Its called inflation. Plus it's not just the OLED that's being paid for. It's all that software related to OLED and that facial recognition tech that is also in the phone and the better camera and battery life. YOY iPhone Xs prices arent more expensive than last year. Apple just added a "Max" phone.
Well, inflation don’t make new TVs released pricier. Tech prices tend to go down over time. If Top TVs were once $5000-6000, nowadays are nearer to $3000-4000 for example, and they include innovations.
The breakthrough technology of the iPhone 5S (Touch ID) was the equivalent of that time to Face ID, and the price didn’t rise. Placing a fingerprint sensor or the home button, that didn’t require you to swipe the finger or could be used with the finger in any orientation was absolutely magic.
Maybe they could have said: OK, every year we release our small flagship at $699, this year we have to price it a little bit higher on $799, $100 more, which is already nearly a 15% increase.
If they couldn’t achieve the $799 pricing on the first year or they’d have had some trouble with that $799 being the iPhone 8 price, this is what they could have done: Release the X at $899, and a year later releasing the XS Max at $899 and the XS at $799.
This would have been a lot more
reasonable base pricing:
2016:
iPhone 7: $649
iPhone 7 Plus: $769
2017:
iPhone 8: $699 (Apple increased the price $50, ok, we’ll keep it)
iPhone 8 Plus:
$799 (Apple increased $30, ok, we’ll keep it)
iPhone X:
$899 ($250 price increase over the small iPhone (7) price - 28% for getting the future a year earlier)
2018:
iPhone XS:
$799 (means that your base price would have increased $150 in two years - 23% -, not bad for Apple!)
iPhone XS Max: $899
- no iPhone XR released -