iPhone X Flagship Is An Incredible Value At $999 Says Apple CEO Tim Cook

Even though the prices of flagship smartphones have seemingly increased to astronomical levels over the past year or two, people were still taken aback by the $999 price tag of the iPhone X when it was officially announced by Apple last week. Sure, previous iPhones have come close to reaching that mark when optioned up, but the psychological $1,000 barrier is a big one in the minds of consumers.

The iPhone X's price has been one of the most frequent questions tossed at Apple executives that have gone on the interview circuit in the wake of last week's keynote, and Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the issue head-on in an interview with Good Morning America this week. While speaking with GMA's Robin Roberts, Cook was asked to respond to the following viewer question:

I understand inflation, etc but don't you find the price tag for the iPhone X out of reach for the average American?

— anna maria (@sorianoam) September 18, 2017

Undeterred, Cook answered in typical Apple fashion and justified the high cost:

Well, it’s a value price actually for the technology that you’re getting. As it turns out, most people are paying for phones over long periods of time. And so, very few people will pay the full price of the phone initially. Also, most people actually trade in their current phone, and some carriers throw in subsidies and discounts.

When you look at it, the iPhone in particular has become so essential in our daily lives, people want it do more and more and more. So, we’ve built more and more technologies into it to be able to do that.

In other words, smartphones are an indispensable tool that have become interwoven into our everyday lives, and you have to pay to play. There's no question that the iPhone X is packed with some potent high-end hardware -- much of which we've seen in previous Android smartphones (wireless charging, edge-to-edge OLED display, facial recognition, etc.) -- but the sticker shock is still palpable.

The iPhone X is priced at $999 with 64GB of onboard storage. However, Apple will make available a 256GB version for a whopping $1,149. The flagship device will be available for preorder on October 27^th and will ship on November 3^rd.