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Tim Cook: Apple doesn't make products just for the rich

Commentary: Perhaps anticipating the reaction to a high-priced new iPhone, the company's CEO tells Fortune that Apple is for everyone.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook: Our products aren't for the elite.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

You've likely been putting a dollar away each day for the last 1,000 days.

After all, strong rumors suggest Apple's new iPhone X (or whatever it will be called) will cost four figures.

Tim Cook, though, wants to reassure you. Apple isn't just for rich people. 

In an interview with Fortune, the Apple CEO insisted that his is a company for all mankind. 

He refused to even accept that Apple was a high-margin organization. "We price for the value of our products. And we try to make the very best products. And that means we don't make commodity kind of products," he said.

So they're specialty products, yes? These always cost more. That's how they created Whole Foods. Cook insisted that there are companies that have higher margins than does Apple. He didn't name them.

 Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cook was at pains, though, to point to cheaper Apple offerings.

"If you look across our product lines, you can buy an iPad today for under $300. You can buy an iPhone, depending upon which one you select, for in that same kind of ballpark. And so these are not for the rich," he said.

Yes, if you select the very cheapest, it won't cost you even half as much as the most expensive. It's a little, some might say, like people who don't have a lot of money to shop at Gucci going there to buy a tiny wallet. Just for the logo. 

Still, Cook explained that there are over a billion actively installed Apple products. And, given that we know the rich comprise only a small percentage of the world (and like to keep it that way), many less rich people must be in that billion figure.

But if Apple does price its iPhone X in uncharted territory, many will accuse it of increasingly making products for the rich. Which, one could argue, suits Apple very well. Doesn't every brand want to be aspirational? 

Cook also addressed important issues such as privacy, the environment, education and even distracted driving in the interview.

America, however, is most fascinated by money. So tomorrow, when that first iPhone X price point comes up -- I'm guessing it will be $999, for purely psychological purposes -- some will wonder: "How can I afford that?"

Then they'll work out the cost of installment plans and won't feel so bad after all.

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