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$499 was the carrier subsidized price in 2007, not the true price.

Nope. At least in the USA, they were carrier locked not subsidized[1]. The 3G was 199$ when subsidized[2].

According to www.usinflationcalculator.com, 500$ would be ~780$ in modern money. Close to the price of the base iPhone 17 and 300+ dollars difference when compared to the smaller of the pro models. So I suppose its price stability is based on the target you pick. If it were me, I'd target against the 1000$ iPhone Air.

1:My personal iPhone 1 never saw an att sim. It was purchased at an apple store.

2:https://techcrunch.com/2008/06/09/3g-iphone-comes-with-2-yea...

As you said, they were carrier locked. Apple got paid for that carrier lock. That's a subsidy. A weird one, but still a subsidy.

By that definition, every iPhone is subsidized. Google pays to be the default search engine and subsidizes iPhone.

I meant a contracted subsidy where the user sticks with att or whatever for $n$ years.

The true price would likely have been around $999. The 6 was $199 with subsidy; the 7 was $699 without.

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