iPhones Could Cost Up to $2,300 in the U.S. Due to Tariffs, Analyst Says

[vantelimus]

Some regulations have good intentions, but policies should be judged by real world results, not their intentions. The fact of the matter is current policies have lead us to being close to $37T in debt, monthly trade deficits in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power since 1914, and our manufacturing base being gutted in the process. You seem to think this is because American businesses and citizens aren't regulated enough? So if the government just regulated us more, taxed us more, re-distributed wealth more, we'd be better off? The reality is exactly the opposite. The wealth and income gap is so large because government is too big, too powerful, and too cumbersome in our daily lives.

The per capita income in the US in 1914 was $377. The per capita income last year was around $73,500. In 1914, a Model-T cost $440, or 117% of the per capita income. Today a Toyota Corolla base model (one of the top selling cars today) is around $24,000, or 32% of the per capita income. The dollar may have lost nominal purchasing power, but people make disproportionately more today than in 1914. They have plentiful access to a supply of goods and services that are superior in quality to those available in 1914. And they have access to life-changing technologies (like the internet, computers, modern healthcare, etc.) that didn’t exist 1914.

Yes, the dollar has lost about 99% of its nominal purchasing power, but people can buy so much more and have a higher quality of life today that it would make the head of a 1914 person spin.

 

[vantelimus]

You can read what happened in the 1930s when the US raised tariffs with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the other countries responded with counter-tariffs.
Trump and his boys have reopened the game. The popcorn will get ruin our throats.

View attachment 2499503

When Hoovervilles are reconstructed and called Trumptowns, the orange one will bristle with pride.

 

[vantelimus]

Maybe you guys could finally start building viable public transportation from the tariff income

That game played out in the 1930s and 40s, when GM, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Firestone Tire and others conspired to kill the streetcar systems and both political parties embraced the automobile as the solution to public transportation.

 

[bgillander]

And you still do it. Probably you can't even see that the problem was portraying a dead American junkie as the most important thing the whole world should worry about. Just another manifestation of the usual American self-importance.

We weren't talking about my perception, but I'll just give up at this point. Maybe my command of the English language is the problem, maybe something on your side.

Actually you are the one still doing it, as the actual problem is portraying ANYONE as not worth the effort of allowing them to live to see a judge.

That doesn’t seem like a language issue, simply a humanity one.

 

[adib]

But are eggs going to be cheaper??

IT depends on where they're from and what those birds eat.

 

[adib]

Americans: buy your Apple gadgets now to get already-imported stocks before the next batch comes in with updated prices! The 5-year iOS support cycle is enough to wait for your next president. Furthermore, macOS and iPadOS' support cycles are typically longer.

 

[bushman4]

At $2300 people will be keeping their iPhones alot longer and Apples overall business will drop at least 20-30%. Unless Apple absorbs the tariff and works on a slimmer profit margin than 50%
Time will tell New iPhone is still 6 months off
Hopefully the tariff issue will be favorably resolved by then

 

[Cervisia]

Actually you are the one still doing it, as the actual problem is portraying ANYONE as not worth the effort of allowing them to live to see a judge.

That doesn’t seem like a language issue, simply a humanity one.

Your country bombed with drones countless weddings and funerals to get one target, yet you people only rose up for a dead criminal, and smugly think that should be the problem for the whole world. I'm not the one with the humanity issue.

 

[dysamoria]

Yeah, I have effectively retired, and don't miss trying to find work of late, but we will see if I can stay retired with the current economy.

I've got a base M1 mini and a base M4 mini and haven't had them self-destruct, yet. Actually, my 2012 Quad i7 mini is still running fine as my EyeTV DVR, but perhaps I don't stress test my Macs as much as you do. Out of curiousity, what older generation iMacs have you been using?

On the plus side, I do find music software much cheaper than it was 20-30 years ago.

Again, best of luck!

Thanks 😊 Yes, audio tools are much less expensive than they used to be… until factoring in a need to replace interfaces & control surfaces suddenly obsoleted by jerk-ass corpos like M-Audio/inMusic & Avid (hard lesson about forced obsolescence as brands change hands and new owners decide not to continue driver dev). I spent a few thousand replacing lost functionality in stuff that otherwise was fine if you never updated the OS ever again (and I was already so out of date).

To answer your question about what I’ve been using, a verbose (sorry) history:

The first Mac I bought new: 2007 15” MacBook Pro 3,1. Explicitly vulnerable to GPU failure, and I ran it hard as a network node for 3D rendering when I explored 3D art. Disaster.

But Mac OS was at its best in those days, so I was eager to stay with Apple. I replaced it with a 13” 2009 MacBook Pro 5,5.

My interest in 3D cratered because 3D software sucks, especially on Mac OS, especially then (Lightwave 9.x was my last attempt; I repeatedly encountered bugs NewTek wouldn’t fix).

That machine survives, but now freezes for no obvious reason, just sitting mostly passively, running Snow Leopard (still the fastest, most stable OS Apple ever made, likely thanks to optimizing Mac OS to create iOS, something needing to be done again). Likely similar cause of failure.

Around 2010, I aggressively abandoned PCs after repeated experiences with bad hardware (PC building & optimization is voodoo, IMO — I was following reviews/advise from “hard core” PC builders, who’d change a “recommended” motherboard into a “well-known disaster” in reviews, after the fact). I despised the Windows experience. I’d used & supported people on it for most of my life. Becoming comfy in Mac OS exaggerated this.

Mac Pro was being ignored by Apple, and it was dumb to buy a stupidly-priced archaic machine, so I held off and struggled with my 13” MacBook.

2013 rolled around. I almost bought the “new Mac Pro” but Apple offered no retina display. Eventually 3rd party displays had the pixels but poor reliability. Never touched a nMP in person aside from at a store. Maybe a good choice, as that’s money still in the bank.

5(?) years ago I caved in and bought a used 2011 27” iMac 12,2 as a stopgap. Problematic from day one (the seller admitted his tech shouldn’t have sent it as I received it; gave a partial refund for my corrective servicing). I desperately needed the screen space, and it helped my music work, but was already obsolete. I got about 3 years productivity out of it before feeling the crush to replace it. I was deeply spoiled by iPhone/iPad retina displays, too. It was uncomfortable to read “blurry” text and UI on my iMac.

It still runs; it’s good for Snow Leopard & PPC software/abandoned plugins, but I’ve an uneasy sense it might die at any time; I’d be happy to NEVER service any iMac ever again.

My current machine: 2017 5K 27” iMac 18,3; bought used about two years ago. Finally retina… on a damaged LCD panel and scratched glass; sigh.

Decent machine, but this Mac, as its predecessor, has never *successfully* run Blender or several other 3D modeling/rendering packages I’ve tested on them. I don’t know why (likely bad Open GL by Apple, and bad Metal by 3D app devs). Not eager to stress them anyway.

OWC gave me a partial refund for the damages it came with; I didn’t want to deal with shipping it back. I got about one year out of it before Apple abandoned it. Seems a short support period. Another costly stopgap. This was where I spent a lot of money replacing abandoned audio hardware that wouldn’t work at all beyond Sierra. Hopefully won’t happen again soon.

It helped me move along and I can play some newer games in Bootcamp Windows (several of the cross-platform games have greatly inferior performance in Mac OS), and gaming definitely runs it hot… so far no glitching. Mixed outcome.

Sorry for the verbosity. Details always seem to matter a lot in complicated tales, and I already left years of details OUT for brevity.

 

[dysamoria]

Your country bombed with drones countless weddings and funerals to get one target, yet you people only rose up for a dead criminal, and smugly think that should be the problem for the whole world. I'm not the one with the humanity issue.

Dead criminal?

 

[dysamoria]

[…] Furthermore, macOS and iPadOS' support cycles are typically longer.

Unless you buy a used/refurbished machine/device, as I’ve repeatedly done to “save money”.

 

[dannyyankou]

I’m so glad this is the first year I decided to go all-in using a screen protector and a case. If the prices are actually going to go up that high, reselling your used phone makes more sense than ever instead of trading in.

 

[wood1208]

Same cost increase is true for Samsung and other phones manufacturers importing into USA.

 

[vantelimus]

At $2300 people will be keeping their iPhones alot longer and Apples overall business will drop at least 20-30%. Unless Apple absorbs the tariff and works on a slimmer profit margin than 50%
Time will tell New iPhone is still 6 months off
Hopefully the tariff issue will be favorably resolved by then

No doubt higher prices mean less business. I have little reason to believe or disbelieve your 20-30% number. It would be interesting to see a rigorous analysis of the effect on Apple’s business. As has been pointed out across many comments, it is a complicated set of equations. Non-US markets should not be hit hard as long as other countries are smart enough to keep open trade with the rest of the world. Apple could raise prices in one area to lower them in another. There will be quite an interesting grey market develop if phones are several hundred dollars cheaper in Mexico and Canada than the US. Phones can be made with cheaper materials… more plastic, more aluminum, no more titanium, cheaper glass. Less R&D. Fewer product models. Higher prices for services and more aggressive increase schedule. There’s all sorts of ways Apple could change — not many of them will be welcomed by Apple’s current customer base.

 

[bgillander]

Your country bombed with drones countless weddings and funerals to get one target, yet you people only rose up for a dead criminal, and smugly think that should be the problem for the whole world. I'm not the one with the humanity issue.

I'm not American, but my country has its own issues, as do all, and whataboutism doesn't wash away your own issues.

I do find it strange, however, when a person purporting to be Eastern European apparently has no issue with police brutality. Intimating that Eastern Europeans worry about the Democratic Party leaning "Marxist", but apparently with no concern about a country leaning towards police state seems like someone has a bad memory of the actual history.

With your justification, all it would have taken was the Stasi telling you everyone were criminals for you not to have an issue if they didn't survive their arrest procedure. And that is what makes history so easy to repeat.

But I assume you will pull a Trumpian "some people say", and claim "that wasn't what I said, I only said it was "perceptions"" so you can keep finding issues with others so as to not face your own.

 

[bgillander]

Thanks 😊 Yes, audio tools are much less expensive than they used to be… until factoring in a need to replace interfaces & control surfaces suddenly obsoleted by jerk-ass corpos like M-Audio/inMusic & Avid (hard lesson about forced obsolescence as brands change hands and new owners decide not to continue driver dev). I spent a few thousand replacing lost functionality in stuff that otherwise was fine if you never updated the OS ever again (and I was already so out of date).

To answer your question about what I’ve been using, a verbose (sorry) history:

The first Mac I bought new: 2007 15” MacBook Pro 3,1. Explicitly vulnerable to GPU failure, and I ran it hard as a network node for 3D rendering when I explored 3D art. Disaster.

But Mac OS was at its best in those days, so I was eager to stay with Apple. I replaced it with a 13” 2009 MacBook Pro 5,5.

My interest in 3D cratered because 3D software sucks, especially on Mac OS, especially then (Lightwave 9.x was my last attempt; I repeatedly encountered bugs NewTek wouldn’t fix).

That machine survives, but now freezes for no obvious reason, just sitting mostly passively, running Snow Leopard (still the fastest, most stable OS Apple ever made, likely thanks to optimizing Mac OS to create iOS, something needing to be done again). Likely similar cause of failure.

Around 2010, I aggressively abandoned PCs after repeated experiences with bad hardware (PC building & optimization is voodoo, IMO — I was following reviews/advise from “hard core” PC builders, who’d change a “recommended” motherboard into a “well-known disaster” in reviews, after the fact). I despised the Windows experience. I’d used & supported people on it for most of my life. Becoming comfy in Mac OS exaggerated this.

Mac Pro was being ignored by Apple, and it was dumb to buy a stupidly-priced archaic machine, so I held off and struggled with my 13” MacBook.

2013 rolled around. I almost bought the “new Mac Pro” but Apple offered no retina display. Eventually 3rd party displays had the pixels but poor reliability. Never touched a nMP in person aside from at a store. Maybe a good choice, as that’s money still in the bank.

5(?) years ago I caved in and bought a used 2011 27” iMac 12,2 as a stopgap. Problematic from day one (the seller admitted his tech shouldn’t have sent it as I received it; gave a partial refund for my corrective servicing). I desperately needed the screen space, and it helped my music work, but was already obsolete. I got about 3 years productivity out of it before feeling the crush to replace it. I was deeply spoiled by iPhone/iPad retina displays, too. It was uncomfortable to read “blurry” text and UI on my iMac.

It still runs; it’s good for Snow Leopard & PPC software/abandoned plugins, but I’ve an uneasy sense it might die at any time; I’d be happy to NEVER service any iMac ever again.

My current machine: 2017 5K 27” iMac 18,3; bought used about two years ago. Finally retina… on a damaged LCD panel and scratched glass; sigh.

Decent machine, but this Mac, as its predecessor, has never *successfully* run Blender or several other 3D modeling/rendering packages I’ve tested on them. I don’t know why (likely bad Open GL by Apple, and bad Metal by 3D app devs). Not eager to stress them anyway.

OWC gave me a partial refund for the damages it came with; I didn’t want to deal with shipping it back. I got about one year out of it before Apple abandoned it. Seems a short support period. Another costly stopgap. This was where I spent a lot of money replacing abandoned audio hardware that wouldn’t work at all beyond Sierra. Hopefully won’t happen again soon.

It helped me move along and I can play some newer games in Bootcamp Windows (several of the cross-platform games have greatly inferior performance in Mac OS), and gaming definitely runs it hot… so far no glitching. Mixed outcome.

Sorry for the verbosity. Details always seem to matter a lot in complicated tales, and I already left years of details OUT for brevity.

It sounds like you have a similar opinion to me, where I actually prefer the older MacOS versions. Honestly, most of the stuff they have added in the last few years just seems like bloat to me, and I hate the continual movement towards a more iOS interface.

Most music software I've played with is updated for Apple Silicon now, but I'm not sure how many would come with free updates, so that will likely be at least some extra cost for you if you get a Studio, though most does run fairly well in emulation. With the vintage you are running, any Apple Silicon should be a surprisingly large upgrade, though.

It would be nice if Apple had loaner machines for people to test, as I think you would be shocked by the the M4 mini or iMac (I would say any Apple Silicon mac, but the 16 GB base memory jump of the M4 makes the earlier models less of a value, unless you find an older 16GB version very cheap). I expect you would have to update quite a bit of software, so it would be hard to test well within a couple of weeks without some preparation (including having a USB-C hub to use any older USB-A peripherals, or USB-C to A cables), but you could try ordering a refurb from Apple and testing it for a week or two, since they do have a return policy (but if you do try, please confirm that yourself first, since I'm not in the USA!)

As much as I don't like to suggest ordering things with the likely intent of returning them, it doesn't seem as bad with a refurb, it would give you an idea of the changes you will have to deal with, and you might actually find that it is better than you expect and enough to tide you over until the world is a little less crazy (I will try to believe that is the direction we have a chance of moving, just to not get more depressed.)

I hope you find something affordable and inspiring for your artistic journey! Best of luck!

 

[NewOldStock]

When the pain becomes equal only then will it be over.

 

[bgillander]

When the pain becomes equal only then will it be over.

Do you mean the pain between the average working class and the Trump/Musk wealthy class? Because I can tell you it will be the average working class that feels this far more.

When you tax purchases with tariffs rather than taxing income, the group that earns a thousand times more, but "only" purchases 10 times as much comes out far, far ahead.

 

[cosmichobo]

Donald Trump. Making America Great Again, and iPhones cost $6000...

 

[cosmichobo]

Yep, folks gobble up mainstream anti-
Trump narrative and regurgitate. I assume most paid actors or bots posting, same as protesters

Yeah it's all just fake news. No one actually disagrees with Trump. They all want the tariffs in place to make the other countries pay more to the USA. It's just not fair that any of them should be allowed to get away with buying less than what they sell to the USA. The USA has had such a poor deal worldwide for decades. Just look at the global economy. I mean, how much of the global economy does America own after all?

Oh... no, wait. Silly me. The USA has grown its ownership of the global economy year on year for decades... I retract all of the above. And, the top earners within the USA are biting off more and more of the US' own wealth, leaving less for the bottom.

I guess "America" has nothing to complain about, unless you're at the bottom of America... Which of course, is the bulk of Trump's supporters. As he says himself - he loves the uneducated Republicans.

 

[wbeasley]

When the pain becomes equal only then will it be over.

pain equating to pressure from Republican voters to the elected officials who will fear they lose their seats...

then they might actually do something and take control over these crazy outcomes.

grow a spine. do better America!

(and this is the kind of post no doubt that would stop me visiting when they check how I think. dangerous times)

 

[wbeasley]

Same cost increase is true for Samsung and other phones manufacturers importing into USA.

so long as they are assembled in the same countries as tariffs vary around the region.

make them in Russia and attract no tariff... geez, does anyone not see what that means?

 

[cosmichobo]

The per capita income in the US in 1914 was $377. The per capita income last year was around $73,500. In 1914, a Model-T cost $440, or 117% of the per capita income. Today a Toyota Corolla base model (one of the top selling cars today) is around $24,000, or 32% of the per capita income. The dollar may have lost nominal purchasing power, but people make disproportionately more today than in 1914. They have plentiful access to a supply of goods and services that are superior in quality to those available in 1914. And they have access to life-changing technologies (like the internet, computers, modern healthcare, etc.) that didn’t exist 1914.

Yes, the dollar has lost about 99% of its nominal purchasing power, but people can buy so much more and have a higher quality of life today that it would make the head of a 1914 person spin.

And when people in America are working in American factories instead of importing from the rest of the world (because the rest of the world has had enough of dealing with Trump), it will be even better. Then, your wage of $7/hr will buy a half a house, and doughnuts will fall from the sky.

 

[DrJR]

Yeah it's all just fake news. No one actually disagrees with Trump. They all want the tariffs in place to make the other countries pay more to the USA. It's just not fair that any of them should be allowed to get away with buying less than what they sell to the USA. The USA has had such a poor deal worldwide for decades. Just look at the global economy. I mean, how much of the global economy does America own after all?

Oh... no, wait. Silly me. The USA has grown its ownership of the global economy year on year for decades... I retract all of the above. And, the top earners within the USA are biting off more and more of the US' own wealth, leaving less for the bottom.

I guess "America" has nothing to complain about, unless you're at the bottom of America... Which of course, is the bulk of Trump's supporters. As he says himself - he loves the uneducated Republicans.

 

[It’s always something]

And when people in America are working in American factories instead of importing from the rest of the world (because the rest of the world has had enough of dealing with Trump), it will be even better. Then, your wage of $7/hr will buy a half a house, and doughnuts will fall from the sky.

More like 1/20 of a house ☹️