by Jason Snell
Ben Thompson on the iPhone as a franchise
Here’s some typically brilliant analysis from Ben Thompson of Stratechery. In his piece, Ben puts Apple’s interesting new iPhone product line in the context of its continuous ratcheting up of iPhone pricing—with a nod to the last time Apple tried to make a multi-colored iPhone with a funny letter stuck on the end.
Ben’s conclusion is fantastic:
That is the iPhone: it is a franchise, the closest thing to a hardware annuity stream tech has ever seen. Some people buy an iPhone every year; some are on a two-year cycle; others wait for screens to crack, batteries to die, or apps to slow. Nearly all, though, buy another iPhone, making the purpose of yesterday’s keynote less an exercise in selling a device and more a matter of informing self-selected segments which device they will ultimately buy, and for what price.
One of the most important things to remember when analyzing any new iPhone is to remember the extended buying cycles. The average iPhone XS and XR buyer won’t be updating from the iPhone X; they’re upgrading from an iPhone 6 or 6S or 7.