Apple should return to one, great (affordable) iPhone model. Imagine if Apple released one main iPhone model in 2019 instead of three…
Let’s try a thought exercise: a future where Apple releases one main iPhone model in 2019 instead of three. And it is closer to the iPhone XR than the iPhone XS Max, a slightly more affordable phone that will stay well under £1,000 for the base spec.
The first argument for this is simple. Apple’s iPhone XR is very popular.
“The iPhone XR has been a bit more successful than I expected,” says Ovum smartphone analyst Daniel Gleeson. “The big factors that have helped the XR have been its positioning relative to other iPhone devices – the iPhone X was retired, which drove a lot of people who would have bought the cheaper iPhone to the XR. Apple’s pricing strategy with the XS and XS Max also serves to make the XR look like a very good deal; even though it is still one of the most expensive handsets available.”
MacDailyNews Take: As predicted:
Why would the hoi polloi choose the 5.8-inch iPhone XS when they can get the 6.1-inch iPhone XR? They don’t know the difference between LCD and OLED, they have no idea what 3D Touch is, and it looks/works pretty much the same to them – plus it comes in colors (that they’ll immediately cover with a case; no matter, colors sell). — MacDailyNews, September 20, 2018
As Apple intended. The iPhone XR is the X-class iPhone for the masses! – MacDailyNews, October 16, 2018
For those not obsessed with tech, the iPhone XR is the slightly more affordable “new” iPhone. And for the enthusiast it is just as powerful as the iPhone XS Max, but lasts longer between charges and costs less. These very sentences highlight a problem with the “solo iPhone” concept, of course. Will an iPhone 11R seem as good a deal if there are no pricier iPhones to compare it to?
This is why our lone iPhone 11R needs a more distinct identity than any iPhone has had in years. If Apple could find a way to successfully market this hypothetical phone as a newly affordable flagship, and the only big-name phone that offers anything approaching solid privacy, it could come across as the most, or even only, “pro-people” phone.
MacDailyNews Take: No.
For the same reason that Apple makes Mac Pro* which helps to sell other, lesser Macs, Apple should continue to make a flagship, state-of-the-art, premium-priced “iPhone Pro.”
*Of the new Mac Pro, every Mac user should be proud.
The Mac Pro is sort of like why you fund a space program, if you’re smart. Yes, there are pressing needs elsewhere (and, btw, there always will be; it’s a bad excuse for not investing in exploration), but if you’re not pushing, you’re stagnating. Nothing unexpected can be discovered, no new solutions uncovered when no new challenges are ventured. It’s why smart car companies make esoteric supercars of which only a few will ever be sold and on which the investment will never be recouped. As with supercars, lessons learned from the Mac Pro, the Mac flagship, will percolate throughout and improve all of Apple’s product lines. Yes, Apple worst-selling Mac is their most important.
May the Mac Pro never be dead-ended, abandoned, and ignored again!
Think about what you thought of Apple’s Mac lineup when it had a half-decade-old, neglected, dead-end design as its flagship. The entire Mac lineup was diminished. Apple’s management who allowed this to happen were diminished, too. People could only see the flaws – in the machines and the people. Now, with the new Mac Pro proudly raising the flag high atop the mountain, all Macs, and everyone responsible for making Macs, are lifted up along with it. — MacDailyNews, July 23, 2019