Your comment pretty much what I was thinking. My question was to point that if subsidies did go way of trash, I believe Apple would be in the same position as it was years ago. Samsung and other manufacturers are charging what they do because the carriers recoup during contract. If no subsidy is present, I believe Apple would be more expensive than competitors by a fairly large margin. This article brought to light that my generation didn’t purchase Apple due to this practice. While we may have found their products to be well built, it wasn’t worth the extra cash to be locked into such confined quarters. These were just computers. We found solitude in other manufacturers.

I feel this generation has been celebrating a product/company that they really know nothing about. It is presented as “Lavish” or “Elite” and is within financial means. It is merely a status symbol that if you own an Apple product, you are part of a group. I’ve talked with college students that have changed their opinion of Apple yet feel they cannot leave due to the education enterprise being locked into Apple’s closed ecosystem. If the financial positioning were offset to correspond with the actual pricing of Apple’s DNA history, Apple would be nowhere as large as they are today. Even with low marketshare, they price gouged their products . Because they can charge what they do today, doesn’t change their MO.

John B.

These figures are just bad estimates, but if in phones Samsung has similar specs on a 700$ phone, Apple could take 850$. If Samsung had a 700$ laptop, Apple could take 1200$ for it.

Some other manufacturers, not just Apple, have the possibility ask similar prices for their high end devices. I’m guessing that it’s partly because operators are willing to pay that much if there is really something that can compete with iPhone thus making them less dependent on Apple. I have a hunch that the difference here isn’t as big as it is with Macs or iPods. If you look at counties where subsidies aren’t used, Apple sells still pretty well.

Anyway, if tomorrow there would be no phone subsidies in US, Apple’s US sales would be in deep trouble. Samsung, Nokia, Motorola etc. all have mid range phones but there is no iPhone mini. Apple surely would introduce one in no time and the logo with bit apple would still cost a bit extra compared to other logos.

So, if carriers were to raise their prices to coincide with Apple’s demanded price, I wonder how many iphones would be sold. Paying an extra 300+ dollars out the door seems an impediment for most customers. This is what kept many from purchasing Apple products in years past. Thanks to carriers, People feel like they are purchasing a luxury device at low prices. This has made Apple very rich. Individuals as myself that don’t wish to purchase Apple, seem to be unfairly financially supporting them anyway because of the price plans carriers have changed to accommodate the iPhone. It is great Apple has been able to manipulate everyone in the wireless industry regardless whether we want their products or not.

John B.

Well since you are comparing Oct 2011 and Sept 2012 prices the answer is of course yes, at least if you define _better_ just having better specs. Just take 2011 model and if you upgrade any single spec, this better model would still most likely be cheaper to produce with current component prices, than the original 2011 model was in 2011.

If you define _better_ more vaguely as something that “when released feels better than the other model felt when it was released” then yes, it probably costs more both so make and to buy. iPhone 5 however probably wasn’t intended to be better in this way, but to as good as 4S, to “feel as good as 4S felt when it was released”, to be at the same level of excitement.

It would be odd if BOM of these phones that are sold at the same price would constantly rise.