Apple's most expensive iPhone ever: iPhone 17 Pro Max hits $2,000 with 2TB storage option

Apple has officially changed the way iPhones are priced. The company showed off the iPhone 17 lineup at its most recent "Awe Dropping" event. For the first time ever, the Pro Max comes with a huge 2TB storage tier. But that extra space costs more than ever before.

The starting prices for the new iPhones may look familiar, but there are a lot of changes to the storage and lineup that need to be explained. Here's how Apple quietly moved its most expensive phone into the $2,000 range.

Why does the iPhone 17 Pro cost more now?

The price of the iPhone 17 Pro is $1,099, which is $100 more than the price of the iPhone 16 Pro. Apple got rid of the 128GB model and made the 256GB model the new base. This means that the Pro's prices are pretty much the same when you compare storage that is the same, as per a report by 9to5 Mac.

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What is the cost of iPhone 17 Air?

The iPhone 17 Air, which starts at $999, was also released by Apple. This is more than the $899 starting price for last year's Plus, but Apple isn't calling the Air a direct replacement or a simple price increase because it's closer to the Pro line, as per a report by 9to5 Mac.

How did the iPhone 17 Pro Max get to $2,000?

The iPhone 17 Pro Max still costs $1,199 for 256GB, which is the same as the base model of the iPhone 16 Pro Max from last year. The difference is in the storage tiers; Apple added a 2TB option that costs $1,999. That's a big jump from the last 1TB version, which cost $1,599 at most.

For years, experts thought that Apple's first $2,000 iPhone would be a flip phone. Instead, Apple reached that goal early, not by redesigning the hardware, but by adding more storage, as per a report by 9to5 Mac.

The latest changes to Apple's lineup show how important storage is to the price of an iPhone. The new 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max is Apple's most expensive iPhone ever because it has moved into a whole new price range, even though the base prices don't look very different.

FAQs

How much does the iPhone 17 Pro Max cost with 2TB of memory?
The 2TB model costs $1,999.

Did Apple raise the price of the iPhone 17 Pro?
Yes, it starts at $1,099 now, but it has 256GB of storage instead of 128GB.