Shouldn’t there be a business reason behind price hikes? Like increased component costs, new pricier tech or foreign exchange? Increasing prices just because you assume consumers will be willing to pay more seems like not treating your customers very well.
The business reason seems to be to make up for slightly lower-than-anticipated sales volume (in part due to lengthening upgrade cycles). Component cost is in fact decreasing, I gather, due to the smartphone industry being in a slump in general. I am not too familiar with the current state of foreign exchange rates, but Apple will likely get the customer to absorb any price hikes as a result of unfavourable exchange rate fluctuations as well.
So as customers hold on to their iPhones for increasingly longer durations, Apple's strategy for maintaining their current level of profits seems to be in the form of higher margins (combination of higher prices and lower costs) and more services.
As to what is in it for the consumer, I will go back to the difference between price and value. It is not impossible for Apple to both earn more, while also giving the customer move value for their buck, contradictory as it may sound (because users tend to equate getting "more" specs with getting more bang for their buck").
An example of what Apple considers to be meaningful innovation would be a feature like emergency SOS. Sure, it's not some sexy new hardware feature like a folding screen that tech bloggers can write effusively about, but it has already been credited with saving lives, and it is an example of how Apple continues to leverage their tight control over hardware, software and services to offer a unique value proposition, not least because few companies have the resources to buy over the capacity of an entire satellite company, much less have the scale to make it worth it on their end.
The immediate issue is that software features like crash detection or emergency SOS are not something splashy or tangible you can see or feel in your brand new iPhone and go "yup, this is worth it" even though they likely do leverage on customised hardware on the part of your iPhone, until you find yourself caught up in the Hawaii wildfires one day and have to radio for help. It's also not available in many countries, so if you are like me in Singapore, I may feel like I am indirectly subsidising US customers by paying for a feature I can't access (and who knows when the feature might arrive, if ever).
But that said, while these features are not going to be the first thing cited by tech blogs or YouTubers as to why one ought to run out and buy the latest iPhone right away, I feel that the value found with such monitoring and communication features is undeniable. Which brings me back to my original point of price vs value, and why the two may not be mutually exclusive.
