The $1,600 iPhone

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The $1,600 iPhone

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Sometimes forgotten in the debate about the fate of the iPhone is that its most expensive models cost $1,600, which is about the price of a good personal computer. (Customers are abandoning these 25 brands.)
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Most people do not know about expensive iPhones. They get theirs as part of a bundle with a two-year subscription to AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile. Under these circumstances, the iPhone may only cost $40 a month, barely noticeable. The carrier has paid big money for the iPhone and passed the cost to the consumer in installments.
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The most expensive iPhone is the Pro Max 14. It has a 6.7-inch display and 1TB of storage. It is hard to imagine why anyone would need that much. Many PCs have less storage than that. Presumably, Apple sells only a few of these.
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The iPhone Pro Max 1TB is a flagship. It is like the $150,000 Cadillac or $25,000 Rolex. No one buys them, but some people aspire to. Instead, they buy an iPhone that costs $500 or take a 24-month plan with a carrier and feel they are paying nothing.
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The iPhone 15 will debut in less than two months. It undoubtedly will have a Pro Max version. No one will buy one, but Apple will have them handy, just in case.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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