[_drkh]

I imagine the brand recognition of being the innovator here (whether or not they really have innovated on anything, I won't judge that here) is a bigger factor in the market than it appears at first. At the very least, that lasting, prestigious reputation of being a global innovator fits the bill for the type of "personality" that the corporation exhibits and must tickle something's fancy there, and at most it causes a skew in the market towards Apple whereupon they can charge their exorbitant prices per unit because they did it first.

Something that's telling of my conjecture is the use of the phrase, "knock off airpods" in your comment - I imagine that came about subconsciously, and yet such a phrase seems to have a powerful effect on every other product that comes after.

e: formatting, I get markdown rules mixed up with HN's!

[bigfudge]

I don’t think apple can charge higher prices because they’re first. If anything it’s because they are consistently good. Or just consistent.

[asdff]

Plenty of android phones have plenty of technological leaps over iphones but the market is pretty much oblivious seemingly

[scarface74]

That’s just the issue. You can’t get all of the “innovations” in one phone and they are all hampered by janky software by hardware manufacturers who can’t do good software.

If you want an Android phone with decent software and hardware, you’re stuck with only being able to choose a Google produced phone.