That's a different argument though, no? That's for the consumer to decide. And the consumer is free to purchase an older generation phone (at a much lower price

That's a different argument though, no? That's for the consumer to decide. And the consumer is free to purchase an older generation phone (at a much lower price, mind you) if the performance specs of those are just fine. iPhones tend to have an extremely long lifespan for their hardware, so running an old iPhone SE or something is perfectly acceptable. I was asking the GP specifically what they thought they were getting actual scaling in cost from. It seems to me that the actual expensive stuff in their phones is getting more expensive every generation, which would lead to a need to raise prices. Again, the degree is questionable, but I don't think anyone here is under the impression a titanium case is the same cost to manufacture as a stainless steel one.