Victimhood.

The ‘cheap’ iPhone Xr starting at $750 + tax.

Despite a new battery my iPhone6 is becoming very sluggish. Apple makes sure this happens with its older devices by loading them up with ever slower code in its unending pursuit of planned obsolescence. My original iPad Air is suffering the same symptoms.

So announcement of a new series of iPhones sort of catches my attention. While I want a new iPhone like a hole in the head, the operating realities of my current one leave me no choice but to upgrade. And as 50 of my 64GB remain unused, it’s not like it’s a memory issue.

The sad truth is that the technological edge of two manufacturers – Apple and Samsung – has landed consumers with an inescapable oligopoly. Your choice is the Sammy with the insecure, rat infested Android OS or Apple’s ‘my way or the highway’ iOS. And as I would rather keep my credit card out of Ivan’s hands when he next goes on a free shopping spree, I am pretty much tied into iOS.

Now I am not obsessed with the need for an edge-to-edge screen and am most certainly averse to shelling out a minimum of $800 for a new iPhone, you know the one without a headphone socket and that ridiculous face recognition technology replacing the excellent thumbprint sensor on my iPhone6, which has yet to let me down. But, sadly, $750 + tax is the lowest point of entry to the new iPhone universe, with costlier models (one is appropriately named the ‘Xs’ which will be immediately read incorrectly by the 99.999% of the populace without an education in Latin) adding unnecessary OLED displays in lieu of LCD ones and adding more costly storage when none is needed in the age of the cloud. That’s monopoly pricing power for you, albeit you must respect Apple’s pun in the name.

But a friend points out that, given my modest needs, an iPhone7 will do just fine and he pointed me to the web site ‘Swappa’ (doubtless run by chaps in Sicily) as an alternative to the slime pit that is eBay (full disclosure: my last two iPhones were sold on the slime pit to Russkies!):

Clicka da image to goa to de Swappa.

Here you can sella your olda iPhona and buya a later, if discontinued, replacement for a whola lotta lessa dan de latest iPhone from da gender challenged boy in Cupertino.

So I’m thinking I mighta giva da Swappa a chanca befora shelling out $800 on the latest and greatest. My friend upgraded from an iPhone 6 to a 7 and noted a large speed increase, so that upgrade path seems rather appealing. After sale of his iPhone6 his net outlay was very low indeed. Sadly, however, the iPhone7 deletes the headphone socket, meaning yet another adapter is required.

CPU speed? Check this Geekbench chart. The iPhone7 offers the best bang for the buck over the iPhone6 on CPU speed with a speed gain of 147%. Thereafter, later models are pretty much hitting the law of diminishing returns.

The ‘new iPhones’ are nothing but a bait and switch from a disingenuous Apple. There are zero compelling new features for the outrageous 25% price increase. How long will it take consumers to realize that they are being conned? AAPL’s unit sales of iPhones were up just 1% last year with all of the large revenue gains resulting from the high price increases on the iPhone X. How much longer can Apple get away with this ‘no product upgrade’ strategy for a 25% increase in price?

Update:

I bought a mint, boxed 128GB iPhone7 from an established Swappa seller for $429, shipped. I get 81% of the speed of the iPhone X for 54% of the cost and will happily resell my iPhone6 on the Swappa site once all is said and done. It will be a cold day in hell before I lay out $1000 or more on a cell phone. (The iPhone7 is still being sold new by Apple. The price I paid is $180 less than they are asking and, if needed, I can have the battery replaced for just $29 through 12/31/18 – Apple’s ‘guilt price’ after they were caught cheating on battery lives. Replacement sky-rockets come 2019, with Apple hoping no one notices).

The iPhone7 is indeed much faster than the iPhone6. No more grinding waits while it processes ever more bloated code. And the haptic feedback is well implemented and a ‘nice to have’ feature as is ForceTouch which Apple just discontinued on its latest iPhones, ever in search of greater margins. (You push down on an icon for more options – for example accessing bookmarks in Safari). The iPhone7 is a recommended upgrade for owners of the iPhone6 and earlier models.

No comment.

I got 4 years’ hard use from the iPhone6. Not bad.