The C is for Colour, Not Cheap ⇥ apple.com

The less-expensive iPhone is here. It’s priced at a hundred bucks less than an equivalent iPhone 5 model which, given the pricing of the iPhone 5S, tells me that the component cost hasn’t come down significantly in the past year. I’d also suspect that the manufacturing process for the metal-and-glass back of the 5(S) is just as expensive and fiddly as it was a year ago, explaining the discrepancy between these three price points.

Why the focus on pricing? Well, while the iPhone 5C is positioned as the lower-cost model, it isn’t cheap. But that’s okay. Let’s take a gander back to 2004 when Apple introduced the iPod Mini, which commentators proclaimed far too expensive; it turned out that Apple sold them as fast as they could make them.

I’d be willing to bet the iPhone 5C is going to be the same story all over again. It’s not the price that’s necessarily going to sell it — though that will help — but the colours and style. It’s the fun model, in contrast to the 5S’ serious, businesslike design. That’s very appealing.

There’s a good reason why Apple produced a product video for the 5C, but not for the 5S. The latter received two “features” videos, for the fingerprint sensor and the camera.

There’s a good reason why Apple displays the 5C first on both the home page and the iPhone landing page.

And there’s a very good reason why Apple is allowing preorders on the 5C, but not for the 5S. You can bet this thing is going to sell like crazy.

Would I buy one? Yes, if the white model were available with 64 GB of storage.

Also, the case’s circular holes are kind of stupid, and I don’t understand why “non” appears through one of the holes, masked from part of the “iPhone” text on the back.