Ben Thompson: ‘The Services iPhone’

Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery:

The most surprising announcement of all, though, were the prices. Everything stayed the same! This was not what I, or close followers of Apple like John Gruber, expected at all. After all, Apple’s strategy the past several years seemed to be focused on wringing more revenue out of existing customers. More importantly, the last year has seen a big increase in inflation.

What this means is that in real terms Apple’s products actually got cheaper. Apple did, to be sure, raises prices around the world, but this is better explained by the fact the company runs on the dollar, which is the strongest in years; to put it another way, those foreign prices are derived from the U.S. price, and that price stayed the same, which means the price is lower.

★ Thursday, 8 September 2022