iN8ter
Well-known member
That's because iPhones are only manufactured by Apple, so demand outpaces supply routinely. Even Apple routinely has trouble keeping enough iPhones in stock to sell, with people waiting weeks to get theirs after a launch. They are smart about this. This is simple economics.
Android devices form that generation were competing with dozens of other Android devices of that generation.
The same way OEMs drive each other's prices down in the competitive marketplace, this also happens with Android devices on the used devices market.
The iPhone 4 competes with no other device for someone who is looking for a 2010-era iOS device. The only thing that exists is the iPhone 4. This allows iOS device prices to depreciate at a much slower rate than Android devices, despite having (these days) worse hardware and being less capable machines (from a software standpoint). "Support and Updates" is no longer a factor as OEMs like Samsung have been supporting their flagships for 2+ years lately.
That also has nothing to do with repairability (if anything, a iPhone that is a touch repair will actually drop in value more since it's a PITA for the average Joe or Jane to even replace the battery when it stops holding a decent charge, etc.).
Also, back then the iPhone was technologically ahead of other devices in a few key areas. For one, it had a Retina IPS LCD screen, which was easily superior to the WVGA Android flagship devices back then (PPI, Viewing Angles, Color Reproduction, Quality of the Glass Used, Sunlight Readability, etc.). It was also only ~0.5 inches smaller than flagships like the Galaxy S. It had a FFC, which was missing on a lot of Android flagships back then. The Back Camera on the iPhone was better than most Android flagships back then, but that advantage has been virtually eliminated since then. The design of Android devices has improved tremendously since then.
This have almost completely flip-flopped since then, but the competition in the Android hardware ecosystem will always keep resale prices down. It's just not possible to demand such high resale values when you have almost equivalent competing devices getting sold for the same or less, and with everyone wanting to offload their devices, and there being so many of them, they tend to drop faster. The iPhone has a nice advantage in that regard, but you have to suffer with iOS to take advantage of it.
Lastly, the iPhone base prices are marked up quite high cause Apple likes their huge profit margins. A Galaxy Note 3 (32GB Base SKU) is about $50 cheaper than an iPhone 5S 32GB (VZW price at least, since that's the carrier I use). In addition to that, Android devices these days tend to have superior carrier portability than iPhones, so a person can often reuse an Android device on another carrier where an iPhone cannot be repurposed in the same way. This further dilutes the market since it inflates the amount of usable phones for a lot of people, which can in turn help drive prices down further.
Almost forgot, the existence of cheap Google Play phones also helps keep resale values down. People are less willing to pay $500 for a Mint Samsung device when they can run to Play Store and get a Nexus 5 for $150 less, brand new.
Windows Phone and Blackberry resale values are quite low because there isn't much demand for those devices.
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Apart from the tiny screen and the fact that Apple intentionally delays adoption of tried and true, tested technology in its phones to give themselves room to sell upgrades, the iPhones are decent hardware.
My issues with them is the software. iOS is almost too basic and too restrictive. It almost feels like using a more powerful feature phone than a smartphone to me.
For people with less needs and less-complicated demands of their smart devices, however... They are perfectly viable.
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