Nineteen bucks, won't catch fire, gives a real 20W.
Now, it might be the case that you feel the price should be zero bucks with purchase of an iPhone.
Apple disagrees. They don't run promotions of that sort, or promotions, in fact. The price is the price, it's core to the brand.
Same with a case, same with headphones. Need a USB-A cable for charging instead of -C? You can buy that as well.
I'd make a snarky comment about expecting everyone else to pay for your free charger when we don't need one, but profit doesn't actually work that way.
Other entities sell iPhones, in fact, I believe that Apple only sells a minority of phones directly. Those merchants are welcome to toss in a charger, if that's the kind of thing the customer likes.
And that's in a country where the median income is around $4,000/year. Imagine in America saving up and paying $10,000 for a brand-new phone and they ask you to pay another $400 for the charger.
We both know that the median salary is irrelevant when considering Brazilian iPhone buyers. No one is spending two and a half years of scratch on just one phone.
A 17 Million (! Dr. Evil flourish!) USD fine, standing next to the doubled price Brazil's government inflicts on its citizens, paints a pretty stark picture here.
There's a problem. It isn't a phone charger problem or an Apple problem, but it's a real one. No pun intended.
> Now, it might be the case that you feel the price should be zero bucks with purchase of an iPhone.
It would be one thing if the form factor matched all the other chargers sold in the world. I have a pile of USB-C and micro USB cords, like most other people.
But if I bought an iPhone, I have no option to use a charger I already own. The extra purchase is absolutely required to make the device work. It's not the same charger as the other Apple devices I've owned. If your last phone wasn't also an iPhone, it's a required purchase.
It feels deceptive. If they were to "include" the charger, but offer a $19 discount if you didn't need it, that's fundamentally different than advertising a price for the device that is unusable to new customers without additional purchases.
> Apple disagrees. They don't run promotions of that sort, or promotions, in fact. The price is the price, it's core to the brand.
If it was core to the brand it wouldn't be news. I was an iPhone user back in the day and they all came with chargers and headphones. The decision to not include these things is not a branding one, but profit-driven and taking advantage of a captive customer base. Lots of iPhone customers are angry about these decisions, but the weight of changing ecosystems keeps them buying.
> But if I bought an iPhone, I have no option to use a charger I already own. The extra purchase is absolutely required to make the device work. It's not the same charger as the other Apple devices I've owned. If your last phone wasn't also an iPhone, it's a required purchase.
Of course you do. I've not seen a cable-bonded phone charger in over a decade now.
You just need a lightning cable, all chargers will have either an USB-A or USB-C female plug.
> But if I bought an iPhone, I have no option to use a charger I already own.
Why? I have multiple chargers around my house, and only one of them is an Apple charger. The rest are Anker USB-C chargers. My phone came with a USB-C to Lightning cable, and it works fine with any of those chargers.
That's interesting. I got a USB-C charger when I bought a Pixel phone, but it was the only one I've ever owned and it got lost pretty quick. I remember thinking how annoying it was that it didn't work with any other cables in the house. Every other USB-C device I've bought came with a USB-A charger and USB-A to C cable, including my current phone.
Apple is one of the last holdovers from an age where every phone company had proprietary cables and chargers. The way I see it, they are happy to make user and developer hostile decisions in the name of profit because they know their base is too entrenched to extract themselves. This particular one is annoying, and while probably not _that_ bad when viewed in a vacuum, but there is an undeniable trend.
> Every other USB-C device I've bought came with a USB-A charger and USB-A to C cable, including my current phone.
Wow, really? That is an interesting choice. One of the best aspects of USB-C is the increased power ability, which is unavailable if the head end of the cable is just connected to an old USB-A port. I mean, I get that Micro-USB was so awful that everyone abandoned it quickly when USB-C was invented, but why did they half-ass the solution?
I don't buy the argument that Apple is milking users with proprietary cables. They created a solution to Micro-USB when nobody else would, and they've stuck with that choice for 10 years. They have been moving iPads over to USB-C over the past few years, so clearly they will get there with the iPhone too, but you and I both know the bitching about that will be far louder than the complaints now that Lightning is proprietary. An original Lightning cable still works today.
I'm old enough to remember the first wave of outrage when Apple dropped the serial port (and floppy disk!) and started using this weird USB thing that only their devices supported.
What goes around comes around. Don't worry, in a few years you literally won't remember that you thought of USB-C as an "Apple thing". Or at least you won't mention it.
Apple charge cables used the industry-standard USB-A for many years until they switched recently to the industry-standard USB-C. They have never required a proprietary charger block, not in the 15 years iPhone has existed.
They have always required a proprietary cable, which has always been supplied with the phone.
I'm not from Brazil, but we have similar situation here with apple products where they're sold with extreme premium. The official first party lightning charging cable alone is $50. The store clerk literally told me to buy some 3rd party cables instead. And this is from a store chains authorized by apple (honoring warranty, official repair service, etc), not just some unauthorized reseller store.
I had a nagging feeling that there was an exception slipping my mind, thanks.
The freebie to get students hooked on a lifetime of product fits the model, they also offer (at least, used to) student discounts on services, like classes for the Apple Stores which have that. Or did? I have no idea if that's started up post-covid or not.
If they were going to give away a free charger, they may as well put it back in the box. They're good chargers, the number of people who would turn it down at checkout is a rounding error.
They also have/had "don't call it Black Friday Sale" Special Shopping Event that was just a flat out discount on everything by like a token $100 or something.
>> It should be an option you can pick whenever you buy the phone.
>> we won't get the choice. Because it costs more to Apple and other corporations.
> Nineteen bucks
I have a feeling that GP meant that the option of charger vs not should be free (otherwise it would not "cost more" to the seller).
Assuming I understood correctly, in that case the consequence would be that many would just pick the "with charger" option just because it's a freebie.
> Apple disagrees. They don't run promotions of that sort, or promotions, in fact. The price is the price, it's core to the brand.
That's not entirely true. I got my M1 in a promotion, with a discount. I also got my Watch "bundled" with the bracelet (the packages were literally bundled together), also with a nice discount. That was at a flagship Apple Store.
Also "the price" is not "core to the brand" in Brazil. It changes very frequently and is not a direct conversion of the American price.
I cannot possibly understand what you think you're saying here.
There are three ways to charge an iPhone, two wireless and one port, all of them run off USB, A or C, take your pick. The only wrinkle is that there are USB-C ports out there which don't speak the standard, something which Apple can't control.
How so? You are precisely able to pick the charger with the port you want according to the cables you have (or want to buy), instead of having a charger with a port you don't choose (+ the cable matching the port you then don't want to have on the brick side).
Behold: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHJA3AM/A/20w-usb-c-power...
Nineteen bucks, won't catch fire, gives a real 20W.
Now, it might be the case that you feel the price should be zero bucks with purchase of an iPhone.
Apple disagrees. They don't run promotions of that sort, or promotions, in fact. The price is the price, it's core to the brand.
Same with a case, same with headphones. Need a USB-A cable for charging instead of -C? You can buy that as well.
I'd make a snarky comment about expecting everyone else to pay for your free charger when we don't need one, but profit doesn't actually work that way.
Other entities sell iPhones, in fact, I believe that Apple only sells a minority of phones directly. Those merchants are welcome to toss in a charger, if that's the kind of thing the customer likes.