The iPhone 4S Costs $0.49 More to Build than the iPhone 4

When all the components and manufacturing costs are roughly estimated, it would be better to say they cost "about the same" instead of $0.49 (a 0.25% difference) because they really have no idea what Apple has negotiated. Their estimate is probably +/-$50.

Also, Apple already has all the tooling in place to manufacture the body and machine the steel band at very high volume, which a large cost not captured in their analysis.

Really, they call this Hacker News and yet a headline with a blatant disregard for as simple a concept as relative error and significant figures makes it to #7 on the front page? What are we coming to?

It's not cost to build, it's cost of components only.

iSuppli reports are often sensationalized by comparing cost of components to retail price, as if everything in between was pure profit, without regard for cost of assembly, transport, taxes, not to mention Apple's incredible R&D and logistics to secure supply of those components and delivery millions of units in the first weekend.

I was looking for a reference price for the iPhone 4. It's in a separate article: http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/iPhone-4-Carries...