Apple has never marketed its iPhones to the mid-range or budget buyers. It has ALWAYS been a luxury product and this year with iPhone 15 Pro models, it is going to make even the rich think twice before reaching for their wallets.
The latest reports are suggesting that while the base models iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus might sell in a similar price bracket as the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, it is the Pro models that are going to get much more expensive.
Tim Cook will be taking to the stage to announce the new iPhone family at the Wonderlust event on September 12. The new phones will be the vanilla iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
According to a report by DigiTimes analyst Luke Lin, the top two models – iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max – will be seeing a “major price hike” compared to their predecessors. The increase in price is attributed to the number of rumored hardware upgrades the Pro models are expected to receive.
It is believed that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will come with a new titanium chassis, an upgrade from earlier stainless steel.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is also expected to come with a periscope camera system that will enhance the flagship phone’s already impressive photography department. The periscope camera should be able to enable the iPhone 15 Pro Max to support 5-6x zoom.
There will be upgrades for the lower models, but nothing as substantial as that. This time all the iPhone models will come with the Dynamic Island feature, which was restricted to only Pro models last year.
Lin in his report has suggested that the pricing for the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models will remain similar to the outgoing models.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is currently the most expensive phone in the market, after launch the iPhone 15 Pro Max should replace it by a large margin.
The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max were launched at a starting price of Rs 1,29,900 and Rs 1,49,900, respectively.
Although there is no confirmation on what this price increase will be if these reports are to be believed, the iPhone 15 Pro will be nearly USD 100 (approx Rs 8,000) more expensive than the iPhone 14 Pro. By that calculation, the new iPhone 15 Pro should be priced at around Rs 1,38,000.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max will burn a bigger hole in the pocket. Rumors say that it will be priced higher as much as USD 200 (nearly Rs 16,000) more than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, making the starting price of about Rs 1,66,000.