1) 2/3 of devices Apple has ever sold remain in use today [0]
2) The average lifespan of an Apple device is 4.25 years
That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will. I think it has always been the case that Apple cares about building really good hardware that lasts. That's not to say that they don't make mistakes (they do), but they care most about making something good, regardless of the "business case."
On the most recent earnings call, several investors had questions about how Apple's new battery replacement program would affect business. For example, would the cost bring down profits, would the replacement prevent upgrades, etc. Tim's response was:
>On the battery, Toni, we did not consider it in any way, shape, or form what it would do to upgrade rates. We did it because we thought it was the right thing to do for our customers. And sitting here today, I don’t know what effect it will have. And again, it was not in our thought process of deciding to do what we’ve done. [1]
>That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will. I think it has always been the case that Apple cares about building really good hardware that lasts. That's not to say that they don't make mistakes (they do), but they care most about making something good, regardless of the "business case."
I hope it doesn't. I have experienced it first hand with my 4S which became horribly laggy and unusable after all of the iOS updates, and I had no way of downgrading iOS and returning it to the factory state.
Also regarding the battery issue, call me a cynic but there is no way that this wasn't PR driven. Apple took a PR hit because they sneakily slowed down the phone instead of informing the user that their battery is dying and that they should get it fixed. Obviously because it would highlight the flaws in their design (which other smartphones might or might not have too).
I'm not an Apple shareholder so I don't care about their profits at all, and hopefully neither should anyone else.
> That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will.
After less than 20 months my iPhone SE was at 45% of the original CPU speed it was marketed as. This was by design. A conscious decision by multiple people in the know, who instead of selling me a device that could last four years sold me a device that lasted one and a half and kept quiet about it until called out on it.
I never believed the planned obsolescence narrative, until I experienced it the past months.
I will never understand why Apple gets all the "planned obsolescence!" flak, when I still know people using iPhone 4S's and 2011 iPads and iOS devices get software updates for 3-5 years. You're lucky if your Android phone gets two years of updates, and I don't there has ever been one with three.
If you're going to applaud apple for "doing the right thing for customers", it might be good to think about apple's history. When during the last decade has apple ever not tried to ignore severe hardware issues before they lost a lawsuit? Apple has mistreated customers for a long time. They can get away it because their customers have few high end alternatives.
The truth is that they make calculated decisions whether ignoring the issue, or responding to the issue will be more beneficial to them financially and public opinion wise. This time they decided that the fallout from evidence of possible planned obsolescence—intentional or not—combined with the fact that a lost lawsuit was likely, and the fact that smartphone sales have fallen for the first time ever, would be financially more painful than compensating their customers.
>That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will.
That argument has never made much sense to me.
If Apple wanted to force people to buy a new device, wouldn't it be much easier to simply stop providing OS and security patches after two years the way most of the Android device makers have traditionally done?
How does providing four years of software support (on average) force users to buy a new device more quickly than providing two years of software support (on average)?
> Apple cares about building really good hardware that lasts
That used to be true. Nowadays they seem to care more about building hardware that looks cool, is as thin as physically possible, and is full of wizzy features that people may or may not care about (like face-unlock, or whatever they call it).
My Apple //e is still running. My Newton 2100 is still running. My iPhone 5s is still running on original batter (on iOS 11 to boot). My MBP 2011 is still running (albeit with new SSD).
Sadly my Macintosh Portable isn't running but that's only because the batteries are dead and I haven't refurbished them yet.
No other hardware I've ever purchased has run for that long. My Palm Pilot is dead. My Treo is dead.
No one who says Apple builds in planned obsolescence has probably never used any Apple hardware.
I still have my original Apple ][+ from high school, purchased used in 1986, originally manufactured in 1982. It performs just as well as it did in 1986, even including the floppy drive, a mechanical device that by all rights should have died decades ago. (Then again, my Atari 2600 still works fine, too.)
Conversely, every Apple product I've owned since the late '90s has been buggy in one way or another, had hardware issues, and generally has not stood the test of time. As mandatory updates and cloud-based software have become the norm, things have gotten even worse. To be fair, machines are far more complex now. A lot of the rock-solid reliability of early Apple products came from their relative simplicity. But I would not say they've built robust products ever since. They certainly believe in planned obsolescence. The perennial changing of port standards, abandoning of backwards compatibility, and lack of support for older machines is an Apple hallmark. I'm not saying they're worse than their competitors, but they definitely adhere to planned obsolescence.
* 2012 rMacBook Pro 15": a major GPU defect found just as the 1-yr manufacturer's warranty ran out. Had to pay $300+ for repair although it was clearly a manufacturer's fault. After a threat of class-action lawsuit -- there were similar class-action lawsuits in motion for older MacBooks models made in 2007, 2009, 201x as well -- Apple started a repair/recall program in 2014 and they refunded my repair cost.
* 2 x iBooks in my college days: none of them lasted longer than 1 year; all failed due to some hardware problems.
* iPhone 3GS: didn't know how laggy it was until I upgraded to the 4Gs. Oneplus 5T is my current phone, with Samsung Note 3 as backup -- which was used for 4 years.
* 1999 Dell Inspiron: in service for 6 years and still usable. dropped it several times on concrete floor. Virtually indestructible, but I wanted to get a new hardware (see my 2 x iBooks). Required no repair or replacement despite heavy use; in my Manhattan mini-storage now.
* 2008 Dell Inspiron: cost $350 (with some special offer from Discover Card) and used it until I got my 2012 rMacBook. Virtually indestructible; required no repair or replacement; still running and my backup laptop.
Based on my experience, Dell XPS 15" is going to be my next workhorse.
As far as smartphones are concerned, many years ago before his death, Steve Jobs claimed to have "cracked" the integrated TV business, but Apple decided not jump into it -- because their product lifespan is too long, especially compared to iPhone's 2-yr short lifespan. The iPhone's 2 year short lifespan in turn was in large part determined by 2 year contract subsidies in the US. Likewise, you see in Horace's second graph that the iPhone lifespan increased as US carriers phased out 2 year-contract subsidized model in favor of monthly payments with no subsidy. I'm very disinclined to believe that Apple's QC improved so much in the past 4 years that the iPhone's lifespan nearly tripled and, contrary to a few fanboi's anecdotal stories about Apple's stellar hardware QC, I'm willing to bet a few pennies that the overall lifespan trend holds the same for other phone manufacturers as well.
In short, I think it's mostly it's mobile carriers' subsidy (or lack thereof) that changed consumers' buying habit and iPhone lifespan, not Apple's super durable hardware or quality control.
I don't believe Apple designs for "planned obsolescence", but you appear to have been cautious or lucky enough to buy mature products, not new product lines -- in some cases, the very final iteration of a design.
I own 1 early-model and 2 first-of-its-line Apple products from the 2000's, and they've all had quality issues and are no longer usable. In every case, the flawed feature was improved or simply removed in subsequent models. It's a shame, because I liked them all more than what I replaced them with, apart from the reliability trouble.
On average, I don't think Apple is any worse than any other manufacturer, but they do tend to be more enthusiastic about trying new materials and designs and manufacturing techniques. Perhaps there are people who run out and buy a completely new model on day 1, and discover it's not as robust as the 5-year-old one they were using before (i.e., sample bias).
I was anxiously awaiting the second iteration of the black cylinder Mac Pro, simply because I'm paranoid about buying a first-generation product. Now I'm going to have to wait even longer, because once again there's going to be a completely new design.
I have a Newton 2000 that turns on, but the touch screen matrix isn't working properly, apparently a common issue.
Also had a Quadra 950 at one point loaded with 1990s game dev stuff in storage. Pulled it out, it wouldn't turn on and the plastic had turned into the color of cigarette smoke, so got rid of it. Sometimes even good shit breaks.
An average lifespan of about for years is just huge, even if this probably is pushed a lot by Macs having a longer lifespan than phones..
On the other hand, my mother still uses the iPhone 4S I handed down to get than I got my 6.
My Mac Pro tower from 2008 is still going as my main desktop, not a single fan or hardware issue. iPhone 6S after a new battery, feels like a brand new device. I've had every iPhone since the first one, and decided to just stop buying new phones every year or two. I'll run this into the ground until it stops working. Beyond email , text messaging, and instagram for business. It doesn't serve much other purpose that requires the latest and greatest.
Even if it’s just iOS devices that’s not too surprising. Lots of people sell their old devices (which get new homes) or pass them down.
We also know the iPad tends to have a much longer lifecycle than the phone. If it wasn’t for the lack of updates and new software many people would still be using the iPad 2 from 2012 (?).
So 4 years is the average lifespan, not the maximum. That's pretty crazy, and even more than I thought it would be (4-5 years max).
And to think that virtually all the other OEMs barely even support their phones beyond a year and a half. Even Google is only supporting its own phones for 3 years, which is still less than the average lifespan of these phones (iPhones may be higher quality, but I doubt the avg lifespan for other flagship devices is much smaller).
I've argued before that there should probably be a law that says an electronic device has to be supported until at least 80% of the units stop being in use.
So,for instance, if 10 million people purchased a Pixel 2, Google should deliver software updates until fewer than 2 million Pixel 2 units are under active use. According to this report, that may very well be 5 or 6 years. Remember phones tend to continue to be used even after the original buyer stops using it, whether it's because they sold it or handed it to someone else.
A law forcing support for electronic devices until a certain amount of them fall out of use would discourage companies from making durable products. Companies would use even more brittle, low-endurance parts.
> there should probably be a law that says an electronic device has to be supported until at least 80% of the units stop being in use
Maybe not a law, since it seems like a bit of an overreach to force a company to continue working on a product they don't want to, but some sort of incentive program would be interesting.
There shouldn't be a law requiring support but it sure would be nice if at least the manufacturer's would provide a way for people to support the devices themselves. It'd also be great if they offered paid support for old devices, e.g. $1 per month to cover developer time.
> And to think that virtually all the other OEMs barely even support their phones beyond a year and a half. Even Google is only supporting its own phones for 3 years, which is still less than the average lifespan of these phones (iPhones may be higher quality, but I doubt the avg lifespan for other flagship devices is much smaller).
I think the numbers include all Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, Airports, Macintoshes &c.
Certainly, I don't know anyone with a more-than-three-year-old iPhone.
This is very clever from a financials analysis perspective, but I'd be careful taking it to mean anything from an end-user perspective. This can be phrased as: suppose some number of devices are in the wild at a given time. How long does it take for that many devices to become inactive?
Note this is very different from: how long does it take for all the devices on the market at the time to become inactive? If these would be equivalent if (1) iPhones were homogeneous and (2) devices had a constant lifetime, but the truth is there are many models available and different devices become inactive at different rates.
Concerning point (1): As an extreme example, imagine Apple releasing a rock solid phone (iPhone RS) with a ten year lifespan followed by a crappy phone (iPhone CR) that dies in a year. Within a year of the CR's release, they'll all be inactive, meanwhile all the RS's will be plugging along (assuming they all last exactly their lifespan). Meanwhile the average lifespan will be identical to what it would be if they were released in the reverse order.
Concerning point (2): These numbers can be skewed by devices with different lifetime distributions. If we assume, realistically in my opinion, that device decay is a Poisson process, different devices with different decay rates mixed together in this analysis would render this analysis way too simplistic.
For consumers who buy the very newest of devices, this isn't a particularly helpful metric because of (1). For consumers who buy older devices, it's not very helpful because you don't know the distributions pointed out in (2).
For financial analysts, however, this is a very interesting analysis because it can be used to make predictions. For instance, if you assume the lifecycle is increasing, then you see a strong incentive for Apple to get their hands on older-but-still-functional devices so they can resell the same phone again and again. My takeaway is I'll keep an eye out for how aggressively they market the iPhone Upgrade Program.
I think I follow what you are saying, but I'd disagree with one thing: For consumers, all these devices come from the same company, and are developed with (broadly) the same process. Because these products are related, a consumer can make assumptions about both new and old devices. In fact, there is evidence that they do, if you take a look at secondary markets for Apple devices.
What you are saying is similar to telling a consumer that they should not trust Toyota vehicles to last longer than any other brand. When, in fact, there is a general trend that Toyotas do last longer. Sure, you aren't guaranteed that one specific Toyota Corolla will last longer than another specific Ford Focus, but there is a general trend you can rely on.
As an end-user, this is obviously a big benefit to me, as I don't need to purchase devices as often, but how does this play from a business perspective?
Is Apple consciously promoting this as a differentiator, or is it a side effect of their hardware/software ecosystem? How will this affect their sales numbers long term, either positively (by promoting their platform overall) or negatively (by reducing in-ecosystem churn)?
It helps Apple by driving the tolerable purchase price (and therefore tolerable profit margins) up.
Put another way, they capture the same share of your computing budget and of the App Store market but build fewer laptops and phones.
Also, Apple is highly diffentiated at the high end (walk in repairs and support, long software compatibility timespans). Driving up expected lifespans makes their offering cheaper than the low end in the long term, allowing them to capture increasing percentages of the total market.
They just need to execute better on the software and industrial design side than they did in 2017. Laptops without usable keyboards, the new busted gesture based iPhone UI, and iOS 11.0 are all bad enough to force long term users to other ecosystems.
From a business perspective, I would expect Apple to continue introducing satellite/companion products in their ecosystem that customers see as valuable. I think they've long seen the "peak iPhone" moment coming (it would seem we have at least arrived at "plateau iPhone" now [0]), and have been executing a broad, multiyear strategy to leverage the fact that there are over a billion of their devices in active use. That strategy includes: offering compelling services, new products to enhance their ecosystem (AirPods, Apple Watch, etc), and eventually products to cannibalize the iPhone.
I expect there to be a lot of noise from Wall Street now that the iPhone growth rocket ship has stagnated. But as others have pointed out, in a world of smartphone saturation Apple is well-poised to continue being quite successful[1], and viewing the world purely through a "number of units sold" lens is foolish.
I mean, I guess that's interesting, but the controversy was never about the broader lifespan of Apple devices. It has always been, as far as I've heard and experienced, about the lifespan of Apple's phones. To think that the knowledge that their devices quickly dropping in CPU speed wasn't considered when they decided to throttle based off battery life is naive. They definitely did this, and if they didn't, they are doing something seriously wrong.
I occasionally boot up a PowerBook G4 running Leopard - I think the last version to support PPC. It's had a battery replacement and an SSD installed but is still quite slow (and hot after a while). But the screen and keyboard are nice and I think it'll last another 10+ years if I'm careful.
Still, somewhere it pops up in web analytics as an outlier :)
the hardware is great. I still have ipod minis that are in use playing music everyday in my kids' rooms. However the 1st gen ipads are basically bricks as most software wont run. Existing games work and we can run netflix, but not amazon.
The hardware is excellent, the software deprecation path is out of sync with the quality of the hardware.
This is exactly the issue. I still have a MacBook Pro from 2009,a first gen iPad, and a first gen iPod Touch. All still work well, though I did have to replace the battery in the MacBook. But none of them can run supported software...
[+] [-] oflannabhra|8 years ago|reply
2) The average lifespan of an Apple device is 4.25 years
That should put to rest the "Apple's planned obsolescence" narrative, but I doubt it will. I think it has always been the case that Apple cares about building really good hardware that lasts. That's not to say that they don't make mistakes (they do), but they care most about making something good, regardless of the "business case."
On the most recent earnings call, several investors had questions about how Apple's new battery replacement program would affect business. For example, would the cost bring down profits, would the replacement prevent upgrades, etc. Tim's response was:
>On the battery, Toni, we did not consider it in any way, shape, or form what it would do to upgrade rates. We did it because we thought it was the right thing to do for our customers. And sitting here today, I don’t know what effect it will have. And again, it was not in our thought process of deciding to do what we’ve done. [1]
[0] - http://www.asymco.com/2018/02/27/the-number/ (this does not include iPods, I don't think) [1] - https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/02/this-is-tim-transcript-of...
[+] [-] ksk|8 years ago|reply
I hope it doesn't. I have experienced it first hand with my 4S which became horribly laggy and unusable after all of the iOS updates, and I had no way of downgrading iOS and returning it to the factory state.
Also regarding the battery issue, call me a cynic but there is no way that this wasn't PR driven. Apple took a PR hit because they sneakily slowed down the phone instead of informing the user that their battery is dying and that they should get it fixed. Obviously because it would highlight the flaws in their design (which other smartphones might or might not have too).
I'm not an Apple shareholder so I don't care about their profits at all, and hopefully neither should anyone else.
[+] [-] Y-bar|8 years ago|reply
After less than 20 months my iPhone SE was at 45% of the original CPU speed it was marketed as. This was by design. A conscious decision by multiple people in the know, who instead of selling me a device that could last four years sold me a device that lasted one and a half and kept quiet about it until called out on it.
I never believed the planned obsolescence narrative, until I experienced it the past months.
[+] [-] Analemma_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doorbumper|8 years ago|reply
The truth is that they make calculated decisions whether ignoring the issue, or responding to the issue will be more beneficial to them financially and public opinion wise. This time they decided that the fallout from evidence of possible planned obsolescence—intentional or not—combined with the fact that a lost lawsuit was likely, and the fact that smartphone sales have fallen for the first time ever, would be financially more painful than compensating their customers.
[+] [-] GeekyBear|8 years ago|reply
That argument has never made much sense to me.
If Apple wanted to force people to buy a new device, wouldn't it be much easier to simply stop providing OS and security patches after two years the way most of the Android device makers have traditionally done?
How does providing four years of software support (on average) force users to buy a new device more quickly than providing two years of software support (on average)?
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lisper|8 years ago|reply
That used to be true. Nowadays they seem to care more about building hardware that looks cool, is as thin as physically possible, and is full of wizzy features that people may or may not care about (like face-unlock, or whatever they call it).
[+] [-] SpikeDad|8 years ago|reply
Sadly my Macintosh Portable isn't running but that's only because the batteries are dead and I haven't refurbished them yet.
No other hardware I've ever purchased has run for that long. My Palm Pilot is dead. My Treo is dead.
No one who says Apple builds in planned obsolescence has probably never used any Apple hardware.
[+] [-] wnissen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaysonelliot|8 years ago|reply
Conversely, every Apple product I've owned since the late '90s has been buggy in one way or another, had hardware issues, and generally has not stood the test of time. As mandatory updates and cloud-based software have become the norm, things have gotten even worse. To be fair, machines are far more complex now. A lot of the rock-solid reliability of early Apple products came from their relative simplicity. But I would not say they've built robust products ever since. They certainly believe in planned obsolescence. The perennial changing of port standards, abandoning of backwards compatibility, and lack of support for older machines is an Apple hallmark. I'm not saying they're worse than their competitors, but they definitely adhere to planned obsolescence.
[+] [-] tooltalk|8 years ago|reply
* 2012 rMacBook Pro 15": a major GPU defect found just as the 1-yr manufacturer's warranty ran out. Had to pay $300+ for repair although it was clearly a manufacturer's fault. After a threat of class-action lawsuit -- there were similar class-action lawsuits in motion for older MacBooks models made in 2007, 2009, 201x as well -- Apple started a repair/recall program in 2014 and they refunded my repair cost.
* 2 x iBooks in my college days: none of them lasted longer than 1 year; all failed due to some hardware problems.
* iPhone 3GS: didn't know how laggy it was until I upgraded to the 4Gs. Oneplus 5T is my current phone, with Samsung Note 3 as backup -- which was used for 4 years.
* 1999 Dell Inspiron: in service for 6 years and still usable. dropped it several times on concrete floor. Virtually indestructible, but I wanted to get a new hardware (see my 2 x iBooks). Required no repair or replacement despite heavy use; in my Manhattan mini-storage now.
* 2008 Dell Inspiron: cost $350 (with some special offer from Discover Card) and used it until I got my 2012 rMacBook. Virtually indestructible; required no repair or replacement; still running and my backup laptop.
Based on my experience, Dell XPS 15" is going to be my next workhorse.
As far as smartphones are concerned, many years ago before his death, Steve Jobs claimed to have "cracked" the integrated TV business, but Apple decided not jump into it -- because their product lifespan is too long, especially compared to iPhone's 2-yr short lifespan. The iPhone's 2 year short lifespan in turn was in large part determined by 2 year contract subsidies in the US. Likewise, you see in Horace's second graph that the iPhone lifespan increased as US carriers phased out 2 year-contract subsidized model in favor of monthly payments with no subsidy. I'm very disinclined to believe that Apple's QC improved so much in the past 4 years that the iPhone's lifespan nearly tripled and, contrary to a few fanboi's anecdotal stories about Apple's stellar hardware QC, I'm willing to bet a few pennies that the overall lifespan trend holds the same for other phone manufacturers as well.
In short, I think it's mostly it's mobile carriers' subsidy (or lack thereof) that changed consumers' buying habit and iPhone lifespan, not Apple's super durable hardware or quality control.
[+] [-] ken|8 years ago|reply
I own 1 early-model and 2 first-of-its-line Apple products from the 2000's, and they've all had quality issues and are no longer usable. In every case, the flawed feature was improved or simply removed in subsequent models. It's a shame, because I liked them all more than what I replaced them with, apart from the reliability trouble.
On average, I don't think Apple is any worse than any other manufacturer, but they do tend to be more enthusiastic about trying new materials and designs and manufacturing techniques. Perhaps there are people who run out and buy a completely new model on day 1, and discover it's not as robust as the 5-year-old one they were using before (i.e., sample bias).
I was anxiously awaiting the second iteration of the black cylinder Mac Pro, simply because I'm paranoid about buying a first-generation product. Now I'm going to have to wait even longer, because once again there's going to be a completely new design.
[+] [-] flomo|8 years ago|reply
Also had a Quadra 950 at one point loaded with 1990s game dev stuff in storage. Pulled it out, it wouldn't turn on and the plastic had turned into the color of cigarette smoke, so got rid of it. Sometimes even good shit breaks.
[+] [-] 220V_USKettle|8 years ago|reply
Macbook G4 - still works fine, boots up fast, resume/sleep very fast
Macbook Pro 2010 - battery holds about 30 minute charge
iPhone 4/4S - batteries are fine, never replaced
iPhone 5S - on my 4th battery
[+] [-] linopolus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overcast|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|8 years ago|reply
We also know the iPad tends to have a much longer lifecycle than the phone. If it wasn’t for the lack of updates and new software many people would still be using the iPad 2 from 2012 (?).
[+] [-] mtgx|8 years ago|reply
And to think that virtually all the other OEMs barely even support their phones beyond a year and a half. Even Google is only supporting its own phones for 3 years, which is still less than the average lifespan of these phones (iPhones may be higher quality, but I doubt the avg lifespan for other flagship devices is much smaller).
I've argued before that there should probably be a law that says an electronic device has to be supported until at least 80% of the units stop being in use.
So,for instance, if 10 million people purchased a Pixel 2, Google should deliver software updates until fewer than 2 million Pixel 2 units are under active use. According to this report, that may very well be 5 or 6 years. Remember phones tend to continue to be used even after the original buyer stops using it, whether it's because they sold it or handed it to someone else.
[+] [-] lebrad|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GhostVII|8 years ago|reply
Maybe not a law, since it seems like a bit of an overreach to force a company to continue working on a product they don't want to, but some sort of incentive program would be interesting.
[+] [-] aeorgnoieang|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ken|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeveb|8 years ago|reply
I think the numbers include all Apple devices: iPhones, iPads, Airports, Macintoshes &c.
Certainly, I don't know anyone with a more-than-three-year-old iPhone.
[+] [-] yincrash|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jfasi|8 years ago|reply
Note this is very different from: how long does it take for all the devices on the market at the time to become inactive? If these would be equivalent if (1) iPhones were homogeneous and (2) devices had a constant lifetime, but the truth is there are many models available and different devices become inactive at different rates.
Concerning point (1): As an extreme example, imagine Apple releasing a rock solid phone (iPhone RS) with a ten year lifespan followed by a crappy phone (iPhone CR) that dies in a year. Within a year of the CR's release, they'll all be inactive, meanwhile all the RS's will be plugging along (assuming they all last exactly their lifespan). Meanwhile the average lifespan will be identical to what it would be if they were released in the reverse order.
Concerning point (2): These numbers can be skewed by devices with different lifetime distributions. If we assume, realistically in my opinion, that device decay is a Poisson process, different devices with different decay rates mixed together in this analysis would render this analysis way too simplistic.
For consumers who buy the very newest of devices, this isn't a particularly helpful metric because of (1). For consumers who buy older devices, it's not very helpful because you don't know the distributions pointed out in (2).
For financial analysts, however, this is a very interesting analysis because it can be used to make predictions. For instance, if you assume the lifecycle is increasing, then you see a strong incentive for Apple to get their hands on older-but-still-functional devices so they can resell the same phone again and again. My takeaway is I'll keep an eye out for how aggressively they market the iPhone Upgrade Program.
[+] [-] oflannabhra|8 years ago|reply
What you are saying is similar to telling a consumer that they should not trust Toyota vehicles to last longer than any other brand. When, in fact, there is a general trend that Toyotas do last longer. Sure, you aren't guaranteed that one specific Toyota Corolla will last longer than another specific Ford Focus, but there is a general trend you can rely on.
[+] [-] gervase|8 years ago|reply
Is Apple consciously promoting this as a differentiator, or is it a side effect of their hardware/software ecosystem? How will this affect their sales numbers long term, either positively (by promoting their platform overall) or negatively (by reducing in-ecosystem churn)?
[+] [-] hedora|8 years ago|reply
Put another way, they capture the same share of your computing budget and of the App Store market but build fewer laptops and phones.
Also, Apple is highly diffentiated at the high end (walk in repairs and support, long software compatibility timespans). Driving up expected lifespans makes their offering cheaper than the low end in the long term, allowing them to capture increasing percentages of the total market.
They just need to execute better on the software and industrial design side than they did in 2017. Laptops without usable keyboards, the new busted gesture based iPhone UI, and iOS 11.0 are all bad enough to force long term users to other ecosystems.
[+] [-] oflannabhra|8 years ago|reply
I expect there to be a lot of noise from Wall Street now that the iPhone growth rocket ship has stagnated. But as others have pointed out, in a world of smartphone saturation Apple is well-poised to continue being quite successful[1], and viewing the world purely through a "number of units sold" lens is foolish.
[0] - https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2018/2/21/the-goldilocks-e... [1] - https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/02/24/the-smartphone-en...
[+] [-] nscalf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delibes|8 years ago|reply
Still, somewhere it pops up in web analytics as an outlier :)
[+] [-] triviatise|8 years ago|reply
The hardware is excellent, the software deprecation path is out of sync with the quality of the hardware.
[+] [-] amanzi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelmachine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpeterson|8 years ago|reply