Brace Yourself for a $1,000 iPhone 8

A full reveal of Apple’s latest smartphone should be coming in just a few weeks, but a New York Times report is already claiming the phone will put the “luxury” back in “luxury device” thanks to its premium $1,000 price tag.

That’s how much Apple is allegedly charging for their new flagship phone. That’s more than $300 more expensive than the priciest iPhone available now. That’s more expensive than most iPads. Unapologetically pricey. $100 for every year of the iPhone’s existence. It costs more than its weight in rose gold, which might not even be an available color anymore. Think of all the headphone jacks you could buy for $1,000 dollars. Think of all the wireless AirPods you could lose and replace!

So what will that cool grand get you this fall? As we’ve mentioned in previous reports, the iPhone 8 will probably exist alongside cheaper, tweaked versions of the iPhone 7. It will have a larger Samsung Galaxy S8-esque bezel-free screen with a virtual home button, improved security and augmented reality functionality through face-scanning cameras, and wireless charging.

Another juicy rumor is that Apple is purposefully raising the iPhone 8’s starting price to an absurd prohibitively expensive level in order to lower initial sales and make supply chain management easier. Let all the important rich people buy their iPhones first before making it accessible to the cheapskate proles. It’s an interesting strategy, if true. It plays into the long-standing culture of Apple products as elite status symbols, and status symbols are always just reflections of wealth, so make that explicit. Now you and everyone else can immediately monetarily quantify your Apple fandom.