24 hours later

I can’t stop thinking about the similarities between the Moto X and the iPhone 5C.  Brightly-colored polycarbonate cases around last year’s top-of-the-line internals.  And the iPhone still undercuts the Moto X by half price on contract.

As predicted, Wall Street is savaging Apple’s stock – but then, nobody goes to a stockbroker for anything more complicated than rape jokes and tacky accessories (of which more later).  Certainly not for actual insight on technology.  The fact of the matter is this: the modern smartphone is good enough already.  Thus Motorola’s willingness to ship the Moto X as equipped.  An 8-megapixel camera is plenty good.  300dpi on the display is plenty good.  16 GB of onboard storage is enough for most anyone in a world where people are migrating to Spotify and Rdio and Netflix.

In the past, Apple would always use last year’s model as the $99 phone, and the two-year-old model as the free-on-contract phone.  This time, there’s a new device in the $99 spot – and it’s basically an iPhone 5 that costs Apple less to make.  The $99 option has a much higher profit margin for Apple than previous iterations of the one-down phone.  So it sort of boggles the mind that the stock would slump…but then, it’s all about Wall Street’s expectations, not those of customers or tech specialists, isn’t it?

Everyone keeps crowing about how Apple needs to produce a dirt-cheap phone for developing markets – conveniently forgetting the fundamental truth of almost forty years of Apple Computer – they don’t do dirt-cheap. Period, paragraph.  So are they just abandoning that space?  No.  Why do you think they’ve launched a trade-in program? Why do you think the iPhone 4 (not the 4S) is still on sale in China? Why do you think iOS 7 still supports the iPhone 4 with every feature that doesn’t require specialized hardware (i.e. Siri and AirDrop and parallax view)?  Because the refurb iPhone 4 is the dirt-cheap phone for developing markets.  Save the bits, replace the battery and the cracked front glass, and boom, ready to go and for far less than building a new phone.

Don’t let the Auburn degree fool you, folks: Tim Cook is smart.  And like God, or the Cylons (but unlike Ronald D Moore as it turns out), he’s got a plan.  Look back at what a “disappointment” the iPhone 5 was last year and decide who you’d rather bet with.

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