Last year’s iPhone didn’t get cheaper. Apple made it more expensive.
Only days after taking the wraps off the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo, the company lifted prices by up to $100 per device across every older iPhone still listed in its U.S. store. That runs against the usual script, which says a fresh generation arrives, the outgoing one drops a tier, and deal-seekers pounce.
Not this year.
Take the iPhone 16: its starting price is now $799, up from $699. Identical hardware, identical chip, identical everything — just $100 dearer than it was before the keynote.
The 17e takes the sharpest hit
The 256GB iPhone 17e climbed from $599 to $699. For a handset pitched as the budget-friendly pick, that $100 jump turns an easy recommendation into a purchase you have to mull over.
Entry pricing on the iPhone 17 now sits at $899, while the iPhone Air opens at $1,099.
Not one of these models gained a thing in return. There’s no new silicon, no extra storage, no reworked camera, not even a spec-sheet asterisk to gesture at. The sole change is the amount you hand over.
Why this is strange
For years Apple’s rhythm was reliable enough to build a purchase plan around it: sit tight through the September event, then grab whichever model had just been bumped down. Patience earned you the discount.
This year, that approach backfired on everyone who used it.
An iPhone 16 at $799 becomes a tougher pitch when the iPhone 17 is parked only $100 higher at $899. The spread that once made last-generation handsets appealing has compressed from the wrong direction. And at $1,099, the iPhone Air enters a bracket where you begin wondering precisely what that slim profile is getting you.
Greek buyers, read this part carefully
Each number above reflects U.S. pricing. That distinction carries more weight than it might appear.
The hikes won’t transfer to Greece on their own. Local pricing is filtered through VAT, exchange rates and whatever the official resellers choose to do with their margins. A $100 shift in Cupertino’s storefront doesn’t map neatly onto a €100 shift at a retailer in Athens.
There’s also no certainty Greek pricing budges whatsoever. It could. It could also move by some other figure. Watch the official reseller listings instead of doing your own dollar conversion and treating the result as gospel.
What to do about it
If your plan was to wait out the launch for a cheaper iPhone 16, Apple isn’t the one who’ll deliver it. Stock still sits with carriers and third-party retailers at prices below the new official figures, and that’s where the value currently lives.
And if you’re weighing the $799 iPhone 16 against the $899 iPhone 17, the calculation has changed. That hundred-dollar gap once stood between a two-year-old handset and a brand-new one. Now it separates two phones a single generation apart, which makes the newer option far simpler to justify.
Which is quite possibly the whole idea.