actually prices have always usually been this high, what you saw before, where prices were under 500$ was usually the price of the device with a carrier subsidized price. keep in mind, back then you *usually* HAD to get an iPhone with some type of carrier plan. hell the original iPhone was only sold at Apple and AT&T. you couldn't go to walmart or best buy, or any of the dozens of carriers that now sell them and see the different prices.
back then sure you only paid 199$ or 299$, Upfront, but most people never realized the little fees that were tacked on with it(IE Verizons "line access Fee", or the separate lines you needed to get to add the smartphones on to) so you paid 299$ and paid the other $300+ in fees over the 2 year contract, hence the term "subsidized" pricing.
Carriers got you in the door with the low price, but still made their money back with the contact because you HAD to basically keep paying for 2 years or you'd have some outrageous cancellation fee, which they still profited from.
also ironic. you say 10 years...the iPhone isn't even 10 years old. so what smartphones were you talking about from 10 years ago? The blackberries? the original Droid? the sidekicks? come on now.
the original iPhone? came out at 599$ and dropped to 399$ with a AT&T 2 year contact.
the only truly "cheap" iPhone during the period you are describing was the iPhone 3g/3gs which while debuted with the 19/299/399 price points, again, were always with 2 year AT&T contracts.
even the favored iPhone 4 and 4s, which everybody glorifies, came out at prices over 500$. and these were still 6-7 years ago.
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lol there has never been a single iPhone in history to date that has a base price over 1,000.
iPhones have been consistently priced(if you can see past the Subsidized price fog that the carrier put out there)
seriously do some research.
original iPhone? to pay cash-in-hand was 599$,
now the iPhone 3g//3gs were cheaper but again with a AT&T contract and 2 year plan.
iPhone 4? 599-799$ for retail price.
iPhone 4s? 599-849 retail price(just over 900$ with tax, and more if you wanted a case/extra charger ETC)
iPhone 5? 599-849
iPhone 5s? 599-849
this only went up more with the 6 model year because of the 6 Plus model, with the plus models being ~100$ more for each same gigabyte tier. and apple even tried to play this smart (instead of having 2 flagships like samsung, IE galaxy S series and the Galaxy Note series) they just made the same phone, in two sizes, and appropriately charged the larger phone a little bit more.
in fact, the prices have literally been perfectly consistent between the iPhone 4(came out in 2010) until the iPhone SE came out as the lower price point.
if anything apple is Breaking its rigid price points by releasing a smaller device at a smaller price. and they are actually Keeping support for it(unlike the hundreds of galaxy letter jumble knock-offs that are basically EOL on a 3 year old non-updated OS at the time of purchase). they actually made a Phone that was, Specs and performance wise, Almost identical to their just released flagship, in the shape and size people wanted back, AND they charged nearly 200$ less for it.
it was literally everything people wanted and people still found ways to complain, but thats irrelevant in this convo.
and before you call mumbo-jumbo on my "facts" here are some sources.
