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The iPhone 11 Pro starts at $24.95 per month at Apple, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $41.62.Īpple, in the 21st century, has built both functional and styling-based planned obsolescence into the DNA of the iPhone.Įvery year, Apple introduces new models for its flagship iPhone product. Thankfully, that proposed law never made it onto the books.Īpple iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max The term "planned obsolescence" goes back to 1932, when a real estate broker by the name of Bernard London published a wacky paper entitled, " Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence." His idea was that if the government could mandate that consumer products reach end-of-life more frequently, consumers would be forced to buy more, and - ipso-facto-boom - the economy would have to pick up. By changing up the style and look of cars each year, as well as adding a few new features, Sloan was able to create perceived styling obsolescence, designed to drive consumers back into showrooms more frequently than was strictly necessary. Engineering-driven Henry Ford was content to keep selling the Model T until the end of the 1920s, but the marketing-driven Alfred Sloan wanted more sales. The idea was that as consumers became more successful, they'd buy higher-end vehicles to show off that success.īut that still didn't drive enough sales. The ladder of consumption idea was embodied in GM's brands: Chevrolet for the less affluent Buick for the reasonably successful and Cadillac for those with money and the desire to flaunt it. It did it by both stratifying product offerings into a "ladder of consumption" and introducing planned obsolescence in the form of vehicle styling.
By the middle of the 1920s, GM had begun developing a strategy for managing saturation. Not only have all the early adopters snapped up the new hotness, but mainstream consumers and even what marketing folks called "laggards" have made purchases.Īt the same time Ford was producing the Model T, General Motors was producing its own vehicles. After a decade or so, sales begin to stagnate. There is a gotcha to the kind of widespread success both Ford and Apple experienced: Saturation. Both were so revolutionary at the time that consumer adoption was rapid, enthusiastic, and widespread. The iPhone gave consumers the ability to turn what was previously just a phone into a pocket computer and internet device. The Model T gave consumers reliable, reasonably affordable transportation. That would be as if Apple sold the original iPhone from 2007 all the way into 2026 without introducing a single new model.Īs much as the Model T transformed transportation, the iPhone - introduced 99 years after the Model T - transformed communication. Ford produced essentially the exact same vehicle, the first mass-produced vehicle targeted at the middle class of the time, for nearly two decades. The Ford Motor Company produced the Model T from 1908 to 1927, a total of 19 years. Our editors hand-picked these products based on our tests and reviews.