Apple's Pricing Decoys

There's so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start: "By staging a series of perceived technology innovations and then adding price decoys, reference prices, obscurity, and bundling, Apple makes us willing to pay more to do the same stuff we did 30 years ago."<p>Really Ben Kunz? In 1980 I could have a live video chat with my mother? Make movies with a device that fits in my pocket? Access sample chapters to thousands of newly published books without leaving my home? Yeah, I didn't think so. But I suppose he thinks I've been duped just like all the other sheeple out there...

He talks about the iPhone as though it costs $199 and doesn't have a service contract associated with it. Of course, the real cost is more like $599+. Makes for a bad comparison, and kind of defeats his argument.

<i>"The popular iPod Touch media player has been revamped at three price points, $229, $299, and $399—all costing more than the iPhone, which does everything the Touch can plus make phone calls. What gives?"</i><p>What gives is that some people, parents with kids being the prime category, want to buy an iPhone for their kids without the phone calling and the $2400 2-year commitment. Was that really that hard to figure out?