Glass is made of sand. Silicon is made of sand. PCBs are made of fibreglass and resin (sand and tree sap), and "aluuuumeenum" is made from recycled drinks cans and other aluminium scrap. Apart from the obvious R&D costs (which will always be HUGE so long as human beings are more interested in making extortionate profits over helping each other out a bit more) these phones are an absolute rip off. The ONLY reason things cost so much, is that every single person in every step of the process of producing something, values their work or the value of their materials way higher than any sane person could reasonably justify. All the stress, anxiety, anticipation and exploitation of third world workers... all the design skills and all the relationships that fractured and fell apart due to the debts incurred JUST to have the latest iPhone or other gadget, only to see it abandoned and in the crusher in a few years, whilst the societal damage its creation and the desire to own it, caused, still reverberates.
All this fuss, and in 24-48 months it will be crushed glass dust and aluminium ingots once again. All this hype will be forgotten in a few months, and the excitement of this "New iPhone!!" will have dulled and died out, with this "New iPhone!!" having been realised as yet another exercise in building unfulfilling hopes and shallow smiles of short term satisfaction ... chasing things that can never truly satisfy your soul, and this device will soon just be "my phone", nothing more than another snapshot of the continuous, redundant, calculated iteration of something of no REAL use to the world.
What a sad, sad, pathetic and shallow world.
