“Should I get the iPhone 8 or iPhone X?” Instead of lining up to buy an iPhone, customers are lining up to ask which phone would be right for them. Continuing an odd product trend from the iPhone 7/7+ launch a year ago, Apple is making life more difficult for consumers with their recent iPhone X release.
Too many choices
It’s not the first time Apple has confused their own customers. Once, people loved their iPhones. With only one model per year, the buyer could be confident that they had THE phone. Then, in 2013, Apple began selling two totally different models (the 5S and 5C) and controversy followed. People are fickle. They don’t like too many choices. You don’t need research to show that – simply ask your significant other where he or she would like to have dinner. There is considerable power behind having a three-option lineup. An experiment was conducted where subjects were given a choice of one jelly bean flavor in a field of hundreds. The subjects were almost universally unhappy with their choices and second-guessed their pick. This was made worse when they saw others trying different flavors. However, when only three very different options were offered, subjects were almost universally happy with their choice!
Pick the middle one
Having three simple choices is all well and good for jelly beans whose only difference is flavor and color. When your products have different prices and features, having three products is only the beginning of your product strategy. The products being offered provide context for your pricing and help buyers determine value. A $19 watch is cheap, a $1,999 watch is extravagant, while an $899 is a good compromise. A concept called “extremeness aversion” means that most people will stay away from the extremely high end and the extremely low end. Where Apple’s product strategy confuses me is in an offering of 7+/$669, 8+/$799, and X/$999 (ignoring the smaller versions).
A discussion
Customers are easily pushed for the 7+ to the 8+, but what is the purpose of the X? To drive sales to the 8? The question remains, why even have an iPhone 8 and not a lower priced refresh of the 7? It seems that Apple is focusing on the iPhone 8 over the iPhone 7 or iPhone X. Perhaps they only created the X as a loss leader or novelty to drive online with the true intent of selling customers on the iPhone 8. However, that seems a poor strategy considering the nature of tech buyers.
The sheer number of articles, guides, and polls about which iPhone to buy indicates a growing uneasiness in the minds of consumers. The iPhone X will only serve to make people feel uncomfortable with their choice an incite the dreaded fear of missing out (FOMO). It may not affect customers until months from now, but they will always be left wondering:
- Should I have saved my $200? I bought the X because of these features, but I don’t know if I need them. I wonder if I wasted my money.
- I wonder if I would have liked those extra features? I am a little disappointed with my phone right now, and I bet I would have loved the top of the line model.
This nagging fear lingers in the back of the mind of the customer and may contribute to long term negative feelings about their product. I’m sure that Apple has researched and tested their product management, but it’s a cautionary tale for product managers.