Are you planning to upgrade to the iPhone 16

[harshness]

I wonder if the latest threats of high import taxes on the iphone and other Apple devices will ruin sales?

In preparation for this new tax, I ordered extra Chinese made LFP batteries for my lawn care equipment. This stuff including Apple products isn't getting any cheaper with inflation either.

It is important to note that these "threats" may only be realized if DJT wins the presidential election.

Any country outside the United States and its possessions could be subject to trade tariffs.

Apple stuff has always been overpriced (other than the headphone adapter dongle and maybe AppleTV+ -- if it appeals to you).

Apple customers have proven time and again that price isn't a primary consideration. If it were, Apple wouldn't have been printing money all this time.

 

[Houston Rockets]

Got mine last week love it great iPhone.

 

[harshness]

Got mine last week love it great iPhone.

What makes it great from your perspective?

 

[Foxbat]

My one Brother-in-Law had a iPhone 13 with a battery bordering on 80% of original capacity so he asked me if he should go to Batteries Plus to get it replaced (he had a $30 off coupon). I mentioned that battery replacement on the iPhone 13 is through the display panel which requires destroying the waterproofing seal between the front glass and the frame rails, plus disconnecting multiple ribbon cables. I suggested taking it the Apple Store to have the replacement done as Apple would reseal the front glass and provide a better warranty afterwards.

Then I mentioned that his iPhone was worth $250 in trade for an iPhone 14 or 15. He had thought about it since if he replaced the battery, he would still have a four year old iPhone. He surprised me by getting the iPhone 16 instead. After setting up his new phone, he commented how much faster accessing his email was. I believe the amount of RAM has quadrupled between the 13 and the 16, so that could factor in.

But, he had to get a new Otterbox case. None of the control buttons matched up.

 

[TheForce]

Apple moved some of the 16 production to India. Don't know how much. The box mine came in says assembled in China.

This is what I heard earlier this year but I have not looked into it further. Apple is not only a number of products I use but also my second largest stock holding and I do see people more and more not happy with how much Apple charges for their most profitable products, such as the iphone and Apple watch.
I personally do not believe the US is ready to switch to all US made stuff as is being pushed.

 

[TheForce]

It is important to note that these "threats" may only be realized if DJT wins the presidential election.

Any country outside the United States and its possessions could be subject to trade tariffs.

Apple stuff has always been overpriced (other than the headphone adapter dongle and maybe AppleTV+ -- if it appeals to you).

Apple customers have proven time and again that price isn't a primary consideration. If it were, Apple wouldn't have been printing money all this time.

No comment on any political stuff.

But, I do agree that many Apple customers are able to currently afford their products because they like the way they just work and the fact that many easily operate within an infrastructure. So if an Apple product is "overpriced" that is more likely an individual opinion based on recognizing what the product does for the individual. In other words, a person who is happy with a simple mechanical watch to know the time would think even the cheapest Apple watch is overpriced. But another, like me, might see the value in Apple's top of the line Ultra 2 and find that watch worth the money. But would I pay 50% more for it when that money would not go to Apple for future R&D but for aid to some foreign country? Likely not and that would make Apple suffer.

 

[TheForce]

My one Brother-in-Law had a iPhone 13 with a battery bordering on 80% of original capacity so he asked me if he should go to Batteries Plus to get it replaced (he had a $30 off coupon). I mentioned that battery replacement on the iPhone 13 is through the display panel which requires destroying the waterproofing seal between the front glass and the frame rails, plus disconnecting multiple ribbon cables. I suggested taking it the Apple Store to have the replacement done as Apple would reseal the front glass and provide a better warranty afterwards.

Then I mentioned that his iPhone was worth $250 in trade for an iPhone 14 or 15. He had thought about it since if he replaced the battery, he would still have a four year old iPhone. He surprised me by getting the iPhone 16 instead. After setting up his new phone, he commented how much faster accessing his email was. I believe the amount of RAM has quadrupled between the 13 and the 16, so that could factor in.

But, he had to get a new Otterbox case. None of the control buttons matched up.

Did you also let him know about getting another 3% off by extending the payments monthly for 2 years through Apple Pay? I buy all my Apple products now through Apple Pay because it's like Apple pays me 3% to do that and no finance charges on Apple product purchases. Not only that but I can avoid losing the future growth of that money by keeping the money invested in a stock that has had 11% growth plus pays 6.6% monthly dividend.

 

[harshness]

No comment on any political stuff.

It isn't political; it is a matter of fact.

I submit that many of the Apple products (including being locked into the ecosystem) are perceived by the faithful as status symbols and that's perhaps the biggest draw of all. The idea that one basic design can satisfy everyone's needs is unthinkable in most other market spaces.

Going down the list of Apple innovations of the last few years is like listening to Radio Moscow towards the end of the Soviet Union. In the early 1980s, they were bragging about having invented a machine that salvaged day-old bread that sounded suspiciously like an electric toaster. The rest of the World had long acknowledged that the electric toaster was invented in 1893 and was made commercially available in 1909. That someone claims something doesn't make it so (or even likely).

I get a kick out of Apple's recent habit of announcing future products progressively earlier before release (or FDA approved for the stated purpose). Some remain reasonably convinced that there's going to be an Apple television or an Apple car in their near future.

The leaks seem to get leakier with each new iteration. It is almost like Apple is feeding the leakers to keep up the buzz until the next waste of 90+ minutes.

 

[TheForce]

I submit that many of the Apple products (including being locked into the ecosystem) are perceived by the faithful as status symbols and that's perhaps the biggest draw of all. The idea that one basic design can satisfy everyone's needs is unthinkable in most other market spaces.

I can assure you that is not the reason I switched to Apple iphone, Apple watch and my wife has an iMAC and ipad. We buy what works for us to satisfy our needs. We don't avoid Apple products because there may be some who consider it a "status symbol" or what others perceive them to be. We certainly are not locked into the iOS ecosystem. I prefer a windows Surface Pro as opposed to a Macbook or ipad. My office has two desktop computers, one for general use and the other for video editing. They are windows 11 systems. My wife likes her iMAC because it looks good for style in the kitchen absent all the wires and cables of our windows computers but uses a windows 11 laptop in her sewing room as the software she does design work runs on windows, not Mac.

Most of my family prefers Apple because for them one ecosystem does all they need.

BTW- I also own Microsoft stock but it's just not my largest or even second largest investment.

I am an early adopter and owned the first smart watch when it came out- it was a Sony.
I also owned the first truly smart phone that was released by HP called the iPAQ. But I evolved to a Sony phone and Samsung and finally to Apple when they came out with their iphone and Apple watch.

Currently I don't see any other company that can offer as complete an ecosystem for devices like Apple but Apple is not 100%. No need I feel I am locked into the Apple ecosystem.

 

[harshness]

Most of my family prefers Apple because for them one ecosystem does all they need.

The breakdown comes when the needs exceed what the ecosystem supports. I cite your video editing habit as an example.

Not a testimonial for Samsung, but they have long been in markets that Apple would have loved to get into and they cover an awful lot of the same territory. Sony isn't far behind and Sony also has the movie studio thing going -- they just couldn't make a go of the streaming service for some reason.

Sony is perhaps a better example of technological stewardship as they aren't out to establish a bunch of relatively unique formats and standards as Apple seems prone to.

 

[TheForce]

Actually, I could do all my video editing on a top of the line Mac and use adobe Premiere Pro that I know well. But I like customizing my hardware for more features and the PC also handles all my connections to Meta Quest 3. What it doesn't do (yet) is add GPS data overlay to my video clips from my dji Action camera. That requires an exclusive iphone app. So video clips need to be loaded on my iphone, then in their edit program ( a real difficult pain to do on a phone) I can lay out the gps data overlay. dji says they are working on a windows app to do that.

For someone like me who uses both, I think the hardest hurdle to overcome is Apple chooses to call the same stuff by their own names. Like Tesla does too. eg. to do a backup of your drive, Apple calls it Time Machine. Stupid name, IMO.