Costly phone:
A price reported to be about $1,000 isn’t expected to deter iPhone fans from buying the latest model, which is to be unveiled Tuesday.
Apple hasn’t announced the details of its new iPhone, but customers like 62-year-old app developer Klaus Bandisch already know they want one — even if the device is reported to cost about $1,000.
The new smartphone, which commemorates the iPhone’s 10-year anniversary, is expected to have wireless charging, unlock with facial recognition technology and have an edge-to-edge 5.8 inch OLED display, analysts said. The premium phone will be the most expensive in Apple’s lineup — about $350 more than the starting price of last year’s iPhone 7. Apple is expected to make the announcement on Tuesday at its first major press event at Apple Park , its new Cupertino campus.
“It has all the bells and whistles I can think of,” said Bandisch, who
splits time between San Francisco and New York, of the new phone.
Beyond the eye-catching figure, analysts expect that premium smartphones across the board will continue to get pricier. Customers are already willing to spend more to get additional memory, and monthly plans have made it easier to spend a few extra dollars each pay period for a fancier phone, analysts said. The devices have become, in effect, indispensable mini-computers, and indeed the new iPhone — which may be called the iPhone X — is expected to be as expensive as Apple’s cheapest laptop line.
The most expensive phone in the company’s current lineup is the iPhone 7 Plus at $969 for 256 GB, while Samsung’s newly released Galaxy Note 8 starts at $930 for 64 GB.
Apple and Samsung “haven’t seen any customer pushback on that, and until there is, they are going to keep testing limits of how much people want to spend,” said Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group.
Consumers are willing to spend heavily because smartphones are tied to daily habits like mapping routes, checking emails and paying for items. Some 71 percent of the time Americans are online, they are using a mobile device, according to research firm comScore. And wear and tear from constant phone usage makes people more likely to spring for a new device.
“We kind of forget there is a much more natural upgrade to this product,” Baker said. “It isn’t just about the technology, look and feel, it’s about the fact that it’s a tool that I use every day.”
Tim Vu, a 51-year-old tax accountant in San Francisco, says he is going to buy the most expensive model of the new iPhone because his iPhone 7 is having some problems.
“It’s been frustrating,” Vu said, adding he uses his iPhone for his work email and that a laptop is “too big.”
Some analysts like Baker believe that Apple could offer newer, lowerpriced alternatives to the iPhone X, in the forms of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. He expects the prices will be similar to the iPhone 7 line, which started at $649 last year.
The iPhone X allows Apple to include the latest advances in technology like OLED screens and appeal to early adopters. The new phone is expected to lack a home button and include technology that aids augmented reality — a mixture between the real and virtual worlds.
“It’s a big risk if they try to do everything all at once,” Baker said. “They are prudently managing that shift into the next generation of technologies.”
The cost of materials, like some of the the components of OLED displays, is pushing the iPhone’s price higher, analysts say. Smartphone manufacturers are also, of course, looking to increase their profitability.
“Apple has consistently shown it is able to persuade consumers to spend more of their disposable income on a smartphone than they have before,” said Ian Fogg, an analyst with industry analysis firm IHS Markit.
Besides new iPhones, the company is also expected to reveal a new Apple Watch on Tuesday that will operate independently of an iPhone and allow users to make phone calls with a cellular plan connected to the Watch, analysts said.
Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.