Apple Sells 10 Million iPhones on Opening Weekend. But Why?

The New York Times
reports:

The company on Monday said it sold more than 10 million of the
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models in the first three days they were
available in stores. That is higher than the nine million new
iPhones it sold last year in their first weekend on
sale.

The phones’ larger screens — 4.7 diagonal inches for the 6 and 5.5
for the 6 Plus — are a considerable jump from the 4-inch screens of
earlier iPhones.

The iPhone sales were on the high end of financial analysts’
expectations, which ranged from 6.5 million to the “low teens” of
millions of sales.

Why are iPhone 6s so popular? And why did so many people get
weak in the knees over the release of iOS8, the mobile operating
system that Apple released last week?

As it happens, I’m reading economist Russ Roberts’ forthcoming
book How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, which argues
that Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (first published
in 1759) is a great guide to conducting your life. At one point,
Smith wonders why the hell so many people in his day were intriqued
by the newest gadgets, even writing:

How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets
of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys in no so
much the utlity, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to
promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences.
They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people,
in order to carry a greater number.

So who exactly is
buying the iPhone 6? Cool hunters desperate the next new thing or
folks stuck with iPhone 4s or clamshell LGs (they still exist!)
finally making an upgrade? What is the pleasure of getting
something while it’s still hot?

And what the hell happens when the new
Samsung Galaxy Note Edge comes to market next month? Most
impartial observers will note that for all the hoopla surrounding
the new iPhone, Apple has basically been sniffing the rear of
Samsung in terms of providing larger screens for years now…

Last week in a column for Time, I suggested a more
philosphical reason for our obsession over new Apple products: They
give us the illusion of control over our lives and the comforting
notion that we are running our machines rather than the
reverse:

Our gadgets—phones, tablets, PCs, wrist monitors, you name
it—are nothing less than the magic that we use to generate the
illusion (and sometimes the reality) that we can actually control
our lives. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic,” quipped the science fiction legend
Arthur C. Clarke, whose dark vision of a super-computer that bends
mankind to its will animated 2001: Space Odyssey. A
similar question haunts us, especially whenever our OS fails and we
find unexpected, unscheduled, un-busy time on our hands: Are we
running our machines or are they running us?

And there’s this: