10 secrets of why iPhone is so expensive, let Apple continue to fly for a while

Apple's biggest adventure was completed last year, and that was the iPhone X. It was not the full screen with a notch, or the update of the interaction method, but the price increase.

2018's higher-priced iPhone XS Max is simply a full continuation of this price platform.

The iPhone will once again prove that it has pricing power. There are only two types of mobile phones on the planet, and the other is non-iPhone. The only possibility for the next competitor to defeat the iPhone is to break out of the current smartphone category rules.

Why is the iPhone so expensive? Here are 10 secrets I discovered:

Secret 1: iOS is the No. 1 real estate developer in the digital colonial era

I wrote in the article “Who will be the first company on earth with a market value of $99 trillion?”

• The largest companies (such as the East India Company in history) often rely on the development of the New World, which is inseparable from one word: colony.

In essence, the rise of this wave of companies with a market value of one trillion US dollars comes precisely from:

Digital Colony.

From a physical perspective, it is difficult to find any colonies on Earth. However, when people's living space shifts from the physical world to the digital world, new opportunities for colonization emerge.

In the past, colonizers were divided based on land; in the digital world, colonizers are divided based on the different value dimensions of digital space.

Hardware portal, search, e-commerce, social networking, cloud computing, and games, super enterprises are divided into different factions.

The market value of these digital super-enterprises comes partly from the dimensionality reduction attack on the physical world, and partly from the opening up of new digital territories.

In essence, Apple's colonial strategic weapon is the iOS system, and Jobs has always believed that Apple is a software company.

In the era of mobile Internet, Apple provides the most efficient and best-experienced digital spaceship services.

Or, iOS is the best "real estate developer" in the digital world, providing a top-notch digital living community, and the iPhone is the access card to this community.

Or maybe iOS is actually a shopping mall.

As the default search engine on iOS, Google paid Apple about $3 billion last year, and this may be Apple's easiest profit so far.

This is the shop rent.

Secret 2: The best brain-computer interface device ever

Alan Kay, who had a profound influence on Steve Jobs, said:

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

This strategy didn’t seem to work in the PC era. So why does it work in the mobile era?

Let me first talk about a concept: brain-computer interface.

A brain-computer interface (BCI; sometimes also called a direct neural interface or brain-machine interface) is a direct connection pathway created between the human or animal brain (or a culture of brain cells) and external devices.

In the case of a unidirectional BCI, the computer either receives commands from the brain or sends signals to the brain (e.g. video reconstruction), but cannot send and receive signals at the same time. A bidirectional BCI allows two-way information exchange between the brain and external devices.

Smartphones are the closest machines to humans since industrialization. They are even the "previous life" of brain-computer interfaces.

Imagine you want to implant a chip in your brain. Would you rather buy the most cost-effective one? Or the best and most expensive one?

Because it is equivalent to a digital "transplant organ", the iPhone is known for its "smoothness" and "human-machine integration" in terms of product appearance, feel, and interactive interface. These investments are worthwhile, as the smartphone is the "organ" you touch the most every day.

Google's glasses, Facebook's VR, and Amazon's smart speakers all hope to form a new "brain-computer interface", but at present, it is still difficult to shake the role of smartphones.

Secret 3: iPhone is already a productivity tool

For the Chinese, it is actually skipping the desktop computing era and entering the mobile computing era directly. This may be one of the biggest overtaking curves, and it has also created world-class companies such as Alibaba and Tencent.

For example, we don’t use email very often, but WeChat is often like email.

Smartphone = mobile phone + PC + camera + personal assistant.

The new iPhone uses the A12 Bionic chip, the industry's first 7-nanometer chip with 6.9 billion transistors. The new 8-core Neural Engine has also evolved to be able to process information 5 trillion times per second. This system is now open to developers, and programs developed using this engine can be up to 9 times faster, while consuming only one-tenth of the original power.

If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. The more capable a person is at making money, the less he or she would mind investing in productivity tools.

Secret 4: Perfect closed-loop experience of the ecosystem

The ability to "Control C to copy" on an iPhone or iPad, and "Control V to paste" on a Mac is worth the price of admission alone.

Secret 5: Lower cost per unit time

The lifetime value of an iPhone = usage effect per unit time ✖️usage time.

This is used as a tractor.

When explaining the high price, Cook said it was equivalent to drinking coffee. The subtext is: in terms of output effect per unit time, the iPhone is not expensive.

In July 2017, Apple announced that it had sold 1 billion iPhones, with 120 million sold in the second half of the year. The data released by Tim Long means that 64% of iPhones are still active.

At the beginning of this year's press conference, Cook first announced the total number of iOS devices in use. Usage and ownership are more important to an ecosystem than how many new hardware are sold each year.

The lifespan of iPhones far exceeds that of Android devices. In the second-hand market, there are basically only iPhones. In terms of average cost of use, iPhones are not expensive, and most people give them away to their relatives and friends after they are retired.

The foreign second-hand trading website "Music Magpie" recently sorted out the depreciation of 20 mainstream mobile phones after about one year of sale. According to the data, iPhone X still ranks first in the most valuable mobile phone, and still retains 68% of its value after one year of sale. The ranking of the most valuable mobile phones is released, and the top four are all iPhones, which is really more valuable than buying A-shares in 2018.

Secret 6: Peak Utility

The iPhone is the best phone you can buy on the planet. For some users, it's the iPhone's "peak performance" that matters. It's like a sports car.

Maybe the peak advantage is only 30%, but people are willing to pay 3 times or more for it.

Secret 7: Luxury goods worth tens of thousands of yuan that give you the greatest satisfaction

Using my point of view in "In every price range, there is a product you desire and a great company":

5,000-10,000 yuan is the domain of iPhone. Just imagine, what else can bring you greater satisfaction in this price range? Although iPhone X is expensive, it has jumped out of the melee of Android phone price range, and on the other hand, it is still flying in the reasonable range of iPhone.

The iPhone’s premium as a luxury product is reflected in product design, store layout, and poaching of general managers from luxury goods companies.

From a design perspective, the best things rarely change. Jobs and Ive got inspiration from products like Leica cameras very early on. Great products have their own classic style and inherited design language.

Secret 8: High switching costs

There are the following transfer costs:

• a. System cost;
• b. The cost of habit;
• c. It is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality;
• d. From simple to complex and difficult.

Secret 9: Life is limited, inspire you to explore more

This summer, my family's new project was to drive an RV to the campground, which was a great experience. But in fact, we went out twice for a total of four nights. If we count the various maintenance costs and insurance, it is far less than renting a car temporarily.

But the point is, if you don’t have an RV, you have no idea when to rent one, and you might end up putting it off until your kids are grown up and time is gone.

According to Flickr, 50% of photos uploaded this year were taken with mobile phones, slightly higher than 48% in 2016 and 39% in 2015, while only 33% were taken with digital SLR cameras. All-in-one compact digital cameras have become the losers of the rise of mobile phones, with their share falling from 21% last year to 12% this year.

In terms of photography equipment, Apple iPhone still dominates, accounting for 54% of the top 100 devices and 9 of the top 10; the most popular ones are iPhone 6, 6S and 5S, and the only non-iPhone device in the top 10 is Canon EOS 5D Mark III, ranking 9th.

My own experience is that the iPhone gives me a greater urge to take photos.

Secret 10: Provider of a minimalist lifestyle

Buffett praised Apple by saying that all of their products could fit on one table.

Apple practices the principle of minimalism in every aspect, from streamlining its product line to being extremely restrained in launching new products.

Thanks to the extremely streamlined models, Apple can focus more on chip development and other aspects, greatly improving the input-output ratio. The same is true for the supply chain.

Although the operating system has changed dramatically since the first iPhone, it has hardly added any cognitive load to the user.

Minimalism also means not to bother users, protect their privacy, etc. Zhang Xiaolong's "three no's" principle of not harassing, not being moved, and not catering to users coincides with Apple's.

Sometimes, insisting on “not innovating” is actually more difficult than innovating.

People sometimes pin their hopes on digital toys to "break the mundane world." But the reality is that novelty often doesn't last long.

Those who use weird moves, or are forced to use weird moves, may be relatively junior players like the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan.

The design of new products should attract new fans as well as please old ones. You can’t have a flashy launch every time, making old users feel stupid and abandoned.

From the perspective of the enterprise, if there are constant updates, there will be a lot of trouble.

As for the bangs design, there are a lot of awesome functions in it. The face recognition startup function, which is used frequently every day, is as smooth as flowing water, comfortable and fast. Form should be subordinate to function. Of course, if there is no function, it is understandable to shout about the design sense.

Then

Why didn't Apple come up with a killer trick on the iPhone? Because Apple is now a python, not a rattlesnake, and its strategy of strangling (large prey) is slow but more stable and effective. Since you are already big, why jump up and down?

Those with moats don’t need to hold back on big moves. But the real big moves, such as chips, are far ahead.

Look at the competition between Xiaomi and Huawei. They are both strangling each other and using big moves. In the end, no one makes money.

I predict that this year's iPhone will set a record for sales, thanks to its wider price distribution and the trend of phone replacement. For a large number of customers who are switching from iPhone 6 to 7s, Apple does not want to give reasons for "why to change phones", but to avoid hindering "why not to change phones".

The biggest obstacles that prevent high-end users in China from changing phones are screens and dual SIM cards, while the biggest obstacle for mass users is price. This year, all of these have been resolved. I am curious about Apple's planning and patience in promoting these product improvements.

If a company jumps on the wave, it will still glide for a long time.

Apple has a good hand, and Apple's culture seems to be protecting the company. At the press conference, Cook gave opportunities to more partners, and the great Ivy simply showed her voice.

Cook can be a timekeeper, determined to do the right thing, and can also do things to the extreme.

The newly upgraded iOS12 is smooth and has faster system processing and response speeds, bringing performance improvements to all supported devices as early as iPhone 5s and iPad Air. The result responds to the rumor that "iPhone deliberately slows down the system after upgrading to force you to change your phone."

In fact, no company can grow big by this kind of scheme. Unless it is a non-market monopoly, that kind cannot be called a company.

The Apple Watch 4 is a must-buy for parents. It has a built-in electronic heart sensor that allows users to take an electrocardiogram (ECG). Apple says it is the first ECG product available directly to consumers without a prescription.

Setting up the Watch to automatically call emergency services and contact loved ones is extremely useful for seniors.

The Apple Watch is proof of Apple’s magic in creating new categories and doing them right. The No. 2 player in this space isn’t even a real player.

In addition to further strengthening the ecosystem, Apple Watch is also an important strategic advancement for Apple in the fields of wearable devices and health. It is bold yet steady, upright and without any useless tricks.

A week after Apple's wireless AirPods were released, they sold more than all other wireless earbuds combined in the entire year. In other words, the products that came before them weren't even real products.

In fact, the most ruthless PPT at the press conference was the following one:

Apple has started to fight in a larger price range.

It is often said that Apple has failed since Jobs' death. I don't know whether this is a compliment or an insult to him.

Just like how Kong Ming relied on three magic bags to keep the Kingdom of Shu alive for 29 more years after his death (but he was not a good example), or how the declaration and constitution of the seven founding fathers of the United States more than 200 years ago started the rise of the most powerful country on earth. If Jobs was really great, he would have kept Apple flying for a while after his death.

at last

Personally, even though I own every product in the entire Apple line, it's only part of a hobby.

As a digital product tester, I also like Sony, Thinkpad (I hate Lenovo), Kindle, Alienware, and Google's disappointing hardware. I also buy devices from Huawei and Xiaomi, as well as that drivable smart hardware Tesla.

When I was young, I preferred the geek style of Google, but Apple may give us more inspiration from the secular world.

The most important thing I learned from Apple is that simplicity is not only a form of truth, but also the truth itself.

In order to pursue the truth, we need to strongly shape ourselves, which is quite difficult and often requires sacrifices.

We need firm beliefs and a lot of work to gain strength and achieve beauty.