$1,999.
That’s where Apple’s first foldable starts.
For reference, same lineup: the 18 Pro is $1,199, the Pro Max $1,299. The case is $79. The folio with the kickstand, $129.
This is by-far the most expensive iPhone, Apple has ever put on a stage.
Audacious is the only word for that price point. And I think that quietly tells us the world Apple has decided to inhabit.
This is Apple moving deeper into a realm that can only be described as Necessary Luxury.
Or Functional Luxury, if you prefer.
An object you cannot function without, priced like one you could happily live without.
Which raises the more interesting question: can Apple do a Birkin here?
Manufactured scarcity.
A waitlist that becomes the point. A resale market that clears well above retail. And eventually a price tag that is itself part of the appeal rather than the obstacle.
Get that right and Apple conquers the final frontier by becoming a Veblen Good, where demand climbs with the price instead of falling away from it.
Pre-orders open 16 October, ships on the 23rd across 70+ markets.
Should be a nice passage of play to watch from here to the end of the year.
And now the bit I just could not resist.
On the very same day that Apple announced its audacious price point, another charming man laughed in the face of near 5% 10 YR UST Yields and reminded everyone what being audacious is truly all about: he did this by promising every American adult a $5,000 dividend if the Republicans hold both chambers at the midterms.
With crystal-clear clarity he then added one caveat – the money has to be spent inside the US.
No word yet on how that gets enforced, or funded, though Vance has gestured at tariff revenue for a cheque that runs to something like $1.2 trillion.
There would have been a genuinely juicy conspiracy theory here, if only Apple’s highest-ever price point had landed after that announcement instead of roughly seven hours before it.
Two grand of a five grand cheque, spent domestically, on the most American consumer object there is.
Wrong chronology of events, sadly.
Apple priced before anyone was promised the money.
I am claiming nothing.
Only that the sequencing was still almost too neat, wasn’t it?
