As some of you may know, I've had an iPhone in the family since the 3G model came out in Europe. At that time, this must have been around 2008 I guess, I heard that Apple's iPhone would be sold in the Netherlands. I dragged my mother to the store and told her it was a great deal and a great phone to own.
If memory serves me, the iPhone was originally sold only with one provider and one type of plan: the T-Mobile unlimited-data plan with 150 calls/texts. I think at that time we had 2G/3G coverage, mostly 2G where we lived, but it was fine: e-mails and whatsapp messages would come in no matter what.
All for a sudden my mother would no longer ask me how to open an email or how to send a document. She knew how to do this on her phone and only needed my help with more difficult tasks.
Since then I've been an Apple fan of sorts. I made my parents get an iPad instead of a new computer or laptop and only bought a bluetooth keyboard and AirPrint-supporting printer as peripherals. I can't even remember the last time they had technical difficulties 😊.
⌘
One drawback that I do remember was the price: a two year plan with the phone included would set you back about €800. This was a lot of money back then. I guess about €600 of that was the price of the phone itself, the rest being the price of the data and calls/texts plan. So €600 for a piece of plastic that you just keep in your pockets 🤔 ?
I had owned several PDA's, some of which would run Windows CE, and a Nokia E63, so I was more accustomed to paying half a months salary for a gadget, but still, it is a lot of money. Looking back the price wasn't that bad. If we could get a new iPhone today for that amount, wouldn't we jump on the opportunity?
Well, maybe we can, sort of? The iPhone SE isn't the flagship by any account. In fact, it only features tested-and-true tech that has been in the various more flashy models for years. But it just works. It's a phone. It takes photos. It allows you to run almost all of the latest apps. The storage options 64GB/128GB/256GB are more than enough for most use cases. You'll receive 5 years of iOS updates (and security updates even longer, sort of). And it only costs €599 for the 128GB model. So in 15 years time the price of an iPhone has stayed constant. Or has it?
⌘
The iPhone has in fact been getting cheaper. 🤔 Yes indeed. If we take into account the inflation in the eurozone of the last few years, we see that 2008 €600 would be €835 in today's money. Or put another way, the new iPhone SE price of €599 would have been €430 in 2008.
To compare prices honestly is difficult over time. This is one of the reasons why economists must perform a "hedonic adjustment" (not as nasty as it sounds) on the selection of products they use to compare prices between past and present prices.
Instead of getting into an academic debate, let me ask you this: what do you use your phone for? If it's not mainly photography, then why would you need an iPhone pro, or even the "middle" model? Isn't it wonderful that we can own a very powerful and useful device for the low price of €599?
I've previously owned an iPhone SE myself (the model that looked like an iPhone 4), but I found the battery and camera lacking. I'm currently using the iPhone 15 Pro which has a more-then-all-day battery life and a wonderful set of camera lenses. But if I ever had to live on a thighter budget, I wouldn't mind going back to an iPhone SE (with a power bank on-hand, maybe).
No comments:
Post a Comment