Apple Boss Forced To Defend Excessive Phone Prices
Alan Hartstein
19 Sep 2018
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been forced to repeatedly defend the company’s outlandish pricing for the new iPhone XS Max.
The new iPhone range, revealed last week, cost  $US749 for the XR, $US999 for the XS and $US1499 for the XS Max.
In Australia, the XR has an RRP of $1799, the 256GB X Max of $2049 while the 512GB version costs a considerable $2369.
Appearing on Good Morning America Tuesday, Cook said there were reasons for why the technology was so expensive.
“It’s the most advanced iPhone we’ve ever done. The phone has replaced your digital camera. You don’t have a separate one anymore. It’s replaced your video camera. It’s replaced your music player. It’s replaced all of these different devices,” Cook said. “Apple ultimately wants to make an iPhone for everyone.”
He attempted to justify its high price by citing an example that some owners of the iPhone XS Max can pay about $30 a month for it, bringing the payments down to about $1 per day, Cook said.
Apple has increased its pricing for every iteration of the iPhone since it launched its first model on June 29, 2007, each time claiming the new model is better than its predecessors, for any number of reasons.
Part of the larger increase this time may be due to how expensive parts such as OLED screens have become for manufacturers, analysts have speculated.
