Oddly enough–and this may be deliberate–those price tags ended up looking slightly less unreasonable once we’d heard about the iPhone Duo. Again, it’s a stunning device that I for one can’t wait to try. But an entry price of $1,999, stretching to $3,199 for those who need 2TB of storage (more than they need, say, a second-hand car), puts it into that faintly surreal Vision Pro category where the individual digits don’t really matter. They may as well be letters, or hieroglyphs. The price is “too much.” The price is “ouch.”
Compared to the new phones, the Apple Watch can only be viewed as a bargain, particularly as the entry-level models for both Series and Ultra escaped a price hike from 2025 (though the 46mm model now starts at $449, $20 more than the Series 11). But for this range too Apple displayed an odd lack of interest in customers on a budget. Just as it neglected the baseline iPhone, the company declined to launch a new version of the wonderful-value Apple Watch SE. While reviving, albeit under different branding and at a somewhat less exorbitant price, the premium ceramic edition starting at $899. In 2025 the cheapest new watch cost $249. This year the barrier for entry is $399 unless you want last-year’s SE.
This is not to say, of course, that nobody will buy the new products. Apple fans are often characterised as being both wealthy and happy to spend money on tech they don’t entirely need, and this stereotype isn’t entirely false.
The novelty of the iPhone Duo is a glittering lure, and early adopters tend to be willing to pay big for the bragging rights associated with owning the New Thing. The iPhone 18 Pro isn’t that much more expensive than the 17 Pro (even if it’s tempting to point out that the 17 Pro was overpriced too). There are still cheaper products on the Apple site, including the iPhone 17 and 17e, though those devices cost $100 more than they did before the event. And Apple’s less stereotypically rich fans at least got the consolation of the new AirPods 5, which effectively received a price cut because they now always come with ANC, at the price of the non-ANC AirPods 4.
But this event still felt like something new: the crossing of a line in the sand. At a time when many Americans are struggling to cope with the cost of living, Apple decided that by far its biggest event of the year, one live-streamed by tens of millions of fans, would focus on products which those same Americans simply won’t be able to afford.
A couple of years ago Apple gave up on the budget-focused iPhone SE, replacing it with the mid-price iPhone 16e. Now the company has shunted even the $799 baseline iPhone away from the spotlight and made anyone without $1,199 to spare wait half a year for new hardware. It’s skipped a year on its most affordable smartwatch. And it’s simultaneously added new high-priced versions to both lines of products.
