I just love how so many in this thread call the iPhone "overpriced".

I am one of those people; how exactly am I wrong? I also felt that the PS3 was grossly overpriced when it launched, yet people bought it, I feel that Sony, Samsung and LG phones are overpriced as well, yet people buy them in droves. I feel that the Wii U is overpriced, as well as Nintendo software and especially peripherals and accessories; yet people buy them and always have. What does that mean? Does that mean that I'm wrong? If a country's entire population thinks that stoning someone to death is okay, are they right in thinking so (an extreme case, surely, but still an interesting exercise in perception and justification)?  I even wrote "perceived value rules the world!" in one of my posts.

So long as someone is willing to buy any given product at a high price; it is not overpriced by default? Their perceived notion of value overrules mine and others' perceived notion of value (or lack thereof) somehow?

70+ million people wouldn't buy it if it was overpriced. Obviously they feel it is priced right. It's $200 with a plan, NOT the $700 that uniformed people keep throwing around.

Just like millions of people pay 200$ for a pair of jeans that is lower quality than most 50$ ones simply because they have the right brand; surely these jeans can't be overpriced either? Just because customers shell out for something, does not automatically mean that the product itself isn't overpriced.

You think that people don't know about plans on mobile phones, when the vast majority of customers have this themselves? My point earlier was that if and when you sell those 650-700$ units stand-alone; Apple takes a larger part of the chunk, leaving less margins for the retailer than with other manufacturers, even though the price is roughly the same (or even slightly higher at times), the only reason retailers allow this is that Apple products are so popular and hip so they can't afford not to (not entirely unlike Nintendo with the NES back in the day, they treated retailers really poorly but retailers couldn't afford to say no simply due to the popularity of the products).

Yes, the hardware may be making a nice profit, but so many seem to conveniently forget how much time and money Apple puts into making sure their OS is absolutely optimized to make full use of the hardware within the phones. More use than a Samsung or a HTC ever would, even with their "superior" specs, who are leeching off an OS made by another company and STILL charging the same $700 for an out of contract phone. Ever wonder why Apple's "lower specs" and "cheaper hardware" consistently outperforms the vast majority of the competition?

The only thing I'm wondering is where you're getting the idea that Apple products "consistently outperform" others; this is surely not so, the only things they consistently "win" are design showdowns, more or less all the time. If you look at the top-of the line models from each manufacturer; you'll see that the iPhone more often than not underperforms compared to price (fans will then cite the "amazing quality and great design is what makes it worth it"). They skimp on storage and then remove the possibility for external storage of expansion through SD (iPad is the culprit here) and force you to pay up to 100-200$ more for a simple step up of 16-48GB more storage and that's it. iOS being superior is also hogwash; most developers and programmers I know hate it, they hate the fact that it strives for a closed system and ecosystem, they hate that Apple charge ridiculous royalties and percentages and weighting systems, force the user to use their services (iTunes) and that they're still building core features around the same shell that the first iOS was based on. Apple are more or less becoming the Microsoft of the mobile world when it comes to closed systems and unfair conditions and they stopped being the leading force in innovation a long time ago, going as far as being nearly a whole generation behind on features with the iPhone 5 when it launched.



People buy what they feel is worth their money and these numbers just show that iPhone is what people find to be worth it, just like how for some reason people bought tons of Wiis back in the day, although going by profits we all know those were "overpriced" too, although we never seen so much bitching back then about it.

I bitched about the Wii being overpriced constantly and I truly thought it was; which brings us back to the simple formula of: customers are willing to pay = product is officially not overpriced, when you look at the sales figures of both Nintendo and Apple products, you'll find that the combined competition by far outsells them, meaning that the majority of potential customers do not own their products; wouldn't it be more logical to let the majority rule? If so; the majority seems to agree that the iPhone and Wii U (at this time) are overpriced, it is simply a lot more visible with the Wii U with low sales but Android is still outselling iOS by a huge margin, especially outside the US (iOS has  a 12.3% global marketshare compared to Android's 83.6%, as of October 2014, that is likely  83.6% of the global, current installed base thinking that Apple products are overpriced, how are they wrong, exactly?).

Just like how I love reading people complaining about how they manufacture their devices in these bad working conditions and paying people crap pay, meanwhile we continue to cheer for our favorite console manufacturers, who do the same shit.

Let's just hate every company.

I've stopped cheering for console manufacturers a long time simply because they do not deserve it; they produce and distribute goods and then bombard us with unfair conditions and a mountain of sub-par products and software. As far as social responsibility goes; there really is reason to hate most companies. My favorite is judgemental hipsters on the internet who condemn others for their lack of empathy for the unfortunate in the world, they post this from their Apple devices, of course, completely oblivious to the conditions under which these are produced. If people are too uninformed to know the processes behind their purhcase, why should their stance on these same products being overpriced or not trumph ours?

PS: I am not calling you neither hipster not uninformed; I consider you none of those, just to be clear, I'm simply making a point.