With iPhone 14, Apple just upsold the planet

When I’m not lusting after an Apple Watch Ultra, I find myself anxious to own an iPhone 14 Pro Max. It seems I’m not alone – it looks as if Apple just upsold the planet to its most expensive smartphone.

I think I know why.

With iPhone 14, Apple just upsold the planet

 If you care about photography you had a fantastic camera with the Pro before, but the difference between it and the standard 14 is really accentuated with this incarnation of the range. Equally, if processor performance is your think (and it should be at some of the parties I’ve endured at), then how can you resist the delicate micro-processor allure of the A16 [insert buzz word here] chip?

Those aren’t the only differences, of course. But it looks as if what Apple has decided to do is to create a good phone – all these new iPhones are that – but also, by placing a substantial quantity of cool blue water between the Pro and entry level models, has given people reasons to stretch their budget just a little more.

Now, I’m not going to make a value judgement on the motivations there. For sure, part of Apple’s intent will be to raise the ASP’s (average selling prices) across its tech toys, and it’s clear that the Apple business also means the current Apple Watch SE is just about equivalent to an Apple Watch Series 4. Apple is quite used to playing in the river of consumer intent.

That this is happening has today been confirmed by JP Morgan analyst, Samik Chatterjee, who says that an astonishing eight out of ten iPhone 14 pre-orders were for the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max. This follows another recent report that Apple has asked Foxconn to shift five production lines from iPhone 14 across to the iPhone 14 Pro models.

Reaching for the stars

Given the economic calamity taking place in some places, that’s one hell of a result. It’s a result that suggests a whole bunch of people chose to dig deep to get the best –  itself a valediction for Apple’s slippery slope pricing models, which basically act as helter skelters for consumer expectation, exciting rides that inexorably lead them to spend just a little more, just that little more, to get the tech that lives up to the promise.

[Also read: Mixpanel says iOS 16 now installed on almost 25% of iPhones]

You could argue about the ethics, I suppose, but that’s business, and it’s not as if the entry level models are bad phones, it’s just that at the high end Apple has built devices that excel.

All the same, the take aware has to be, that when the going got tough – and it really has got tough (please contribute to my Official UK Recession Survival Fund here), Apple figured out a way to do big business on a global scale.

Apple just upsold the world.

I think that’s a business lesson. I imagine Apple’s competitors agree. What do you think?

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