The $1,000 iPhone

Because I’m such a geek, I often hear from my non-geek friends following a big Apple announcement. I would like to think my friends are generally pretty smart people. However, rarely have they actually watch the event. Instead, they’ve seen a headline or two or seen a joke on late-night TV somewhere and I’m always curious to see what these generally smart people actually take away at the end of all those filters.

By far, the most feedback I have received from friends on this week’s announcement is their outrage over price. Many are under the impression that the iPhone now starts at $1,000. I can see how they get that impression reading the headlines. I gently tell them that while there is a new $1,000 iPhone, there is a less expensive update that is still very nice. That usually quells the outrage.

Either way, it got me thinking. Apple may have a messaging problem on its hands. If everyone believes that all new iPhones start at $1,000, there is a non-zero number of people who won’t even go into the store to find out that is not true. I will be curious to see if they somehow cover pricing in any of their advertising around the iPhone 8.