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Comment by mohanmcgeek | Hacker News Reader

There's definitely something: Google, Microsoft or Amazon launching a sub $300 smartphone and an ad campaign making fun of people spending a thousand dollars for nothing extra.

It feels like FAAMG minus Google don't want to compete with each other on the consumer side.

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> an ad campaign making fun of people spending a thousand dollars for nothing extra

In the US, consumers don't usually see the full price tag. Carriers just put phones on payment plans (the iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB is currently $36/month for 30 months on Verizon, for example), so it's a lot easier for consumers to buy expensive phones without ever having to think "wow, this thing is >$1k", especially since they'll probably trade it in after a year or two for a newer model.

I don't see such an ad campaign being very successful here unless carriers stopped financing devices (which they have no incentive to).

If it was that easy they would have already done it. You are drastically oversimplifying the market, network and ecosystem effects. The market has shown that it will gobble up $1000 phones, why sell one at $300? Apple has built a network that encourages people to stay in it (iMessage for example). They have also built an ecosystem of products that harmonize well. The market seems to enjoy this.

Nah. Half the reason people buy iPhones is to show other people they aren't poor. Buying a sub-$300 phone doesn't achieve that goal.

> Half the reason people buy iPhones is to show other people they aren't poor

While I'm pretty sure you jest here, this simply isn't true. iMessage, FaceTime, consistency with family and friends, and the (whether founded or not is up to you) trust in a machine that'll last you quite a few years and "just work" is the main reason people buy iPhones.

Not saying that this is my thought process (i have my own reasons for owning one) but it pretty much sums up what the majority of people think.

That's just accounting for people who actually care about what phone they own, which you'd be surprised to find is actually a quite small percentage...

I disagree, people will make up all sorts of smart-sounding rationales why they just need an iPhone. Just like they need that SUV, McMansion, or any other status good. And heck, they'll even believe their own reasoning. People typically aren't self-aware of their own status-seeking. But in the end that warm feeling from showing off their social status and rising above the unwashed Android masses is still half of the reason people buy them.

Oh please, no one's out here trying to "rise above the unwashed android masses" when they buy an iPhone, it's just what they are used to. It's not a status symbol, it's a fucking phone.

And despite what you believe, there are many legitimate reasons for choosing an iPhone over the competition, ones that don't revolve around "social status" or "flexing" or anything like that.

Even the anecdotes you hear of girls not dating android users and whatnot are comically blown out of proportion; look around you, who really gives a shit aside from nerds on HN?

Sure they do. Just like Gucci makes good bags, a large factor is that it is a luxury good that people recognize. Same for expensive watches, same for clothing brands. Nothing bad about that.

> look around you, who really gives a shit aside from nerds on HN?

You to an unhealthy degree, apparently.

Once again I don't really understand the comparison between a PHONE and a gucci bag/expensive watch.

Unlike the iPhone, the products you mention cost orders of magnitude more than their competition, I can buy a $30 bag from Ross and a $2000 bag from Gucci and get basically no extra functionality, they are both bags. Despite what people say, iPhones are priced relatively competitively with their competition and don't really have the same "Luxury Appeal" that a Rolex watch may have in comparison to a Casio one.

> You to an unhealthy degree, apparently.

> iMessage, FaceTime, ...

Right, the top two reasons to use an iPhone are iMessage and FaceTime. And those are the two apps that are still basically impossible to compete with with PWAs due to unimplemented functionality.

They have seemed to make more progress on this over the past couple years after getting called out with very astute questions from Rep. Cicilline: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...

getUserMedia has now been implemented in WebViews, so WebRTC calls in Chrome for iOS are now possible, that was big.

Web push is key too, looks like now code complete in WebKit: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566

No progress yet on the Fullscreen API: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206854

And issues remain with expiring permissions, e.g.: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=228317

PWAs come with their own suite of functionality issues these days, but I'm sure they'll be able to compete with Apple's native solutions sooner or later.

FaceTime does support sharing links so far but it's something I have yet to test myself.

That would be hard, since Apple would immediately come out with a campaign against it, probably attacking whatever compromise they had to make.

Example: because your childs first step matters, after which it cuts to a good video shut in a hurry on an iPhone, or a terrible one on $CHEAP_PHONE)

It really feels like Google is losing interest in Android. What are the chances that they will sell it to somebody like Microsoft with the requirement that certain Google Services remain?

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