Because you should buy the iPhone 8, that’s why

Oct 23, 2017 06:15 GMT  ·  By

The iPhone X is already cannibalizing the iPhone 8 series, with a substantial number of customers delaying the purchase of a new iPhone until the release of the anniversary model, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple isn’t trying to boot sales of its new generation.

And the best way to do this is to get rid of the top model currently available for purchase, and this is the iPhone 7 with 256 GB storage.

As it turns out, Apple quietly discontinued this particular configuration on September 12 when it launched the iPhone 8, so if you now want to get an iPhone 7, you can only choose between 32GB and 128GB storage.

Unfortunately for Apple, it appears that many customers do just that, as the iPhone 8 doesn’t bring too many upgrades over the previous generation. The iPhone 8 looks similar to the iPhone 7, but comes with features like wireless charging, whereas the iPhone X introduced a bezel-less OLED display, facial recognition, and other exclusive features.

Pushing customers to the iPhone 8

Without the 256 GB version of the iPhone 7, Apple hopes that more customers would switch to the iPhone 8, which does feature this storage option, obviously at an increased price.

The anniversary iPhone X, on the other hand, will be offered with a choice of just two storage versions, namely 64GB and 256GB, with prices of $999 and $1,149, respectively. The iPhone X will go up on pre-order on Friday, while shipments will begin on November 3.

Even though Apple pulled the 256GB iPhone 7 from its stores, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t be able to buy one. Several carriers are still selling this particular configuration, while third-party stores still have it in stock, so it’ll take a while until the 256GB iPhone 7 goes away completely.

And by the time this happens, the iPhone X will already be here, eating up an important sales share that would otherwise go to the iPhone 8.