Although the Apple iPhone 5 is still months away from release so many leaks and rumors about specs and features have come out that we feel we pretty much know what to expect. Of course we could all be proven wrong when Apple finally chooses to reveal all. However we haven’t put much thought yet into the iPhone 5 price and also what you are prepared to pay, so that’s what we’re looking into today.
The iPhone 5 will no doubt be a huge success, almost regardless of what specs it actually includes. Of course though it will sell even more if the specs impress and at the same time it is released with reasonable pricing. If we look at previous iPhone pricing it may give us some idea of what to expect for the iPhone 5 price.
When the iPhone 4 was released in June 2010 it cost $199 for the 16GB model or $299 for the 32GB model on contract (or unlocked $499 and $599 respectively. The current iPhone, the 4S that come out last year, is priced at $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB) or $399 (64GB) when purchased with a carrier contract. When purchasing the iPhone 4S unlocked and contract-free those prices are $649 (16GB), $749 (32GB) or $849 (64GB). Although the contract-free prices are now slightly more than for the iPhone 4, the prices for the iPhone 4S on contract remained the same as for the iPhone 4. Traditionally then we could logically expect that the pricing for the iPhone 5 will stay the same again, but is this realistic?
Apple has been making a concerted effort to rid itself of its reputation for high priced products, as seen with the efforts to keep pricing the same for the iPhone and as we’ve also seen with iPad pricing. However there has to be a limit to being able to do this and when looking at the specs that are anticipated for the iPhone 5 it makes us wonder if it would even be possible to keep pricing the same this time around.
For example just some of the rumored specs for the next-generation iPhone include a new A6 processor, LTE connectivity, increase in display size, larger battery and improved camera and those are only the tip of the iceberg. If most of these are actually included on the iPhone 5 it seems unlikely that Apple would be able to keep prices the same. On the other hand, improvements don’t always necessarily have to add to the cost of a device as some components have probably come down in price. However we somehow doubt that the lower price of some components would be to the extent that it would make up for so many new higher-priced components.
What we’d like to know then is how much you would be prepared to pay for the iPhone 5? Do you expect Apple to come up with most of the expected upgrades and manage to keep the pricing the same? Maybe you’re willing to pay more for the iPhone 5 to include everything on your wish list, or perhaps you’d rather sacrifice some improvements in order not to pay more? We’re really interested to hear your thoughts on this so let us know with your comments.
