Summary
- Apple discontinued iPhone 16 Pro and cut 16 storage options, pushing buyers to pricier iPhone 17.
- iPhone 16 loses 256GB/512GB models; only 128GB left, a lousy deal compared to iPhone 17.
- iPhone 17’s higher base storage and 16 cuts make the iPhone 16 redundant.
The iPhone 17 range was announced yesterday, and it’s a pretty different lineup to anything we’ve seen before. And Apple really wants you to buy it. So much so that it has not only discontinued the iPhone 16 Pro range, but it has also nerfed the regular iPhone 16 phones, too.
Apple will continue to sell its iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus phones right up until next year. But those who were holding out for the iPhone 17 launch for that sweet $100 price drop are in for some bad news. The company has discontinued the 512GB variant of the iPhone 16 Plus. And if you’re looking at the smaller iPhone 16, it’s even worse, because both the 512GB and the 256GB variants have been discontinued. You only get the option for a 128GB phone, and if you need 256GB, you’ll have to get a Plus variant. And if you want a 512GB phone, you’ll have to either look at second-hand units or run to your local Apple Store to see if they may have some stock left.
Last year, when the iPhone 16 was launched, Apple kept the iPhone 15 in all its storage options around, so you could still get a 512GB phone for cheaper than what the 512GB iPhone 16 would go for. By doing this, Apple is forcing anyone who needs a phone with more storage to get themselves one of the newer phones, whether that’s the iPhone 17, the iPhone Air, or any of the new Pro variants. Apple increasingly sees its older phones as a threat to its newer, higher-priced phones—not too long ago, it used to keep two generations of older phones on sale. Now, you can only get last year’s phone, and only limited, cheaper variants of it.
It’s even more offensive, seeing how Apple increased the base storage for the iPhone 17 series. You can only get the iPhone 16 in its base storage variant, and it’s less than what you’d get on an iPhone 17, at 128GB. And the 128GB iPhone 16 is $100 less than the 256GB iPhone 17. In my books, that’s a horrible deal. The iPhone 16 Plus is a bit less redundant, as Apple did not launch an iPhone 17 Plus, so it’s your only choice if you want something bigger than the standard iPhone and you don’t want a Pro nor the new iPhone Air. But the iPhone 16 has been made completely redundant and a horrible purchase.
If you want a standard iPhone 16, you should either spend an extra Benjamin and get an iPhone 17, or take a step down and get an iPhone 16e. It’s a weird move seeing how it’s in Apple’s best interests to get rid of its old iPhone stock, but it is what it is.
Source: Techlusive
