14 DAY TRIAL // The iPhone X is the most expensive iPhone model ever, with the 256GB version available in the United States for $1,149, while the base model with 64GB is sold for $999.
Even though it’s also one of the biggest overhauls of the iPhone since the first model launched in 2007, the price is what’s holding back a substantial number of potential buyers from actually purchasing the device, and as it turns out, Apple knows this very well.
In an interview with Time, two Apple executives discussed the price of the iPhone X, explaining that the company’s culture is what makes the device more expensive than the rest of the devices on the market.
“Our goal is always to provide what we think is the best product possible, not always the lowest cost,” Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, explained.
More than just a phone
Despite Apple not necessarily building phones that are more affordable, the company keeps selling older models that are available with a smaller price tag, including the previous-generation iPhones that have received major discounts after the launch of the 2017 lineup.
Apple’s chief designer Jony Ive says iPhones have always been more expensive than its rivals simply because they’re not just phones, but devices that can provide more advanced functionality.
Ive pointed to the original iPhone that launched a decade ago with a $500 price tag, which even though was considered to be very expensive at that time, it was still very successful simply because it was capable of doing much more than a regular phone. Steve Jobs himself introduced the iPhone as “an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator,” and all these capabilities have evolved in the last 10 years.
“People hadn’t necessarily experienced the product because there was the word ‘phone’ in the product name,” Ive says.
The cheapest iPhone in Apple’s lineup right now is the iPhone SE, which is being sold by the Apple Store for $349 with 32GB storage.