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Comment by speedplane | Hacker News Reader

> I've been expecting ... that Apple will figure out that selling just 1 device to people with too much money is bad business. ... You buy it and then you replace it after a few years.

Creating a device that every person needs to replace after a few years is a very sound business model. The issue is how many years you generally need to replace it. Apple used to be able to convince folks to replace their phone every two years. Now a two year old phone is not bad at all, and many people are moving to a three year cycle or even longer. This is significant, if 50% of folks move from replacing their phones every 2 years to 3, that's a 16% drop in sales.

Apple's real challenge is to keep innovating to convince folks to keep to shorter phone life-spans. However, as Moore's law keeps it's pace towards the graveyard, that will be be harder and harder to do.

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> This is significant, if 50% of folks move from replacing their phones every 2 years to 3, that's a 16% drop in sales.

Which is why Apple has pushed in to services and other halo devices (Apple Watch, AirPods) around the phone. People incorrectly think that a drop in iPhone sales means fewer people using iPhones. While that may happen at some point, I think the iOS user base is steady/still growing. It will take time, but Apple is already working to make themselves less dependent on the 2 year upgrade cycle.

> People incorrectly think that a drop in iPhone sales means fewer people using iPhones. ... Apple is already working to make themselves less dependent on the 2 year upgrade cycle.

We should not be cheering this initiative, it's a sign of bad things to come. It means that hardware innovation is slowing, and to compensate, there has to be more software innovation. Software innovation is relatively easy to copy, and the most profitable business models involve selling personal data to advertisers. It'll be harder for Apple to compete in this market, and they will be strongly tempted to make compromises with user privacy to satisfy growth and revenue expectations.

However, the root cause of this, is that hardware innovation is slowing, which is largely due to the death of Moore's law. Few are thinking about the profound changes that will arise if Moore's law does indeed come to a complete stop, Apple's business strategy is just one small example. If Moore's law does hit a dead-end (it's currently on its last dying wimper), there will profound affects through society, our economy, and our general expectations for the future. It's frightening that more people aren't sounding the alarms about it.

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