It automatically includes related images, like book or album covers. You can create shareable visual lists with the free app on Mac, iOS, or Android. It’s a handy way to quickly share recommendations with friends.
There’s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and “failure” into your eventual success — and doesn’t judge you for it.
The core of the creator’s vision is to recreate the look and feel of film, achieved by using a custom ProRAW (iPhone Pro 12 or newer) image processing pipeline that allows for a greater level of color grading than is ordinarily possible.
The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future.
The actual harms to getting this wrong could be tremendous. By coddling the American parent, and letting them think they can cure what ails kids by simply limiting the internet access, real harm can be caused.
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Kids who actually do rely on the internet to find community and social interactions could grow further isolated. Even worse, it stops parents and teachers from dealing with actual triggers and actual problems, allowing them to brush it off as “too much TikTok,” rather than whatever real cause might be at play. It also stops them from training kids how to use social media safely, which is an important skill these days.
Treating social media as inherently harmful for all kids (when the data, at best, suggests only a very small percentage struggle with it), also would remove a useful and helpful tool from many who can be taught to use it properly, to protect a small number of users who were not taught how to use it properly. Wouldn’t a better solution be to focus on helping everyone to use the tools properly and in an age appropriate manner?
Apple is already selling the iPhone SE, which is cheaper than the iPhone and iPhone Pro. Apple is also selling previous years' iPhones. Which, while not as cheap as the iPhone SE, are still cheaper than the current iPhone and iPhone Pro.
One may argue they are still not cheap enough. And certainly, the price probably still have room to drop further. The recent 'experiment' with continuing selling the MacBook Air M1 does hint at how Apple may go about it.
However, I think these are missing the point. What some customers, and potential customers, want is not cheap. Rather, what they want is not just cheap alone. What many of these customers want, I feel, are cheap and new. Not some iPhones from yesterday. Not some iPhones with older tech. But cheaper phones with modern design, and modern sensibilities.
No, quick fixes are not enough. Apple need to commit to serve this slice of the market.
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Thanks for reading.