Rumors suggest that when Apple reveals its newest line of phones in September, the top model will carry the name iPhone Pro.
Who needs an iPhone Pro? No, no, I’m serious. Who needs a smartphone that’s carrying “Pro” branding?
If rumors are true, Apple is banking on a good many people thinking they need such a device. If fears are true, those who find appeal in such a name will have to pay through the nose to own one.
Apple’s ‘Pro’ pricing has gotten expensive.
Let’s take a look at the regular line of Mac computers.
The iMac is a sleek all-in-one design with the computer and monitor combined. The 21.5-inch iMac currently sells for anywhere between $1,099 to $1,499, according to Apple’s website. You can buy its larger 27-inch sister for between $1,799 and $2,299.
There’s now a 27-inch iMac Pro that starts at $4,999.
Coming this fall, there’s a Mac Pro that’s just the computer itself that starts at $5,999, not counting a monitor that you’d have to add on. But get this: The Verge reports a top-of-the-line, fully-outfitted model could run up to $35,000. And that’s still before you add a display.
A regular iPad starts at $329, but as you add options like RAM and cellular connectivity, the price jumps to $559. An iPad Pro, which comes with a larger screen and more capabilities, starts at $799. The largest size of iPad Pro with cellular connectivity and the largest available RAM will run $1,899.
If you price out the most expensive iPhone, the Xs Max, then add the highest level of RAM, you’re looking at a $1,449 phone.
I shudder to think what an iPhone Pro might cost.
We apparently do need smarter phones.
When Apple announced plans for the first iPhone, I chuckled. Way back in 2007, I wrote about what I considered an overpriced gadget:
I’m one of those purists: I prefer to watch TV on a television, to make calls on a phone, and to handle surfing and email on a computer. Putting everything into one may be convenient, but I don’t think it’s necessary, especially for that high a price.
While I’d like to believe some of that still applies, I’ve changed my mind over the years.
I now work in digital (as the real job, not just here). Having the power of a computer at my fingertips so that I can go online in a pinch is important to me professionally and personally.
All of us who have smartphones may have started with the same mindset I had. But at some point along the way, many of us changed our minds.
But there is a ceiling when it comes to how much I’m willing to pay. I suspect there’s a ceiling when it comes to how much you’d pay as well.
The question is, how high is that ceiling and what happens when Apple tries to crash through it like Willy Wonka in his glass elevator?
If my pattern stays consistent, in another 12 years — by my math, that’d be 2031, I might have changed my mind there, and be paying far more for a “Pro” version of the iPhone. That’s assuming, of course, phones haven’t been replaced with chip implants that go directly into the brain.
Let’s hope it doesn’t ever come to that.
