Author: Kevin Roose / Source: New York Times
Face ID, introduced in the iPhone X in 2017, is one of the few advances that can’t be added to an iPhone that’s several years old. Elijah Nouvelage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
When Apple lost more than $75 billion in market value this past week after a surprise announcement that it is expecting lower iPhone sales than originally projected, the company put most of the blame for its troubles on China, where a slowing economy and the trade war with the United States have hurt sales.
But a bigger issue for Apple might exist much closer to home, in a small, leafy town in Ohio.
That’s where my mom lives. She’s a relatively tech-savvy retiree and a longtime Apple fan who has used many of the company’s products over the years. I learned to type on an Apple IIGS at her office, and she was an early adopter of the original turquoise iMac. These days, she uses her iPhone to check Facebook and Instagram, talk with her friends and relatives, and play solitaire and Words With Friends.
Her phone isn’t the latest model — it’s a three-year-old iPhone 6S — and it’s missing some of the latest features. She can’t take portrait mode photos using a dual-lens camera, a feature introduced in the iPhone 7 Plus, and she can’t unlock her phone using Face ID, which was introduced in the iPhone X in 2017. Her phone’s battery life could be better, and the device sometimes runs out of storage space.
But she’s happy with it, and doesn’t feel the need to upgrade. She also has a first-generation Apple Watch and a several-versions-ago MacBook Air, neither of which she’s planning to replace anytime soon.
“The phone I have does just about everything I need,” she said when I called her to ask why she hadn’t upgraded to one of the newer models. “Why pay $800 for a new one just to be up to date? My needs aren’t that complicated.”
Most of the journalists who write about tech for a living (including me) are early adopters — power users who like having the latest gadgets, and who are willing to fork over money for a slightly better experience. For some of these people, Apple’s announcement has come as a shock that portends potential disaster for the company.
But for my mom, and the many people who are probably in her situation, the company’s slowing iPhone sales aren’t at all a disaster. In fact, they make total sense, and they don’t have much to do with China.
In a letter to investors explaining the lower forecast, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, nodded to smaller-than-expected demand for iPhone upgrades, saying that consumers were “adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies” and “taking advantage of…
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