Apple Iphone 5 Pricing

[DTMark]

Bought one of these earlier this year.

Partner wants one too. Since he dropped his Nokia one, everyone you speak to sounds like Punch from Punch and Judy.

The plastic iPhone 5C is still £549 for the 32GB model.

The iPhone 5S remains at £629 for the same storage.

Not worth going for a cheaper one as you can't put an SD card in them.

The iPhone 6 is due out in about seven weeks.

For how long will the pricing of the 5 model remain sustainable at this point - eager to buy but don't want to do so, and find the price of the thing drops by a couple of hundred pounds overnight.

The iPhone 6 might be more expensive that the iPhone 5 is, and the price of that remain the same of course.. is it really conceivable that people will pay more than £629 for a mobile phone..?

Have done some searching, but nothing even faintly conclusive turned up.

Anyone know about these and have a view..

[StainlessSteelCat]

Loved the first iPhone, but for perspective I bought it brand new for £150 no contract towards the end of the first year it was out (and hacked it to run with any SIM). No phone is worth £500+ to me. I no longer use an iPhone because of lock down on the tethering front, poor reception and price.

Your OH might be better at looking at a £150ish new Android, or perhaps a secondhand iPhone 4 for similar money as temporary replacement if you are worried about price drops of a couple of hundred quid. You'd likely sell it for more than you'd potentially lose on a new 5s right now, have a back up or decide that you can wait for the iPhone 7.

The question you also could ask if whether you really need to carry 32GB of data around with you, or if it can be pruned a little.

[DTMark]

Cheapest option is the 5C 16GB which is £469, which is £80 cheaper then the 32GB model. iPhone 4 is only 8GB.

The logic runs roughly: if I'm going to pay such a ludicrous amount of money in the first place then I might as well fork out the extra £80 for the extra storage to future-proof it.

Has to be an iPhone.

Given how so many people always want "the latest thing" I'm a bit surprised the pricing of the 5 model hasn't come down a bit yet. They can't exactly be flying off the shelves now that some might have migrated over to the Samsung kit, and the launch date for the model 6 version is not really a big secret nor what it will most probably look like.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

That, unfortuantely, is how they price.

I don't pay too much attention to iphone prices but when I've observed iPad and Mac pricing, in the immediate run-up to a new launch, the old kit drops 10-15% in price. Basically matching their own refurb outlet prices. There's no free lunch.

Just wait for the 6, buy it for yourself and pass on yours. if you do some accounting, you can assume your new 6 has a far higher residual value so you can convince yourself vi mental gymnastics that the new phone didn't actually cost you £600.

[StainlessSteelCat]

If it has to be a new iPhone (despite currently owning a Nokia), your OH can't make do with a cheapo phone as a stop gap, and it's needed now - just buy it and forget the tortuous second guessing about the new one and pricing. It'll still be the same highly capable phone in a couple of months. I think you have already made up your mind to buy it actually.

Once you buy it though, filter out any Apple related news for six months or so, and sleep easier.

This may prove instructive:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Apple is one of most secretive companies in the world. No-one knows for sure what they'll do. The chances are that it'll be an incremental rather than radical upgrade though.

[LiveinHope]

if it helps, I have always bought the previous model from ebay, usually at £100-150 off its last list price. Last one (4S) was brand new from an events / communications company, surplus stock. I put in a silly price that I knew would outbid anyone, but which I was prepared to pay. Haven't seen the need to upgrade yet.

[Habeas Domus]

Buying an iPhone outright is pricy, I suspect this is a ploy designed to increase its desirability.

When you look at the contract prices theres often not that much difference between an iPhone and some crappy android phone on the same plan.

There is an argument that if you dont use enough bandwidth to justify going the contract route then maybe you dont need an iPhone at all?

[DTMark]

We have PAYG, won't have contracts or network locked phones.

I spend about £10 a month on mine, if that. But then I work from home and use Skype for video calls.

My brain goes around a circle:

1. It's a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a mobile phone.

2. But then there's nothing cheaper with iOS and iTunes (both essential) on it.

3. So having decided that, it has to be an Apple, and that's just how much they cost, so just put up or shut up, or get another crappy thing that will start packing up after 6 months or one of those Android toys that needs rebooting all the time, and then buy the iPhone in the end anyway which will cost even more money overall.

4. Go to Step 1.

I really would have thought that Apple would have to respond on pricing at some stage, but it seems not. I'll just buy the damn thing. Those two phones cost the same as our planned trip to Italy.

[StainlessSteelCat]

If it helps there are plenty of 16GB 4s on eBay with 12 month warranties for around £150. That's actually starting to get into the territory where I'd consider an iPhone again.

[MrPin]

I need a new phone, but not a £500 one! I got my current phone for free, off a bloke at work, when I dropped its predecessor in the toilet!

[JoeDavola]

As others have said, go for the iPhone 4 - a second hand one in good nick.

Is three any real reason to pay 4 times as much for one of the more recent ones?

[OnionTerror]

When the iphone 6 comes out, be expected for the 4s to be no longer supported (ie. latest IOS updates)...my 3GS stopped being supported once IOS 7 was launched.

[thombleached]

When the iphone 6 comes out, be expected for the 4s to be no longer supported (ie. latest IOS updates)...my 3GS stopped being supported once IOS 7 was launched.

The jailbreak for 7.1.2 is out and that iOS is still being signed by Apple, don't know for how long though. Once jail broken, any fancy features that future ios updates bring, you'll already have access to (and a whole heap more) via cydia

[OnionTerror]

The jailbreak for 7.1.2 is out and that iOS is still being signed by Apple, don't know for how long though. Once jail broken, any fancy features that future ios updates bring, you'll already have access to (and a whole heap more) via cydia

Does jailbreaking prevent new apps being installed? AFAIK, there are quite a few apps on the play store that wont run on rooted android devices..

[thombleached]

Nope, you can still use the App Store (and iTunes) as you would normally, and unless you install springboard and start messing about with the GUI, you'd never know the difference. Main reason I originally jail broke was to be able to tether, which is really something I should be able to do without running unsigned code, but that's apple for you.

[rxe]

I know the OP, for whatever reason need iOS and itunes, but for others, I have been staggered at the capabilities of cheap phones. I got my son a Vodafone Smart 4 for £50 on PAYG, he's 11 and I wanted a locked down phone for him to contact us on. I've needed to use the thing on occasion, and yes its plastic, but it calls perfectly well (as well as my iPhone) and for general smartphone use (browsing, Waze, games) it is perfectly adequate - certainly functionally equivalent to an iphone, just not as nice to handle. Battery life on hard use is about a day (same as an iPhone).

The only reason I have an iPhone is because work paid for it. For my own money I'd be getting a dirt cheap Android.

[DTMark]

The answer lies in how easy the things are to live with and perhaps, for how long you want or expect to own them.

Android is just a joke. It needs years of development yet.

Windows is very good, a number of flaws, but a really good attempt to come up with an Apple alternative. I think they will get there soon. It had a slow start because the price of Windows phones was, originally, too close to Apple ones, so choosing the Apple was a no-brainer for most people. Whether or not Windows phone survives is open to question perhaps, it still doesn't have such strong app support, but the pricing is realistic now.

Apple just works.

[cica]

2. But then there's nothing cheaper with iOS and iTunes (both essential) on it.

iTunes is not so essential anymore. You can live without it. A lot of people think iTunes is atrocious.

iOS now has OTA updates (for a while)

VLC player makes it extremely simple to put videos on your iPhone or iPad.

If you're a music lover then Spotify is amazing and it will allow you to sync your local MP3s on your computer to your phone.

You can backup almost everything to iCloud.

[snowflux]

My HTC Desire, running Android 3.2 and now approaching its third birthday, is still working just fine. Granted, its small memory capacity and slow processor (by modern standards) mean it struggles to run some of the latest apps, but it still does the basics perfectly well - phoning, texting, internet browsing, YouTube, navigation and the like. I'll certainly hang on to it for a while longer.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

The answer lies in how easy the things are to live with and perhaps, for how long you want or expect to own them.

Android is just a joke. It needs years of development yet.

Windows is very good, a number of flaws, but a really good attempt to come up with an Apple alternative. I think they will get there soon. It had a slow start because the price of Windows phones was, originally, too close to Apple ones, so choosing the Apple was a no-brainer for most people. Whether or not Windows phone survives is open to question perhaps, it still doesn't have such strong app support, but the pricing is realistic now.

Apple just works.

[DTMark]

iTunes is not so essential anymore. You can live without it. A lot of people think iTunes is atrocious.

iOS now has OTA updates (for a while)

VLC player makes it extremely simple to put videos on your iPhone or iPad.

If you're a music lover then Spotify is amazing and it will allow you to sync your local MP3s on your computer to your phone.

You can backup almost everything to iCloud.

We have to pay for data usage here - connection is EE 4G via a Huawei B593 router to share it round the house, nice and quick (20Meg+ upstream), but £30 per 10GB. So we have to be careful to turn off all cloud based options on everything. I'd love to backup my archives, but 3TB would cost a fair bit

Spotify is something people should run a mile from if they value their privacy. Without elaborating, the words "Facebook tie-in" should make anyone shudder. I used that until I realised what they were doing, and then got rid of it.

I started out with a grudge against paying Apple iTunes for tracks as it was so expensive. But the ability to buy from any device and have it sync flawlessly is worth the money to me - iTunes was a big part of Apple's success. Microsoft's "Zune" never really did gain any traction.

The router we have has DNLA capabilities and a socket for a USB drive which I haven't got around to connecting yet.

The VLC player stuff looks interesting, but if you have all-Apple kit, what does VLC player do that iTunes does not?

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Don't try posting from IE7 on a XP box

I meant to say,

DTM,

I've got a couple of Apple devices but I've yet to be able to justify to myself the cost of one of their phones. Android will do, no more, no less.

[gilf]

Apple, either by luck or some magnificent strategy have been able to manage upgrades like no other company.

Everybody else cannot wait to mouth off about their latest gadget months if not years in advance, with apple they have perfected the announcement and launch, from one to the other takes a matter of days. Of course there are leaks but nothing is ever released officially, nobody really knows and as much as the leaks have been right there are tons people have got wrong.

They restrict supply like nobody else also, they either have a great handle on their supply/demand levels or they just take a hit on stocks so that can transition between one generation to the next.

They also seem to be masters of pricing, they simply don't do deals. It's almost always not worth taking the last generation when the new one comes out, it's basically a self feeding market.

There greatest thing however is total control over hardware and software, which as you know is why it just works. That is where it does so much better than say Android, they have a very limited set of technical standards to work with, when developing the iphone it's easy to do because there is a reasonably finite set of options, unlike Android which is a nightmare as you have to work out what the phone is capable of.

----

As for Windows phones, as you mentioned really good alternative to both the iOS and Android, does a better job than Android which for me is just a copy of what the iPhone did, when it comes to providing a real alternative in the correct sense of the word. Problem is of course is that the app support is terrible, I'd love that not to be true and it has got a little better but I had to stop using my Windows phone for that reason.

Chicken and Egg unfortunately on that front, people won't use it because of the poor app support, developers won't develop because of a lack of potential customers.

[libspero]

Android is just a joke. It needs years of development yet.

Apple just works.

Hi Mark,

I know you had a bad experience with a Nexus (?) but I have to say I've been really impressed recently.. especially with my wife's MOTO G.

She first had a Huawei which she was recommended by the rep in carphoneWH and it was a truly appalling phone. Fortunately she lost it and we ended up getting the MOTO instead for the same price. What a difference. I was using an iphone 5 at the time as supplied by work and, sure, the iphone was a bit more powerful and had a few extra bits of hardware etc, but otherwise I would have actually quite happily settled for the motoG. Not slow or laggy, runs pretty much everything easily, never crashes or reboots, good battery life too (probably about the same as the apple).

I'm not trying to convince you to buy the MotoG, just saying that in my experience Android seems to take a lot of the blame for what basically boils down to poor hardware or integration. I don't have a clue what was wrong with your Nexus, and I don't blame you for binning off google in protest (especially as they didn't seem to support you) but personally I wouldn't write off Android as an OS unless you really need the iTunes / Airdrop / apple compatible igadgets etc. OTOH, if £500 is not a big deal the apple is probably the best phone on the market.. but then I'd probably wait for the 6 and keep it as long as possible to justify the depreciation.

[Habeas Domus]

There greatest thing however is total control over hardware and software, which as you know is why it just works. That is where it does so much better than say Android, they have a very limited set of technical standards to work with, when developing the iphone it's easy to do because there is a reasonably finite set of options, unlike Android which is a nightmare as you have to work out what the phone is capable of.

Theres an analogy here with the car industry, in the early days it was very common to buy a car engine and the coachwork from different manufacturers. It took a while before people figured out that things like handling and reliable brakes were much better when the whole machine was made by one company. Now there is only a tiny minority of enthusiast/hot rodders who would consider putting a BMW engine into a FIAT.

The IT industry will eventually go the same way.