iPhone XR Dominates the iPhone Market

[bradwiggo]

Just now, 79wjd said:

The 5c retailed for $550/$650. It was $100/$200 on a subsidized contract.

 

The SE was kind of a 5c, but also not. The XR is outright a cheaper XS/Max; anyone buying it is buying it because it's cheaper (I don't expect that the slight increase in size likely isn't much of a deciding factor). Whereas people (also) opted for the SE because of its small size in addition to its low price.

I've honestly never been quite sure why the XR is bigger. Truth be told, if I needed a new phone I might very likely have opted for the XR for its slightly bigger screen (I know I contracted my earlier point, I just don't think that's the norm).

Aye sorry that was my mistake, meant to write $200 less. The SE seems like a budget phone, I can't call something that costs $750 a "budget" phone. It is cheaper, but not a budget phone. Maybe they just made it bigger so people would know it was an XR or something? I mean most people do like bigger screens, personally I hate big phone, anything bigger than an SE is too big for me, but I know I am in the minority on that. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 hour ago, bradwiggo said:

Why not make it the same size? Surely making a budget phone smaller, or at the very least the same size, as the flagship, makes sense financially? 

Uhh, no? Why would they want to make it the same size? If the XR is cheaper and bigger that’s another selling point for the XR. Volume sales are important. 

[bradwiggo]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Uhh, no? Why would they want to make it the same size? If the XR is cheaper and bigger that’s another selling point for the XR. Volume sales are important. 

Cause making a cheaper phone is smaller. Maybe if they made it the same size as the XS then they could actually sell it for a budget price. Not everyone wants a bigger phone, the XS is already big as is, and most people I talk to don't actually know the XR is any bigger, so it wasn't a selling point, or if it was, they did a crap job advertising it. 

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, bradwiggo said:

Cause making a cheaper phone is smaller. Maybe if they made it the same size as the XS then they could actually sell it for a budget price.

Smaller phones are not inherently cheaper. The display size the iPhone XR uses is not incredibly scalable. LCD panels are not predisposed to having thing bezels and rounded corners. Doing that on a smaller display would probably end up making the XR more expensive and give the consumer less screen. 

 

Or Apple could make it the size it is today, sell it for $200 less and give the consumer a bigger display. If people want a smaller iPhone, the iPhone 7 and 8 exist. 

[bradwiggo]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Smaller phones are not inherently cheaper. The display size the iPhone XR uses is not incredibly scalable. LCD panels are not predisposed to having thing bezels and rounded corners. Doing that on a smaller display would probably end up making the XR more expensive and give the consumer less screen. 

 

Or Apple could make it the size it is today, sell it for $200 less and give the consumer a bigger display. If people want a smaller iPhone, the iPhone 7 and 8 exist. 

If smaller phones aren't inherently cheaper why is the XS cheaper than the XS Max? The XR has about the same distance between the edge of the screen and the edge of the phone as the other X models do, so I don't see how the tech is any different, it's just a different size. I was talking more from the point of view of apple than the consumer, surely for them less tech in phone = more profit? I mean I assume the way they ended up dong the XS and XS max it wouldn't have resulted in that, as otherwise they would be doing it, but surely they could have planned from the start and actually made the XR a budget phone. I really don't understand how people can call it it budget phone. (I also disagree that the 5C was ever really a budget phone, but it was more of a budget phone than the XR).

 

I'm just happy they still sell the SE lol, it means I don't have to use android, as I can't stand android. 

[Drak3]

4 minutes ago, bradwiggo said:

If smaller phones aren't inherently cheaper why is the XS cheaper than the XS Max?

Smaller battery.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, bradwiggo said:

the fact that $750 is considered reasonable these days shows that the phone market has hugely inflated the prices over the last few years The 5c was $200 less, so I don't see how this is the successor to that. Surely the SE is the successor to the 5C? 

 

Also why is the XR bigger than the XS? Why not make it the same size? Surely making a budget phone smaller, or at the very least the same size, as the flagship, makes sense financially? 

It's the spiritual successor to the 5c because it's the slight-step-down phone available in a variety of colours.  That and it's 2019, not 2013, so relative prices have changed.

 

There's a few possible reasons why the XR is the size it is.  It might not have wanted to make two XR variants, so it kept to a middling size that would theoretically appeal to most people.  There's also the question of the LCD technology.  Since Apple can't do rounded bezels as thin as with OLED models and needed a backlight, it may have decided that a bigger screen made more sense (both out of necessity and to keep the design relatively thin).

 

Smaller doesn't necessarily mean cheaper.  Part of why so many budget laptops are 14- and 15-inchers is because it's relatively cheap to cut panels at those sizes.  Smaller LCDs can sometimes be pricier simply because it requires out-of-the-ordinary, less efficient panel manufacturing.  I'm not sure how well that concept applies to phone displays, but there's no doubt that Apple's approach is unusual.

[DanielMDA]

On 4/25/2019 at 1:30 PM, DrMacintosh said:

 

Released in October of 2018, the iPhone XR was designed to be, “the iPhone for Everyone.” And it seems that the iPhone XR is now the phone that everyone bought. 

 

iPhone XR is the spiritual successor to iPhone 5c. The XR comes in a wide variety of color options, has the most battery life of any iPhone, offers a reasonable starting price of $750, and has the design language of iPhone X. With all of these in mind, in addition to the much higher prices of the Xs and Xs Max, it only made sense that iPhone XR would be the most popular iPhone of the generation. 

 

 

The success of the iPhone XR also extends to the UK where it is also the most popular phone being sold. 

 

On a semi related note, iCloud has seen decent growth

 

48% of Apple users pay for extra iCloud Storage. My favorite is the 50GB for $1/m plan. 

 

 

For those of you wondering how these results were found:

 

Something to keep in mind about Apple Products is that the more the internet hates it...the more successful it becomes. Bad faith actors like Unbox Therapy and Jerry Rig Everything portrayed the iPhone XR as a bad phone. Mostly citing the displays’ “low” resolution of 1792 x 828. Claiming it has the same resolution as the iPhone 4 because it shares the same 326ppi. 

 

Thankfully consumers can try out iPhone XR before they buy it. And in the vast majority, if not the entirety of cases, the average consumer either doesn’t care or simply can’t see the difference. That’s not because consumers are dumb or don’t know any better...it’s because retina is a real thing. Not a marketing gimmick. 

 

Resolution and ppi are nothing next to industry leading color accuracy, contrast, and brightness. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

So it would appear that in a surprise to no one, Apple has won the smartphone game once again............

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Sources: https://www.cultofmac.com/621524/iphone-xr-apple-us-sales-q1-2019/

Reasonable price of $750...

 

Has an 828p IPS Screen

[Commodus]

7 minutes ago, DanielMDA said:

Reasonable price of $750...

 

Has an 828p IPS Screen

Still looks fine, runs faster than any Android phone and takes great photos.  I do think Apple should bump up the resolution when it can, but it's not a dealbreaker for most people.

[Haganation]

24 minutes ago, DanielMDA said:

Reasonable price of $750...

 

Has an 828p IPS Screen

They do need to up the resolution tho. I have a galaxy s10 with a 1440p display.

[RejZoR]

22 minutes ago, Haganation said:

They do need to up the resolution tho. I have a galaxy s10 with a 1440p display.

Why? So one can brag how many "p" screen they have? Bullshit. And I've argued this before in this thread. You need to look image almost under microscope to see differences. I was on 1080p phones till I bought XR and I can't see a damn difference. So, why stick a stupid 8K screen in it when there is no REAL extra value added? Besides, IPS panel used is excellent in other aspects like color calibration.

 

@DenialMD

Quote

 

Reasonable price of $750...

 

Has an 828p IPS Screen

 

Sure. But what other flagship phone can match A12 chipset even months after its debut? None, not even those for 1000€. SD855 comes close but doesn't really beat it in single or multithread tests. Or in real world use either. XR is a "budget" phone with flagship guts. And because of this it'll last longer delivering great performance and why people are buying it.

 

Yeah, for a top of the line performance, it does have a reasonable price. Chinese SD855 based phones deliver good value, if you don't mind rotten Google's OS and all the privacy issues and garbage long term support that comes with it...

[Bouzoo]

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Why? So one can brag how many "p" screen they have? Bullshit. And I've argued this before in this thread. You need to look image almost under microscope to see differences. I was on 1080p phones till I bought XR and I can't see a damn difference. So, why stick a stupid 8K screen in it when there is no REAL extra value added? Besides, IPS panel used is excellent in other aspects like color calibration.

Look, you can't see, alright? I can set 2160x1080 instead of 2880x1440 on my LG V30 on a 6'' and can see the difference on icons immediately, even on an OLED. No one is asking for 8K, or even 4K. The difference is there and it's not that hard to spot. At the end of the day it's for what and at what length you use the phone, but don't be so naive to think that there is no purpose for others if you can't see it. 

[RejZoR]

You're saying it like I'm blind or something. You see it because you switched it and it changed in front of your eyes. If someone handed you a phone with one or the other, I bet you wouldn't be able to tell which is which. I'm also telling you this from experience switching between 1080p and 720p on Huawei Ascend P7. When I switched between modes and observed things I could hardly spot tiny difference in font. Without switching, it's nearly impossible to tell. Drain in battery was huge. So, why cram huge super resolution screens when it'll just drain battery more and you wouldn't really be able to tell for certain.

 

Having to look at XR's screen from 4cm to try and spot something annoying like jagged fonts or edges and you kinda defeat the purpose coz you'll never use it this way. Everything just looks nice and that's all it matters to me. I was also obsessed with 1080p on phones until I had Ascend P7 and noticed it doesn't really matter after I switched it to 720p. Which is why I'm fine with display on XR. It does the job and looks great. I don't need bullshit specs that mean dick in reality.

[Bouzoo]

17 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

You're saying it like I'm blind or something. You see it because you switched it and it changed in front of your eyes. If someone handed you a phone with one or the other, I bet you wouldn't be able to tell which is which. I'm also telling you this from experience switching between 1080p and 720p on Huawei Ascend P7. When I switched between modes and observed things I could hardly spot tiny difference in font. Without switching, it's nearly impossible to tell. Drain in battery was huge. So, why cram huge super resolution screens when it'll just drain battery more and you wouldn't really be able to tell for certain.

 

Having to look at XR's screen from 4cm to try and spot something annoying like jagged fonts or edges and you kinda defeat the purpose coz you'll never use it this way. Everything just looks nice and that's all it matters to me. I was also obsessed with 1080p on phones until I had Ascend P7 and noticed it doesn't really matter after I switched it to 720p. Which is why I'm fine with display on XR. It does the job and looks great. I don't need bullshit specs that mean dick in reality.

Blind? No. Just worse eyesight I suppose. Again, this is not just me talking. You will say your subjective opinion and that's ok, as I will say mine. As someone who for instance watches a lot of movies and TV shows on the go, ty I'll take the higher res where I can actually notice the difference. Especially since I am using OLED since 2880x1440 is not the same as 2880x1440 LCD. And since we have OLEDs, I can have have a much better battery life with higher res than you can with LCD. Talking especially of the XR. But to be fair, I have seen people choosing lower res since they as well can't spot the difference. But not to stray into OLEDs, I had 720p and 1080p LCD screens and yes, I'll take 1080p LCD any day of the week over XRs. But all I'm saying is, and I'll say it again, "you arguing this bs" means nothing since you can't spot it, it's anecdotal. There are people who can. Many people don't see a difference between 30 and 60 FPS as well. 

[D13H4RD]

I don't think anyone asked for an absurdly high resolution. 

 

Just somewhere around 1080p

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

Blind? No. Just worse eyesight I suppose. Again, this is not just me talking. You will say your subjective opinion and that's ok, as I will say mine. As someone who for instance watches a lot of movies and TV shows on the go, ty I'll take the higher res where I can actually notice the difference. Especially since I am using OLED since 2880x1440 is not the same as 2880x1440 LCD. And since we have OLEDs, I can have have a much better battery life with higher res than you can with LCD. Talking especially of the XR. But to be fair, I have seen people choosing lower res since they as well can't spot the difference. But not to stray into OLEDs, I had 720p and 1080p LCD screens and yes, I'll take 1080p LCD any day of the week over XRs. But all I'm saying is, and I'll say it again, "you arguing this bs" means nothing since you can't spot it, it's anecdotal. There are people who can. Many people don't see a difference between 30 and 60 FPS as well. 

My eyesight is perfectly fine. Believe whatever you want, I still say it's BS. It makes no real difference real world. I'm more annoyed by recent trend of retarded screen ratios with weird resolutions to which no video content corresponds properly and you always end up with stupid black bars (yeah, XR included)... That's FAR more annoying than micronic insignificant visual differences between 720p and 1080p.

[Tamesh16]

On 4/25/2019 at 2:53 PM, Bouzoo said:

500 customer survey

the sample size truly does allow the occurrence of misrepresentation  of the overall population

[dalekphalm]

On 4/25/2019 at 2:59 PM, Bouzoo said:

It may be true, I won't lie, but a sample of 500 is bs, 5000 is bs, 10000 might worth looking since we're looking at market of tens of millions of phones but even that would be next to nothing. Reporting on a survey of 500. Sweet jesus. 

According to statistical analysis, typically anything over a sample size of 1000 doesn't add much accuracy, unless something highly unusual is going on.

 

More is always better, but to say 500 is bs isn't inherently true. We'd have to see their methodology to determine if it's bs.

[bimmerman]

I have both an XR (through work) and an LG V40, both of which I use daily.

 

Honestly, the XR is a great phone. I haven't noticed that its resolution is less than the V40, I haven't noticed one is OLED and one is LCD, I haven't missed multiple cameras on the back, it's fast, it's snappy, and it lets me get stuff done. Plus, the XR's battery life is outstanding. I don't have many qualms with the phone that aren't qualms with iOS--it's a really great phone and consumption device, and gets out of my way in ways that Android frequently doesn't.

 

The LG is still my favorite of the two, but it's not because of any fault of the XR-- I just don't prefer iOS and do prefer SD and headphone jacks.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

My eyesight is perfectly fine. Believe whatever you want, I still say it's BS. It makes no real difference real world. I'm more annoyed by recent trend of retarded screen ratios with weird resolutions to which no video content corresponds properly and you always end up with stupid black bars (yeah, XR included)... That's FAR more annoying than micronic insignificant visual differences between 720p and 1080p.

The Retina display was designed to be more pixels than the eye can see. I don’t see why more is really necessary. You can’t actually see more.

 

Quite obviously with people buying up the XR, this opinion is shared, any more resolution is just placebo.

 

Unless you are running Android. Most likely it will try and stream or play videos relative to the resolution of the device - so you can’t actually watch 1080p video on a screen that is just as pixel dense as any 1080p screen. (Am assuming this is the case).

 

Whereas 4K HVEC is pretty much compatible with any Apple device, and will render out in 4K.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, floofer said:

The Retina display was designed to be more pixels than the eye can see. I don’t see why more is really necessary. You can’t actually see more.

Retina is Apple's marketing term for when individual pixels can no longer be distinguished at an (arbitrary) intended use distance. However, nothing is known about what the assumed vision of the user is.

 

And not going to lie, on iPhones, text and a good deal of the UI looks blurry as fuck to me.

[Guest]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Retina is Apple's marketing term for when individual pixels can no longer be distinguished at an (arbitrary) intended use distance. However, nothing is known about what the assumed vision of the user is.

 

And not going to lie, on iPhones, text and a good deal of the UI looks blurry as fuck to me.

I hold my 7 at around a foot away. It’s all fine and I have perfect vision.

[mr moose]

Visual acuity is a thing, there is an average a sub average and an observed limit.  The issue is people are using it to justify their opinions rather than just accept what it is and why it doesn't always matter.

[79wjd]

Everyone wants a higher resolution screen so badly on the XR and then goes and compares it against *insert Android phone with 1080p OLED*. Are we all forgetting how Pentile OLEDs work compared to an IPS display when it comes to resolution and pixels

[Arika]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

why it doesn't always matter.

I think this is the main point. Who cares if it's the best selling iphone? hell who cares if it's the best selling smart phone? it changes literally nothing in the grand scheme of things