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Over The Last 14 Years, iPhone Prices Have Gone Up More Than 80%

iPhones may be more expensive but they also have a lot more longevity than they used to.

The iPhone 6S from 2015 is still a good phone today, six years later. Meanwhile the original iPhone from 2007 was a very unpleasant experience in 2013.

If you're the sort who wants to upgrade often, yeah it sucks, but also you get more money for your trade-in so it's not completely horrible either.

I'm keeping my 11 Pro Max at least another year, maybe more. These things are durable and reliable as hell.
 
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Red Oak said:
You can buy a new iPhone cheaper today than you could 14 years ago (iPhone SE @ $399, iPhone 11 @ $499).

The ASP is higher today because consumers are choosing more high end models. The cost to get into an iPhone is not “up 80%”
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I agree. The article seems to ignore normal inflation plus the way the phone market has evolved. In 2007, you basically had one choice for an iPhone. There were no tiers. It is kind of like the auto industry and the model T available in black only. Now phones, like autos, can be purchased in various models, features, colors, and internals. As an example, just think about cameras on an iPhone 13 vs the iPhone 1. They are completely different beasts. I think a better comparison would be the iPhone SE 2020, which had a current processor when released.
 
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Yet more prognostication about why Apple should be failing but no explanation as to why Apple continues to grow instead. The ‘overpriced’ narrative has been with us for decades but never seems to kick in to destroy the company. Anyone in the overpriced community care to explain?
 
Considering you can buy an SE with 64GB of RAM for $399 and the original 4GB iPhone (not adjusted for inflation) was $499 I would call this study pretty worthless.

Sure has the top end iPhone increased in cost (above inflation) slightly? Yes. But it's such a superior device, capable of so much more, they can't really be compared Apples to Apples. The SE is a better comparison and even before inflation it is considerably cheaper.

$499 from 2007 would be $660 today which is almost the cost of a new iPhone 13 Mini and less than the 12, 11, and SE.
 
Grimace said:
Flimsy math on this headline.

Phone carriers used to subsidize the iPhone cost by $200 or more when you renew your contract - they stopped doing that a few years ago so that subsidy was passed onto the consumer who pays full price.
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The subsidy was always a stupid, manipulative shell game with customers, if a carrier subsidized $200 it just meant that $200 (or likely much more) additional was baked into the plan.

I find it hysterical when iPhone customers hand-wring over a couple hundred bucks and ignore the accompanying plan that costs thousands of dollars. They'll do dumb stuff like get a previous gen iPhone to save $1-200. 2 years later they have a 4 year old phone that's slow as molasses and have paid over $2k for the phone plan, but hey, at least they saved 5-10%! What a waste of time and energy
 
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One data point is not enough to give you an understanding of what is happening.

1) as many have mentioned, inflation is important to take into account

2) what has happened to the cost of goods and manufacturing of the phone, have they gone up proportionally or disproportionally?

3) have iPhone prices gone up commensurate with competitors phones’ prices?

4) etc.

I don’t really care either way. I just dislike partial information that persuades people into believing things without full understanding of the nuances.
 
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iPhone 4 was my first ever iPhone. I haven’t been wowed with any phone as much I was with that one since.

Seeing that Retina display for the first time, seeing and holding that gorgeous design for the first time, experiencing iOS 4 with features like multitasking for the first time was something else…

No other phone has replicated that same magical feeling for me since.
 
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lkrupp said:
Yet more prognostication about why Apple should be failing but no explanation as to why Apple continues to grow instead. The ‘overpriced’ narrative has been with us for decades but never seems to kick in to destroy the company. Anyone in the overpriced community care to explain?
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I remember when people complained about iPhones being overpriced and compared them with plastic Android phones, with replaceable batteries. Now 6 years later, most Android phones come in metal casing and have internal fixed batteries and the Android flagship prices are not that different from iPhones.
 
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adamjackson said:
I paid $599 for my first iPhone before tax and waited 3 hours for Cingular's servers to actually activate it. Fun times:
2245834908_0c60830544_b.jpg


While the price has gone up from $599 to my last iPhone purchased at $1599 for the 1TB Pro Max 13, I don't feel the '80% increase' is unjustified. The iPhone 1 to 13 are incredibly different animals. The iPhone has turned into some people's only computer and you can get an A15 powered iPhone for still much less in the form of the mini so while the starting price was $499 I think for the 4GB model, iPhones now are MUCH more powerful and feature-rich.


Here's the first photo I "shot on iPhone"
743406105_57b718aa3a_b.jpg
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Wow Cingular, that's a name I have not heard in a long time. I do believe that's where I had my first cellular phone service with.
 
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Tim Cook's success as CEO has had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with being able to convince people that $1599 in a reasonable price for a new phone. When you stop and think, it's not reasonable at all. You can get a MacBook Air and still have cash left over. You can buy a 13" MacBook Pro and still have cash left over.
 
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And then there's the fact that since the iPhone came out, carriers stopped subsidising the cost of phones, so now you're buying them outright at full retail. (And no, I didn't read the source article. Clickbait, my ass.)
 
BGPL said:
Tim Cook's success as CEO has had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with being able to convince people that $1599 in a reasonable price for a new phone. When you stop and think, it's not reasonable at all. You can get a MacBook Air and still have cash left over. You can buy a 13" MacBook Pro and still have cash left over.
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Is $1599 the bulk of the sales? Other phones in the same pricey range from other manufacturers are just as unreasonable.
 
This is consistent with increases in price for all flagship phones, not just iPhones. Samsung flagships have increased in similar amounts. Even the ‘cheaper’ manufacturers, OnePlus et al have easily doubled their flagship prices over the last 5 years or so.

What a bizarre and poorly thought out article.
 
Red Oak said:
You can buy a new iPhone cheaper today than you could 14 years ago (iPhone SE @ $399, iPhone 11 @ $499).

The ASP is higher today because consumers are choosing more high end models. The cost to get into an iPhone is not “up 80%”
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Maybe you need to contact Self and advise them that their worldwide survey is wrong, possibly showing them how to do it correctly? :)
 
BGPL said:
Tim Cook's success as CEO has had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with being able to convince people that $1599 in a reasonable price for a new phone. When you stop and think, it's not reasonable at all. You can get a MacBook Air and still have cash left over. You can buy a 13" MacBook Pro and still have cash left over.
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This user is absolutely right - rather than get a 1TB iPhone 13 Pro Max (the only one that is $1599) you can get a 512GB 13" MacBook Pro for $1499 and have $100 left over. The storage is different, but these two devices have the same processor, the same size screen, the same amount of RAM, the same battery life, both fit in your pocket, both utilize a cellular network, and serve the same purpose. You can also buy 300 loaves of bread and have $700 left over
 
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chabig said:
I suspect you're right. And also our phones today are many times more powerful devices than the original.
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The original iPhone (which I bought) was about $500 if I remember correctly. So the inflation argument totally makes sense.

But also, we need to give credit to Apple (thank you, Steve) with creating a mobile computing device that was even more indispensable than the cell phones of the time. Nobody knew how much they needed a device like this. Until they got one.

So the higher prices also signify how much we now value these devices.
 
BGPL said:
Tim Cook's success as CEO has had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with being able to convince people that $1599 in a reasonable price for a new phone. When you stop and think, it's not reasonable at all. You can get a MacBook Air and still have cash left over. You can buy a 13" MacBook Pro and still have cash left over.
Click to expand...


Not sure why you think a Macbook should be worth more. Tech in the iPhone is way more impressive and usually ahead of the Macbook. Making things small is harder than big.
 
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