The piece starts out saying the iPhone is a commodity.<p>My chair is a commodity. The physical iPhone manufactured at a Foxconn factory has aspects of a commodity.<p>But is that physical iPhone device worth hundreds of dollars solely for its physical manufacture form? I know that teams of dozens/hundreds are working on software updates to push out over the network to fix problems and enhance the device. This helps make the high price worth it. But here the idea of the device as a traditional commodity breaks down. My chair does not get fixes and improvements pushed to it, at a very low cost, from a relatively small team.<p>I should note, this does not negate the idea that Foxconn workers are exploited, rather that the math is off. Because the iPhone price is from a mix of traditional manufacture, plus those programmers in Cupertino pushing out updates, and an analysis must take this difference into account.