iPhones Could Cost Up to $2,300 in the U.S. Due to Tariffs, Analyst Says
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
No thanks, upgradeable is enough. I don’t want to optimize for something that happens once every… 5 years? I’m perfectly happy with my phone not exploding in 5 pieces when it falls on the ground.
If this solved any cost problem in any sort of compelling way, it would’ve happened at some point in the past ~20 years, during which the price of a smartphone, even against inflation, had absolutely skyrocketed.
Apple is only the ... checks charts ... richest company in the world. How will they survive with tariffs?
I like how my 15$ Casio mechanical watch is 30m water resistant yet the battery can be swapped in 2 minutes with a basic screwdriver. If only phone manufacturers can copy this crazy technology.
My slightly more expensive watch requires new sealing rings to retain guaranteed water resistance after opening it up. Could be a warranty thing but I wouldn't bet my watch on it ;)
Different phone manufacturers are different. Apple now famously changed the design of the last iPhone so it must be opened from the front (expensive screen!) rather than from the back like with the previous model - to make it even harder for the end user to seek he'll outside of apple services.
This is just an example of the intentional hostility. Make deliberate changes that harm costumer in the long run.
For some small minority of people (who are overrepresented in this forum, but not in the general population), sure, they’d pull it off and be happy. But there is not mass market appeal here.
Haven’t startups and such tried to create modular, upgradable phones? And have any single one of them taken off with even 0.1% of market share?
Phones today evolve at a glacial pace compared to the pace from 20 years ago. So it's a poor argument IMHO.
A flagships from 5 years ago (with a fresh battery) is just as usable today as it was when it came out. This wasn't the case 20 years ago.
If the target lifespan was 10 years, we would reduce consumption by half and double the value for the end user.
I think the fact that a good chunk of people are living in their phones, makes it a hard sell but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't step up and do it for the street cred.
You walked back OPs statement there as well. 5 years is very different than 10-20 years. I'd wager most think that phones designed to last 5 years is perfectly reasonable.
That… seems fine? An iPhone 16 Pro Max with 1TB is 1,979 euro on the French Apple store, or about $2,169. Somehow the French manage?
I don’t know why you think “Chinese made products will become more expensive” is a dunk. Yeah, that’s the point. That was common knowledge when this stuff was being debated in the 1990s. The working class opposed free trade back then, fully understanding that the pitch for free trade was cheaper foreign made goods.
Recessions affect different people differently. The stock market boomed during the Obama recovery from 2008, and during Biden, but most people didn’t feel it so much. A financial recession would be borne mostly by the laptop class.
>A financial recession would be borne mostly by the laptop class.
This is where I think you're not living in reality. Recessions are bad for the middle and working classes. They eliminate jobs, deflate wages, and make important things unaffordable. And it really feels like it could have been avoided.
The fact 150€ phone can be purchased doesn't mean it has a majority of the market
https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/europe-smartphone-market-q4...
When did these exist?
That's the joke, sir. Or ma'am.
We’re talking about Apple. They’ve just been given carte blance to reprice their product line in America. I’m betting they walk away from this more profitable than ever.
(Their competitors are getting boned equally if not worse than they are, too.)
Americans can be excused as it's a relatively cheap toy for them. Our people I don't understand.
Comments like this are akin to putting a big sign around your neck that says “snarky nerd that can’t see past their own nose”.
It seems like they are leaving a lot of money on the table! :-)
Realistically, Apple will eat much of the cost, but increase prices by 10-15%. Most other retailers are thinking the same.
This was noted in the Reuters article [0] this macrumors article stole content from:
> the company will have a tough time passing on more than 5% to 10% of the cost to consumers.
> "We expect Apple to hold off on any major increases on phones until this fall when its iPhone 17 is set to launch, as it is typically how it handles planned price hikes."
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/will-trump-tariffs-make-a...
No
Price Elasticity is very much a thing.
Who would want that?
Margins are important, but so is rate of sales. Hence the statements in the original Reuters article.
Doubt it. Keep a cheap upgrade option with an older and reduced BOM and then use the tariffs as an excuse to boost the top-of-the-line offering to $3k.
But my point is I would be very shocked if base model iPhones, lower specced Pro models, and the 16e would see a price increase beyond 15%.
At the higher tier (Pro Max, and maybe even Pro) absolutely, as those were already out of the price range of the average consumer.
I’ll also be shocked if they take much margin hit there. All of the iPhone’s competitors are also getting tariffed, after all. And the tariffs don’t bridge the labour-cost difference, so it’s not like launching domestic production would make sense even if you could trust that these policies will stick.
Customs are unlikely to find the phone unless they have some other reason to search, or unless it's in checked baggage and there are several.
Some countries do routinely scan all incoming hand luggage, but it's so long since I visited the USA I don't remember if they do.
In some countries visitors declare what they're bringing, so they don't pay tax on that so long as they take it with them when they leave.
What’s your actual point or argument here?
You seem to start off arguing that it won’t happen, and you finish by arguing that you don’t think that it should happen, i.e. if you had things your way, it’d be different.
Which is it? They aren’t the same thing.
They have the means to shift at least some of the assembly to the US (or somewhere with 10% tariff), pay the China tariff on the actual price of components, sell at the inflated value of components+assembly as usual. The tariff would impact only a smaller part of the retail cost.
The issue is that wherever you shift production you will be significantly destabilising their trade balance with the USA. You can optimise but tariffs will probably be bad anywhere you go. Plus China hold sway on some critical part of the supply chain like minerals and it’s virtually impossible to cut them out on a short time frame.
On shoring could be a solution but the USA simply can’t fulfil the demand of its whole value chain without significant investments and who will be crazy enough to make long term investments in such a volatile environment.
And industry personnel - skilled and otherwise, who are willing and able to staff the U.S.-based factories. (Which apparently will very shortly be booming.)